On the whole, there were a lot of good people in Northern Ireland, although they could be prejudiced and narrow-minded. Many older civilians were quite upset with the Yanks, as they called us. Mothers and fathers were none too happy when we attempted to date their daughters. I guess I can’t really blame them. By the time I got there it was late ’43, so Northern Ireland had had a steady dose of the American military for a year. Anyone who has lived around wartime U.S. Army soldiers for that long might get a little narrow-minded.
Of course, a lot of the Northern Irish were against the Yanks because Americans were often Catholic. Needless to say, Catholics dating their women didn’t go over big with the Orangemen, the Church of England people. And I must admit that at times, we Yanks were capable of doing things that only added fuel to the fire. All we had to do was get a few beers under our belts in a pub, and some ignorant so-and-so would suggest we start singing, “They’re hanging men and women for the wearing of the green.”
Despite the prejudice and tensions, we Yanks had a pretty good time in Northern Ireland. For the first time since we’d left home, we were in a country that had not been too badly disrupted by the war. For the first time, too, we could carry on a conversation with the people who lived where we were stationed. It was our first taste of what seemed like real civilization in nine or ten months, and we were very happy to be there.
I received invitations to the homes of people I barely knew. I particularly remember Christmas Eve, 1943, when I was on a pass to Belfast. I got an early start on the drinking that day and met up with a Northern Irish sailor home on leave. By the time we were both pretty well gone, he invited me to his home. That Christmas Eve, in a strange house and surrounded by a strange family, I got on my first and last crying jag. It wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t been drinking, but cry I did. I was ashamed of myself, but the sailor’s family graciously overlooked my breach of etiquette. I left as soon as I could after midnight.
On February 13, 1944, our unit left Cookstown and headed for England via Scotland. A rear detachment was left behind to turn in “post camp and station property” to the British Army. I must have been on someone’s shit list, because I was selected to stay. In some cases, rear detachment can be a pretty good deal, but conditions always depend on the schedule the receiving agency sets up. We got a British sergeant major too old for line duty. He had a million years in the Army and was an arrogant son of a bitch. He considered it his patriotic duty to account for every bit of equipment owed the British Army down to the last teaspoon.
Two items especially gave us a bad time. One was the shit buckets. We actually had to scrub these by hand with GI soap and water. We also got a hard time about the bed boards. Due to cold weather and coal rationing, we’d chopped some of them up and burned them in the stove. Each cot originally had three bed boards, but by the end some of us were balancing uncomfortably on a single board. He insisted on counting them all, and entered every missing board on his inventory list.
Rear detachment also had a major fringe benefit, especially for the lucky trooper who got the guard post at the main gate to the billeting area. This presented a sterling opportunity to make many new acquaintances when the lonely young women of Cookstown walked out to camp to ask why their boyfriends had abandoned them. Of course, they knew the reason as well as we did, and we also knew this question meant they were looking for new boyfriends. I remember standing guard at the gate and sadly thinking, “So many opportunities, so little time.”
Fortunately, discipline in the rear detachments was a lot more relaxed than usual. It was the dead of winter, so it was no longer possible to meet for liaisons outside, and especially in Northern Ireland, the reputation of any girl seen going into a hotel with a soldier would have suffered tremendously. War is hell. Or rather, it would have been—except that there were more warm bodies in the Service Company billets than the number of troopers assigned to the bunks. I’m very glad the officer of the day and the officer of the guard were broad-minded, because if they had stuck to regulations some of the rear detachment would still be serving out their court-martials. And so it was that after scrubbing out the shit buckets, counting all the burnt-up bed boards, and closing down our battalion encampment, for a day or two we had some merry times in Northern Ireland.
Chapter 14
Camp Quorn, England
The 505 left Northern Ireland on February 13, 1944. Our destination was Camp Quorn in the hamlet of Quorndon in Leicestershire. Shortly after we arrived, I was promoted back to sergeant and given a rifle squad. I especially appreciated being jumped over the corporal rank. I was assigned the 1st Squad of the 3d Platoon of Company F, 2d Battalion. It was a big job for a nineteen-year-old, and I took it with utmost seriousness. Except for one other, very brief assignment, I kept this position until I was promoted to platoon sergeant in early 1945.
The local population warmly welcomed us. They made us feel as close to home as we could get without actually being there. The entire regiment was billeted in squad tents right in the town of Quorn. If we went over the wall surrounding the camp, we landed on the sidewalk—we were that close. Sometimes we’d be sitting in our tent and decide we wanted something to eat. Off we’d go over the wall, and in twenty minutes we’d be back with fish and chips.
We quickly discovered there were many female military units stationed nearby: the ATS, the WLA, women Air Force members, and female Navy personnel. There was always plenty of fun whenever the ATS girls invited us to one of their company beer parties. They often acted almost as rowdy as we did, which greatly added to our entertainment. We also struck up many friendly acquaintances with civilian women. Most English male adults were stationed away from home in the military, and many had been in the service since 1939. No doubt about it, our troopers were courting a lot of English servicemen’s wives. Of course, not all the courting was illicit; about eighty of our troopers married English women they had met while we were there.
Besides going to Leicester and Loughborough, we could set off in any direction and find small crossroad towns. During the war, the English set their clocks two hours forward in the spring, so after duty it was still daylight. Many troopers headed across the fields toward their favorite pubs carrying raincoats or ponchos when there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. These garments, it was safe to assume, would be used to cover the ground while wooing local women. Coming back across the fields after dark, you had to be careful not to trip over couples lying along the hedgerows. On several occasions, I actually stumbled across two very warm bodies.
Anywhere three or four houses were clustered, the community would have a very friendly, family-type pub, and it seemed to me that each company favored a certain one and adopted it as its own. Company F went to a little pub in Woodhouse Eves, and it was just like coming into Company F’s day room—when or if we had ever had one. People gathered to have a beer in the evening, and there was usually a piano in a corner. Someone would sit down, start playing a tune, and maybe sing, and before you knew it, everyone would be singing. It was a good, friendly, relaxed family atmosphere. I always enjoyed walking in the door and seeing my friends and other GIs fraternizing with the locals. Many of the friendships developed in these pubs lasted a lifetime.
We had got in some replacements in Northern Ireland, and at Quorn we got in more. This brought the regiment up to full strength, maybe a little over. We practiced squad and platoon tactics with the men we knew would be in our unit going into the next combat operation. This made a difference in my thinking. To get the most out of our training, I tried to develop teamwork and know every man’s true capabilities. The company commander often turned the training over to the platoon leaders and they, in turn, issued the squad leader an order, then left us to decide how we should do it. The type and quality of the training and, I believe, the number of casualties later in combat, depended directly on the squad leader’s experience.
Going into Normandy, which would be our next mission, I had the good fortune, reinforc
ed by stiff training, to have a squad that consisted largely of excellent soldiers. Partly because their survivors have requested information about the men who formed my squad, but mainly because I would like to pay them tribute, I here name the men who were with me in Normandy. Of the men who already were in the squad before I entered as a private, four were still with us on D-Day: George Paris and Robert Smith, who both had made the jump in Sicily; Thomas Watro, the squad sniper, and a damn good one at that, and Hubert Pack, a rifleman and fearless combat soldier from Tennessee who joined the squad as a replacement about the same time I did.
Newer members included Harold Post, a good soldier and rifleman, who came in as a replacement in England; Howard Krueger, a close friend and my assistant squad leader; W. A. Jones, a rifleman from Texas and a top-rate soldier; and John Zunda, another good rifleman who later became my assistant squad leader.
Then there were Donald Bohms, Arthur Lemieux, and John Corti, who all were excellent troopers; Lloyd Eisenhart, a good, strong soldier and a married man with children, who later replaced Corti as BAR man; Bill Hodge, an excellent soldier and a close friend to this day; and Andrew Fabis, our first scout and a very good friend, whose knowledge of German certainly spared us from heavier casualties than those we actually endured.
I also have to mention J. E. Jones, another close friend, an excellent NCO, and my assistant squad leader in Quorn, who volunteered for the pathfinders in Normandy. Finally, this list would be incomplete without two other men whom our platoon leader most often assigned to our squad: Lawrence Neipling, an eager-beaver, top-notch machine gunner from El Cajon, California; and Leonard (Tony) DeFoggi, our assistant machine gunner, from Butler, Pennsylvania. I honestly doubt that a better rifle squad can be found in the annals of Company F history.
Having the responsibilities of a squad sergeant was a good thing for me. I was responsible for up to fifteen lives, and I welcomed the duty. I knew I would get along better in combat as a leader than as a private, when I was mostly worried about my own survival and putting up with orders I didn’t completely agree with. As a squad sergeant, my mind was on my men. This helped lessen my fear, because I thought much less about the possibilities of being killed or wounded myself. I also no longer had to take orders from a squad leader who wasn’t as well trained as I was. I had more confidence in myself than I had in my previous squad leader. My long training and experience as a combat leader taught me many things, but none is more important than this: know your men as well or better than your weapon. Know their strengths and weaknesses, and act upon this knowledge when making assignments and giving awards.
Corporal J. E. Jones and I had to act on this principle when a soldier from another battalion transferred into our squad in Quorn. Jones and I already had a pretty good idea of what had incited the transfer. The man in question was a good peacetime soldier who had joined the Army long before the war; he kept his boots shined, liked joking around, and was good at making friends. But we had observed him under fire in Italy, and when the going got tough, he always disappeared. When the shooting stopped and we looked around, somehow he was there again.
To make matters worse, this combat-shy soldier was assigned as our first scout. My corporal and I took action. We paid a visit to our lieutenant, “Little Joe” Holcomb, in his quarters, and asked for the soldier to be reassigned as a rifleman or ammo carrier. At the higher levels of command, our concern could seem like a trifling thing, but Jones and I knew that a mistake on an essential job like first scout could lead to much higher casualties. Our platoon leader asked why we wanted the reassignment, but we wouldn’t say. The accusation of being combat-shy was so serious that we would never have made it openly unless we were intent on getting rid of him entirely. We only reiterated that we wanted his assignment changed, and Little Joe complied with our request.
Preparation for our upcoming mission included night jump exercises at Quorn. I think the real purpose was to make sure that all of us, new men and old, would jump the next time in combat. The official word, however, was that our commanders wanted to simulate the scatter that actually occurs in a night jump, and practice night assembly procedures. These called for us first to determine the flight direction of the plane directly after our chute opened. After landing, the first half of the stick headed in the direction of the plane, while the last half went in the direction the plane had come from. Theoretically, we would meet in the middle on our designated DZ, where leaders would take over their units.
Two main problems were intrinsic to our night exercises. First, although night jumps did help train us in procedures, every jump produced injuries like broken arms, legs, and ankles. Secondly, the Air Corps typically had a damn hard time dropping us on the right DZs. The Army set about to remedy this by giving troop carrier commanders, pilots and navigators more instruction in night formation flying. New navigational aids and procedures were also instituted in the effort to improve Air Corps efficiency, and the 505 developed pathfinder teams to use these aids to best advantage. Since each battalion had its own DZ, each one had its own pathfinder team. The 505 consisted of three battalions, so the regiment had three teams of its own.
To cut out the injuries that had always plagued our practice jumps, we began to practice and train for night assembly operations without actually jumping. Under battalion control, all companies were loaded onto deuce-and-a-half trucks, and scattered on small roads and trails. Units were broken up into individuals or two-man teams that had to make their way back to an assigned assembly point using green flares and lights. These exercises simulated the difficulties we were likely to encounter on a combat drop and provided good training in locating the battalion assembly point.
With D-Day approaching, it became imperative for the Air Corps to conduct a full-fledged dress rehearsal of their part of the invasion. This practice run was all the more necessary since D-Day was planned to be the largest airborne operation that had ever taken place. For some reason, the Air Corps required one or two paratroopers to fly in each plane. I was one of the (not-so) lucky troopers selected. We didn’t actually jump; all we did was buckle on a free-fall chute—a chute without a static line—and go along for the ride.
On the day and night of the rehearsal we got fog, rain, and very cloudy skies. As a result, the Air Corps lost control of the exercise and thousands of airplanes scattered over England with no strict control. This was in addition to the takeoff of regular bomber flights, fighter sweeps, and so on. Visibility was almost zero, and there were mid-air collisions.
I spent many anxious hours in the plane, looking out the door and checking to make sure my parachute was ready if I needed it. I could see planes going beneath and above us, and passing diagonally. Eventually, our pilot got word to put his plane on the ground as soon as possible. So many of the formations had broken up and scattered that it would have made matters even worse to try to get them back to their home fields. We landed in the south of England, and I was mighty glad to get both feet back on the ground. It was a day or two before we got back to the regiment. This exercise did not inspire us with newborn confidence in the Army Air Corps.
Throughout our time in England, the Army had above-normal AWOL rates. Some of our boys got wandering feet while we were at Quorn, and I got the job of bringing one back. His name was James McCallum. He happened to be a very good combat soldier, but he was also young and from the hills of Virginia, and sometimes he wanted to kick up his heels more than his passes would allow. It was the company’s responsibility to pick up its own AWOL soldiers. I went with another sergeant, John Ray, to pick up McCallum and bring him home under armed guard.
Ray and I went up to Glasgow by train, packing our .45s. We reported in to the MP station, signed our trooper’s release as the MPs required, and took him into custody. Then we checked into the first overnight accommodations we could find, locked up our .45s, and all three of us went out for a good time. We did get back with the prisoner as ordered, but we managed to squeeze in a night on the town in G
lasgow.
Another time, I came close to getting listed as AWOL myself. Word had it that the 4th Infantry Division had moved to England. This was the unit my stepbrother Harry Fitzgerald was in, so I got a three-day pass and set off to visit Harry. Because I had to go through London, I got off the train to look up my old buddy Elmer Carlson, who had ended up stationed in the center of the city. We’d been corporals and sergeants together in the 112th Infantry.
Elmer was one of the special friends who had seen me through the very sad times after my sister’s death. It had been a good while since I had met up with him. Instead of being sent to a hot combat zone, he’d been assigned to a transportation company as a motor officer or some other silly thing. He was pretty well teed off about his assignment, but it also meant he could live high off the hog in London as long as his money held out.
By the time I met up with him, Elmer had been in London for quite a while. As an officer, he was able to take advantage of a liquor allowance that granted him the privilege of buying a rationed amount of booze. The city was in complete blackout, but Elmer knew his way around the pitch-black streets like the back of his hand. We really whooped it up. Picadilly Circus was so thick with prostitutes that the standing joke was that they put out heavy trip wire so the soldiers couldn’t get past.
Descending from the Clouds Page 12
