Normandy Beach 1945
I didn't realize at first that the Normandy Invasion wasn’t just on D-Day, June 6th. It started that day but soldiers continued to come ashore under fire for the next 6 weeks.
Patton’s Army (1st Army) was under the overall strategy of Operation Bodyguard. It was a “Decoy" like the blow up tanks and jeeps. The Nazis thought that since it was the “1st” that meant it would lead the invasion. (Stay with me here, there are some of dad’s war stories I have to set up).
The Allies conducted this operation to mislead the Germans as to the date and location of the Allied landings as part of Operation Bodyguard. A part of Bodyguard, was Operation Fortitude. It included Fortitude North, a misinformation campaign using fake radio traffic to lead the Germans to expect an attack on Norway. Fortitude South’s deception was using a fake first Army Group under General George S. Patton supposedly located in Kent and Sussex in England. Fortitude South was intended to deceive the Germans into believing that the main attack would take place at Calais. Genuine radio messages from the 21st air group were routed to Kent through a land line and then broadcast to give the Germans the impression that most of the Allied troops were stationed there.
A letter Dad wrote to his mother... the only one that remained....he burned the others when he got home.
All eyes as far as the Germans were concentrated, were on Patton. For ten months Dad’s unit the 455th Battaltion of the 1st (to be come the 3rd) Army was in England at Snetterdon Heath RAFB. Some of his most memorable stories as an anti-aircraft gunner were here. Their job was to protect the planes taking off and landing. They counted the planes out every morning and in every night, and knew which ones did not return. One plane he told about was called the “Bad Penny”. He recalled its many missions. One afternoon it did not come back on time so they waited....finally about 4 hours late it came limping in, badly shot up. It had made many missons, some quite harrowing. For weeks it was out of commission then one day it took off again, patched up and like new....that afternoon...it never returned, Dad and the anti-aircraft gunners waited until late into the night. It never returned and the crew was never found.
Another time Dad and a buddy had an afternoon off. One of the pilots saw them hanging around and asked them if they had ever been on a bomber, they hadn’t and weren’t supposed to be. The pilot was going to test the plane after its overhaul and invited them along. Dad had duty that evening, but the pilot assured him he would be back in time. On the test run the plane malfunctioned and had to be set down at another RAFB. All were safe but the time was ticking away and if they didn’t back to Snetterdon in time they would be AWOL. They got a ride from a guy on the base about half way back, then hitchhiked the other half of the way...arriving minutes before being AWOL.
Everyone on base knew the invasion was coming, just didn’t know when. On the night of June 5th, 1944, they were all awakened, told to stay on alert, given a mop, a bucket of paint and instructions on how a stripe was to be painted on all of the plane’s wings. They knew it was on. Many of the planes hadn’t had time for the paint to dry--it was dripping as the anti-aircraft gunners watched them take off. The Normandy Invasion started that morning, June 6th. The 455th, a part of Operation Bodyguard, the decoy 1st Army, still had to sit tight. He said all of the guys were itching to get a shot at the Nazis. Genuine radio messages from the 21st Army Group were first routed to Kent on a land line,then broadcast to give the Germans the impression that most of the Allied troops were stationed there. Patton and the 1st Army, (some at Snetterdon Heath RAFB)stayed in England until July 6th, giving Hitler the impression that a second attack would take place at Calais. July 6th, 1944, the 1st Army under Patton became the 3rd Army when they landed on the beaches at Normandy, bodies were still falling on the sand.... and landings continued in to the first week of August.
Dad in France, close to Calais
The story he only told me parts of was at the end of the war. Eighty-five men from the 455th battalion were transferred to accompany General Eisenhauer. Dad would start to tell the story and then bow his head and wipe tears from his eyes. I later learned the whole story from Jim Chambers, the historian for the 455th. Fifty five of the men were ambushed by the Nazis, waiting for them in the trees. My dad was the first of his company to come upon the ambush. He and the other guys started shooting the Germans down from the trees, Dad found one of the guys alive and called for medics to assist. They continued on the mission....to Orhdruf concentration camp. There General Eisenhauer liberated the first of many camps and documented the atrocities on film. He had the townspeople walk through and see what had been going on under their noses.
Hitler’s Eagles Nest. Occupation duty at Obersalzberg after the war.
Ed Peden was the one man who had survived the ambush. He was only 16 years old. Dad never knew whether he lived or died. Ed was sent home to recover and discharged from the Army since he was underage. It wasn’t until 50 some years later when Dad walked into a 455th reunion that he knew Ed was alive. The two men hugged and cried....then Ed turned to me, grabbed my shoulders and said through tears.... "Your dad saved my life." Dad told me later.....”I was just doing my job.” We would see Ed at many more reunions in the coming years and his greeting to my dad was always the same.
Heading home, Dad on the right
Dad's experiences in WWII became an indelible part of my life, I almost felt if I had lived through some of them. I heard his stories every day--he said, "WWII was the best, worst experience of my life.”
My parents did not meet until after “The” war. In the 1940s teachers only got their pay during the school year, and if the district ran out of money sometimes no pay in May. Teachers took summer jobs to make ends meet. One summer during the war, my mother, Faye Emerson, worked at a Japanese internment camp for boys sponsored by the Presbyterian church. She said on the first day of camp they had all of the little boys line up. Some were crying because the thought for sure they would be shot--but it was just a roll call. The Presbyterian church took care of everything the boys wanted to do, if they wanted to learn to play an instrument, the church bought it for them and supplied lessons. My mom tutored those who were behind in school. While the experience was by no means good for anyone, there were churches and other entities that tried to make up for the injustices these Japanese American citizens suffered. Late that summer my mom suffered her own war tragedy, the man she was engaged to, Mulley, an Army Air Corps pilot, was shot down over the sea of Japan.
She met my dad two years later, while teaching in Konawa, Oklahoma. They met in a Sunday School class at First Baptist Church....actually the first singles class, for all the young men returning from war.... and all the young ladies who were still single because of the war. They married a year later.
The war gave my dad a desire to see the world. Throughout my life we traveled every summer, by the time I was 10 I had been to 49 of the 50 states. They took me to Hawaii when I was 20, and we spent my 21st summer in Europe. In their retirement my parents traveled the world, Dad, getting to retrace his WWII journey, meeting people of so long ago, and getting to be in France at the 40th anniversary of the Normandy Invasion.
