Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, July 10, 1994 TAG: 9407110172
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-21 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: By KEN DAVIS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: PEMBROKE LENGTH: Long
He wears a broad smile across a thin face, squinting as he speaks. And though quick to tell stories, he is reluctant to boast, downplaying his experiences in World War II and subsequent international travels as if they were nothing out of the ordinary.
But if you listen closely - somewhere between the story about the airport in Germany and the one about the blackberry jam in Russia - you will learn that Snidow's 71 years have been extraordinary.
"Bush and Yeltsin were very gracious," he said, shrugging his shoulders in humility. "For an ol' country boy like me, it was the chance of a lifetime. I really felt honored."
Snidow, a retired air-conditioner operator and mechanic for Hoechst-Celanese, was a wounded M-18 tank commander for the U.S. Army during one of the most crucial conflicts of World War II.
Decades later, that distinction has taken him into the centers of international political power as well as back to the European battlefields of his youth.
And it has all been because of a single event that occurred almost 50 years ago.
"I guess we just about ended the war that day," Snidow said.
"That day" was April 25, 1945 - a chilly Wednesday afternoon on the banks of the Elbe River in Germany, near the cities of Strehla and Torgau. Snidow's unit, the Fightin' 69th Infantry Division, had been battling its way across the Western Front for months when it met the Russian 58th Guards Division that had been advancing from the east.
Though the event eluded the intense publicity focused on Hitler's death in a Berlin bunker, many historians agree that this first meeting of the two Allied armies was a symbolic end to the war, ensuring the defeat of an already dying Third Reich that would surrender 13 days later.
It was a day of celebration for both armies and the nations they served, and it was one of the last instances of positive Soviet-American relations until the end of the Cold War decades later.
Unfortunately, Snidow wasn't there for it.
"I had been playing catch-up," he said, a look of regret on his face. "I finally caught up with them when the fighting stopped."
Snidow, who had spent six weeks in a Paris hospital with shrapnel in his shoulder, was several duty stations behind the members of his unit when they met their Russian allies.
By the time he rejoined the 69th not long after the meeting, he had already heard about what happened on the banks of the Elbe that day, and he knew he was a part of history.
"You just can't imagine the joy everyone felt - especially the Russians," Snidow said. "This was the end of the war for them. When they actually linked up with the Americans, it was enough happiness for everybody to last a lifetime."
But in war, happiness is frequently preceded by horror.
His voice shakes as he describes the winter snows that were red with blood, the corpses "piled up like cordwood," and the frightened 21-year-old youth in the middle of it all - one who only wanted to serve his country and return to his wife and Giles County home.
"I was scared like a rat," he said, matter-of-factly. "Anybody who was in the Army and says they wasn't scared wasn't in any real fighting."
Snidow received a purple heart for his shoulder wounds and a bronze star for bravery in battle. However, he said that even now, in a house full of children, grandchildren and a wife of almost 50 years, survival is a bittersweet reminder of the war.
"If you survived, you felt a little guilty for the ones that didn't," he said.
Although candid when answering questions, Snidow doesn't like to spend much time talking about the war. Instead, he prefers to discuss the years that followed.
As a chaplain and charter member of the Fighting 69th Infantry Division Association Inc., Snidow has taken several trips back to Europe as a representative of the unit that helped win the war.
He has toured Germany six times, visited Moscow twice and has met Russian President Boris Yeltsin and former U.S. President George Bush, personally presenting them with a sculpture honoring the day his unit helped seal the fate of the Fuhrer's forces.
He says he can "bore you to death" with photos, videotape and stories about the things he has seen and the people he has met.
But despite meeting international dignitaries and leaders such as Yeltsin and Bush, Snidow said meeting the Russian veterans again is what has meant so much to him.
"They'd hug you and kiss you ...," he said, blushing and cutting himself off out of embarrassment. "They looked at us as being liberators."
Snidow said whenever he and the other veterans go back to the site of the meeting, the people always welcome them with military bands and other special ceremonies.
"They always give us a position of honor," he said.
To honor the 50th anniversary of the meeting between the Russian and American armies, Snidow said the grand opening of a new memorial is being planned on the banks of the Elbe next year.
The memorial, designed by the same Russian artist who created the sculpture for Bush and Yeltsin, will be dedicated in a special ceremony that organizers hope will draw everyone from the soldiers who were there to Russian and U.S. leaders.
"They're going to be asked. Whether they'll come or not, I don't know," he said.
Snidow breaks into one of his huge, trademark smiles, seemingly picturing the memorial in front of him.
"I can tell you for sure, I'll be there," he said.
by CNB