Unsung Valor: A GI's Story of World War II

Switchboard Operator: Lorient, France

SwitciiDoara Operator Lorient, France September j—December 29, 1944 Foot soldiers of the 3oist, under Lieutenant Colonel Hardin, were the first units to depart for the port of Southampton on September 3 in preparation for crossing the English Channel to France, When orders for Company B came down from division headquarters that same night, rumors circulated that certain company officers were not in their quarters and had to be sought elsewhere. Purportedly, they were found partying with nurses at a nearby military hospital, one of them caught on a gurney with a nurse in flagrante delicio (a phrase I didn't yet know)! Company B didn't leave for Bath on trucks until the late afternoon of September 4. The British railway cars we boarded at Bath looked on the outside more like American coaches, only half their length. Inside, the coach was not divided into small compartments like the ones we rode from Scotland; the seating was in units—a bench seat facing another across a table—down both sides of the center aisle. Trying to reach our seats in the small car, we found our packs and all the pieces of equipment hanging from the cartridge belts around our waists made the free-for-all down the aisle a tight squeeze. We stashed our packs in the overhead racks and laid our rifles on the floor at our feet. With window blinds closed for security at night, many laid their heads on their arms to sleep while others played cards on the table tops. The train carried us to the Southern Railway docks at Southampy * ton. From there wemarched a short distance to a vast spread of corrugated metal sheds near the pier and (in a practice that must surely have begun in the seventeenth century) stacked our rifles in pyramids, muzzles up and butts down, something I hadn't seen since basic training . Using our sixty-pound packs as backrests on the deck of the pier, most of us sacked out while waiting to board the ship. But unexplained delays kept us lying under the sheds—snoozing, smoking, talking, and cutting up—much longer than expected. We were observing the Army convention of "hurry up and wait/' In the late afternoon of September 5,units of the 3oist boarded two small English ships, the Crossbow and the Neutralia, to cross the Channel . The name of the latter ship, which Company B boarded, struck me as ironic, considering our destination was combat. The Alliesmay have been winning the ground war on the Continent, but that didn't mean that narrow body of water separating England from France was neutral. Looking at the water, I thought, German submarines could be lying in wait below the surface. The possibility of an enemy torpedo striking our ship reminded me how much closer we were getting to the Germans. While the ship slowly sailed out of the harbor, I stood on deck until ordered to go below, surveying the dark, moonlit waters, even though I knew subs would be out of sight underneath. Later, down in the ship's hold, the routine of eating, talking, and napping blotted out the dangerous possibilities as we crossed without incident. Nerves made it hard to wait for the smoking lamp to be lit to satisfy mynew "nie fits." At noon the next day, after a restless night below, we shouldered our packs and struggled up the dark passageways to cross out into blinding light and fresh winds on the deck. After all the overcast,rainy days in Wiltshire, we dropped anchor in brilliant sunshine off Utah Beach. Surveying the bloody battlefield of D-Day, we were overcome by a kind of electric silence . . . seeing in every direction refuse from that fateful landing. Thrusting out of the water at bizarre angleswere portions of ships' bows, funnels, and masts, and sterns of destroyed Lorient, Prance /jj landing craft. Farther out to sea behind our ship smaller boats were plying among the landing crafts, freighters, and tankers that were waiting to move closer to the shore to unload. After crossing the deck to the rail, I looked down at the tiny LC/ VP (landing craft, vehicle-personnel) lying alongside. Palma called it a "Higgins boat" and said it would take us ashore. The ship was rolling gently as I hoisted myself over the rail to climb down the cargo net suspended over its side. Because we...