Conducted by Douglas Bekke and Dominique Francois for the Minnesota Military Museum,
DB = Doug Bekke
DF = Dominique Francois
RN = Ray Nagell
HN = Helen Nagell
DB: Interview with Ray Nagell, veteran of B-Battery, 321st Glider Artillery, 101st Airborne Division. Dominique Francois, do you want to start?
DF: Mr. Nagell, can you tell me when and where you were born?
RN: Minneapolis, Minnesota; February 2, 1922.
DF: What did your parents do for a living?
RN: Quite a few things: My dad was a Taxi driver, and a Post Office driver
RN: He did odd jobs too, plumbing and electric. My mother didn’t work.
HN : Didn’t work; raised nine children.
RN: Well, she was at home. She raised nine kids. All survived, but my younger brother died at 7. He was two years younger than me.
DF: Do you remember Pearl Harbor? What was your feeling?
RN: Pearl Harbor? I was really shocked to hear it. It was Sunday night and I was going to an old time dance. Everybody was talking about it. Roosevelt made a little speech and it was really good. But I didn’t think the Japanese would be that mean when they had their diplomats negotiating in Washington.
DB: What were you doing at that time? Were you working or in school?
RN: I was an apprentice at the machine shop.
DB: Did you think about enlisting right away?
RN: Not really. We talked it over with different people including my dad, and some of the old-timers that were over there in WWI said, “Oh, that’s horrible. You walk in these muddy ditches, it’s raining, and you’re out there all day and night.”
DB: The World War I veterans, you mean.
RN: Yes. So I thought, boy, that is terrible, but so I didn’t enlist; I was drafted. And they sent me to Fort Snelling.
DB: When were you drafted?
RN: December of ’42. They said, "You get a week off, and then you go down to Fort Bragg, North Carolina." And they sent me right into the Airborne; they were filling the Airborne up. And we got down there and at the time they were forming two Airborne Divisions, the 82nd and the 101st.
DB: No choice; they just sent you there.
RN: No. And some of the fellows that were drafted, they said, “Would you like to be attached to the Air Force?” And they said, “Oh, sure.” So we were attached to the Air Force by a 300 foot rope that was pulling the glider. They didn’t ask me that, they just sent me down there. No choice at all.
DF: Where did you join the Airborne?
RN: Fort Bragg, North Carolina.
RN: December, ’42. Yeah, it was the year after. That was ’41, Pearl Harbor.
DB: Did you have a choice about getting into the Artillery?
RN: No, they sent us right down there to fill up the 101st Division. We went foe 7 weeks of basic training but it should have been 12 weeks.
DB: And you didn’t go to any Basic Training before that?
RN: No. We went to Basic Training down there at Ft Bragg. We continued out training near Oxford, England for one year until the invasion of Normandy.
DB: Within the unit? The unit conducted it?
RN: Yeah. We only had seven weeks, and we lacked some basic training, and it wasn’t enough actually, because we didn’t know Manual of Arms, we didn’t get that. Finally in England they caught up with us. I was at the front gate and the general said to salute with the rifle, and I thought I knew how to do it, but I didn’t. The general, he said, “Do that again, soldier.” And I did, and so I was relieved of guard duty. Everybody got Manual of Arms training then. Privates.
DB: Oh, you’re getting ahead of us now. Let’s stay at Fort Bragg for a while. All of a sudden you are a machinist in Minneapolis and you get your draft notice: “Greetings from the President.” Remember that, “Greetings from the President?” And then you go to Fort Snelling for a couple of days; a week maybe,
RN: About a week?
DB: About a week. You are issued your uniforms, they give you some tests, maybe. Did you go home at night?
RN: Yeah. They gave me size 9-1/2 shoe and I wore 7-1/2. They had a pail full of sand on each side of you and stand on a foot mark on the floor there and, “Lift the pails up.” And you lift them up and then they added on, I think, two sizes. And I got blisters. One of the first things when I got down to Ft Bragg was a 15-mile hike and I had brand new boots and I got blisters right away.
DB: Did they give you new boots then?
RN: Yeah, after…
DB: After the damage was done.
RN: The doctor said, “Well, what’s wrong with your heels?" After two or three weeks of visiting the medics, coming in every week. And I told him what the problem was, and he felt on that toe and he said, “You got way too big a shoe. Go get the size you want from the quartermaster”.
DB: You went by train down to Fort Bragg?
RN: Um hum.
DB: How was the train ride?
RN: Real good.
DB: Full of soldiers?
RN: Oh yes.
DB: Everybody was going to Fort Bragg, going to your unit?
RN: Not everybody; I don’t really know where they were all going. I know about seven or eight of us that went to Fort Bragg, but I think that’s all we ended up with. But the train was full of troops; I don’t know where they were all going. It’s so long ago, now.
DB: So, what did you think when you got to Fort Bragg; what kind of reception did you get?
RN: Well, it was fairly good, but it was new to me. Especially saluting officers, we never did that. An officer came into the barracks one night and nobody said anything and he said, “Don’t you call attention when an officer enters the room?” Then somebody did, and he said, “How’s everything going?” And this sergeant said, “Oh, perfect.” He says, “Getting enough food?” And he said, “Oh, yes.” And we were starving; they didn’t have enough rations for our battalion and we were eating candy bars in the PX. Boxes, we bought boxes at a time and we ate them between out meals. And we didn’t dare say anything, none of us did, and we made it through.
DB: Did that food situation go on the whole time you were in training?
RN: No. About a month, I think.
DB: A month too long, though.
RN: Yeah, way too long. You’re exercising every day and going twelve hours a day or so, and…
DB: Going on long marches and getting blisters?
RN: …starving. Yeah.
DB: And you’d lived in Minnesota all your life. All of a sudden you’re in Fort Bragg and you’re surrounded by people from all over the country. Did that pose any problems? Were there any difficulties
RN: No.
DB: Everybody get along?
RN: Oh yah, we got along good; everybody did, except the drill sergeants who thought we were all stupid.
DB: Did you see it as kind of an adventure?
RN: Yes, a big adventure.
DB: And how long did it take to find out that you were going to be in gliders?
RN: Right away. We knew right away.
DB: And what did you think of that?
RN: Well, it was kind of exciting. I never did mind flying; I kind of liked it.
DB: Even after you saw that it was a flimsy little canvas crate?
RN: Yeah. The first time we went out, the wings were flapping. And I thought, holy mackerel, they’re really loose! And I thought they were going to break off, but that’s the way they are supposed to be, I found out later. But it kinda scared me at first. The glider weighed 3700 pounds and it could carry its own weight.
DB: How long had you been at Fort Bragg before you took your first flight?
RN: Gee, I don’t know, about five or six weeks.
DB: So fairly soon. And they taught you how to pack the gliders?
RN: Yah. And they gave us parachutes. And we had two pilots, a co-pilot and a pilot.
DB: They gave you a parachute in the glider? Really?
RN: Yeah. Told us how to pull it and…
DB: Just the front chute? Just the one in the front? The reserve chute.
RN: Yah, the front, the reserve chute. And they gave us instructions on how to pull it after you say one thousand, two thousand and then pull the chute. But the gliders, we never had any trouble with any of the gliders with the wings falling off. No crashes. And then they said, “well, when you get in combat now, the paratroopers are gonna land at an airbase and clean the airbase out, and we’ll come gliding in on the runway.”
DB: That’s what happened in Normandy, right. (laughing) Now, when you were up in the glider, did you have any view outside at all?
RN: Oh yes.
DB: They had little portholes on the side. You could see up through the front too?
RN: Yup. And you left the door open too. We took the door off and threw it in the back, and you could look out the door. We could even walk around; we did. Otherwise you’re buckled in.
DB: What did you have, 75’s or did you have 105’s?
RN: 75’ howitzer. They didn’t have any 105’s…
DB: 75 and a Jeep? Or just a 75.
RN: Just one in each glider. It held 1700 pounds, or 3700. It weighed 3700 pounds. It carried its own weight. So seventeen troops, or one Howitzer, or one Jeep; that’s loaded with ammunition too, and everything. But we carried more; I think they figured 78 pounds of equipment on your back per person load, and we had more than that in our packs when we went to Normandy, because the first time in you want to take everything.
DB: We’ll get to Normandy later. We want to stay in training for a while, okay? Now, do you remember your first landing?
RN: No.
DB: Nothing about your first flight? It didn’t stand out in your mind?
RN: No.
DB: Did it seem like a routine phase of training?
RN: Yeah.
DB: Did they give you a lot of ground preparation beforehand, so by the time you actually went up in the air, you were well prepared for what you needed to do?
RN: Well, yeah, they told you to be buckled in, and if an emergency or something, just jump out and pull the chute. But that’s about all they told us.
DB: How about your gun training? How much time did you spend working and training on the guns?
RN: We spent over a year and a half, I think in daily practice.
DB: And what was your position on the guns?
RN: Gunner, on sight.
DB: You had a little 75 Pack Howitzer, the little mountain guns?
RN: Um, yup.
DB: And as the gunner, what were your responsibilities?
RN: Well, we needed to set the sight for elevation and deflection, the guy in the back, tended a solid trail on the gun, and so he would say, “Ten millimeters to the left,” or whatever it was and he would move it approximately into position ten mills. Then I could traverse the barrel a little bit more on the horizontal to line up with the aiming sticks. And the elevation was a little level bubble on there. I could add or subtract from whatever number they gave me for the distance on the sight.
DB: Was it hard to learn that stuff, or did it come pretty well?
RN: Well, I wasn’t gunner right away. But when we got to England, we had to have two shifts, one day and one night.
DB: So you learned on the job.
RN: I must have been good at math, because I never had any problems learning it.
DB: So starting out, were you a loader?
RN: Yeah. I think we all took turns doing all the positions.
DB: You rotated through the gun positions, so everyone was cross trained.
RN: Right.
DB: And, were you okay with being in the Artillery?
RN: Oh, yeah.
DB: How are your ears?
RN: I’ve never had any trouble with them. I still don’t have any trouble. We had no ear plugs.
DB: And 75’s were pretty loud?
RN: Oh yes, they cracked.
DB: But you had good time on the ranges, preparing? Good preparation time? All your training was good?
RN: Yes.
DB: When did you receive notification that you were going overseas? Or, let me go back. Did you participate in any big maneuvers in the states before going overseas?
RN: Yes. We went to Tennessee.
DB: Tennessee maneuvers in ’43?
RN: Yup.
DB: And how were they?
RN: Oh, they were pretty good. They had a little Cub that was flying around and he had a bag of flour, and if he threw that flour down and it got close to you, then you were a casualty and you had to be taken to the hospital. But it was just make-believe.
DB: Did you ever get hit?
RN: No.
DB: No flour on you, huh? And most of the time, when you were doing that, did you know what all was going on? I talked to many soldiers and they say, “Well, I knew what was right in front of me. The foxhole view of the battlefield.” Is that what your situation was, or were you briefed on the bigger situation?
RN: Well, we were never told where we were going, or where the Infantry was. Some of the officers had a map of the location and they would tell us, “Okay, we’ll pull in here and spread the guns out along these trees.”
DB: You just did what you were told.
RN: Yeah. And the same in combat. They never told you anything. Ride in the back of the truck, or glider.
DB: Now, you were in the 101st Airborne Division and the paratroopers get fancy boots.
RN: Yes. We did too.
DB: And a smart-looking uniform.
RN: We did too.
DB: You did too? Right from the start?
RN: Well, yeah. We had the polished boots and the tucked in pants and the Eisenhower jacket. The gliders and the paratroopers dressed the same.
DB: Oh, you didn’t have the leggings?
RN: Oh, we did for a couple; I think two or three weeks, and then they took them away and we got the boots and…
DB: Then you got the Airborne uniform. Okay, so there wasn’t any jealousy there, then.
RN: No. But we didn’t get the flight pay right away, we received it later in England.
DB: Did you ever go to jump school? Did they ever send you to parachute school?
RN: No.
DB: You were in the gliders the whole time.
RN: Yes.
DB: And when did you go overseas?
RN: I don’t really know. I can’t think right now; I got it marked down here somewhere. [In the summer of 1943.]
DB: Did you deploy with the whole division?
RN: Yup.
DB: From where did you go overseas from? You didn’t go right from Fort Bragg? From where did you leave to go overseas?
RN: We went to New York.
DB: New York. And when you got there, were there big parades and cheering crowds and brass bands playing?
RN: No. Nothing but a few people to wave good-bye.
DB: Done quietly?
RN: Yeah.
DB: Middle of the night maybe? Or daytime?
RN: We got there by train; I forget now what time. And they said if you want to go see the New York Giants, whatever it was, play ball, you can go. So I went.
DB: They gave you a little time off in New York.
RN: Yeah. So I went and it was a tied game; I thought it was a very boring game. Nothing to nothing.
DF: When you were at New York, you were not supposed to be Airborne troops and you didn’t wear the patch?
RN: Oh, all of us were in work clothes.
DF: You had the patch? Because I heard that some troops of the 82nd Airborne, they were wearing the leggings at New York because they didn’t want the German spies to know that some paratroopers were there. Have you heard about that?
DB: That was early on, though, an early consideration.
DF: Yeah?
DB: It was a year later when he was going, so it was probably a different consideration.
DB: Do you remember the day you got your glider wings?
RN: Not really, but it was in basic training.
DB: Okay, so it wasn’t a huge ceremony that stands out in your mind or anything.
RN: No.
DB: Okay. But were you proud to have the glider wings?
RN: Oh yah, they were nice.
DB: A mark of distinction?
RN: Yeah.
DB: That you wore with pride?
RN: Yes.
DB: Was there any contentiousness between you guys and the paratroopers?
RN: Well, sometimes in the PX they’d get a little drunk. The paratroopers said they’d never go in a glider. Never fly in a glider, that’s the worst thing they could do. But they weren’t that bad, except for landing. They called the gliders flying grey coffins.
DB: The gliders weren’t that bad, or the paratroopers weren’t that bad?
RN: Oh, they weren’t that bad either. Except for landing.
DB: So everybody got along.
RN: Oh yeah.
DB: A little bit of inter-service rivalry, or inter-Airborne rivalry.
RN: The paratroopers got flight pay and so they thought they were better than us.
DB: And did you resent the fact that you didn’t get that pay?
RN: Well, kind of, not that much. The glidermen got equal pay in England. But I remember not getting it, and they were getting it, and we were flying too. But I thought, typical army, What can you do?
DB: You were doing something they were afraid to do, and yet you weren’t getting the pay. So to New York, you leave the Giant’s game, you go back to the port, the port of embarkation…
RN: We went back to the barracks there, for an overnight stay.
DB: Um hum. And do you remember getting on the ship?
RN: Oh yes.
DB: Tell me about that.
RN: Well, you had your duffel bag and that was really a load to go up that ramp, carrying that. I forget what they weighed now, but anyhow it was a load.
DB: You had everything in the world in it, right?
RN: Yup.
DB: And what did you find when you got on the ship.
RN: It was hot down below. Steamy inside. And we got two meals a day, going over for the two week journey.
DB: Were you stacked to the ceiling in bunks?
RN: Yup.
DB: About 18 inches for each guy?
RN: Yeah, right.
DB: How did that seem?
RN: Not very good at first, but at least it was out of the cold and rain, not cold, but it was in, I think it was in July or something like that, of ’43.
DB: So it was hot. And did you go over in a big convoy?
RN: Yes.
DB: Could you get up on the deck and look and see everything?
RN: Yup. That’s the only place I liked to be because it was up with the fresh air. Actually, the temperature was fairly nice out there.
DB: So you had good weather on the voyage.
RN: Except one morning we were in the fog. All the ships zig-zagged and you’d turn, I think it’s every five minutes. And somebody didn’t zig, and I was sitting up there and all of a sudden I heard these fog horns and I looked and this big, great big ship was coming right for us. And they both turned their fog horns on, blowing them, and steering away from each other; I thought they were going to hit us, but we turned both at the same time and we were lucky that we didn’t hit. That was about halfway across. But the guys that stayed down below, they were sick all the time, vomiting. I always went up top there in the fresh air.
DB: Didn’t have any seasickness problem?
RN: No, you don’t get seasick up on top because you can see the water. When you’re down below you’re moving up and down and that's what causes the sickness.
DB: What kind of food did they feed you?
RN: Terrible. It wasn’t very good.
DB: Was it an English ship?
RN: Yah. One morning we had stewed tomatoes and bread, and I got hives from it, and I was itching like crazy and it was hot down there. So I went in the men’s room and pulled up my shirt and I had red spots all over. So I went to their sick-call, or whatever you called it in the Navy, and the doctor says, “Oh, I’ll give you a shot here. You just sit here until I come back and tell you to go.” It was adrenalin and they gave it to me and he came back in about 15 minutes and he said, “You’ll feel it just working on you.” He came back in 15 minutes and it was going away then, and he says, “Okay, you can go now. Do you feel okay to walk?” And I said, “Yah.” But it was those darn stewed tomatoes for breakfast.
DB: Do you remember the name of the ship?
RN: Not off hand.
DB: How did the British crew treat you in general?
RN: They were good.
DB: Were they eating the same food?
RN: No, no. If you had money you could go down there at night and get [buy] a steak sandwich, down in the galley.
DB: Do you think there was some corruption going on there?
RN: Oh yeah.
DB: So somebody was getting steaks, not the troops at all.
RN: But they did have good homemade bread every day; that’s what I kept eating. And they had jam too. But the food wasn’t that good.
DB: Was there a lot of complaining on the ship?
RN: Oh, yeah. And two meals a day. So you’d have to take some bread and hide it for lunch if you wanted anything.
DB: Where did you land in England, do you remember? Or was it Northern Ireland that you went to?
RN: No, South Hampton.
DB: And what happened when you arrived and you got off the ship?
RN: They had a whole fleet of trucks there. We all got on trucks and they took us to Oxford, right by Oxford, between Oxford and Newberry in England. And there were horse stalls for horses, and they had homemade bunks in there with straw mattresses. It was kind of…
DB: Not what you were used to.
RN: No. But it turned out all right. They had one stove on one end and that was supposed to heat the whole place, it was probably fifty feet long. It was more than that, I think. And there was probably forty of us in there; double bunks; two bunks in each horse stall.
DB: Did your guns come over with you? Were they on the ship with you?
RN: Yah.
DB: How long did it take for them to catch up with you?
RN: Oh, I’m sure they were there in the next couple days.
DB: So there wasn’t any lag for training.
RN: Well, we done a lot of exercise; not over exercised, but we went up to 25 miles a day, walking. Sometimes Physical training and calisthenics every morning for a half hour. We’d take turns being leader out there, and doing whatever you want and everybody else had to follow.
DB: Was everybody pretty proud of being in the 101st? Was there a lot of
esprit de corps?
RN: Well, there were a few that wanted to get out.
DB: But only a few? A very small number?
RN: Yah. There was one fellah, every time we took off in a glider, he’d vomit. Just get off the runway and he’d spit in his helmet, or vomit. And so we got ready to go to combat and, “Officer,” he said, “I’m not gonna be able to make it because I’m sick as a dog when I get in that glider.” And he said, “Well, how are you when you land?” And he said, “Well, I’m okay then.” He said, “Well, you’d be okay in combat then.” So here, he wanted to get out, he was trying to get out, but he couldn’t.
DB: Did he come in on the boat with you then to Normandy?
RN: Yah.
DB: Did you stay in the same place the whole time in England? The same barracks?
RN: Yes.
DB: Did you do a lot of glider landings and training in England?
RN: Yes, once a month. We had to do that for flight pay.
DB: So, by this time you’re starting to get paid now?
RN: Yes.
DB: What did you get, $50.00 a month extra?
RN: Yeah.
DB: That must have been a big improvement in your pay.
RN: Compared to the British, they were only getting about $25.00 or $28.00 a month. We were getting base pay plus $50.00.
DB: So you’re getting what, $150.00 a month, or something like that?
RN: No, it was eighty-something; it was $30.00 basic pay we were getting, plus $50.00 to start with.
DB: Oh, you were only getting $30.00. Did you have much contact with the English population?
RN: Not, just in a pub or something if you went out. We would buy rounds for the old guys in the pub. They didn’t have much money and they were just thrilled if you’d buy them a drink. But I never knew anybody from being in their homes homes, or anything like that.
DB: Were there any significant events that happened to you while you were in England that you want to talk about? And particular incidents of training, or anything you were doing; living conditions, meals, anything?
RN: The meals were good, except they had the orange marmalade you’d get in gallon cans. And that’s all they gave us, orange marmalade all the time, and we just hated it. It was too much. And the powdered eggs and powdered milk were terrible too.
DB: Started getting old.
RN: Yah. But at least it kept you going. We got enough food over there in England.
DB: But it wasn’t like Mom made.
RN: Oh, never. And they had those fish eyes. I don’t know if you know; they’re about the size of an agate.
DB: Tell me about it.
RN: It’s; they grind it up now; tapioca. But it’s about the size of your big fingernail, and they cook them, but they didn’t fall apart and you’d have to chew forever.
DB: Actual fish eyeballs were in there; in the tapioca, or that’s what you called it?
RN: But it was sweet and it was good for dessert. But now they just grind it up and it’s really good if you get it ground up, but they didn’t have it ground up then.
DB: Did you ever get into London?
RN: Yah.
DB: How was London?
RN: Beautiful except when the buzz bomb came over. The first time we went to town and the buzz bomb came, they were just like a big fortress, flying right above the buildings, rattling everything.
DB: You mean the sound that it made?
RN: Oh, noisy! So we heard the sirens before they got there, and we were downtown, two of us, and so we ducked down in the doorway of a building. We could have run, probably, to an underground shelter, but we didn’t know where they were. So we thought, well, it’s not gonna last. But the engine shut off and then they drop right away. And it shut off before it got to us, but it went about three or four blocks away from us and hit a building and blew up. But we were really scared, because if it would have been glass; it was all glass buildings like we have downtown here [ in Minneapolis], but we were really lucky. Then after that, if we heard the siren go off, we got close to a subway and ran down below. They were terrible. The buzz bombs, they’d hit the block and knock the whole block out.
DB: As the spring of ’44 was going by, did you notice that there was an increase in training? Did you sense that something big was happening? Did you see things going around that indicated that something was changing?
RN: Yah. They decided to try to pull two gliders at once with the C-47. They’ve never done that before. I think they were looking ahead for Holland. No, we didn’t get any notice that anything was happening. We knew it was gonna happen soon, because we’d been there for, I don’t know, eight or ten months. But there was no indication at all.
DB: And so, as June 6th was approaching, what happened to you? What was your situation?
RN: Well, we got the march order, I guess, and we all loaded up and went south.
DB: Did you think it was just an exercise, or just another move, or did you have any idea it was the invasion?
RN: I think we knew. I think they told us that we were going to get ready to go. And then they told us there were too many obstacles, that we couldn’t fly by glider so that we’d be going by ship.
DB: Did they put you in an isolation area before you went over?
RN: Yes.
DB: For a couple days?
RN: Yah.
DB: Is that where they told you the invasion was coming?
RN: I think it was. But we knew it, because we were all loaded and we left our base.
DB: And everybody was there.
RN: Yes. And they gave us passes to the city. I didn’t go, but a lot of the drinkers, they went all the time.
DB: Out of the isolation area. They gave you passes out of the isolation areas?
RN: Yeah.
DB: Really! That’s a violation of the whole theory of the isolation area.
RN: It happened that the Colored were there first and set up all these tents and food cooking and all that. And they hauled us all down there too, in trucks, convoys. But you know the paratroopers, they went to the dances, and these Colored, they were dancing with the white girls, and so they started fighting; they always had a knife in their boot. And they told them to get out…
DB: The paratroopers had a knife in the boot, or the Black guys did?
RN: The glidermen. So then the Black guys, they went and got their guns. Anyhow, we lost some guys there, shooting at each other. But the glidermen cleaned out the Colored out of the dance hall. Then no more passes; it was a restricted area.
DB: Was drinking a problem in the units?
RN: Oh yeah.
DB: Was there a lot of it in England?
RN: Well, with the paratroopers. They thought they were elite troops and…
DB: Yeah. Young guys away from home for the first time; away from Mom, and they’re gonna be tough guys. Did they fight with each other much?
RN: I don’t know that. They weren’t with us a lot of the time. They were down in different barracks.
DB: But in your unit was drinking an issue?
RN: Oh no. No. Once in a while, but not; there are always just a few.
DB: There are always a few, but it wasn’t a problem, in any case. So, you’re in the assembly area and you find out that you’re not going to go in by a glider. Was that a disappointment?
RN: No.
DB: Was it a relief?
RN: Yeah, because they said there were so many obstacles n the open fields and on the beaches that they said the Germans had paid the French a penny or two apiece to dig postholes and put a post in, and then wire it with some kind of detonator…
DB: Rommel’s asparagus.
RN: …and if you hit those wires, or one of those posts, it would throw shrapnel all over. And they posts were staggered, so you couldn’t possibly land. And the wingspan was so big on those gliders, that they took a lot of room. So I was kinda glad that we weren’t going in by glider.
DB: And, aside from the fact that you were glad about not going in by a glider, what did you think about going in by a landing craft? And what kind of a landing craft were you going in on?
RN: LCI’s. Tanks.
DB: Did you have your guns and Jeeps with you? Everything was together?
RN: No, we had two ships, and the other ship had most of the equipment in it. Ours (the Susan B. Anthony) was just personnel. And the 90th Division, part of that was down below; it was a huge transport. And we were up on the top two or three decks, half of our division; the other half was on the Mosby, I think it was? We were on the Susan B. Anthony. And then they said get ready for disembarkment on the second day, it was supposed to be 7 in the morning. So we put our packs on and our blanket and stuff. We had 80 pounds on us. And so we’re all ready to get off and all of a sudden the ship hit that mine. It’s just like going about, oh, say, 15 miles an hour while we were standing up, and it hit that mine and it stopped the ship.
DB: How far off shore were you?
RN: It was about half a mile. And so we all got knocked down. With all that weight on top, you’re not expecting it [a sudden stop], and then all of a sudden the ship; I think it stopped the ship. It blew a big hole in it.
DB: Did the ship start going down?
RN: Not immediately, but it didn’t take long. In about 20 minutes it was listing pretty good. And then they said; we all ran out the door, I was on E-Deck. So we all ran out the door and I was standing out there, standing on my left leg, and it just shook.
DB: The leg was shaking, or the boat was shaking under you?
RN: No, my leg. And then I stood on my right leg and it didn’t shake at all. Then we had all our stuff in our pack and everything. We had stuff in our pants pockets too; we had ones down below your knee, and we had them filled. So there was a PX there on the ship, so we had tried to get a box of candy to take with us because we had to leave everything off and just take your ammunition belt and your rifle. So I went over to the PX to get a box of Snickers, or whatever it was, and they said, “We’re closing up.” They closed it up and wouldn’t even give it to you for nothing; the ship was going down. And so anyhow, then I heard later that they took the bag of money and threw it overboard and anchored it down somehow so they could get it later. But that’s what somebody said.
DB: So the candy went down with the ship, rather than…
RN: Not the candy; money.
DB: No, but I’m saying they wouldn’t give you anything.
RN: Nope, that's right. They could have let the PX doors open, or let somebody get in there and throw that stuff out.
DB: Triumph of the bureaucrats.
RN: Yeah. So anyhow, [our ship] they radioed for all available ships, and I think there were on D-Day two, there were about three or four thousand there; ships, American ships.
DB: So it was June 7th then, that you were going in.
RN: Yeah. So they; no ships came out there to rescue us. And there was fire coming out of the smoke stack, two smoke stacks, orange fire and black smoke. And it was 14-foot waves that day. and they thought the ship was going to blow up, I think. And I did too. But anyhow, here comes three British ships, and they pulled up, two on one side. Well, first one, and then he got anchored; tied the ropes to us. So we climbed down that rope ladder and got onto that, and they said, ferry over to the next one. We only had our rifle, so I got on the outside edge and holding onto the bar here, and I reached for that ship and it came in and it took off like lightning, right away from me, and a pretty near let go here and nearly fell in between the ships.
DB: You did fall in?
RN: No, pretty near. Oh, it would have killed me if I had. And I didn’t see anybody go down, but I’m sure some fell in. But it came back a second time and I got a hold of that really good, and I quick grabbed over and we got on that. And we had to wait until that got filled up before they would take off. And here that thing was listing, and fire still coming out of the smoke stacks. And I thought, boy, it’s gonna go down quickly.
DB: This is daytime, now.
RN: Yup, seven in the morning. And we were supposed to have been in at 7:30. Anyhow, we pulled away and we were bobbing around out there with the British having tea and crumpets. It was really a nice ship. And so then, after about 11:00, we were on the British radio frequency, and at 11:00 they said the Americans found out where we were; the Navy was waiting for us to come in. They knew we were out there, but we weren’t coming in, so somebody said they were on a British ship, so they got their frequency on British ships and told us to come in at 11:00 in the morning, which saved our lives because we didn’t get there at 7:00 or 7:30. So then they sent out some landing craft infantry ship, LCI’s, and they picked us up and we got onto their ship, that little box. It was like a match box in those 14 foot waves, and it was going up and…
DB: It was like a Higgins boat? The little one with the ramp on the front?
RN: On the front; it dropped down.
DB: A little one, though. Probably a Higgins boat.
RN: But it was a tank, or truck one that, it didn’t open the doors this way, it opened down.
DB: Oh, and it had wheels on it?
RN: No. I don’t know. On the ship, you mean?
DB: The one that you got onto. Was it a Duck?
RN: No, no. It was big, as big as these two rooms here. On the way to Utah Beach we were on the top of a wave, and here’s a great big mine, it must have been eight-foot in diameter; another mine. And you could see the tentacles sticking out, we were that close. And it was right down below us and I don’t know what they did, put it in reverse, or swerved over. And they called the mine sweepers in. So we were bobbing around out there and they wanted to know where the mine was, and we just said it was; you know, we couldn’t tell where it was. But they are anchored down with a chain, and with the waves going it would show up; it would float up on the top between the waves. So they went back and forth, and all of a sudden there was a this big explosion. One of the mine sweepers was down below, and it hit the damn thing, and it blew the mine sweeper up. So we knew we were safe now, if that was the same one. So we went in; they said go on in onto the beach, so we went in. Never heard anything about it.
DB: Did the mine sweeper go down?
RN: Oh, I’m sure it killed everybody on it. They cut a cable between them; I don’t know how they cut; I don’t know how they do that mine thing. Hit the mine and the cable must cut the cable.
DB: So how long after you got ashore did you link up with your unit and your equipment?
RN: Oh, everybody on our ship was ashore right away.
DB: But your unit was pretty intact, then.
RN: Yeah. The ship, Mosby, that had our equipment on it, that didn’t come in until the next day. So we were on shore there, some general came down and said, “What are all these troops here? We need infantry up there.” And so our colonel said, “We’re Artillery.” “Oh,” he said, “we need Artillery worse, and so we’ll wait, then.” And so we were supposed to go up there in Infantry, and they were massacring everybody there.
DB: So they let you wait for your guns.
RN: Yeah. So we waited until the next day and then they came in. But that night we were soaking wet. We got in about 11:30 and we never got dried. And then try and dig a hole in the sand, and you can’t dig a hole because it keeps caving in. We were just cold all night; shivering. And the Germans would come down and drop flares from their planes and try to knock out some little bridges that we had there. And they’d drop the flares there and then they’d come down and drop bombs and strafe at the same time. And going in shore that day there were dead soldiers just rolling in the water on the shore, and then you got in a little further and there was…
DB: Dead soldiers.
RN: Yah. Blood and guts, and oh, it was just sickening for the first time going to combat. So, we just didn’t feel like eating, and you just got sick to your stomach. But then when our guns came in, then we went up toward Carentan, That was the first town we liberated.
DB: Well, you were pretty early on now, didn’t you go up by somewhere near St Marie Du-Mont?
RN: No, that was further.
DB: You weren’t down in there. Carentan was a ways down.
RN: That was our objective though.
DB: So you just started heading that way [towards Carantan] right away.
RN: Yeah, and we stopped a couple times and fired a few rounds and then we took Carentan.
DB: Were you firing pretty much right away, as soon as you got in?
RN: Oh yeah. We had forward observers. They jumped in with the paratroopers, our forward observers, and they told us where to go.
DB: So they were waiting for you.
RN: So we took that town and then at about 4:30 that afternoon, the Germans counter-attacked and took it back. And then our forward observers called in the Navy 14 and 16-inch guns, and they threw about five or six shells apiece, and the whole town just went on fire, and so the Germans were all in that town and were wiped out. And then the next morning…
DB: Oh, this wasn’t Carentan?
RN: Yeah. The next morning, Taylor, our general, I heard that he went right up with the infantry, right through the town, which is a dumb thing for a general, I think. But he had a lot of guts and he went right in there. They took the town the next morning. There was nothing left; it was all torn apart. And we took the town and went beyond the town.
DB: And you were firing into the town too, with your 75. It didn’t compare much to the Naval gunfire, I suppose.
RN: Oh, boy, you could hear them come over; they really whined.
DB: Like a freight train?
RN: Yup. Big, huge shells.
DB: And after Carentan did you get a little rest, or what happened after that?
RN: We just kept going. We were supposed to go cut the peninsula off; that was our objective. And we got about, oh over halfway, and then they said, "Cease Fire". This was the 29th day, and we had been firing all along there, moving over, and so we were relieved, they had too many troops there. And we were just assault troops, so we were there 29 days and we went back to England. So we were kind of happy. And we stayed in England…
DB: When you were Normandy did you always have a good supply of ammunition?
RN: Oh yeah.
DB: So they kept the ammunition coming.
RN: One day, one of the forward observers, he spotted a German tank in an open field. But he was on the other side, there was a woods there, and he was going along the woods, and so it was open across the field there where he could see the tank. And it was a German tank, so he called for six shells, anti-tank shells. So we loaded up with anti-tank shells. First we shot…
DB: Indirect fire?
RN: Yah. We shot a smoke shell in, and then the forward observer got his binoculars to dive us deflection and elevation, and the binoculars have those little lines, and he figured that six shells, if you get them bracketed in, you could get that tank. So we loaded up with the tank shells and just then, we had that white phosphorus smoke shell; we fired that first. And a P-51 came down and saw that smoke and, so he came down and he saw that tank, it was right hugging the woods, so he had a bomb on and he dropped the bomb. I think it was 500 pounds. And he dropped the bomb and knocked the track off; he hit the tank on one side. So the tank was going on one track, making a circle and they couldn’t straighten it out because the other track was off. And so then he came back a second time and he came down with a 50 or 30 caliber; I think the 50 caliber on there on the wings, and he shot the troops trying to get into the woods. They were out in the field there…
DB: You mean the German infantry with the tank.
RN: Yeah. So they ran into the woods and he was shooting at them with a 50 caliber. And so they cancelled our mission and we had to take those shells back out, so we never did get the tank, but the plane did. But we had lost a lot of forward observers up in the front there. They always got in a church steeple, or the highest point they could find so they could see for miles.
DB: But the Germans could figure out that they were there too.
RN: Yah. So they would knock the steeple off. And we’d knock the steeple off; any church steeple that was in our forward lines.
DB: Because you figured there was a German forward observer up there.
RN: Yah. They always got the high spot or the high house or building, or on a high hill.
DB: Did you have much contact with French civilians when you were there?
RN: Well, we couldn’t speak French.
DB: But you dealt with them, you know, their towns were all wrecked and they’d lost everything.
RN: Yah. They gave us eggs and we weren’t supposed to drink their milk. But in Normandy we ran across a butter factory, and we got tubs of butter, and they gave us butter and we put it on our rations; the dried rations, [crackers]
DB: I suppose in the dairy country the cow population was pretty devastated too.
RN: Oh, terrible.
DB: Dead cows all over.
RN: Yah, the shrapnel and bombs killed them, and I don’t think many rifles killed them. And the ones that didn’t get hit, had pus coming out of the bags; nobody was milking them, and that was bad too. But they got so many cows killed that we didn’t know what to do with them, so they took bulldozers and made a big circle and dug down probably eight to ten feet and kept on pushing the dirt up and come back around and go down again. And then they’d take the cows and shove them in there and then put the dirt back in the hole.
DB: Just to get them away.
RN: Yah, the smell was getting terrible.
DB: There was never a situation where you could salvage any of the meat, though.
RN: Well, I don’t think we were allowed to eat the meat. If it would have been a fresh hit, I suppose we could have.
DB: What about other animals; pigs or anything like that. Did you ever deal with any of the farmers and get fresh meat?
RN: We did, one pig, I don’t know if it was hit by shrapnel or what it was, but anyhow, one of the American soldiers, he skinned it and cut some meet to share with the other soldiers.
DB: You mean a soldier who was a farmer; an American?
RN: Yeah. An American, yeah. He cut the hide off a ham on the hindquarter, and he was cutting chunks of meat off there, and I got a slice of the ham. And I put it in the mess kit and fried it and I started eating it and I thought it was going to be like ham, but it was like pork chops. And I said, “This is not ham.” And he says, “Sure it is; it’s the hind quarter,” he said, “but it’s not smoked.” And I said, “Oh, that’s what’s wrong with it.” But it was good to eat anyhow, so we did eat it.
DB: How did you heat it?
RN: Mess kit.
DB: But what did you have for fire. What did you use?
RN: Oh, it was in the daytime, I think some kindling wood.
DB: Built a little bonfire. Did you ever use C-4 or any of that, to heat your coffee or anything?
RN: No, we didn’t have that. And we didn’t have invasion rations with that; we got some from some of the guys that were in the invasion, they gave us some rations.
DB: Did you ever get any German rations?
RN: Just in the pillbox.
DB: Tell me that story. Where was this?
RN: Right on the beach, the first day.
DB: On Utah Beach.
RN: We went into the pillbox, it was open and the Germans were gone. It was right on the shore, about half a block in. And this one had a big table there, I think it was a lunch table, but they [the Germans] were using it for an operating table. One of their soldiers was wounded and there must have been a doctor there that was operating on him, and evidently some infantry [American] come along and they took a flame-thrower. They couldn’t get in, and they shot the flame-thrower right down the vent on the top above the table, and put the flame on it and killed; there were two on one side and three on the other, and the victim laying on the table there. They were all lying there dead, they were all black. That flame-thrower killed them all.
DB: A pretty gruesome scene.
RN: Someone opened the door so we went in some of the drawers and shelves and stuff they had there in the pillbox and got these cans of molasses bread, and took our can opener, opened both ends and shoved it out, and it was just like cake. It was just delicious! And we were starving; not starving, but we had C-rations, K-rations, which are not very good tasting. So later on they said we shouldn’t drink any of the milk but they found a place where there were tubs of butter and they brought it around and said, “Take what you need.” So they went around each battalion and we got butter out of there and put it on our K-rations and that’s about all the food I ever got from the Germans. I think they ate pretty well too, and they took everything from the civilians. They didn’t ask for anything; just took it.
DB: About a week after you landed there was a big storm that came in. Did that cause you any problems?
RN: Well, no, but it made us all worry. It was terrible hurricane winds. I didn’t know if it was a hurricane, but it was about 90 mile per hour wind, and you could hardly stand up. And we thought the Germans were going to counter attack, and they warned us to be careful and fight to the finish there to keep the landing. And the Germans, we thought they were going to overrun us, but they didn’t. But oh, our ships were blown into shore and tipped over and; not all of them, but there were a lot of them out there, the anchor couldn’t hold them down and they piled up on the shore.
DB: But ultimately, as you said, you always had enough ammunition. And you got your other supplies; rations and everything else came through.
RN: Except for later in the war.
DB: Did your unit take many casualties? Encounter battery fire or anything like that from the Germans?
RN: Oh yes. They threw 88’s in; I think they went by maps according to the terrain and the location we were at, and they threw shells in, but they never did hit our guns. But they went over us, and were short, and on the side, but we were lucky that we never did get hit. One time a fighter plane came in and strafed us and they didn’t drop any bombs, but they didn’t get anybody. It was in the daytime.
DB: And living conditions in Normandy. Did you dig in every time you stopped?
RN: Oh yes.
DB: One-man positions, or what kind of holes did you dig?
RN: One-man, yah. We had one right by the gun all the time.
DB: So, you said you were in Normandy 29 days?
RN: Yes.
DB: And were you pretty glad to back to England?
RN: Oh yes. But we were doing good. We could have stayed there, we had no problem. We were shooting across the peninsula, cutting off Cherbourg so the Navy could get that base.
DB: So you felt pretty good about the work you were doing.
RN: Yah, we were doing a good job. And we had good units, Infantry and Artillery; we worked together. Never any problem with them. We never shot any shells short that I ever; I talked to forward observers, they said we never shot a shell short that I knew of. So that was good news.
DB: So the Infantry liked you; they could depend on you.
RN: Yeah. But they didn’t know what was happening half the time, and they still don’t know who supported them, but we knew that we were supporting them.
DB: And it was during the Normandy campaign that you became the gunner on your crew?
RN: Well, we had two shifts, day and night. I happened to be on the night shift because I was not the corporal, I was just a private. And you’d have to get up every time they yelled “Fire Mission” you’d get out of your hole. And we had guards every night, walking around. We’d take turns.
DB: How could you adjust the sights at night in the dark?
RN: We had lights on the the aiming posts; two aiming posts out there. And somebody would run out there and turn those little lights on. I don’t know what kind of light we had; we had to have a light on the gun; I forget now.
DB: Just luminous dials that worked?
RN: No, I’m sure we had a little battery operated flashlight.
DB: Like a blackout light; just enough to see. So, do you remember the process of being relieved from the line, the other unit coming in to replace you? What was that whole process? Did you take your guns with you, or did you leave them for the replacing unit?
RN: No, we took ‘em with us; took ‘em back. Took ‘em to the beach and to England.
DB: What was the drive like, coming out of Carentan in that area, and then going back to the beach? Was it a lot of devastated area? What did it look like going through those areas that you’d fought through?
RN: It was horrible. Most of the buildings were all gone in Normandy. But out further from the beach there were quite a few left. We had tanks there too that came in, and they went through there so fast and kept them off-balance, that they didn’t knock everything down. But Carentan, that was all rubble.
DB: How did you get back on the ship? Was Cherbourg liberated by this time? You went back across the beach?
RN: Yup. On the LSI’s.
DB: And where did you go in England?
RN: Went back to Oxford and Newberry.
DB: To the same place; to the stables?
RN: Yeah, we got back there and we had replacement soldiers to reinforce our unit. We had lost about 40 percent.
DB: Replacements coming in.
RN: Replacements. All NCO’s. So none of us got upgrading.
DB: And where did the NCO’s come from? Were they men from the Air Force that had transferred over?
RN: No, they were from some artillery…
DB: Oh, I see, came in from another artillery unit.
RN: Yeah.
DB: So they took all the slots and you couldn’t get promoted.
RN: Right. Nobody got a promotion at all. We were overloaded, but they could have given you a field promotion, but they never did.
DB: Was there a lot of resentment against those guys coming in, then?
RN: Yeah. And they got the Battle Star for Normandy and never was there.
DB: Really?
RN: Because they were attached to the unit before we left. So that wasn’t fair either.
DB: In the Artillery, you guys didn’t get any kind of a badge like the Infantry did; the Combat Infantry Badge. Was there any resentment about that, or you guys didn’t care about it that much?
RN: We had the Infantry Badge to start with, but nobody wore them after. I don’t know why.
DB: Combat Infantry Badges, they gave you those? Really.
RN: Well, we went out shooting at the rifle range…
DB: Oh, the Marksman’s Badge. That’s the Marksman’s Badge. I’m talking about the Blue Infantry Badge.
RN: No, we didn’t get that.
DB: No, because you were in Artillery. So, what kind of training; what did you do when you were back in England. Were a lot of guys blowing off a lot of steam?
RN: No. It was just getting monotonous. We took the gun apart every night, all the pieces, and brushed ‘em all off, wiped ‘em off and put it back together.
DB: Just for training.
RN: Yeah.
DB: In case you had to do it in combat.
RN: Yeah. We could do it in the dark.
DB: A lot of gambling in the unit?
RN: Yeah, the first of the month.
DB: Playing craps and stuff?
RN: Yeah. Everybody; not everybody, but about 50 percent of them stayed up all night after payday.
DB: Okay, so if they gambled all their money away, what did they do?
RN: Well, the next morning, or the next couple of days, they’d have to borrow from somebody and they’d pay probably ten or twenty percent back on a promise until the next payday. But I never gambled; I gambled one time at Fort Bragg. I had $87.00; that was a lot of money at that time. It was one Sunday afternoon and one fellah said, “Let’s shoot a little craps.” And I said, “I don’t know much about it.” And he said, “I’ll show you; it’s just the two of us.” And pretty soon three, four, five rounds and I kept winning; I couldn’t lose for nothing. Actually, I shot two one’s one time and the guy said, “You crapped out.” And I said, “No, I got two ones.” And he said, “That’s crap out.” I didn’t even know what the score was in gambling. So finally, Italian and me were the only ones left, and he was doubling them up and I had over $100.00 at one time. And I said, “We might as well quit; I’m getting tired.” So I took my money and left.
DB: And that satisfied your desire to gamble in the Army.
RN: Oh! But then I still didn’t gamble after that; much.
DB: You continued doing glider training, glider landing training and stuff in England? More gunnery training?
RN: Yes. We had to go up at least once a month for flight pay.
DB: Did you get alerted for possible missions into France as they were moving forward? Did you get alerted in anticipation of jumping into Paris or some of the other river crossings?
RN: Well, yes. After we went back to England, the Black Forest was the first one. That was the first one. That wasn’t far in, and that was about a month or two after Normandy. And they said Patton was going and he was running out of supplies, that he should go to the Black Forest, wherever that was, and then wait for supplies. And then we would drop behind the lines and cut communications and get them going again. But he knew where the Black Forest was; he went by the drop zone, and then it took three to four weeks to get another drop zone. And he was well supplied, so he went quite a ways. But we had 17 missions to go on, and one was with hurricane winds or something, and that cancelled it. Then Patton went over the drop zone two or three times.
DB: You mean he advanced faster than you could fly in there.
RN: Well, no, he wouldn’t stop and wait for us; wait for supplies or us.. He’d go past the drop zone, then we’d have to make another one, and by that time he got his supplies up. He was a good; I think keeping the Germans off balance was the best thing, though.
DB: Was it a let down for you guys to think you were going to be going on one of these jumps and then have it cancelled, or was it a relief?
RN: It was a relief. General Taylor, our general, would come around to the airport where we were at, ready to go, and he’d say, “I’m sorry, we can’t make this mission.” And some of the guys said, “Boo!” And he was up on a platform and he saw, he picked out two of them and court-martialed them for booing him. So, I think a lot of guys understood that.
DB: Learned to keep their mouth shut.
RN: Um hum.
DB: What kind of warning did you get for the Holland jump on September 17th? The whole thing was put together in about two weeks.
RN: Yeah, we found out the night before!
DB: The night before. And did they put you in an isolation area again?
RN: Just in England they said to load ‘em up and get ready to go.
DB: Well, nobody got passes that last couple of days, but we didn’t know what was going on. Before that, they took two gliders up and tried to see if they would last for three hours. But as soon as the plane; he’d drop his wheels if he was in trouble, and he flew for three hours around England, and when he dropped the wheels it meant cut loose, or he’d cut you loose at the plane. And it was a big connection, an aluminum connection, and if that came back and hit the glider's Plexiglas, the glider would go right down. So as soon as they dropped their wheels; there was no communication or radio between the plane and glider in the air. They had radio contact on the ground, but they had a wire going up, but it was so noisy in that glider you couldn’t hear anything, so you couldn’t depend on that at all. So they’d drop their wheels and that meant cut loose, or they’re gonna cut you loose. We had gliders all over England, all over! Some guys didn’t come back for a week.
DB: That was part of the training.
RN: Yah. Well, they didn’t want to cut loose, but they had to.
DB: You also experimented with some new things too, about a C-47 pulling two gliders simultaneously. Did you ever do any of that training?
RN: That’s what I’m talking about. Pull two gliders. The gliders were too much of a load for three hours. It was actually about four ton.
DB: And didn’t you also do training then to replace the pilot? You lost your co-pilot?
RN: Yah. First we had chutes in case of an emergency, and then they said, “You don’t need chutes to land in a glider," so they took the chutes away. And then a little while later they said, “You don’t need two pilots to land the glider, so one of you guys can do it. In an emergency just land in a field and take instructions from the pilot.” So everybody in the battalion had to take instructions from the pilot. He’d take it off the runway, and when we got in the air we’d all take over and try it out and steer it, rudders and all that stuff.
DB: How did you feel about that?
RN: There was nothing to it.
DB: You took to it pretty easily?
RN: Oh yeah.
DB: You think you could have landed the glider all right if you needed to?
RN: Oh yeah. There was nothing to it. Like a Model-T, you know, two pedals, the rudders and the steering wheel, in and out and just turning the wheel. No, I don’t think it would have been any problem. But you gotta come in at a pretty good speed when you got that four tons up there. Otherwise you just drop; plunk. But they did a good job with landing in a plowed field. Without trees. You could land on the woods if you dropped your flaps (brakes) and lost altitude to fall.
DB: Set down flat onto the woods.
RN: Yeah. And the wind would hold you up. We had ropes in the glider, and you could slide down the rope.
DB: But then you still had your gun in the glider, and if you weren’t carrying that, you were just out of luck.
RN: But at least you got out. But there were 60 in a flight, gliders and C- 47’s towing them, and they’d all let loose at one time in one or two fields. When you go down, you lose one foot every fifteen, you couldn’t go back up. So you’re going down all the time and you’d better have the landing lined up. And you hope that somebody else doesn't turn around and want to make a landing in front of you. That happened a lot. I saw two gliders after I had landed, and they were heading right for each other in the air, and they both swiveled opposite directions; tried to go opposite directions, but they hit and dropped right down, doing 125 miles an hour.
DB: Was that in Holland?
RN: Yeah.
DB: When you went into Holland it was pretty nice weather. Did you go in on the first day?
RN: No, second day.
DB: The second day. It was still good weather then.
RN: Not in England. We were supposed to leave at 7 in the morning, and it was so foggy that the tow rope, which is 300 feet long, that was towing us, in the C-47 you couldn’t see the plane on the ground, 300 foot.
DB: But you were able to get off.
RN: No. They cancelled the mission and said, “Wait until the fog lifts.” We had a nice big breakfast; they gave us everything you could think of. Then it got to be 11:00 and they said, “We gotta go, because the paratroopers were over there yesterday, and we gotta go and support them or they would be wiped out.” So they said, “We’re gonna eat lunch and go.” So we got in the glider and the C-47 revved up; they speed up the engine and keep the brakes on so they could get momentum on the engines, and then we both took off, and as soon as the C-47 took off we flew higher than it did because of the propeller blast. We always flew higher. But as soon as they took off, at 20, 30 feet, then our glider would drop the flaps and we were right in the air right away, following the airplane down the runway. Because of the fog we couldn’t see the airplane. We just followed that rope for over an hour. Then sixty gliders came. I don’t know how they kept track of each other in the air, but sixty of them got off the ground and we took off for Holland, and I never saw another glider around there for over an hour. And I’m sure some of them crashed in the air because they couldn’t tell where the other one was. When we got over the channel it cleared up a little bit, we got out of the fog and were in the clouds, but you could see each other once in a while. The plane crossed our ropes and we knew, our gliders were coming together and we had no contact with the airplane. So they saw each other and they backed off. It’s a good thing he backed off over the top instead of underneath and untwisted the ropes, or we’d be in the Channel. So our pilot decided to go… Oh before that, our plane put their spoilers down and slowed down, and we are flying higher than them and we passed them up; flew right over the top of the plane. It was right over the top of the plane and then he revved up his motors again. He was catching up to the plane in front of him which was also towing a glider, and by the time he tightened the rope up, to take the slack out, and he gave us a heck of a jerk, but our rope didn’t break. They broke once in a while, but it didn’t break that time; we were lucky. So then the plane's pilot decided to go northeast, or more east instead of northeast to Holland. And we were in the clouds there and we left the whole flock of gliders and planes. I didn’t know that at the time, but we came out in, I think it was Belgium, we were the only plane in the sky and it was clear, not a cloud in the sky after we got to Belgium. So the pilot must have had binoculars in the airplane and they revved up the motors, and I think our maximum speed was about 150 knots, and they went up as fast as they could go, and our glider was just shaking and vibrating. We caught up to the rest of the flight and by that time we were in Holland and we had to slow down and go down. They fly a little bit high, I don’t know, a thousand feet or so. But when you get in combat, the lower you are, the less chance they got to shoot at you because you zip over them right, right above the tree tops. So that’s what they did. And then we were flying along and we could see the German's shooting at us down below. I thought, if we just had some hand grenades, if we had a little funnel or something at the bottom of the glider we could have tossed grenades at the Germans, they would have gone down and killed all those Germans that were shooting at us. Sixty gliders could have dropped a few hand grenades down. But nobody thought of that. And then the plane on our left, it was just above the treetops; it was cutting leaves off the trees with its propellers, and all of a sudden it made a left turn and went right into the dirt and just a big ball of flames.
DB: This was a C-47 next to you.
RN: Yeah. The glider cut loose and he landed in enemy territory. We kept going and the glider on our left, all of a sudden, I was looking out the little window there, and a shell went right through the wing which was just cloth, and it went through the cloth on both sides, and then the wind caught it and tore the cloth back, but it didn’t slow it down. But they made a good landing in the plowed potato fields.
DB: That was the glider, not the plane.
RN: Glider, yeah. But then all of a sudden we got to the drop zone and then all the gliders cut loose at the same time, sixty gliders, and that was a mess.
DB: Chaos?
RN: Oh yes. Terrible. We lost a lot of people right there.
DB: But your glider came in okay?
RN: Yup.
DB: Were you riding the gun in, or did you just have people in your glider?
RN: Yeah, I was with the gun, yeah.
DB: So, what, four people in there with a gun?
RN: There were two pilots and there were about four or five soldiers in the back. They hold it to 17.
DB: But you landed safely and the gun was intact. And so you got out and…
RN: And the Jeep came over; they had a hard time finding you because it was a big area with sixty gliders, so the jeep's gotta find the right glider and pick you up. And everything tied down in there. We had a rope that you could just pull, like the bow on a shoe, and just pull that and the whole rope would let loose. I forget the name of that knot, but it held the Jeep down, or anything else in there. And then, so we ran over to the road, there was a dirt road. And the Germans were shooting at us on one side of the woods there, they still weren’t cleared out. So some of the guys went in the woods. There was a 14-year-old boy standing there on the road and we took the map out and showed him the drop zone and our objective, Son where we were going to save that bridge. And he said, “Oh, you go right down that road, six, eight, ten kilometers or something, and then take a right and go right into town.” But by the time we got there we were four hours late and the Germans had blown up the bridge, so we couldn’t save it. So we had to take another route and we had to go down to the next bridge and then keep the road open, Hell’s Highway.
DB: And a lot of fire missions along there?
RN: Yeah. Lots of them.
DB: And the Germans counter attacked several times and cut Hell’s Highway. Did you have any contact? Were you in the sector where they were counterattacking?
RN: Yes. Well, first thing we were supposed to go to the front lines where the British were. They had a whole army there, and were gonna break through to us the first day. They couldn’t break through. The second day they called us to hit the Germans from behind. We were the first division, the 101st, behind the lines along "Hell's Highway" and then it’s the 82nd and then the British up on the end of the line. So we had to go back and hit the Germans from behind, and right away we got through and the British got through, and so when they got the tanks through, the roads were about four foot high, and it’s just level Holland is just like an airport, just level for miles. Well, that road is four foot high and the tank another six foot high, and so they’re shooting the tanks in direct fire from miles away with the 88’s and knocking them out on that highway and blocking the highway. And then they got bulldozers up there to knock the tanks off, tip them, push them off the road. And then the Germans got the bulldozer and so the British got another bulldozer, and he’d knock a few off. And the British, they were standing there making tea, waiting for the road to get open, and the Germans were knocking the tanks off, one after the other, and they never did get up to where we were for about four days, I think. They were supposed to be up the first day.
DB: But you said you were involved with the German counter attacks to cut the highway. And did you actually fire on German tanks? Did you have direct fire missions?
RN: No. The Germans broke through and then they’d radio us, somebody on the highway, so then we’d have to take our artillery up, a skeleton crew.
DB: You had to displace to meet some of those threats.
RN: Yah. We had to go up there and knock the Germans back off the highway, their Infantry.
DB: Were you able to get an adequate supply of ammunition when you were up there?
RN: Oh yeah. We had extra Jeeps loaded with; all we had was Jeeps, and they were loaded down pretty heavy with 75’s shells. And we had machine guns too, to keep the road open for the British to get through. I don’t know their tanks, they should have stopped and opened up on ‘em, but they didn’t have much infantry, I guess. But the British were having a heck of a time; they weren’t the best fighters. And then at Arnhem, they [the British] were having trouble up there with the German armor that had just pulled in, a division, and they knocked them [the British] all back across the Rhine there. They lost 7,000 out of 9,000. [the British]
DB: So, how long were you in that salient, going up into Holland? How long were you on the line in Holland? You landed the 18th of September; you came in the second day?
RN: We were on a 5 day mission but it ended up 69 days to secure the bridge at Son and to hold the 50 mile "Hell's Highway" open until the British Army broke through, going to Arnhem. While on our way our battalion got pinned down several times. The Germans mortared us and we had many casualties. We had to send guys off the road. There were these little rolling hills and the Germans sneeked up on us on the road. We often couldn't shoot with artillery because the Germans were too close so we sent some of our guys out as infantry. Twice that happened on the road going up there. We were on the road for a week or so. Finally we got to Arnhem joining our infantry on the front lines in the fighting for the Islands. We got relocated and started using artillery again against the Germans.
DB: And you were up there until the end of November.
RN: Yeah.
DB: And then you go back to your rest areas in France?
RN: We went to Mourmelon, yeah. But about five days before we left [Holland]; we’d been there for, oh, a month and a half; the Germans decided to break through in our sector. And we were just holding it, there was nothing to do. And the Germans, all of a sudden one day at about 4 in the afternoon, the Germans came running up those hills, running, shouting, and shooting, with no artillery, just infantry. We had our infantry out in front of us and so they called for mortars and then our 75’s and then 105’s and 155’s and 240’s, and then they called for all the British tanks in that area. Everything was zeroed in, so they just gave them the location. We were shooting 105 artillery pieces in that area, and we shot for an hour and 15 minutes. And I thought we must have killed 3000 or 4000 Germans. None of them got through. We had a skeleton crew of infantry out there, because there had been nothing going on. It had been a quiet sector. None of the Germans got through. With 105 guns shooting continuously for an hour and 15 minutes we killed, I read in a book, 70 percent of the division. It was wiped out. And it was horrible. They were about a half a mile from us. And it would rain, then the sun would come out, and you can imagine those shells, what they done to all those troops laying there. They were just chopped up. And the stench was so horrible, we couldn’t even eat. We were there for about four or five days after. And then the Canadians came in and relieved us. And they said "March Order" and we went to Mourmelon and we were just so happy and relieved. You can’t imagine how horrible that was. But the poor Germans; they took a real beating that day. But our gun was so hot, that the green paint on the barrel was black. I was on the sight as gunner, and you gotta get right up by the sight there to get on the aiming circles. We weren’t that accurate, but we’d just get close to where they were lined up and the guns were firing at will anyhow. But one of the sergeants, there were ditches there with water, he took a bucket of water and poured it into our barrel, and that barrel split right down the middle because it was so hot. He was a private the next day. But it was just the worst day we had for killing people.
DB: Then did you take any casualties at all?
RN: Nope. We never took a one.
DB: Because there was no artillery fire from them.
RN: Nope. No artillery. But some general wanted to make a name for himself and killed 70 percent of the division. It probably wasn’t a whole division; their divisions run about 12,000; somewhere in there; I don’t know how many. But it was…
DB: He lost most of his infantry strength, anyway.
RN: Yeah. But we had 105 artillery pieces; a whole corps, a British corps and our guns shooting at the Germans.
DB: Was it good to get back to Mourmelon?
RN: Oh, was it ever! Inside bathrooms. And we had one shower in 79 days up in Holland there. When I used the shower in Holland I got all soaped up and the order came to shut off the water.
DB: What did they do with your dirty clothes from Holland; just throw them away and they gave you new ones, or did they launder the old clothes for you?
RN: I think they laundered them.
DB: So you got your clothes back.
RN: I had torn ones. As I jumped over a hedge I hit the barbed wire, and it tore my pants from the top inside seam, all the way to the bottom of it; it was just flapping. That’s when they counterattacked us on the road one day. There was an apple orchard there, next to two family houses, and they had apple trees in the back, and we’d just stopped there for a break, and damn if they didn’t put the mortars in. There were mortars flying all over, hitting those trees and the ground. But this one guy who was next to me, his arm was torn off; not torn off, but it was just hanging. And a medic took care of him right away and we got the heck out of there. There was a march order and so we took off. But I had scratched my leg all the way down; it was bleeding from the rusty old barbed wire, but we had Tetanus shots. I didn’t even have time to see a medic, so we got on the road and took off and got out of there. And I never put in for a Purple Heart either. I thought the Purple Heart was kind of a bad thing, because if you got killed you got it, or if you just got a little scratch you’d get it. I didn’t think that was fair either.
DB: Getting back to Mourmelon; did you think the war was gonna be over soon, or…
RN: Yah.
DB: You had no inklings of the Battle of the Bulge.
RN: No. But that was two weeks later. And we thought we were gonna be back for Christmas.
DB: Did you get a leave in Paris, or anything?
RN: No, not then.
DB: What were you doing in Mourmelon?
RN: We started a football team and we were just going to relax and get cleaned up. We got showers and inside bathrooms, and boy, that was a treat. Then the 17th of December they said, “Get ready, tomorrow morning we’re going to leave at 7:30.” And so we got all of our equipment ready and never thought it was going to be winter. We had just left Holland and it wasn’t winter, but so we just went as we were. And we got up there and we weren’t ready for winter at all.
DB: What were you wearing when you got up there to Belgium.
RN: Just fatigues and a jacket.
DB: Like a jump uniform?
RN: No.
DB: The dark green uniform now. The 1943 uniform. Did you have long john’s?
RN: No.
DB: Wool pants underneath the field pants, or, did you…
RN: No, not wool. No overcoats. We just had our helmet, our jacket and a sleeping bag. And that thing was only one blanket thick. Well, you know what they were. Zippered. And then your outside cover on it. And that was cold. But when we got there the ground was thawed out, so we dug a trench, a slit trench, like, and we put some logs over the top and some evergreens on top of that, and dirt on top of that, and so we had our canvas tent shelter half for the door. It was all individual. We should have had double bunks there, it would have been warmer.
DB: Keep each other warm.
RN: Yeah, but we didn’t.
DB: Did you put pine boughs or anything down on the bottom of the trench to help keep it dry or warm? Nothing?
RN: No, nothing. And there was a barn there, but it was about two blocks away. And some of the guys went in there and slept. But the shells hit that darn barn and the shrapnel went in there and they had Belgian horses inside. And one of the horses had two big chunks of shrapnel in his hind quarter. I went there one morning when I was off, and the farmer was syringing salt water in it, and I said, “Doesn’t he jump when you put that salt water in?” “No,” he said. I stood back and thought he was going to kick or something, but he never moved. They left the shrapnel right in the horses body.
DB: This was the Belgian farmer that was doing that?
RN: Yeah. So then it was foggy and they couldn’t resupply us until the 24th of December.
DB: Yeah, and it got real cold too.
RN: Yeah, and we were running out of ammunition.
DB: Was it heavy snow? Had the snow already fallen when you arrived?
RN: No. And it froze. There were three highways crossing in the town, and that’s what the Germans wanted, to use those highways to get their traffic through.
DB: The Germans wanted the crossroads.
RN: Yah. But it was like Northern Minnesota pines, the pine trees and rolling hills. But the Germans found out the ground was frozen and they [the Germans] went around us and left us there. The Germans left a skeleton crew to, you know, keep us so they wouldn’t stop the convoys. But had that ground not frozen, they would have had to come through town and then they would have wiped us out. We could have never stopped them.
DB: The Germans did counterattack several times in the Bastogne, and did you ever…
RN: Three times.
DB: Yeah. And did you ever engage any of those counterattacks?
RN: Yeah. They finally found out that if they let the tanks come through, but stop the German infantry; that’s what they told our infantry to do, let the tanks come through. And then we had two locations, bazookas and some halftracks, and we had artillery too, if they got back where we were, they'd never got back. Well, one did. One came back and he was waving a white flag and he stopped right in front of us and surrendered. They jumped out of the tank, let the tank run. And so it was quiet after; that was the last tank coming in. I think it was 16 of them that morning. And we went over and the tank was just purring like a Cadillac; beautiful engines in them. We captured the Germans from the tank. We didn’t shoot any tanks, though.
DB: Do you remember what it was? Was it a Panther, or was it a Mark IV, do you remember what it was?
RN: It was a huge one! I don’t remember; a great big one.
DB: It was a Panther.
RN: But they surrendered; all jumped out with a white flag and surrendered.
DB: Do you remember, I think it was Christmas Day, when you got resupplied? The weather cleared and all the planes came in and dropped supplies? That must have been a pretty good feeling.
RN: Yeah.
DB: Were you getting low on ammunition before that?
RN: We were using white phosphorus for artillery.
DB: Because that’s all you had left?
RN: Yeah. Well, we had shells too; antitank.
DB: But no HE shells, (High Explosive).
RN: No. But when the white phosphorus explodes, and if you know, when it explodes it’s like hot solder, and it hits you and it sticks and burns you. I don’t know if it’s legal to do that, but that’s all we had, just for marking a location out there; white phosphorus. But then the C-47’s came in, like you say, on the 25th, and they dropped supplies. And wouldn’t you know they dropped a parachute about four feet in diameter, a white one, and it had a fruitcake on it.
DB: Just all by itself; that’s all it was.
RN: Yeah. And it landed by our guns there, so one of our guys ran out and got it and we all had a piece of fruitcake on Christmas Day, and he got the parachute. And then another C-47 was coming with his right engine out, coming toward us, and it was just above the treetops and I thought he was going to hit our foxholes. So we jumped in our holes and I waited for, it must have been a minute, and I thought he should have went right over the top of me. But the terrain was slanting a little bit and he left the wheels up. So he hit the ground, I didn’t see it because I was hiding in the foxhole and I thought he was going to bounce over the top of us. But he bounced a couple of times, he hit the ground, and then it turned180 degrees with the terrain. And it turned and it went the same direction it came from and it was dragging all along the wings, and it went down this gulley that was all plowed field, and the wings and the motor were dragging. And the wings didn’t fall off; nothing fell off . And we ran over and jumped in the plane. It wasn’t on fire, but they hold 200 gallons of gas in each wing, so we thought maybe they’d catch on fire. So the three guys in the back were gonna pull the chutes out; they hadn’t got to the drop zone yet; so we dragged them out. They hadn’t been buckled in; they were gonna push the chutes, but I guess they didn’t know the plane was gonna land. Then the two pilots…they were knocked out. And the two pilots; I don’t know if you ever saw the steering wheels; about a foot in diameter, and they hit their head on the steering wheels and their faces were just bloody and they were just laying there. So we took their belts off and dragged them out and the plane never did catch fire, but we got all five of them out. I don’t know whatever happened to them, the medics took them to some barn somewhere, but that’s not our business anyhow; the medics took care of them. And we had some doctors with us, our own doctors, but some got captured coming in. But we didn’t have any medicine and they used alcohol for amputees’ feet and fingers that were frozen, turned black, and they just sawed them off with a hacksaw or whatever they had, and gave them liquor. That’s what I heard; I never saw the stuff.
DB: Were you able to salvage any supplies or anything out of that C-47?
RN: They had blankets and flashlights and one guy got the compass out of it.
DB: I bet the blankets were the most valuable.
RN: Oh, and how. Yeah, and they had supplies in there too. I forget what they were now, but there must have been some food. They were all different colored parachutes when they drop them off. And then our mechanic, I don’t know where he got this hose, but he got a hose and siphoned the gasoline out of the tank, out of the plane, and so if you had a container you could get gasoline and you could start a little fire in the daytime and get warm. And so we used that to melt snow for water. After Patton broke through to us; his tank came right over the hill in front of us and told us he broke through the circle.
DB: His tanks, or actually Patton? Did you actually see Patton?
RN: No.
DB: You saw his tanks coming over.
RN: Yeah. So his tank was coming right for us, and it’s kind of hard to tell if it’s German or American; there were no markings on the front, but they got a shorter barrel. So we loaded the guns up, we could hear the tanks coming and they said, “Load your guns up with anti-tank shells.” And so we did. And we had six guns facing that direction where the noise was, and the first one came over the hill and it was coming pretty-near right at me, and I was on the sight, right on the top of the tank. But we said, “Hold your fire” to make sure that they are not Germans, you know, that they might be British or might be Patton; so we did. And sure enough, they came and there was a drop-off of about four feet, they had a dirt road that a farmer made. Then they turned left and we saw they were American tanks, and so none of us fired, and they didn’t fire at us. And it was snowing, and we had the dark 75’s and the dark uniforms, but they saw us and they must have knew that we were Americans.
DB: Everybody was relieved.
RN: Oh, were we ever. And so then the column of the tanks kept coming, and then another one and another one; here’s a whole column of them. So, we were safe anyhow, after the first two or three went by. They probably radioed the rest of them that there’s American artillery out in front. So they just kept going and then that same afternoon the march order said to keep up with the tanks.
DB: Could you?
RN: No, we couldn’t. Well, we’d catch up to them with the Jeep and the skeleton crew and set the guns up, but by that time the tanks were another mile or two miles ahead of us.
DB: Because you had to dig in and they just kept moving.
RN: Yeah, and it was frozen ground; we couldn’t dig in. We were trying to.
DB: Did you ever get warm clothing?
RN: No.
DB: So you’re still in your light clothing the whole time.
RN: Well, we got some parachutes for sleeping, and put them around us. But the Germans, they had all white uniforms and sheets and helmets. Somebody told the people in town, “We need all the white sheets you can get,” so we had some for our helmets and some had a cape around it like; some capes for the infantry, but we didn’t really need them back behind the lines there.
DB: Did you ever have any close encounters with the Germans?
RN: Just on the highway.
DB: Down in Holland, you mean.
RN: Yah, in Holland, yah. But not there, not at…
DB: How about with the prisoners? You said there was the one tank crew that came in and surrendered.
RN: Yeah. Well some of the guys just took ‘em and I don’t know where they took ‘em. But we had some officers that probably knew where the stockade was, and they took ‘em somewhere.
DB: But it wasn’t your concern anyway.
RN: No. Heck no. We would have shot ‘em .
DB: So how long did you stay in the Bulge?
RN: Well, I thought ten or eleven days, but it was so damn cold, I find out now it was 27 days?
W : Thirty one.
RN: Thirty one days. But in my mind, I thought it was only ten or eleven days right after Christmas.
DB: I bet those nights were pretty long though, trying to stay warm.
RN: And how! Then you had to get up at 10:00, the tanks were breaking through, and the Infantry, they’d shoot those 88’s and us too, but they’d just shoot them at random; didn’t know what they were shooting at. But it was scary and cold, and it was just miserable.
DB: But you didn’t have any frostbite.
RN: Well, I froze my feet.
DB: Did you go back for medical treatment? What did you have, just the two-buckle combat boots at that point?
RN: Yup.
DB: No overshoes.
RN: No. I’d take the overshoes off at night and put them in my sack, the shoes, and try and get them warm, and dry.
DB: Then wouldn’t your feet get awful cold? Just that one thin layer of blanket.
RN: Yeah. Well, I’d double up and pull the blanket up over me. They were pretty long. But then, officers, they were all in heated houses. I didn’t know that at the time. And our colonel, he was as far back as you could get without getting hit. And he’d always come up front and say, “I need six or eight men to dig a fort for me underground.” And then they’d cut trees down and put trees on top.
DB: Make a bunker.
RN: Yeah. And then he’d have little steps to go down. And after the six guys got tired, he’d go back and get six more. We never saw him in combat; never.
DB: Do you remember his name?
RN: Carmichael. He was from Wisconsin. One time he came up front in the afternoon when it was quiet, up in Holland, and damn if they didn’t shoot some 88’s in. And we all jumped in our holes and he told one soldier, “Get out,” he said, and he jumped in the hold and made the soldier get out. Boy, if it had been me or some of the other guys, he wouldn’t have lived; we would have shot him. He was the meanest colonel out of anybody. He got restricted in England for a week from General Taylor, and the Colonel restricted the whole battalion, just from meanness.
DB: You mean, he got restricted by the general, so to spite you guys, he restricted you guys.
RN: Yeah. And then Taylor found out, or maybe one of the majors or somebody called in and told him, and he come over there, and was he mad! (laughing) He said, “Battalion review.” So we all go out there in the field and he says, “That damn Carmichael. I restricted him for seven days and he restricted the battalion,” and he said, “and it was not for the battalion at all.” He said, “You can have all the passes that you legally can have. Go on passes,” and he said, “There’s no restriction for the battalion at all.” And, oh, he didn’t like that colonel at all.
DB: Why didn’t he relieve him, I wonder.
RN: He should have.
DB: Did you ever encounter the colonel at any reunions or anything later on?
RN: Yes. Well, I didn’t go to the reunions, but one of the first ones, about the 20th after D-Day, after we got home, we had a battalion reunion, for the 321st, and he came to it. Well, I gotta go back: In the war he told one of the officers, he said, “You put me in for the Silver Star.” And the officer said, he was a lieutenant, and he said, “For what?” And he said, “Just put me in,” he says, “or you’re gonna be relieved” or transferred, or something. He threatened him anyhow. So he made up a story and the colonel got the Silver Star; only one in our battalion that got the Silver Star, and he never was in combat. And then when he came to this 321st reunion, one of the first ones, this same officer was there; what was his name- Jordan.
DB: The lieutenant.
RN: Lieutenant Jordan. And he said, “You son of a bitch, what are you doing here?” And he said, “It’s the reunion.” And he said, “You get the hell out of here! You’re not wanted around here.” And he took off. Never came back to another one. And Lt Jordan told us then why he did that, And we never knew that he got the Silver Star. Then Carmichael sent two Belgian horses home from Belgium with two soldiers, farmers, on a ship, to take care of them all the way home to Wisconsin.
DB: Did he live in Hudson?
RN: I don’t know. But he was a horrible guy.
DB: Where did you go after the Bulge.
RN: We went to Mourmelon briefly.
DB: And then you went back on the line? In Alsace?
RN: Alsace-Lorraine, yeah.
DB: And again, setting up, was it fairly static there?
RN: Yeah. And then we went down a little further on the way down to France and relieved a couple outfits that were in battle for quite a while. I don’t know why we were relieving them; we needed the relief. But then we got on the Autobahn and went to Austria, and on the way over we went across a concentration camp. So we stopped there and it must have been the first of May. And it was raining and sleeting and the poor prisoners just had cotton striped clothes on. Some just had pants on; some had pants and a shirt on, but that’s all they had on. And there was a great big hole in the ground there full of dead prisoners; I got a picture of the prisoners here. The Germans had gone; left them. We took those that could walk, and those that couldn’t walk, we carried them and put them in the GMC’s and took them to town; it was about three or four miles as I recall, to the hospital. Brought them in there, and it was nice and warm in there. And there was one SS trooper, he had his arm in a sling and we asked him what was wrong and he said he got shot in the arm or something. But he could walk around and we told him, “You go in town there and stay with some German family,” it was in Germany, or Austria, or whatever it was, and he said, “I’m not going.” And we said, “What do you mean, you’re not going?” And he said, “I’m staying here.”
DB: In the hospital?
RN: And one of the guys took his pistol out and said, “Are you going?” “Well, ya, okay, I’ll go.” And so he took off. And we put all those prisoners in the hospital, and the ones that could walk, we said, “you go to any German house and knock on the door and tell them you want something to eat, and stay in the house for a while where it’s warm.” But they over-ate, and we found out later their stomach burst because they ate too much, too fast, and they swelled up. But we didn’t know any better. But the ones we took to the hospital, they were taken care of right away. But they were just bone, thats all they were. Just bone and skin. And then they had lice and it was horrible to even touch them. But we had to lift them up into the GMC, they couldn’t get up there. And we took the whole bunch there because we were going towards Austria anyhow. So we got them all in the hospital and left them and went to Salzburg, and that was our first stop. And then the next day they said, “Anybody want to go to Hitler’s hideout? It’s all cleared out.”
DB: Berchtesgarden.
RN: Berchtesgarden, yeah. So we got down to Berchtesgarden, Hitler’s hideout, and we all went in the building there. There was a big café on the outside, all glassed in; a few shells had hit it. So we went down, there was a flight of stairs down, a room on each side into the mountain on an angle. And it went down another flight and two rooms on each side. I went down about two or three stories and I found this linen room. So I picked up a big box there, it was about two foot by oh, a foot and a half, and I filled it up with folded linen and then I got some teapots up in the kitchen, metal teapots, and some silverware that was laying around there. And most of the guys got a case of whiskey and went out in the truck and they were happy as could be.
DB: Drank it.
RN: Yeah. Well, they didn’t drink it there; they drank some of it, but then the next day they were drinking. The next two or three days. But two days later they drew my name for R&R for 30 days to go back to the States. The First Sergeant said, “We drew your name for R&R for 30 days.” And I said, “Are you kidding me?” And he said, “No. But if you go, you won’t be coming back because the war is over over here.” It just got over the day before, I guess. So I said, “I’ll take it.” So I went home, and that’s the end of my story over there.
DB: Did you go back to Camp Lucky Strike, or how did you go home?
RN: No, they had three or four trucks, I think it was four trucks from the division going, and we went all the way back to Cherbourg.
DB: Oh, you went out of Cherbourg. And so you took a boat back. Into New York?
RN: Well, we went to England for one day and filled up with water and some food, I suppose; supplies or something, and then headed back to New York, and…
DB: And then a train ride home?
RN: Yeah.
DB: And then did you get orders telling you to go to Fort McCoy to out-process?
RN: No. I went to Fort Sam Houston. And we got there and they says, “You’re on KP. You’re on guard duty tonight.” So all veterans with a bunch of rookies from the States. So they made a big fuss, some of them, and so then they decided, the officers, that all the veterans wouldn’t have to pull KP anymore or be on guard duty. So we just loafed around. And we were supposed to go to Japan, but then the atomic bomb came and that saved us.
DB: You didn’t have enough points to keep you out of the Japan operation?
RN: I had 69 and needed 70. And so we went up into McCoy and somebody stole my barracks bag there. We were all in order, you know, out there lined up and I had my outfit on, Army 101st, and somebody saw it. There must have been a lot of crooks there, because I heard there was other stuff stolen too. So you had to go in and sign your papers and all that, get your papers, and I came out and mine was gone. I had a lot of stuff in there, too.
DB: What kind of stuff? Souvenirs?
RN: Souvenirs. I had sent stuff home by mail from Hitler’s hideout, and I had sent two rifles home and a pistol, by mail, and it all got home. But this was other stuff; I had smaller stuff there with me.
DB: Medals or pins, or something.
RN: Yah, patches and a lot of little things, and some addresses that I had from different people that I was gonna write to.
DB: That must have made you pretty mad.
RN: Oh, did it ever!
DB: It’s a common story though. A lot of people had things stolen. And so, you were at Camp McCoy for a few days to out-process, and then a bus or something home?
RN: I forget now.
DB: And you got home to Minneapolis and of course there was a big…
RN: No, I think it was a train. I got pictures of three of us getting off the train at Fort Snelling, three of us out to Fort Snelling. I think it was a train.
DB: And then made a phone call and somebody picked you up, or you took the trolley home?
RN: I don’t remember.
DB: You don’t remember. But you got home, and of course there were big bass bands and cheering crowds?
RN: No, nothing like that.
DB: Just a quiet return home.
RN: Yeah.
DB: Hang up your uniform and start looking for a job?
RN: Well, I had a job. I went back to the machine stop.
DB: Oh, so the job you had before the war.
RN: Yeah. I think it was 30 cents an hour, or something like that.
DB: After the war it was still 30 cents an hour?
RN: Yeah. So I worked about, oh, four or five months, there were quite a few of us who came back, and then one fellah, he was gone for a week and he said he had a cold. Well, it was in June or July; yeah, it was in July I suppose, because we got back&helliphellip; Anyhow, then he started telling us about the fish he caught. And I said, “Gee, you got awful tan.” He said, “Yeah, I had a cold, so I sat out in the yard in the sun.” And then he started telling us about the fish, and then he came to us, well, he had a week’s vacation. And nobody told us, the boss wouldn’t even tell us. So I went into the boss and said, “I understand that everybody gets a vacation here.” And he said, “Well, those that worked through the war, they worked day and night, and overtime and seven days a week.” And I said, “Well, how about us veterans? We worked 24 hours a day, seven days a week, day and night.” And I said, “We should have a vacation.” “Well, everybody will get one next year.” And I said, “Well, I won’t be here next year. I’m quitting right now.” So I quit. He wouldn’t give it to me.
DB: You didn’t have clothes either, you had to use your uniform. What did you do with your uniform?
RN: I had it dyed black in one of the shops. And I wore that for work. And then I went to Northeast Honeywell and got hired right away, over Northeast; well, you don’t know where that is.
DB: Did you ever use the GI Bill, did you ever go to college on the GI Bill?
RN: No. I went to Dunwoody School and I was going to take up plumbing. My dad had done a lot of plumbing and I helped him, but he wasn’t a plumber though. So I was going to take up plumbing. This was about two or three months later. So I tried to get into the plumbing union and they wouldn’t take me in, so I couldn’t go to school. The plumber’s union is a son of a gun to get into; it was then. And so then I went to a shop down on Lake Street and they said, “Yeah, we’ll hire you, you can work in the back of the shop.”
DB: It wasn’t Bowler Plumbing, was it?
RN: Yeah! Yeah, how’d you know that?
DB: I have a story about that later.
RN: Yeah, Bob and Tom. So anyhow, he said, “We’ll hire you and you can work in the shop and clean up the shop and do that, and unload trucks.” So I did that for a while and then pretty soon they sent me out with the plumbers. Then one plumber, he went down to the union, he was a union member, and he said, “I’m working with this non-union plumber.” And they said, “Well, there’s nothing we can do about the Taft-Hartley Law, you gotta work with him. Don’t refuse, because we’ll get in trouble.” So I worked with them and the union knew it then.
DB: But going back, overall, if you look at your military experience and put it in perspective in your life, where would you rank your time in the military with the important events in your life, in your experiences in the war?
RN: Oh, the front lines is the most important.
DB: Yeah. But I mean, was this a critical event in your life?
RN: Yeah.
DB: I mean, some guys have told me, they’ve said, “Well, geeze, it was three years wasted, lost from my life.” Other people have said, “It was the most important event in my life.” Where do you rank it? How do you see it?
RN: I think it was very important that we could help those people out. But had I volunteered to go over there, I don’t think I would have, after hearing of those rats eating you in the trenches and the black plague from the WWI vets. And I thought, that’s horrible, I don’t want to be in that.
DB: So you’re glad you did it, but you hope you never have to do it again.
RN: Yeah, right.
DB: Well, we’re glad you did it too. So, thank you very much.
RN: You’re very welcome.
DF: Thank you, thank you.
RN: You’re welcome.