Encoded for the Experiencing War web site for the Veterans History Project.
The recording of the interview with Robert Owen Riddick was digitized.
This transcription was encoded with minimal changes to the original text in an effort to preserve original content and idiosyncrasies of the person interviewed. Period language and terminology are also retained. Encoding is literal with regard to the transcriptionist's capitalization, punctuation, and spelling. Spelling errors are indicated with [sic]; however, recurring errors in spelling within a single document have been marked the first time and not subsequently.
(audio missing) Batesville, Mississippi. He was born in Coffeeville, Mississippi on December 24th, 1921. He served in the United States Army in 1st Battalion, 22nd Infantry, the 4th Infantry Division in World War II. His highest rank was first lieutenant. His dates of enlistment were June 22nd -- 27th, 1942 to November 1st, 1945. He earned a Silver Star, Bronze Star with three Oak Leaf Clusters plus the Purple Heart. This interview is being done in San Antonio, Texas at the 22nd Infantry Regiment Society reunion on October 25th, 2003. And the interviewer is Bob Babcock, president of Americans Remembered doing this for the Veterans History Project. You have the same first two names I do, Robert Owen, that's my first two names.
Is it?
Yes, sir.
That's a coincidence.
I wondered what R.O. stood for.
I didn't know nobody know what my name is, sir.
That's right, Red Riddick.
That's it, Red Riddick.
Red Riddick.
Yes, sir.
Born in Coffeeville, Mississippi, 1924, day before Christmas.
That's right.
Did your grow up there?
Yes, sir, I sure did, lived there for 75 years before I moved.
Before you moved?
Yes.
So that's home for you.
That's home. I moved on December 23rd, 1996 to Batesville, Mississippi.
How far away is that from home?
35 miles, sir.
All right.
Yes, sir.
So you stayed close.
Yes, sir.
How about your childhood, what do you remember about growing up in the south in the -- during the Depression days?
I grew up in Coffeeville. My family was -- we were -- we wasn't -- we were poor people but we had enough. My father went to Atlanta, Georgia and took four months of pharmacy school, came back to Mississippi, passed the pharmacist's board, and he was a pharmacist.
Okay.
My mother was a -- was a housewife, and we had -- they had four children. I have two sisters and one brother. I have a sister and a brother that's deceased. Of course, my mother and father are deceased. I went to school at Coffeeville. I had to pretty near make my living from the time I was about 14 years old. I milked cows. I milked sometimes as many as eight cows a day for 50 cents a week. I was about the only person that had a little money at that time. And I was a wage hand for farmers for $2 and-a-half a week and lived with them, boarded with them. Then I was a wage hand for 75 cents a day. And then I did odd -- I did other odd jobs. Myself and two other people, there was a man in Coffeeville that was going to construct a house, and he wanted it to be made out of stone. And he found some limestone which is very rare in Mississippi, but he found some in the area of Coffeeville. And we went out and hewed this limestone out of the ground. We chiseled it out, a layer that was about 20 feet wide and about 4 feet deep, and we took chisels and hewed it out and sluffed it up in blocks about 3 x 4 x 4. We got them out there, and then we took small chisels and cut them into small pieces about 4 inches thick, and this house is still standing in Coffeeville. It's there. I also worked at a theater there. And let me see, what else I did. There were so many other things I did.
You were a busy man, young man, weren't you?
Well, I did. Unfortunately, my father had tuberculosis in 1936. And, of course, at that time tuberculosis was almost fatal. But we sent him out to San Angelo, Texas, and he stayed for 20 months. He got arrested, and he came back home. And after a few years he was able to go back to work, but during that time my mother had to go to work and support the four children. And she worked -- went to work for $25 a month. And then it was my mother, four children, my grandmother, but we survived. And that's about the gist of it, yeah.
Well, tell me about your memories of December 7th, 1941.
On December the 7th, 1941 I was living in Memphis, Tennessee with an uncle and aunt of mine, and I was laying on the couch after we had gone to Sunday school and church. And we was home and after lunch, and I think my uncle had the radio on and heard that the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor. So that was my first time to know.
Had you ever heard of Pearl Harbor before?
Yes, sir, I had heard of Pearl Harbor, knew where it was. I knew where it was, and I knew it was in the Hawaiian Islands. And of course, I wasn't all that familiar with it, but I knew where it was, yes.
Yeah. Did you think then that your life was going to change?
Had no idea it was going to change at that time. Of course, it didn't take but a short time after that. At that time, of course, I forgot to tell you in my younger days, after I finished high school I went to work at a drugstore at Coffeeville for $40 a month. I worked six days one week and seven days the next week, and we went to work at 7:00 in the morning and stayed open until after 10:00 at night. I worked every other night. And then in August 1939 I went to Memphis and went to work for a wholesale hardware -- I mean wholesale dry goods company, and that's where I was working when the war started.
Okay.
And then of course in 1941, of course, they had started calling back reserves and also conscription people if 21 years old. Of course, at that time on December the 7th of 1941 I was 19 years old but I was 20 on the 24th and, of course, I think it was in January of '42 they lowered the draft age from 21 to 20, and then that's when I had to register.
Okay.
Okay.
So did you get drafted or did you join?
No, sir. No, sir. I had an older brother that joined the Air Force, and when my draft number came up, I was going to be smart, and I volunteered in Memphis, Tennessee for the Air Force. And I was bussed from Memphis, Tennessee to Tullahoma, Tennessee to Camp Forrest. I spent -- stayed one night over there, and I was bussed from there over to Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia where I got my shots and got my clothes and other incidentals of being in the service. Then I was trained from Fort Oglethorpe to Fort McClellan, Alabama. I arrived there on July the 4th of 1942. I was there to take my basic training. This camp was a branch and material training center that trained -- gave you the basic training for all the services. And of course, as I was in the 9th Battalion, A Company, and we was going to take eight weeks basic. And when basic was over, we were going to ship to whatever branch you had volunteered for, whatever branch that the government had assigned you to. But I was offered before the cycle was over to be kept as cadre, and I stayed there as cadre and started training other recruits. And during the time that I was there, this camp changed from a branch and material training center to an infantry training center. So, therefore, I was being shipped out to the Air Force. When I was shipped out, I was shipped out to the infantry.
So how long did you say at McClellan?
I stayed at McClellan from July the 4th of 1942 until August -- I mean until April the 18th of 1944.
Okay.
And then I was shipped out on general orders by myself, I was shipped out from Fort McClellan, Alabama up to Camp Myles Standish in Boston, Massachusetts. Of course, I guess I arrived up there -- I don't what day but probably took me two days to get there, probably the 20th of April. And then on May the 30th -- I mean on May the 3rd of 1944 I was shipped out with a group of other people from the Boston Harbor on an English ship named the Cynthia. I really don't know how many the boat would hold, but I would say that we just take it that if the boat could carry 3,000, there was about 10,000 on there. Anyway, this ship, we went over as a convoy. We had some activity on the way. I don't think -- I don't know how many ships was sunk, but we did see a ship sank but, of course, all the troop ships was in the middle and evidently there was some other kinds of ships that was sunk, but we didn't. But we arrived in Liverpool, England on the 16th day of May of 1944. As we arrived in England, we were shipped by train down on a bay, and I was understanding the name of it was Infacom (ph) Bay, and incidentally I got it confirmed a while ago with a Limey there.
Did you?
I sure did. He told me right away where it was, and he said it was kind of a rural area but where tourists came and stuff. But anyway, so that's where I stayed.
Let me stop you for a second.
Yes, yes, yes.
And let's go back. How many cycles of basic training did you cadre for?
Well, really I'd have to go back and really count. I haven't counted it up, but our cycle started on that was the 4th -- on the 6th of July 1942, and it was eight weeks, and we generally had maybe one week or ten days between cycles. And then I went and, of course, after about the second cycle we changed and went to 13 weeks, and then the same routine there. I did my last cycle, it wound up I think sometime about April. I got a 10-day furlough on the 8th day of April of 1944 before I was going to be shipped out. And so the cycle had ended a few days before that.
Okay.
Yes, sir.
So my point in asking that was when we were talking the other night you talked about the benefit, we'll get to that later.
Yes.
You talked about the benefit of all that training you experienced.
Yes, sir.
Okay. So you're in England, and let's pick up back from England again now.
Okay. In England we were called a replacement. The Army had during the North African and Sicily campaigns had calculated the percentage of casualties in every branch of the service: the infantry, the artillery, the mechanized, quartermasters, medics. And they formed these packages of 250 men in a package, and they put the percentage of casualties they had in Africa and Sicily, that percentage, in these packages, and they just stacked these packages up one after another. And what that was for is after the invasion as fast as they could, they would just send these replacements over and, of course, there's no way to know what the percentage would be of the casualties then, but this was going to be as close as they could do. And I don't -- if we had a number, I don't know. We never was told what our package number was. But anyway, the package was 250 men. We sailed out off the English shores somewhere close to Southampton there on the 16th day of June. It took us two days to get across, the time to unload the stuff and the amount of people and goods they're trying to unload, we didn't get unloaded until the 18th of June. And this package landed in June -- on the Utah Beach on the 18th day of June of 1944. And as we got there and I guess they divided these people up to which way they wanted you to go, and I was in a group of men that we were sent towards the 4th Division. We walked for six days from Utah Beach before we arrived at our destination which was just before we got to Cherbourg. And myself and 15 others was assigned to A Company, 1st Battalion of the 22nd Infantry, on the 24th day of June outside of the air base at Cherbourg.
Okay. Let's go back to Utah Beach.
Yes.
What's your memory, that was 12 days after the invasion.
Yes.
What was your memory of Utah Beach?
Well, when we woke up and saw the beach, we just saw France, and we unloaded up the LTCs, the troop ships, on the little loading boats, and we waded ashore just like the ones that invaded. And of course, the shore was literally covered with supplies, just stack of supplies after stack of supplies, and they had -- the bulldozers had cleared out a road angling off the beach up to high ground there. And I can still see the beach and the way I walked and looked at all the stacks of commodities they had there. And also I remember they had these balloons floating everywhere for air protection, you know. That's my memory of landing there.
Okay.
Yes, sir.
Fascinating. Did you -- So you walked for six days. You joined the unit Alpha, 1st of the 22nd, 24 June outside of an airfield. What did you do -- what did you start doing then?
Well, when we arrived there it was approximately about 11:00 at night, and it didn't -- and this is the part, normally in France it didn't get dark until about 11:30 or something. And my first memory was a long tall man stepped out of some bushes that I don't think he shaved for probably maybe 12 days, I don't know whether he did or not, but anyway he hadn't shaved. Anyway, he had a beard. I remember that. And he said, Six of you men follow me. And I was -- I happened to be the first man in the line and five others behind me followed him, and we walked down through the bushes for a space. And we came to a 60mm mortar which was dug in, and there was two soldiers in the hole with the mortar, and he said, Two of you drop off here. Myself and the boy behind me, his name was Billy Hammond (ph) and he was from Union City, Tennessee, and he and I dropped off at the hole. And after the other four men and the sergeant left, the two men that was in the hole, they was supposed to have the first guard that night. They was supposed to be on guard actually from 12:00 to 2:00, and being that we were brand new, they conned us in to taking the first watch. So Billy Hammond and I got in the hole, and these two, which we didn't know who they were, what their names were and probably never did because they weren't there very long anyway. But anyway, we got into the hole, and this is our first night, our first time in combat, and of course we were both scared to death. And I can remember being crouched in the hole with my M1 rifle pointed upward and tense and thinking every minute that a German was going to be in the hole or a hand grenade was going to be in there. And during the night we was constantly shelling and burp guns, and they had a -- they had a concussion. I don't -- I didn't remember the name but it was an artillery piece that we called it a Screaming Mimi. It made a terrific sound that was really devastating, and it would make cold chills run down you when you first heard it. But after you got used to it, it didn't bother you. So after, of course, when you're two in the hole, one is supposed to be resting and one is supposed to be awake, but neither one of us went to sleep. When 2:00 came, we had no replacements. And 3:00 came, we had no replacements. And 4:00 came, we had no replacements. And we're both there still in this tense position with our rifles pointed up and our fingers on the trigger. And 5:00 came, no replacements. And finally daylight came, and we had been there all night long on watch. And when the two people returned that was supposed to relieve us, we asked them how come you didn't relieve us, and they said Well, you didn't wake us up. Well, we had no idea where they was. They left and it's dark when we replaced them, so this was just a sham that they had. They just didn't want to come back to watch that night.
So then how about the next day, what did you do?
Well, the next day, when I went overseas I was a three-stripes sergeant, and the next day we were in semi-reserves position, A Company was, and I was -- I was ammunition bearer. I had, of course, a 60mm mortar squad had five men, and that day we only had four. We had the gunner and the base carrier and two ammunition bearers. And Billy Hammond and I were the ammunition bearers. I had a private as a squad leader. And I don't know who -- I don't know who the gunner and the base carrier was. Of course, unfortunately, I found out in all the time I was there, which I was there from that day on through the war with the exception of seven weeks, and I really didn't know too many people, you know. They came, and you're in the foxhole with them, and they were assigned to my platoon, they would come in, they'd give you a name, and the next day or two days later they was either wounded or killed or something, and you just -- you just really didn't want to know who they were because you didn't want to get too acquainted with them because it would hurt you so bad when they got killed or wounded. But then the second day our company was attacked. Our objective was the airfield and the fortifications on the English Channel east of Cherbourg. And we went in attack sometime that morning, and as usual with the Germans they put up stiff resistance. We had to face small arms fire, burp guns, machine guns, mortars, 88 artillery pieces. And we were attacked, be pinned down, and we'd move a little bit farther. And it's always a lot of things that happened that's really comical in a way, things that when the war is over with you laugh about. But anyway, that morning we were pinned down and pretty good, and I was laying on the ground. And of course, being an instructor in basic training, I had enough sense to know that whenever you stopped, I was taught whenever you stop a minute, you start digging, you digging a hole. So I was laying on my left side with my M1 rifle on my left shoulder, and I had me a trenching tool out scratching me a hole on my righthand side. And I just happened to look behind me, and I saw this man walking behind me in a trench coat, and he had a riding stick in his right hand, and he had a runner with him. And the man in the trench coat never stopped walking, but his runner would hit the ground. And the man that was walking would get 10 or 20 or 25 yards ahead, and then his runner would get up and catch up with him and hit the ground again. And when he came by me he said, Son, it's pretty hot up here. And I said Yes, it sure is, sir. And a few days later I found out it was General Theodore Roosevelt. Of course, during the whole time I was in Europe, I only saw two generals. I saw Scott Hamm which was our assistant division commander, and I saw our division commander one time, General R.O. Barton.
Generals didn't hang around where you hung out, huh?
No, sir. No, sir. I really didn't see -- I didn't see my company -- I never did see my regimental commander. I saw my battalion commander one time.
Okay. So you moved from -- Cherbourg fell on the 25th of June, and then you turned around and started attack back the other way, right?
Yes, sir. Really it got to be maybe the 28th before we really got it cleaned up, and I don't know who relieved us. I know the 90th Division was with us. But anyway, we got relieved, and we were then was assigned objective going south from the Cherbourg peninsula towards Saint-Lô. And it may have been two or three days before we got to where we started an attack and then we started an attack which we really was west of Saint-Lô some few miles, and it was a highway that went from Saint-Lô west to the Atlantic Ocean, and that was -- that was our objective to try to get to the highway that went east and west. Of course, we personally didn't know what the plans were but the plans were from Eisenhower, the plan was that we were going to try to break out from the beachhead and, of course, they had picked out some positions to make the breakout from the beachhead in the vicinity of Saint-Lô. And the plan was to bring 3,000 planes over, wingtip to wingtip, and saturation bombing. This was the first time they tried saturation bombing in World War II, and they was supposed to bomb across the front of the point which was the 2nd Armored Division plus we were detached -- the 22nd Infantry was detached from the 4th Division and assigned to the 66th Regiment of the 2nd Armored Division to spearhead the breakout. And unfortunately, when the bombs were making saturated bombings, the first waves came over and used bomb sites and dropped in the correct places, but we had a headwind and the smoke and the dust was blowing back towards our lines, and the rear flights was coming over and instead of using their sights, they would just drop it in front of the smoke and the dust, and unfortunately they bombed our lines and killed a numerous number of men.
They didn't get any of your guys though, right, you were far enough back?
We were far -- we was about 500 yards back. And also they had General McNair who was there from the United States to observe this saturation bombing, and he got killed during the observation of it.
So when you made the breakout --
Yes.
-- tell me how that was.
Well, after -- after the saturation bombing, we had a high artillery, they just picked out on the maps of high points and they did it, and then we just -- the infantry, the 22nd Infantry climbed on top of tanks. About four days before we made the initial attack, we was assigned to companies. Each of our companies -- well, I would say each of our platoons was assigned to a tank, and we -- we practiced. They taught us how to get on the tanks and how to hold on and how to get off in the case of emergency and how to keep from being run over by the tanks if the tanks stopped, and a lot of times the tanks stopped and they'd go in reverse right quick if the front tank is being hit by a German shell. But they taught us all -- they tried to teach us whatever we did would accomplish, but even though a little practice we had, we had some casualties, we had boys that was run over by tanks. We got on the tanks and started. Of course, the first few miles was -- it was -- it was devastating when you looked to the ground how many of those just bomb craters after bomb craters just, you know, you just didn't believe it, see how anybody could live in it. But of course, in France and also in most all of those European towns, when they built the houses most of them built cellars, and these people got in the cellars, the civilians and also the German soldiers, and a lot of them survived. And of course, a lot of the tanks and a lot of the artillery was destroyed. So therefore, we were able to move fairly well, and then we moved all day continuously. And we was having resistance, resistance points, was able to knock them out. And we had our tanks stayed with us till maybe -- after dark and, of course, they stopped and the infantry then had to get on and we walked on probably through half the night before we got to the objective that we wanted, and we did. And of course, the tanks withdrew and re-gassed up and everything else, and of course they came back and joined us the next morning, and we continued our attack. And as the further we got away from the saturation bombing, of course the resistance stiffened and we were having -- we was getting a lot of resistance from artillery and especially from tanks. And where we were meeting a lot of resistance we would bypass it, we'd either go to the right or the left, and then we was encircling a lot of the Germans. And so it got pretty spasmotic, you know, that they didn't know where we was, we didn't know where they were, but we just kept moving. Some days we'd move as many as 8 miles, 10 miles or sometimes 17 miles, and then some days we'd get so tight that we'd have to -- we'd almost get surrounded by Germans and we'd have to attack in three directions -- east, south, and west -- in the same day. But we kept moving and of course we kept the Germans moving, and of course we was very fortunate to have superior air -- to have superior air support. And therefore, we -- they would spot them for us, and they was bombing the tanks and stuff. So we was very fortunate to be able to move, and really I don't remember -- I can't remember the time where it was on the English Channel, it was there, and we were probably inland maybe 4 or 5 miles or something. And there was a community named Mortain, M-o-r-t-a-i-n, that we had captured and we was moving on south, and this is where the Germans had selected to come through Mortain and attack west to cut off the -- well, Patton had broke through then. Patton, after we broke through on the 25th of July, somewhere around the 1st of August I believe that's when the 3rd Army was entered into the conflict. Patton came through us after we opened it up, he came through us and had brought two or three corps through, and this is where the Germans from Mortain west towards the Atlantic Ocean had decided to try to penetrate and cut our forces off to where they could cut Patton's 3rd Army from getting supplies. But part of our division and another division was able to stop the penetration of the Germans. They never did get past Mortain and so, therefore, they were not able to cut the supply line of the 3rd Army.
Okay. So for that action, the regiment and the 66th Armored were issued the Presidential Unit Citation?
Yes, sir. We were issued the Presidential Unit Citation. Yes, sir.
And from that action you finally were reassigned back to the 4th?
Yes, sir. We were reassigned back to the 4th and, of course, the 2nd Armored went on and I assume they reassigned their armored infantry back with them, and they went on at what I guess they still stayed with the 1st Army. I'm sure they fought with the 3rd Army, but at that time they was still with the 1st Army.
So from there you went on, and what was your next objective after you made that Saint-Lô breakout?
Well, I guess we was in a corps. I don't know whether it was the 5th Corps or the 7th Corps. We fought with the 7th Corps, but memory, I don't know which corps was assigned to the breakout. But we -- the 4th Division and the 2nd Armored Division was in the corps, and then after we broke -- after we broke through good then the 2nd Armored was assigned somewhere else and we were assigned to another corps with the Free French 2nd Armored Division. And we followed the 3rd Army further south, and then we did a 90-degree turn and then started east, and we were -- we were guarding the left flank of the 3rd Army as they turned east, and we followed them for a while, and then we also was in the containment of the -- of the Germans who were trying to cut the 3rd Army off.
Let's close that -- Let's cut out that noise out there.
Okay. (Pause)
All right.
And of course, the 3rd Army was traveling mighty fast east, and we were bringing up the rear of the 3rd Army. And the objective of the Army was, of course, to invade the German soil. And Eisenhower, the high echelon in the planning, made the decision not to capture Paris. The planning was for the 1st Army to go north of Paris and for the 3rd Army to go south of Paris, and then when they crossed the Seine River, they were supposed to encircle Paris and conquer (inaudible). But the Free French underground, when we started east after the Saint-Lô breakthrough, got anxious and they had an uprising in Paris, and the Germans were going to storm Paris, and they was -- of course, the reasoning that we didn't -- that they didn't want to attack Paris was that they didn't want to have to feed all of them and furnish coal for them and take away the supplies and stuff from our Army. But anyway, they had a consular I believe from the Netherlands that was in Paris, and in some way he got out and contacted General Bradley and told him that the Germans were going to storm Paris if we didn't -- if somebody didn't come in and stop them. And Bradley contacted Eisenhower, and Eisenhower gave him permission to go ahead and attack Paris to keep the Germans from destroying it. And the Free French Armored Division and the 4th Infantry Division was in the same corps, and they were the ones that was designated to go into Paris, and politically the Free French 2nd Armored had to go in first. We were on their right and they was on our left, and they were -- didn't advance as fast as we do, so we got ahead of them, and we were -- our objective was to cross the Seine River about 10 miles south of Paris, which we did, and the Free French 2nd -- the Free French Armored Division was so slow that they finally told the 4th Division to go in and to attack Paris. And the 12th Infantry of the 4th Division was on the left of the 22nd, and they was given the orders to attack Paris. So they did attack Paris either a little before or about the same time that the 2nd Armored, the Free French 2nd Armored did, and they both went in together. And after -- after part of the 22nd Infantry they crossed the Seine River, we came back across and went up and went through Paris as a unit sometime about the 27th day of August, two days after they first entered Paris. And then the 4th Division then was assigned to go northeast of Paris and to protect the right flank of the British Army that was coming up the English Channel and going towards Luxembourg.
Let's hold up. Let's go back to Paris.
Yes, sir.
Tell me your memories about going through Paris.
Well, see, the 12th infantry had gone in on the 25th, and they had some spasmodic fighting. They had some casualties. They had some destruction of Paris, not too much, but they was -- they was able to move pretty fast. And the German Army, Hitler had a -- had a handpicked general in control of Paris. He was an SS soldier. He was -- he was evidently a brilliant commander. He fought on the eastern front, and he had done wonders with the German commands he had, and Hitler picked him to protect Paris, to defend Paris. And after they -- after they figured, after we broke out of the beachhead and started in and destroyed most of the German Army, they knew then that they probably wasn't going to be able to defend Paris, so Hitler had ordered this general to destroy -- to destroy Paris. They had all kind of bombs and stuff on every bridge and on all the popular places in Paris. And for some reason, I don't know, but this general decided he didn't want to destroy Paris, that he just thought that would be an awful thing for the world to know after this war was over that Hitler and the German people destroyed Paris. And by him not destroying it, then letting this Netherlands man get out to inform the American Army that this general said if they would attack them right away, that he would not destroy it. But that's the reason they gave the orders to attack, and he didn't, he didn't destroy Paris. Any of these men, they didn't set off any of the bombs or anything. So I'm sure that -- I don't know what happened to him, but I'm sure he was probably assassinated after that or he was -- but anyway, he was the reason of it. And he agreed if we started the attack, that he would pull his forces back to the east part of Paris, which he did.
But as you passed through, did you ride through on what kind of a vehicle?
Well, when we started through, we started marching just like in a forced attack, but the population was so that they was so joyful that they just overwhelmed us. We couldn't -- they just covered us up. They got in the streets. They was trying to hug you, kiss you or give you flowers or anything they could, and we couldn't move. So they was giving orders then to bring up every vehicle they could get, tanks, half-tracks, trucks, jeeps, anything, and we loaded on those things. I was -- I was on a tank. My platoon was on a tank. So some of our boys was on trucks and everything else. Most of the things that led the people through there were tanks or something that the people could get out of. But then it was still was nip and tuck, they was still crowding the streets and everything else, but we finally got through Paris. But the people were hanging on the tanks, hanging onto the trucks. Of course, they were singing and hollering. And all the two-story houses and stuff, everybody was out of them. Most of the houses over there had closed windows, and they'd all open them up, and they was flying American flags and French flags everywhere. And it was -- it was something. It's something you'll never as long as you live, you'll never forget. The expression on these people of agony they had been in for four years, and they was trying to express their thanks, which they did.
So you were glad to have been a part of that, huh?
It's memories that you'll never forget. You know, you talk about of course -- you know war is bad and, of course, when it's happening and it's hard on you and you know that. But of course, this is now 60 something years after the war and your memories, you try to forget all the bad memories, and you try to remember all the good memories. And then you really feel gratified that you served at that time and what little that you contributed to the -- to the victory over Germany.
Okay. We've gone through Paris, and you're continuing to attack and heading towards Germany.
Well, no, we was going northeast of Paris to, as I understand it, to cover the left -- the right flank of the British Army.
Okay.
And I've got a map, I don't know all the towns, but I know how far we got up there. In fact, I've got a map marked everywhere we went.
Everywhere you went.
If you want to look at it before you leave, it's okay.
I'd love to do that.
Okay.
Yup. So you -- but you moved on through. You didn't get to stay in Paris and celebrate.
No, sir.
You moved on through.
The night of the 28th of August our unit was on the eastern part of Paris, and the next morning we went in to attack, and we moved out of Paris, and we met resistance right early that next day. And we, of course, we went on through the resistance and started moving, and we were moving fairly easy. I say fairly easy, we'd get -- they was getting points that the Germans was defending, and we was either going through them or going around them, and we was moving 5 miles a day or 8 miles a day or 2 miles a day. And a lot of times we were moving, we'd get to a river or something and the Germans would had blown a bridge. We'd have to go right or left, we found where to cross it and moved. And I guess when we got up to the -- in contact with the English Army, then we did a 90-degree turn going towards Belgium. And we went pretty fast after we took the right because the Germans were retreating. And it was nip and tuck for us and the Germans. We'd be on a road and we'd pass a crossroad, and some of our vehicles would try to pass the crossroad and the Germans, and we'd just cross it.
Did you walk most of this way or were you riding until you hit resistance?
We walked and rode. Of course, we had a point that was always there was some tanks and half-tracks and some jeeps that just get on the road till they met some resistance, and then we had the trucks would truck up part of your unit up to where they met resistance and then put them out, and the rest of the unit would be walking, and the trucks would go back and pick them up, and we was just shuttling that way, and we was walking and riding. And we -- we got I don't know where it was, somewhere in France, pretty close to the Belgium line, one of these places where we had that was a German regiment that was retreating and trying to get back to Germany, and we -- we got to the crossroad before they did, and so we had a sham battle there. We pulled -- we pulled off the roads and set up -- I set up my mortar squad right off the crossroads, and it was late in the afternoon, and the Germans was trying to attack, and they was coming up with tanks and other things, and I was -- I had a lot of loom shells, and we was firing those at night. And when we heard a vehicle come, we'd fire one, and the anti-tank guns was knocking them out. So we -- we stopped that regiment from coming through, and they tried to outrun us, and the Air Force caught them the next day. And I don't know, just 2 miles of it that they was just slaughtered, trucks, and of course they had a lot of -- a lot of horses and just had the road was littered with horses and everything was killed. And some of the horses was still living and, you know, we had to kill them. But anyway, you just had to get bulldozers there to move the stuff off. And the soldiers got out and into the woods, so we had to fight them, but anyway we completely destroyed that regiment. And then we moved on into Belgium, and we -- and these are just towns I remember because they got so popular during the -- during the Bulge. We went through a little town called Saint-Hubert, and we took that, we took Bastogne, and we took Saint-Vith. And Saint-Vith was a town on the Belgium and German line, and the 22nd Infantry went into Germany at this place at Saint-Vith. If I'm remembering, we went in -- we got onto the German soil on September 11th, 1944. And if I remember, I guess I was forced but I was in a patrol, the first patrol that went into Germany. And if my memory, we had a Lieutenant Barton (ph) leading this thing, and we had some tanks and some jeeps. And when we got into Germany, we got to they said it was a river but it was actually kind of a creek like, and of course the bridge was destroyed. And as we got up there to it, the Germans had an outpost across the creek, across the river, on this road, and the outpost had a half-track. And of course when we got up there, that half-track cranked up and started to retreat up the road, and one of our tanks shot and destroyed it. It was amazing how good this tank could shoot a moving half-track. And, of course, I'm sure that it's been recorded several times, but it's amazing how they knocked that half-track out.
So you were in the first patrol getting in there.
Yes, sir.
So how did you know you were in Germany?
Well, all we knew about it was by the maps that we had.
Yup.
Just where we're supposed to be, and I think this little creek, maybe -- maybe the river was a boundary, you know. Maybe I didn't get on German soil because from the reports after that, you know, and some of the men in our patrol waded across and got some soil and brought it back and everything and sent it back to General Barton. So that's -- that's the remembrance that I have of that.
So you all knew you were doing something historically significant then.
No, sir. Didn't have any idea.
You didn't?
No, had no idea. No, didn't know it, had no idea.
Just doing your job.
Just another day to attack. That's what we did.
Okay.
To me it wasn't anything historical or anything. I didn't realize it. Wasn't anything being historical of me going into Paris or anywhere else. It was just -- it was just a day of fighting and, of course, all we're trying to do is survive.
Okay. So now you go on, and a day or two later the whole regiment goes in.
Yeah, the whole regiments come on and, of course, our objective, our big objective at that point was to take a railhead called Prum, P-r-u-m. It was I don't know whether it's 20 or 30 miles on in, and we attacked it on I don't know whether it was the next day. Anyway, the whole regiment and probably the whole division got on into Germany. And our regiment had a portion of the Siegfried Line that we come to attack and to penetrate, and we got to this -- the line, and we attacked it on September the 14th of 1944, we attacked it head on. We had tanks and tank destroyers and, of course, the Germans really had done a good job on preparing the Siegfried Line because the field of fire in front of them wasn't cleaned up good but it still had bushes and grass and stuff in it, in front of it. Of course, it was mined everywhere. But we were able enough to get several tank destroyers and tanks up close enough to where they could shoot their 75mm and their 90mm shells at the -- at these pillboxes, and they could hit them bridges, and we were able to curtail enough of the German fighting that we were able to penetrate between two pillboxes. We single-lined between two pillboxes. And, of course, when we got through them, behind them then the Germans couldn't -- the way the pillboxes was made, they couldn't fight out of the back of them. The only way they could fight was in front, and after we got behind them we had them -- had them caught in the pillboxes, and we did surround them. And then we just divided our men and some went to the right and some went to the left behind the pillboxes, and we captured a whole line of pillboxes from the rear. And if the Germans wouldn't come out, of course we'd drop hand grenades and white phosphorus grenades into the front. And if that didn't do, we'd use TNT packs against the doors in the back. And then if that didn't work, we would put white phosphorus there and most of the time it would seep under the door or something and set the ammunition on fire and, of course, the Germans would come out. And if I'm not -- I'm thinking if I'm not barely mistaken, after it was all over with I think we captured 468 Germans out of the back of those pillboxes that day. And then we stayed there, I mean, that was on the 14th. And on the 16th of September we continued our attack, and of course the 4th Division had -- was the furthest American unit east and, of course, the Germans put all of their resistance at this point. They wanted to stop this point because we were the furthest ones into Germany. And we made an attack on a little town that day, that morning, and the Germans kind of sucked us in, drew in maybe a mile or so, and it was two ridges on the side. The Germans were on both of these ridges, and we took the little town and moved up a little on a little rise ahead of it and started digging in, and we had dug maybe a couple of feet deep for us to set up our -- to defend the town because this was our objective. And then we got attacked with about 400 crying and screaming 18-year-old SS officer candidate boys. And they came out of the woods screaming and hollering and shooting. And of course, from what we had, we shot as much as we could, we'd machine gun them down, but they just overforced us, so we had to withdraw. We withdraw back. There were several houses there, and we withdraw back into them. And finally, we had to -- we had to withdraw back to the position we had left that morning on the 16th of September. And that's as far as we got into Germany at that time. We set up a defense there, and then the front got inactive. We stayed there. Nothing was running, patrols and reconnaissance and that. About October the 1st we got relieved by the 2nd Division, and we moved up the line about 40, 50 miles, and the objective at that time we was supposed to try to go through the Siegfried Line again, but this was a time that the whole Army had run out of supplies and couldn't get gas fast enough and couldn't get ammunition, and we just stayed on kind of an inactive front there just making patrols and that.
I guess during this period of time you got a chance to do some more training and rest and get some replacements in?
Well, we got replacements, yeah. We actually didn't do, you know, any much really training, you know. We did -- we did have behind it in Belgium, they brought up some USO people, and they had some shows. And then they put up a shower thing back there where you rotate and let a few men go back there and take a shower. But still, we were still having artillery duels and mortar duels and harassments from both sides and, of course, the patrols was still a hazardous thing to do. Of course, some day patrols and a lot of night patrols, but it was still not an active front as such. Neither the Germans nor the Americans, either one was attacking. We were both in a holding position.
Uh-huh.
And then, of course, the 4th Division and the 1st Armored, and then the units on our left had gone on north of us, and they had finally penetrated Germany. And the objective up there was one of -- was the first big city in Germany we captured was a city named Aachen. And south or west of Aachen there was a town called Düren, D-u-r-e-n. It was on the Rur River. The Rur River ran parallel to the -- I can't -- What's the big river?
Rhine.
Rhine, yeah. And that was an objective of us then was to cross the Rur River so we could have a run at the Rhine River. And the Germans had planted a forest like our pine forest here, they cultivated them and they grew them and they got up to the time to harvest them and cut them and replant, and it was called a Hürtgen Forest. And the high echelons in the American Army thought that they had to penetrate that forest because they didn't want to leave the flanks of the Armies exposed because they thought the Germans could assemble a force there and attack our forces. So they decided to try to penetrate the Hürtgen Forest, and so several divisions had been fighting that. I think the 9th Division and the 28th Division and then the 4th Division was given orders to move north from where we was in Belgium and to penetrate -- to try to penetrate the Hürtgen Forest. And our line of departure was right in the western part of the forest. And the date of the attack was supposed to be about the 10th of November, no later than the 16th. And, of course, we was supposed to have air support and air attack, but they really never was able and never did get air attack. So on the 16th of November they gave orders for us to attack, and so we attacked the forest. And this was an attack, a battle that will be with you for a lifetime. Of course, we was fortunate enough to have artillery shells that had timed units on it where they explode the shell up in the air at 30, 40 feet and the shrapnel would be like rain, but the Germans didn't have this. And as long as we was in flat places where the sky was open, we could just dig a hole. And, of course, unless we got a direct hit, we wouldn't be hit. But when we got into the forest, the Germans were shooting artillery and we was having tree bursts, and tree bursts were just like at times it was just like rain. And even though you dug your hole and it was close, and the trees was so close you couldn't get away. You had to dig in a hole somewhere close to the trees, and you'd have these tree bursts, and the hole didn't help you, so we had to start covering our holes. We had to cut down the trees and put them over your hole and then throw the dirt back on them. It was just about as important to have a little old saw to cut a tree down as it was to have a gun for the protection. So anyway, if you was fortunate, I was fortunate enough to find a little old puff saw like we had here, and I tied it on my gun belt, on my cartridge belt with a piece of wire, and I kept it with me just like I did my rifle. And every time we took our objective then, my foxhole buddy, one of us would be digging a hole and the other one would be cutting. But this was the largest concentration of artillery on both sides that had ever been assembled up to this time, and it was constantly artillery shells from both sides. I mean, you just very few -- I say not hardly hours but very few times during the day or night you wouldn't have an artillery barrage. And we didn't have what were called a stable front. You had units, and our units wasn't -- we didn't have physical contact with units on the right or the left. Maybe we -- maybe one battalion would be here, there may be half a mile to where you -- where your other battalion was or maybe a mile. And of course, the front was fluid, and the Germans would infiltrate on each side of the unit and they'd get behind you. So we just had a fluid front. You could -- you'd fight the Germans in front of you, and you might have to fight them on either flank of you, sometimes -- a lot of times you had to fight them in the rear, sometimes you had to attack back to where you come to clear out so you could get your supplies. But with the tree bursts we was having a tremendous amount of casualties. And, of course, replacements were hard to get. But we were normally a company, a peacetime company in the United States I think had 240 men in it. That was a full company with everything. We normally fought with maybe our numbers would be from 90 personnel to 120, 125. That's about the way we fought. You just never did have a full force. And I was in the weapons platoon and, of course, I was supposed to have two machine gun squads and three mortar squads, and I always kept two machine gun squads, but each squad was supposed to have five men, but sometimes I didn't have but four men and sometimes three men and sometimes I didn't have but two mortars and sometimes I just had one. Just according to how many personnel I had. But we were just having replacements every day, every night we just would get 50 replacements, 60 replacements, 70 replacements. And then, of course, some nights we didn't get any replacements. And we had to for a company to be efficient, they had to have personnel that knew what to do, and when -- when your regular officers and your cadre had been there, they knew what to do. But when they was all wounded and killed, then you just had a bunch of recruits, and they didn't know what to do. It got to be pretty drastic there. But anyway, we fought from the 16th day of November and it was two days, that day we didn't attack. We just -- we got permission from our regimental commander just to stop a day to recuperate and kind of, you know, get our personnel straightened out. But the rest of the time we was attacking every day. And it was just a continuation of pushing through the underbrush, and there was no roads or anything. You didn't have any support from armored support. They had little old trails through there. And of course the tanks, the ground was so wet and soggy, they got bogged down, and they couldn't move. And, of course, the Germans had these trails mined and also they had anti-tank guns to protect them. But anyway, with the grit of the American soldier, we moved on. Fortunate or unfortunate, I guess it's fortunate that I didn't get killed, unfortunate that I did get wounded. I got wounded on the 1st day of December which we were almost out of the woods. You could see the planes. We could see the little -- we could see the town of Düren which was our objective. But we had maybe 300 or 400 yards of forest that we hadn't gotten through when I got wounded, but then I got wounded there. But anyway, my unit got relieved on the 4th day of December three days after I did.
Well, when you did get wounded, what did you get, by a shrapnel or by a bullet?
We had gone on attack this morning, and we had a firebreak in front of us looked about 300 yards wide, and we came out of the woods to attack that morning and had to go across this firebreak and kind of a little rise and up a little hill and down a little hill. And we had gotten up and started down, and whether you believe it or not, this is the first time I saw artillery shells in the air. And we had gotten about halfway across this firebreak, and I saw this muzzle blast in a distance in the edge of the woods, and I looked up and I could see this shell coming. It was kind of in a spiral of moving like this. And, of course, you could tell whether it's going to be coming, going to be close to you or in front of you or the side, but most of the time they had zeroed in on this firebreak. And when you saw the muzzle blast, then you started looking for the shell. And when you did, you'd holler for them to hit the ground, and we'd hit the ground. And as the shell would explode either in front of you or behind you or on the side of you, and then you'd get up and move, start running then to get past until you saw another muzzle blast. And, of course, a lot of times your personnel didn't get down fast enough, and they was getting wounded or killed. But we finally got all the way across that and got into a draw that was back into the woods, and we was so scattered after getting across the firebreaks that we had to kind of stop and regroup. And our company commander kind of drew a line there for us to get the men up and get them to lay down and to form a line again, and I had been up this draw three or four times getting stragglers and bringing them back and getting them in line and down on the ground and stuff. And up on the ridge the Germans had been hitting the top of the ridge there with little 50mm mortars and, of course, all the shrapnel was going over your head then. Of course, you know, it wasn't really falling within 50 yards of us at that time maybe. And all of a sudden they extended their range, and they fell in right on us. And one shell it would have been I'd say 5 feet of me, and of course the concussion knocked me down, and of course I didn't -- I didn't even know I was hit. I mean, I didn't feel anything. It just knocked me down. And, of course, I had the horror of being wounded and couldn't get out, I saw so many of the boys in my unit get wounded and the medics couldn't get to them, and we had been through that several times. In fact, in the forest there we had wounded people that, you know, that you couldn't get to them, and they laid out there all night. And we had one boy laid out there all night and hollered for help, and you couldn't go to him. And in fact, the Germans got to him and put a booby trap under him, but he stayed awake enough until the next day. If I'm not mistaken, that boy told me, and I saw the man after the war was over, that he was there 18 hours before we got to him, and he was awake enough to tell us that he had a booby trap under him, and that they cut the wires before they got him up. But anyway, we had all that. And also just before I got wounded I had a young boy come to me, I don't know who it was, but I know he was 18 years old. And just may have been 5 or 10 minutes before I got wounded, he got hit in his throat with a piece of shrapnel and, of course, he came to me. He was asking me what to do and, of course, I didn't really know that he was -- I just saw some blood running out, I just thought maybe he was nicked or something. Anyway, he asked what to do, and I told him to go to the aid station. I told him how to get there. And he turned around and left. And in 5 minutes or so, I don't know how many, he came back to me. And when I turned around and looked, he was just as white as could be, and he bled to death right there. He just lost his consciousness. Anyway, when I -- I had the horror of being wounded and couldn't get out, I got up to see if I could walk, you know, and I did, and I still didn't know I was hit. So I started to see how many of my other men that had gotten hit. I had a fellow in front of me and a fellow in back of me, both of them got hit, and they got hit with several pieces, but I only got one piece. I don't know how I got -- I don't know how I was so fortunate. It must have been a dead spot in that mortar shell, but I got one piece that hit me on the inside of my left leg about 5 inches above my knee and went all the way across, across the top of the bone and protruded not out of the skin but it pushed the skin out on the opposite side of my leg. Then when I find I was hit, I just looked down and saw a hole in my leg. It didn't bleed because with the force of it had just -- had just neutralized the veins and everything. So then I started to get the rest of my men together, and I found out I was wounded. So I got them together, and then I reported to the company commander I was wounded. And I turned over my bandoliers I had and my M1 rifle I had and left them with them, and I kept my .45 pistol. And it was a bomb crater there that the Americans had dropped a bomb, probably it was a type of something close there, and I got into it, and I cut my britches legs off and put myself a powder on, and then I started back to the aid station. And of course, going back to the aid station it's just almost like a tornado that we have that the trees was just cut down and just limbs and everything. In fact, the bodies of the trees, some of them was 18 inches thick with stumps maybe 6 feet high or something. I mean, that's how many artillery shells hit, just gut all the limbs and all the bottom down that thing. And the Germans shot at everything that moved. In fact, several barrages of artillery got close to me, I mean, within 30 yards of me or something like that, and I know there wasn't anybody there but me because there was nobody there. But I got back to the aid station. Where the aid station was, it was in -- in fact, it was marked on the map, had a little old trail that went through there, and it had this forest there, you know, that's where the aid station was. And I got back there sometime before noontime that day, and it wasn't but a two-room house, and both of them was full of badly wounded that needed transfusions, and they had wires pulled across the room from each side to the other, and all of them that they had the drips going into them. And, of course, I was a walking casualty, and I just -- they just told me to get outside. I don't know how many dead soldiers they had there. They had them covered up on both sides of the houses there. And I probably had to stay there maybe two hours before I was motored out. I had to wait for the most serious to go. So anyway, sometime in the afternoon I was motored out, and the first place I got to, I got to a hospital in Aachen, Germany. I don't know how far. I don't know how many miles. But anyway, I got there after dark on the 1st day of December. And of course, I was admitted in the hospital and, of course, they took off -- I got a pair of pajamas and a housecoat and took off all my old dirty clothes, and I got a hot bath, and they gave us some stuff to shave with and got hot -- got something hot to eat at first, and I stayed there that night. And then the next -- and then the next day I was there and, of course, the next morning the doctor came through and looked at it. Of course, I was still just a walking casualty, but I wasn't bleeding or anything. The bleeding had stopped and, of course, they're just going to wait. You know, being a cadre training soldiers, the philosophy of the American Army was -- is to kill, kill, kill, and survive. And there I was after I got back to the aid station, they took away my pistol and took away my trench knife. I had nothing to protect myself with. And when I got back to the hospital, I felt like I was undressed. I didn't have anything. So the next day I got digging around and I got in the kitchen and got me a butcher knife, and I put that butcher knife under my housecoat. And the next night on December the 2nd, I was loaded on an ambulance with three other fellows. The other three fellows were on litter-bearers. Of course, I was on a litter-bearer but I was a walking casualty, so I got the top bunk on one side. And so we pulled out in the middle of the night sometime. And, of course, whether anybody knew it or not, I'm sure a lot of people do, the high officials of the American Army were looking for some kind of attack from the Germans because they were having rear area alerts, and they was having road blocks in just a lot of places, you know. And they'd stop anybody, whoever it was, and of course this was then. But anyway, I guess we was in a convoy, I don't know how many, I don't know because I couldn't see because we was driving along. And, of course, we had on no lights, and we'd drive along 5, 10, 15 miles, and we'd stop, and then we'd drive a little bit more. And later on in the night we picked up a little speed, maybe -- maybe 15 or 20 miles an hour. And then we kind of -- had kind of got used to that kind of speed and we traveled on, and all of a sudden we heard somebody holler, some noise hollering, and two shots, bam-bam. And the ambulance got to shaking and jumping, and it just come down to a halt. It stopped. And, of course, you can imagine being somewhere you didn't know where you was, nothing to protect yourself with, nobody to help you fight or anything else, and my thoughts was -- my first thoughts was that the driver had gone to sleep and got on the wrong road or took the wrong road and ran into the German lines. And, of course, whether or not I ever knew it or not, but I thought I made up my mind I'd never be captured. I was going to fight till the end. So I got off of my cot and got off of my litter-bearer and got down to the back door, and I got my butcher knife, and I was going to come out fighting because I didn't know. Anyway, before they opened the back door I could hear -- I heard some English speaking. I heard somebody talking English. I didn't know whether the Germans was talking English or what. But anyway, when they opened the back door, it was American MPs, and they had their guns. But anyway, I got out. The others couldn't get out. So I got out, and when I got out and found out what happened was the MPs had a roadblock, and they halted this ambulance driver, and he didn't halt. He didn't stop. And they shot out the right front tire. So there it was. But anyway, then you felt easy then. But anyway, we had to wait there until they got somebody to replace the tire, the wheel, and sometime the next day we got back to Lìege, Belgium. And I entered a hospital back in Lìege, Belgium, sometime on it was the 2nd of December, and I stayed there that day and that night. And then the next night we were put in it really wasn't a hospital, it was a makeshift hospital. It was some kind of professional building, had a long hallway, I don't know how long, maybe 200 feet or something, but it was long. But it was -- it was wide enough to put a litter-bearer on each side and had room enough to walk down the middle. And at the end of this hall or whatever it was was two doors, and behind it was they had improvised an operating room. And they had -- they had litter-bearer people there. And that day and part of that night I was watching them, and they were just picking up casualties, carried them in the right door and then bringing them out the left door. It was just a constant move. And sometime during the night of, let's see, Wednesday, the 4th of December, they picked me up and carried me into the operating room on a litter-bearer, and they didn't have -- they had stilts in there that just held the arms of the litter-bearer and they just set you up on those stilts. And I had -- of course, my wound was on my left leg, and the doctor was on the left-hand side. And, of course, the first thing he looked at, he started complaining that they didn't shave the hairs off my leg. But anyway, he got somebody to do that right quick. And on the right-hand they had a --
Okay. Let's stop a second. I've got to... (Pause)
All right. So that night of the 6th of December they're taking you into the --
The 4th.
The 4th of December they're taking you in to be operated on.
Yes.
Okay.
And on the right-hand side they had kind of a form that you put your arm up on it, lay it up on it where it just fell. But the surgeon was on my left-hand side, and when I got there after he kind of got irritated about my leg not being shaved, he asked me where I was from, and I told him I was from Mississippi. And it was a nurse on my right-hand side, and I saw him nod his head, and then he said he was from Texas, and then he asked me if I was getting sleepy. And I said good, and that's as far as I could say. I never did feel like I said good night. So anyway, that's when the sodium pentathol just kicks you out. But anyway, they went ahead and operated on me that night. And I was carried back out and put in this line of people and, of course, they had an orderly and a nurse there. And after that I got breathing so hard that the orderly thought I had swallowed my tongue. So he came and put his finger down in my mouth to see if he could find my tongue, and I bit on it, and he couldn't get his finger out because I bit so hard. So he had to call the nurse, and she came there, and she put her foot on my head and on my chin and opened my mouth. They told me about it the next day, you know, just laughing about it.
Yeah.
But then the next day I was put on a Forty & Eight boxcar, you know, forty men and eight horses. But anyway, I was trained back to Paris, and I was in a hospital back there.
Did you keep your butcher knife with you?
The butcher knife? Yeah, I kept my butcher knife.
You still had your butcher knife. Okay.
I still had my butcher knife till I got back out on the English Channel. Yes, I sure did. I sure did.
So they took you to Paris.
Took me to Paris and I was in the hospital there. I don't know where it was. But the room I was in, the ward I was in had several people, but it had real high windows, you know, the old Paris style there.
Yeah.
And the doctor was coming every morning. And when I got back there, I mean, it already started -- my leg had started getting inflamed, getting red streaks coming. And the second and third day it all got black-and-blue and everything, and this is kind of -- it was horrifying then. This morning about I think it was about five doctors there, they was all congregating around my bed and looking at my chart and looking at my leg and everything else, and they turned their head and started talking and said, Well, if it's not better, we're going to have to amputate it. But anyway, that's when penicillin was brand new and within the next 24, 36 hours I was beginning to get better, and so I got out of that deal. And then they transferred me back out on the English Channel to a little town called Carrington. That was one of the first towns that they captured on there.
Back in Normandy.
Back in Normandy. I don't think it was right on the channel but a mile or two in, something like that. But they had a tent hospital out there, a general hospital, and that's where I got, and I was in a ward out there. And I just will say that I had two of the wonderful nurses that you could have that nursed me back there, and one of them's name was Shirley Fay Ellis (ph) from Newark, Illinois, and the other one's name was -- good gracious alive, I've said it 100 times. She's from Clinton, Iowa. I'll think of it.
You'll think of it in a minute.
Yeah. But anyway, they nursed me back. And on my birthday on the 24th day of December, they put me to sleep and sewed up my leg. And then on the 31st of December they removed the stitches and bandaged me up. And on the next day on January the 1st of 1945, I got on the truck going back to my outfit. And this is something that I have -- I can't understand, but I have no recollection from that day until the 27th day of January where I got back to where my unit was, and I remember walking up to a two-story green house where the company commander was of A Company outside of Luxembourg City and reporting back. I have no recollection, I can't, not any one day or any one place, I can't see it. I have nothing. I can't do it. But I remember that day, and I remember getting back, and I told him that I was with the weapons platoon. He asked me who I was with, I was with the weapons platoon. So he sent me back to the weapons platoon, and that's where I got back. And I had a new platoon leader, new platoon sergeant, and I didn't know anybody, they didn't know me. But anyway, that's when I got back, and of course soon after that we started back into attack, and I had no responsibilities the first day because I was the last man in the attack that day. But anyway, unfortunately, that day the platoon sergeant's name was Smith and he was from Brookhaven, Mississippi. He had come to my platoon sometime in October before we started attacking the Hürtgen Forest, and he moved up, and he was platoon sergeant. But in the attack that day, he was attacking back through the Siegfried Line, exactly the same place that we attacked on the 14th day of September. And unfortunately, after we conquered, captured the pillboxes in most places, the engineers destroyed them but they didn't destroy these pillboxes. So the Germans reentered them, and they was protecting them again. But anyway, the Americans had put a frontage road in front of all these pillboxes where they could bring supplies to them and, of course, it was bare and everything else, and it had a ditch on each side of the road, and the snow was about 2 feet deep. And we had two rifle platoons side by side, and the weapons platoon was third, and the third platoon was in reserve behind that. And the two rifle platoons had crossed the road and gone through the pillboxes and attacked it through the pillboxes. And when the weapons platoon got there, we had a lieutenant, I'm going to say his name, his name was Wireham (ph), and he had been in SHAEF headquarters for 16 months. And, of course, after when the Battle of the Bulge, they was bringing anybody they could back, and he was relieved in England and was sent to the front to be a platoon leader. And he froze. He got in the ditch and wouldn't cross the road because by then every fourth or fifth man was crossing the road, he was getting hit. And the rifle platoons was still going and nobody moving. So I moved up the line and got to the ditch and got him out and got him across, and then I started the rest of them. And the platoon sergeant, this Smith boy, started across, and he got hit in the right knee, and he fell out in the middle of the road. So I ran out and pulled him across the road and got him in a ditch on the other side. And, of course, we went on the attack and took our objective, and our objective was the same that it was in September. And I found the same hole on February the 4th of 1945 and stayed in it that I had dug on September the 14th of 1944. But anyway, that's a rather rippling thing, but anyway that's the facts. But anyway, before that time, before I got wounded, I had of course the first day in combat I was ammunition bearer to 60mm mortar, and the second day my squad leader got wounded, and I took over the squad. And a week later the section sergeant was gone, and I took over the section. And another week the platoon sergeant was wounded, and I wound up within a month or five weeks after I got there as being the platoon sergeant. And during the time from then until I got wounded, I only had one officer as a platoon sergeant -- platoon leader. I was the platoon sergeant during all that time. And when I got back, of course, I was nothing. But anyway, after Smith got wounded, Lieutenant Wireham sent a runner to my hole to come to his hole, and he told me that Smith got wounded. And I said Yes, sir. I got him out and put him in my hole. And he said I want you to be a platoon sergeant, and I told him that I had a job that I liked right then. I didn't have any responsibility. So I went back to my hole. But a little while later the company commander's runner came, and I had to go to the company commander's hole, and he told me that Lieutenant Wireham said I refused to be the platoon sergeant. And I said No, sir, I didn't refuse. I just said I had a job I liked. He said Well, you go ahead and take the platoon sergeant. So I ended up assumed the platoon sergeant again. And shortly after that Lieutenant Wireham got hit, and I had no -- I had no other officer after that. And I was the platoon sergeant and platoon leader from then on till a later date. But we went on our attacks, and our objective was Prum, Germany. We took it. Then we kept on. Then we crossed another river or two and then finally -- Well, anyway, during the Hürtgen Forest the lines was fluid, and the Germans was all around you, and we had patrols, and they had patrols, and we captured their patrols, and they captured our patrols. And our company commander at that time was a Lieutenant Surrette (ph), and he and his runner and a wireman and another man in his party was moving from one position to another, and he got surrounded by the Germans and was about to be captured. And with some men out of my platoon, we rescued him. And during the process of getting him back to where our line was, wasn't a line but where our unit was, he just made a remark he was going to recommend me to get a commission, and that was all that was said. Nothing about it and I heard no more from it. I got wounded, went back to the hospital, came back and joined them, never heard anything. But still as we was moving on, we had already taken Prum and was moving on again towards the Rhine River. And we had taken our objective one day, and we dug in, and had a runner from the company commander sent his runner in my hole and wanted me to come back to his CP. And I got back there, he says the runner here is from the regimental headquarters, that they want you back in regimental headquarters. And I asked him why, he said he didn't know. And, of course, the first thing that got through me, why would anybody from regimental headquarters send up a runner for getting me back there. Of course, I thought my daddy was dead or my mother was dead. I had a brother in the service, I thought maybe he had been killed. I didn't know what all. But anyway, when I got back to the regimental headquarters, I was met by a captain, and he congratulated me, and he said, You've been honored with a battlefield commission. And he said Hold up your right hand. And I held up my right hand, and I was sworn in, and he gave me two gold bars. And I went back and got in the jeep and went back to my outfit, went back, got in the same hole with my runner I stayed with all the time. And I know there was some other, but I know a very few men that got a battlefield commission that stayed with his own men. But I got a battlefield commission on the 9th day of March, and I commanded my platoon then until the war was over. When the war as over, as we moved, of course we got relieved from there. This was in March. We got relieved, and we was with the 3rd Army, and they boarded us and trained us back down to the southern part of France, in Nassau, France. And then we was assigned to the 7th Army, and we was supposed to have a 30-day recuperation leave. We was supposed to get our vehicles and everything cleaned up and everything else. But then, of course, they got across Remagen Bridge and was getting into Germany. So we stayed there seven days, and we went in and attacked, and we crossed the Rhine River at the (inaudible), and we went across the southern part of Germany through Bavaria. And, of course, we did the same thing like we did in northern France. We was -- we had pockets we'd fight for three or four days, and then we'd break out, and then we'd walk and fight, and then we'd ride a little bit. But anyway, that's the way we did all across southern Germany. And, of course, the war was officially over on the 8th day of May. But anyway, on the 6th day of May we got relieved. We was 12 kilometers from Innsbruck, Austria. I estimate 15, 18 miles from what they called Hitler's Eagle's Nest. That was the objective. I think that was the objective we had, but we got relieved, and the 101 Air Division, the parachute division, relieved us and eventually they're the ones that captured the Eagle's Nest. But we was motored in from the 7th Army back up to the 3rd Army, and we was motored back up to Munich and up to Nuremberg, Germany, and our battalion had a portion of Nuremberg to patrol and to guard. And my platoon was assigned a section of Germany that had an electrical power system and a water system and a cognac factory, and we stayed there and guarded those things and patrolled that part of Germany for seven days, and then we was relieved. And then we was motored toward out west of Nuremberg to a community, it wasn't a community, it was a town that had 60,000 people in it, to a town called Ansbach, and Ansbach had a German Army barracks there, had a -- it was huge in our opinion. It was a big barracks. It was three stories high and maybe a couple of football fields long. And our mission there was to receive and discharge German prisoners. All the captured Germans we had, they had to be interrogated, and they was keeping the SS troops, anyone they thought had committed atrocities. And then all the conscripted soldiers that was drafted or just was in the regular Army, in fact we were discharging them. And they was bringing in 30 or 40 or 50 truckloads a day, and that was our -- and, of course, they had all types of German officers there. They had admirals and generals and everything else. And I was fortunate enough to mingle with them. I met, you know, a lot of them spoke English, and we had discussed the pros and cons of the war, and some of them admitted they was wrong, and some of them was still strongly thought that they was right and all that kind of stuff. But anyway, during late June we got the word that the 4th Division had been honored to be selected to be one of the divisions to invade Japan and that all the -- at that time they had a point system, and if you had 85 points then, that you had served your time in the services and you were honorable discharge and you had no more combat to do. And being that our division was an old division and, of course, we had a lot of new people but, you know, that had been in the division but they came up with a point number 40. If you had 40 points or more at that time, you were separated out of the division and assigned to another division. And then we received into our division personnel from other divisions that had less than 40 points, and they were going to be sent with us to the 4th Division to Japan. And we motored from Ansbach up to Bamberg. That was a railhead. We got on some Forty & Eight cars in Bamberg and motored across Germany back to France. And we went to -- came to Le Havre, France where they had a deep harbor there, that we was loaded on a ship to come home. And, of course, they had different camps there. They had by the name of cigarettes: Old Gold, Lucky Strikes, Chesterfields, and Camels. And our unit was assigned to the Old Gold camp, and we just stayed there enough to be processed. And on July -- on July the 3rd of 1945 our unit was loaded on an American ship named the General James Barker, and we sailed out that day, and it took us eight days to come across the Atlantic. We landed in New York City on July the 11th of 1945, and we was motored over to Camp Kilmer, and we was separated and put on troop trains going to our part of the country. And the personnel that was close to Mississippi and maybe Alabama and Louisiana, we was sent to Camp Shelby, Mississippi. And it didn't take us but two days, I got home on the 13th day of July 1945, and I was supposed to report back to Camp Beaumont, North Carolina on the 17th of August. I had, of course, I was at home when they dropped the bombs, and when the war was over, that's where I was. I celebrated on the streets of Coffeeville, Mississippi for the end of the war, and I reported back to Camp Beaumont on the 17th day of August. And we had an option then to stay in the service and get a -- of course, I had just an appointed commission but get a regular Army commission. They offered all this stuff. And I knew that I was just a -- just a war participant, and I was ready to get out. And I told them I wanted to go home. And on October the 1st of 1945, I left Camp Beaumont to go on home, and I got my official discharge on November the 1st of 1945. This is just a part -- just the highlights. I don't need to go through a lot of other things that I know and I could do. And as anybody that participated in a war knows about it, I don't need to make all that explanation.
Let me ask you one question.
Yes.
Your Silver Star, when did you -- when did you earn that?
I earned it sometime in Germany. I don't know what the date. I've got it here. And, of course, I have to say this, of course getting the award, it's nice and it's prestigious, but sometimes you do some things more heroic than you do when you get it. I got a Silver Star. Of course, you don't get any awards unless somebody recommends it and describes it to your peers.
Yup.
But we had made an attack on a little German town, and it was fierce fighting, and we was fighting the Germans. Of course, the Germans for a long time when we got to Germany, for a while the Germans didn't shell their towns. In other words, when we was in France and Belgium, when we took a town, we didn't get to stay in a town. We had to move out and dig a hole because the Germans would shell them. And when we got to Germany for a while, they didn't shell their towns. So we was fortunate then to stay in their cellars and stuff and protect those things. Anyway, we had taken this town and, of course, they started to shell it then. We had some boys that was trying to get away from the shelling. Instead of that, they ran into this building, and they shelled this building and, of course, it caught on fire and had some -- had some dead boys and some wounded boys and men. This boy that followed me all the way, Billy Hammond, under duress of the shelling and also the firing of the Germans, the infantry, we fought our way to the building and got the wounded out and the dead out. And some of the wounded ones is who was the ones that recommended us. And, of course, they recommended us, so we was issued the Silver Star then. Of course, most of the Bronze Stars, you know as well as I do, it's just a fact, I better not say it on this thing. But anyway, if you survived and did in fact you got recommended. But all my times was using my mortar to break up a machine gun or break up a German attack and that kind of stuff, and all three of those was that.
Yup.
And, of course, you know, when you stay, if you stay and survive your name is there, your peers see you there, you know. And so they just -- you get a break and we're going to write up these Bronze Stars and so forth and write them all up. So that's just it. And, of course, all the other ribbons I got, everybody got those, you know.
Right. Campaign ribbons and all that kind of stuff.
Yes. I was in all five campaigns over there, and I was in combat for 263 days. Of course, I was officially in for 266 but I didn't stay. In October of '44 the Army started giving front line troops a three-day pass back to Paris, and I was the first man in our unit because I was the oldest to get a three-day pass back to Paris. And I got out of the line and went back and got a hot bath, got brand new clothes, and I believe I got $30. I think that's what I got. But anyway, I got a little money. And we loaded on and went back to Paris, and they wined and dined us back there for three days, and then we went back to the front. And, of course, you got back and it's just like it was when you left. But anyway, I was fortunate enough to be one of them to go. And this is another little thing I was going to say on here, but when I was in the hospital at Carrington, of course they had a PX there. Of course, you know the front lines you didn't get the money, never get paid anything. When they gave me the $30, of course they just showed that I got paid, and they took it out when I got back home. You know, when we got back to the States, they said we've already given you $30. But anyway, I thought of this. The other nurse, her name was Mary Jane Osborn (ph) from Clinton, Iowa. And when I got back to the field hospital out there, I had no money, but they had a PX. And they had a Red Cross unit there, you know. So you go, they'll lend you some money. So I went to the Red Cross, and I told them I'd like to borrow some money. Oh, yeah, we'll lend you some money. So they started and I don't know how many francs it was. I don't know how to move francs into American money. But anyway, after the war I found out. But when I started to sign this form to lend me some money, I had to agree that if I got killed, my family would pay the Red Cross back. And I just kind of -- So I said Thank you, I don't want it. When I got through I found out that what they was going to lend me was $1.08. $1.08. And I had to sign that my parents would pay if I got killed. So anyway, you know, but anyway, the reason I mentioned this nurse, she lent me $10. She gave me $10. I mean, No, you're not giving me anything. And I got her mother's name in Clinton, Iowa, and I wrote my mother, and my mother mailed her mother $10.
Good for you.
Yeah. So these are the funny parts and the things about the war.
Did you ever see or hear from those nurses again?
Never saw or heard from them. Never saw or heard from them since, you know. Of course, I was just like any other GI. But, you know, they looked after everybody, but they made you feel like you're the only one they're looking after, and they took care of you. They babied you and brought you stuff and fed you good and gave you shots right and see that you took in good and that your pillow was, you know, they just did the things like your mother would do, you know.
Yeah.
And boy, I take my hat off to those. And they had a hard life to live, you know. They was away from home, and they had all these casualties and all kinds of them, shot up and beat up and everything else. And, of course, they had a lot of grumbling, a lot of other folks they had to put up with. You know, some people just born that way, they complain about everything. But anyway, as a whole they had a hard way to go. They had a hard way to go.
They did do a great job.
Yeah.
Okay. So we've run through our time here.
Okay.
This has been excellent.
Yes, sir.
I appreciate you doing this.
I appreciate you interviewing me, and I thank you again, sir.
All right. [Interview completed]