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Play Movie3-Omaha Beach and Early Combat
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After this camp you went to Omaha Beach?
Yes.
Now what was your experience there? You landed there after the battle was over.
At one time we thought that we might be the first wave but then we weren't. There were a lot of things that we didn't know about, how they decided who would go in first. But fortunately for us we didn't go in first. The battle was—the landing was over for sure, these guys had established a beach head so we could land on the beach without getting the tremendous fire that they got and the tremendous casualties. When we landed on the beach it was not nearly as dangerous as when the first group did but the battle was far from over. They got us just a little way—when we got off we weren't farther off the beach than to the end of this block. So you know it wasn't far and there were Germans still trying to hit us with artillery and mortars and all that sort of thing. They tried to keep us in a relatively safe area until we got organized. Which was for a few days, until we got organized.
You said that when you landed in Omaha Beach not all the dead bodies had been removed.
Yes.
What kind of impact did this have on you?
The impact was that we were glad that we weren't the first group in. But we really thought well these guys have secured the beach and we should be fine. It shouldn't be too bad from here on. The beach hadn't been cleaned up there were all sorts of shot up tanks and debris around and so we felt that the worst was over. But we didn't know.
Can you go back to that moment of actually entering the beach and recount for us what you saw and heard? What were you first perceptions when you arrived?
I was on a landing craft tank, which is a kind of a landing craft. They had tanks, but we had our ambulances and that sort of thing. When I landed I was landing with this collecting company, so we had trucks and ambulances and we came—we were able to land on the beach because the engineers had put some metal flooring like they do when they making temporary air strips. There were MPs waiting and they would be screaming at you, “get going get going, see how fast you can get off this ramp and get out of here," and so all we did—I was up sitting with the driver and the main thing was he wanted to get off the beach because the beach was a target.
As you were getting off you'd see a lot of debris around and it was obvious it was a pretty big mess. There had been a storm—they had tried to construct a temporary pier which had got blown apart in the storm—so there was all types of debris around but the engineers had done an amazing job and the MPs were out there in the open directing traffic. You know it was unbelievable, they didn't have flack jackets or anything they had helmets and there they were waving us on, so we certainly got off there as fast as we could. Where we assembled—they had selected an area that was probably, in retrospect, sheltered a bit, so that was good. So we had a chance until the next day when we established a line from which we were supposed to attack.
You described being amidst mortar shells after landing on Omaha Beach. What was that like? What was it like to have artillery and mortar shells all around you?
There were different sounds that we got use to. See we had to learn. We had to learn which was in-coming and what was your own people. When we first got off the beach some American destroyers had pulled close to land, because our artillery hadn't landed yet and they would shoot—some spotters would give them targets to shoot at. If a shell goes over your head of your own, it sounds like a railroad train going over your head. At least you knew it going over. The Germans had two major things that they were attacking with. One was mortar shells and one were these 88 mm guns which they could use as an anti-tank gun or an anti-aircraft weapon. If an 88 shell was shot at you you could here the explosion before you hear the sound of the shell going because it was a very fast moving shell. So you couldn't do anything about it. If they were shooting an 88 shell at you there was no way you could defend yourself. But mortars they shoot at high arch so it whistles and you know if it is coming. You don't know exactly where it's coming. So if you hear mortar shells you'd try to get to the nearest place where there was some sort of protection. But the first time you hear those things and see what they can do it's really scary. To say the least. But then if you're going to survive you never forget to take action if you hear the mortar shells coming in.
What does it sounds like? Can you make the sound?
No, but its sort of a whistling sound as they are coming down and you know I've told this story often, but at the end of the war, we were watching a movie and the guys who were watching the movie were mostly people who had survived to the end of the war and we were watching a movie about Ernie Pyle in Italy and in this movie there were sound affects of mortars coming in and a major portion of the audience, when they heard that sound, they dove under the seats that we were sitting on instinctively and the guys who didn't were replacements who hadn't been in combat; the people who survived learned.
Tell us a about the Red Cross symbol and how you felt about it. Were you confident that it was going to help you?
When we landed we all had red cross—we had a white, you've seen this, an armband with a red cross on it—and we had been told that, with the Geneva Convention, that the German troops were facing, so far had not, had not deliberately fired at red crosses and in turn we'd respect theirs.
The men I was working with, particularly after a bit when we got into more action, we put red crosses on our helmets and even painted big red crosses on our jackets. And we felt that if we're out helping a wounded person that we wouldn't be shot at because it would be so conspicuous. And that proved to be the case until we got into the Battle for Mortain and at that particular junction—if you guys had studied the history—we were going to break out of Normandy and into the center of France and the Germans for sure didn't want that to happen. They wanted us to be confined on the beach area so they sent their best fighting units, which were SS tank units, to cut us off and when they came they shot at everything. They shot at the red crosses, they shot at—my jeep had Red Cross flags on it and they shot at that and so the red crosses were not honored at that particular junction. Though, we continued to wear red crosses in spite of that because we were sure in some instances against some troops that they would be honored.
Did you ever personally witness a Red Cross personnel being shot?
Oh, yeah.
Did you ever see any?
Yes, my aid men. A couple of them were wounded but not bad, they weren't killed, but yes.
You said in your book that you received the nickname "The Chaplain." I was wondering how that came to be.
Though I was unsophisticated, these guys were farm kids from Kansas and Nebraska and, they were confronted with it. It was harder for them to deal—a lot of them—to deal with all of it than it was for me. So they'd come with their problems and even though at times there was a chaplain, but they came and told me their troubles and what they were worried about and what not, and then, so I was always looking around for alcoholic beverages to calm them down with too. Anyhow, that was commonly called that.
What was your relationship like with the enlisted men? Can you recall a conversation that would help us understand your relationship?
The only thing that was interesting is that I had an excellent relationship with the enlisted men. Particularly, I landed with this unit, which is called a collecting company, but I got transferred to this battalion aid group which was much closer to the front—you couldn't get any closer to the front. And there I was the only officer, and I was like a father figure. I was a lot older than all of these people, and, of course, my job was to look after them too. Actually in retrospect I did a pretty good job with that. I could relate well to them for whatever reasons, but they appreciated it.
Was there one conversation you recall?
I can't remember anything specifically. A lot of my recollection was stimulated by the letters I wrote. I didn't look at those letters until maybe five years ago, which was about fifty years after the events. A lot of that stuff I just don't remember, though I do certainly remember being called a chaplain. At one time I did have working with me a Catholic chaplain who was with me for less than a week. He decided he didn't want to put up with what we were putting up with so he left. He did leave his little typewriter, which I used for writing the letters. Maybe later, on if you want—I didn't think of it—but you might want to see some of the original letters. I got them.
How did you deal with your first time being in the combat area?
When we landed—the main thing when we land on the beach—the idea was not for us to immediately go into combat, but to replace one of the divisions that had landed on the first day because the division was decimated. What they wanted was that we could move into positions to take over where they were. At that point the Germans were there and we were here, but there was not a lot going on for a short time because everyone was regrouping. We were getting ready to advance on the city of St. Lô, and they were getting ready to keep us from advancing. After the landing on the beach there was a lull for a short time before more fighting erupted. When we landed, there were occasional shells that came in and occasional shells that go out, but it really didn't become violent until we'd been there a little while, a few days or so. Then we were supposed to advance and take the city of St. Lô, which they thought we'd do in twenty four hours. It took us about 24 days. I forget how many, but it was much tougher than any generals expected.
