The Flight to London

We were scheduled to fly at around 6:30 pm on August 25, 1994 from Dulles International to London Heathrow. We met at “Edward Ave” for goodbyes with Mom and others.

My wife and Ann Marie, our oldest sister, accompanied us to the airport and they went to the gate with us since this was all prior to 9/11.

We met and checked in at the counter and it seemed that our coach seats would not be together. Great! We are taking my Dad back to Europe for the 50th Anniversary of D-Day and they have changed our seats so that we do not even sit together. After some initial mild complaining, we sort of resigned ourselves to accept it.

My wife’s father worked for Pan Am for many years and she was not taking it sitting down and kept telling the clerk about the WWII vet being taken back for a reunion by his family and you are going to separate them. Well because of Sandy and my Dad’s situation we ended up with Business class seat upgrades. Nice!

This was a great turn of events we had drinks, good food, we had room to spread the maps and go over some of our itinerary plans since we had very little time to talk about it earlier. The early itinerary plan went roughly went like this.

Notice there were significant holes in our plan for the second week! There was no Travelocity for us in those days and were sort of traveling with the notion that we would “wing it” for a good part of the trip.

Aug 25:

        Arrive London: hotel (reserved)

                - Rent car

                - Rest for few hours and then sightsee. Have dinner at a pub.

Aug 26:

        Drive and arrive in Portsmouth late afternoon: Queens hotel (reserved)

Aug 27:

        Tour D-Day musuem, head to Warwick and Project Overlord headquarters at Southwick house. Check on ferry tickets.

Aug 28:

        Visit Portland and Exmouth if time allows (we did not about the Tank Museum yet)

        Get to a church mass in Portsmouth.

Aug 29:

        Take ferry to Cherbourg, France (no tickets yet)

        But times are 8 am for about 4-5 hour trip arriving at 1:45 pm.

Aug 29:

        Arrive Normandy:

        Rent Car for 7 days for return in Paris

        Get to Hotel de la Marine in Port en Bessin (booked)

Aug 31:

        Drive to Caen/Amiens area

        Stay somewhere on the road. No reservations!

Sep 1: Drive to Belgium/Luxembourg area.

        Stay somewhere around Bastogne. No reservations!

Sep 2: Visit Aachen area

        Stay somewhere on the road. No reservations.

Sep 3: Drive along Rhine/Mosel?

        Overnight in Luxembourg possibly. No reservations!

Sep 4: Early start Drive to Paris

        Return Car and hotel for 3 nights

        Hotel Modern St Germain

Sep 5:

        Tour Paris by Metro . No plans!

Sep 6:

        Some other Paris stuff. No Plans!

Sep 7:

        Get to DeGaulle by 10 for 11:45 departure.

 

 

Next: London

Records and Planning it Out

Here are few memories and thanks to people that helped me prep and improve our trip planning/experience to England and Normandy areas.

I was lucky in my early engineering career to visit Europe many times on business so I had been to places like London several times, Portsmouth, and Paris prior to this trip and was partially prepared for some of the travel issues and potential hotels, sites to visit because of that.

A British engineering colleague, Andrew, helped me learn more about the surrounding WWII sites and museums near Portsmouth during a work trip. Thanks to Andrew since John, Dad, and I followed our previous footsteps to the Southwick House and adjoining town pubs where Eisenhower drank beer and Montgomery stuck to grapefruit juice.

I also took a 1990 vacation trip with my wife for 2 weeks where we visited Paris and Angers and took a side car trip to Normandy and stayed an evening in Port-en-Bessin to quickly view the D-Day landings area. This preparation was made possible by Aunt Clara and her French husband Jean for their kind hospitality in taking me on that long side trip from Angers to Mt. St. Michel and then to Port-en-Bessin and the surrounding Normandy beaches. When Jean found out my Dad had landed in Normandy his heart opened up and so did mine as I am forever in his debt for showing such great hospitality and interest. I also want to thank Jean/Clara for the fine “local” aged hand blown Calvados bottle that I shared with my Father for many years when June 6 came around. That experience was priceless. Jean I will never forget your stories of the French Resistance, your paratrooper knife collection, your Renoir type skills at oil painting, your stories of having to hide in a local farmers wine cellar to avoid the Germans, and your later training as a paratrooper during the Allied plans to invade Japan near the end of WWII (Operation Downfall). Jean you were a charming Frenchman of many talents not the least of which was your hospitality and your lust for life may you rest in eternal peace. I toast your spirit whenever I drink a fine Calvados, taste a fine cheese, or have a large pile of fabulous seafood which isn’t frequently enough at this point. Clara god bless you as well for all your support, kind spirit, and thoughts over the years.

Last but not least thanks to Sandy, my wife, for here constant support and help during the planning of this trip.

OK, on to the trip.

 

 

Next: The Flight to London

467th AAA Battery A on Omaha

Dad was in Battery A Platoon 1, Unit #4 of the 467th AAA Battalion.

The following is probably the most detailed verbal history about the 467th AAA Battery A Beach Landing from Sgt. Hyman Haas also in the Battery A and Hyman was in charge of his own Section including 1 M16 and 1 M15 halftrack. Dad was in M16 halftrack that arrived in the same LCT as Sgt Haas. Upon email correspondence Sgt. Hyman remembers Dad’s Sergeant lined up behind his group on the same LCT. This would also place them in the same platoon which is Platoon 1. The Platoons were in different LCTs and were often stationed at slightly different locations later in the periods of deployment and attached assignments so this is important information to get correct. Below is the diary excerpt from Hyman Haas but I have also compiled my own research on LCTs from Navy after action reports that carried the 467th AAA units in and almost certainly Haas and my father arrived on LCT 244 since they arrived in Easy Green/Easy Red Area relatively early in the second wave around 0830-0900. It is easy to eliminate a lot of the LCTs carrying 467th AAA units abecause of either damage or delays in landings due to beach congestion. Most LCTs had drifted East in this area which would put them in around the West end of Easy Red near E-1 which is where the WC64 gun emplacement was located that they helped neutralize. As mentioned, many LCTs in this wave did not make it initially to the beach on schedule due to congestion or damage and were sometimes delayed for several hours.

--Hyman Haas Bio excerpt

“I can't recall the hour when we were told that the invasion was on again. That evening we repeated the departure scene over again. The same activities and spectacle. This time I didn't go to sleep. Again I couldn't tell the time when we heard the motors of hundreds of Planes. We couldn't see then as it was pitch black, we couldn't see our hand in front of our eyes. We kept on sailing our excitement rising. Whatever spectacle we had witnessed before would soon be replaced with another kind. In those latitudes there was only about 4 hours of dark at night. We first saw the first glimmers of light very early that morning and as it got lighter ships of all kinds became visible. Destroyers, Cruisers and Big Battleships. There were Ocean liners and men were climbing over the sides on nets and into small Higgins boats and then they started circling. We had stopped near a big Battle ship. At about 05:30, or so I think, it could have been earlier. The Battle Ship let go a salvo with all its big 15 inch guns. I had always wanted to hear what one of those salvos sounded like. The sound wasn't like the distant thunder I had imagined. It was like a very loud rifle shot with plenty of concussion. A sharp crack. Then the shell could be seen as all the shots were tracer. We then heard the Bombers overhead. They were to bomb the beaches. There seemed to be no end to them and all the cannonading from all the naval vessels acting as field artillery. To our right about a half mile away a LCT with rockets let go with all they had. Between the Battleship and the Rocket LCT we were witness to some terrific Bombardment. We were told that the battleship was actually firing in support of the Utah Beach landings. We never found out the name of the battle ship, perhaps she was the Texas.

     At 6:30 the bombardment stopped, with the Airforce and the off shore bombardment so terrific we couldn't see how anything could be left alive on the beach. We also knew the engineers had landed so they could blow up any beach obstacles. The morning though overcast was showing lots of light, we couldn't see the shore as there was much fog and smoke. All we knew was the first men were ashore. We couldn't estimate how far from shore we were, but at 07:00 AM a boat pulled near and again a man with a megaphone yelled at us;"Go On In, GOOD LUCK. Well that started us off. We began our run onto Omaha Beach.

     The run in took at least a half hour and probably more. We had no idea of what was happening on the beach, except as I looked over the side I saw the body of a GI floating by. A short while later a shell exploded about 20 feet away on my side. Somebody had targeted us. There were one or two more shots and Captain Napier yelled that everyone should keep our heads down during the run. We were near the beach I still couldn't see what was ahead, except that the smell of smoke was heavy. We could clearly hear the distinctive sound of German Machine guns. They had such a high rate of fire they sounded like a burp and that's how they got the name burp guns. We had long ago been told that and now we were hearing the sound again. We had found a clear spot through the obstacles and made for shore and soon the ramp was down and we started our motors. Every motor started and soon we were ready to land. Someone gave out with a Rebel Yell and our 1st Sergeant who had been looking out in the front of the LCT shouted back;"Shut up you shmuck! In a minute you may be dead!" The Captain's command Halftrack was off first and as he got on to the beach he turned right (West). We all followed suit. I found we weren't exactly on shore as when we went in I was sitting in the cab of the Half track with the driver and the water went up to my chin, I grabbed my rifle and the driver's Thompson machine gun and held them over my head. I thought the driver would be completely under water. But he wasn't and we were soon ashore and we turned right and made for our place 30 feet from the vehicle ahead of me. My M16 was soon 30 feet behind me. In minutes the entire platoon was ashore. The noises of mortars and German Machine guns were louder and as I looked ahead the shore was littered with landing ships and craft. All aflame. I didn't know where to look first when I looked up on the Bluffs ahead and spotted a bunker that looked to me to be built into the hills. At the same time I also spotted an American officer with a full handle bar mustache and wearing shiny cavalry boots running towards me pointing at that German Bunker. Captain Napier was standing near me and he said "Go Get it.. I immediately saw we couldn't fire ahead because of our barracks bags being piled up in front so I ran into the surf and signalled my two Half tracks to follow me into the surf. They caught on immediately and turned right and drove into the surf deep enough to cover our tracks and wheels. I took up a position behind the rangefinder and in an instant we opened fire. We missed our first three shots as a shell went past us. I made an adjustment on the rangefinder and the next 15 shots went right into the gun port of the bunker. All the time my M16 were firing their 4 50 caliber machine guns at the bunker. No doubt the Bunker was dead.

     Breathing heavily with excitement I recalled the Halftracks out of the surf and now we were standing by and we could see the results of the German machine gun, mortar and artillery fire. There was complete Chaos on the beach in front of us. On our right all Giant LSTs, LCTs, LCIs were afire and exploding ammunition. It was difficult to see if any one was alive in, or on the ships and craft. To our left on the shore were tremendous amount of dead and wounded soldiers lying about in all positions, as we looked further we could see parts of bodies, arms legs, heads. We made our way through this Valley of death taking machine gun and mortar hits and adding to the casualties. We went through a blown hole in a wall, many of our GIs had taken cover by this wall and they died in groups or just been blown apart. We made our way through the opening of the wall and found ourselves on soft beach sand. and then the mortaring began . The sound of their coming sounding like the fluttering of a small birds wings I noticed an infantryman jump into a fox hole and a mortar shell went in with him.We were out of our Halftracks and under them for cover, some of the mortars flew right into three of our tracks. Suddenly the mortaring stopped and then a large LST blew up and sent a large amount of burning oil over our heads putting the bluffs ahead of us on fire. It seemed to me that every thing was on fire and that it wouldn't be long before we would all be dead. Panic wasn't far away. Somehow we kept together and soon we got the order to proceed ahead to the Beach exit and ride to the top of the bluffs. The Beach exit was called Exit E 1 and it led to the town of St. Laurent. On the way up the road we paused in front of the bunker we had knocked out and there were two wounded German soldiers lying on the parapet of the bunker: one of them was vomiting blood. As we waited to go on MacNeil the Chief of section 2 ran over to me and shouted "Hey that's your bunker." For a while I thought he was accusing me of killing the Germans. Of course he wasn't. Everyone was in a keen sense of excitement. We all were gasping for breath even though we weren't moving. We moved on away from the unsettling scene of the dying German soldiers. We made our way to the top of the bluffs and soon the sounds of battle began to recede from our area and we began to breath a little freer. But not for long. We had dug foxholes and, from force of habit in training, a latrine. It was that latrine that a sniper took aim at. He wasn't a good shot as he missed whomever he aimed at, but whoever used that latrine had a shot aimed at him. We Knew about the sniper and we couldn't locate him. Still whoever came to us and asked where our latrine was we pointed at it and sent the guy to it. A shot was followed by near hysterical laughter as the latrine user began to scatter away. None of us could explain why it was that we never warned any one away. We actually were looking for the sniper to show himself and he did to one of our men in another section who aimed his 4 .50 caliber machine guns at him and stopped the comedy. We were off the beach and the sun came out and warmed us. We were soaking wet most of the day and now we began to dry. The most depressing thought we had was that what we had endured even though it seemed we had won a toehold on the beach and that this day was only the beginning. We had no sense of victory, only dread. We had seen war up front there was nothing ahead but more of the same.. We weren't wrong.

     We stayed on the top of the bluff, a sort of plateau where eventually an airfield was built, three, or four days without any incident aside from the spectacular displays of AA fire coming from the ships anchored off the beach. Some, not many, German bombers came in after dark and dropped bombs, or tried to bomb the ships. I watched the display as we were told not to fire at night from our position. I recall the one time a lone german plane scored a hit. The ship blew up with a terrific explosion that turned the area blood red. The strange thing was that all the ships were firing and did so every time a german plane come buzzing over the ships. The sky was literally filled with tracers and explosions and not once did they bring a german plane down. At that position we sort of recuperated from the trauma of the landings. I recall the first food we ate was over 36 hours since our last meal. As armored and mobile troops we carried plenty of food and the utensils to cook though at that time we had the 10 and 1 rations which weren't bad. In addition we were issued, before we left the marshaling area, some sort of concentrated Chicken Soup which came in a self heating container. To heat the soup we pulled a string, or something and the soup heated. We each were issued 4 cans. and that was the first food we ate when we finally simmered down. The soup was delicious and we wolfed down three each before we decided to stop. After that we sort of normalized we took the waterproofing off our Half Tracks and made coffee. We had lots of ground coffee and we kept a pot on our stove. We also were issued a small two burner gasoline stove that you had to pump up before you lit it. We even gave passing Generals coffee.

       We would have been satisfied to stay in that spot for the duration but we got our march order after three, or four days. Our position atop the bluff felt like home, we never went far from it, not even to go back and look the landing beaches over. We'd seen enough of the landing Beach.”

 

 

Next: Records and Planning it Out

 

 

467th AAA LCT Landing Reference

Below as reference I have provided my research of LCT landings to pinpoint which LCTs made it to the beach at which times and where based upon after action reports. Some after action reports are missing for LCTs carrying 467th units.

index n° serial (Army) serial (Navy)    Unit    Personnel Vehicle

[xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

1189  LCT(5) 33  LCT(5) 27       

467th AAAw Bn. "Ø"      58     2         1/4T Jeep

467th AAAw Bn. "Ø"              1         Half Trk

467th AAAw Bn. "Ø"              4         Half Trk

467th AAAw Bn. "Ø"              4         Half Trk

H&S, 149th Eng. Cbt. Bn.    2        1         2-1/2T Dump

"she capsized losing all vehicles on board during landings"

[xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

214 Scheduled for Dog Green at H+120

Initially given orders not to attempt landings. offered assistance to LCT 332 which had hit a mine and was sinking. Assistance refused. Ordered back to beach at 1657 approached starboard of gutted LCI 91 but ordered out. Beached Dog Red at 1730 discharged all vehicles.

1190         LCT(5) 38         LCT(5) 214         

467th AAAw Bn. "Ø"    62                  1         1/4T Jeep

467th AAAw Bn. "Ø"                          2         Half Trk

467th AAAw Bn. "Ø"                 4         Half Trk

467th AAAw Bn. "Ø"                           4         Half Trk

[xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

147 Scheduled for Dog White could not find opening and driven off by enemy fire

Beached a gain at 1615 first vehicle staple din water. beached again Later lost.

1191   LCT(5) 35    LCT(5) 147    Hq. Co., 116th Inf. "Ø"   1   1         1/4T Jeep

467th AAAw Bn                  58                  1         1/4T Trlr

467th AAAw Bn                                    4         Half Trk

467th AAAw Bn                                    4         Half Trk

467th AAAw Bn                                    2         1/4T Jeep

467th AAAw Bn                                    1         Half Trk

[$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$]

153 scheduled for Dog White at H+120 G.L. Keleher and John P. Watson.

No report filed did it make it?

1192         LCT(5) 39         LCT(5) 153         

467th AAAw Bn. "Ø"                  61             2         Half Trk

467th AAAw Bn. "Ø"                                    4         Half Trk

467th AAAw Bn. "Ø"                                    4         Half Trk

467th AAAw Bn. "Ø"                                    1         1/4T Jeep

[xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

149 scheduled for Dog Red at H+120. Wave leader asked for delay as there was no room on beach. attempted to beach at 0900 discharged one halftrack that drowned in too depp wear.Tried again at 1100, but water still too deep. Beach again at 1900 unloaded vehicles still under fire.

1194         LCT(5) 36         LCT(5) 149         

467th AA AW Bn. "Ø"                  58              2         1/4T Jeep

467th AA AW Bn. "Ø"                                    1         Half Trk

467th AA AW Bn. "Ø"                                    4         Half Trk

467th AA AW Bn. "Ø"                                    4         Half Trk

Co. A, 149th Eng. Cbt. Bn.       2                  1         2-1/2T Dump

[$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$]

LCT 616 scheduled to unload at Dog Red at H+120. No report filed.

Evans and Giaimo-

1195         LCT(6) 88         LCT(6) 616         

2nd Ranger Bn.                  12                  2         Half Trk

Hq. Co., 116th Inf.                 2                  2         1/4T Jeep

467th AA AW Bn. "Ø"            2                  1         1/4T Jeep

467th AA AW Bn. "Ø"            8                  2         Half Trk

Hq. Co., 116th Inf.                 2                  1         Half Trk

467th AA AW Bn.                  2                  1         1/4T Jeep

467th AA AW Bn.                  8                  2         Half Trk

467th AA AW Bn.          12                                    

[xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

LCT-80 "scheduled for dog red H+120 before beaching picked up infantry that were blocked. Unloaded infantry at 1130. Later unloaded vehicles"

1196         LCT(5) 40         LCT(5) 80         467th AA AW Bn. "Ø"                  61                  2         Half Trk

467th AA AW Bn. "Ø"                                    4         Half Trk

467th AA AW Bn. "Ø"                                    4         Half Trk

467th AA AW Bn. "Ø"                                    1         1/4T Jeep

[$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$]

This is platoon 2's LCT from Hyman Haas's account.

Lt Sidney Brinker and John Green running LCT.

Scheduled for Easy Green at H+120, rammed through obstacles and placed its load on Easy Red. While retracting it was hit amidship by a shell and exploded.

1198         LCT(5) 37         LCT(5) 30         

H&S Co., 149th Eng. Cbt. Bn.     2                  1         2-1/2T Cargo

467th AA AW Bn. "Ø"                  58                  4         Half Trk

467th AA AW Bn. "Ø"                                     4         Half Trk

467th AA AW Bn. "Ø"                                     2         1/4T Jeep

467th AA AW Bn. "Ø"                                     1         Half Trk

[$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$]

LCT 244 - Goodrich and Quiner

Scheduled for for Easy Green at H+120. Landed and discharged all by 0855. tried to tow LCT 294 sinking at stern transferred crew to rescue tug. Took second load from LST 375 and unloaded at 1415.

This is likely 467th AAA Platoon 1, Battery A’s LCT since most others didn't make it or were on farther away beach runs and the LCT 30 that made it a little later was identified as Platoon 2 by Hyman Haas of Platoon 1. He discusses how it fired it onboard guns as it approached. The LCT 30 run is pretty famous but they went into a more difficult area later in the morning east of E-1. Somehow Platoon 1 got the luckier LCT run and also Capt Napier moved them around,etc because most other groups got stuck due to congestion or were damaged in some way coming in. They like landed a bit east of their stated intention here as Easy Green which was to the westward part of Easy Red. That was fairly normal for many that day to eastward of the intended target.

1200         LCT(5) 41         LCT(5) 244         

467th AA AW Bn. "Ø"                  61             2         Half Trk

467th AA AW Bn. "Ø"                                    4         Half Trk

467th AA AW Bn. "Ø"                                    4         Half Trk

467th AA AW Bn. "Ø"                                    1         1/4T Jeep

[xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

LCT 2297 scheduled for H+180

Badly damaged in storm returned to Portsmouth for repairs.

1204         LCT(5) 47         LCT(5) 2297         

Ranger Air Support                4                  2         1/4T Jeep

Ranger Air Support                                    2         1/4T Trlr

Ranger Air Support                                    1         Half Trk

Ranger Air Support                                    1         1T Trlr

2nd Ranger Bn.                   4                  1         1-1/2T Trk

5th Ranger Bn.                   2                  1         2-1/2T Trk

467th AAAw Bn. "Ø"            24                  4         2-1/2T Cargo

467th AAAw Bn. "Ø"                                    4         1T Trlr

467th AAA Battery A Unit Pictures

 

I have this picture from Dad’s records and assume this is of Unit 4 Battery A since the lower left looks like Jack Foreman.

From Dad’s After Action Records Unit 4 of 467th AAA Battery A consisting of the following personnel:

1. Sgt. Robert Stratman
2. Cpl. Homer Brown
3. Cpl. Max Mays
4. Cpl. Tom Goolsby
5. Pfc. (TEC-5) Bill Macker
6. Pfc. (TEC-5) Jack Foreman
7. Robert Sumpton
8. Cpl. Russel Picu
9. Cpl. DeLoune
10. Cpl. Merl
11. Pfc. Stanley Slender
12. Pfc. Charles Hagen (a.k.a., the Barber)

This above picture is likely their M-15 halftrack. The M-15 teamed a 37mm cannon with two water-cooled .50 Cal machine guns. Ouch!

The above is a picture of Dad (Bill Macker) with Jack Foreman TEC-5.

Pretty sure the above is Max Mays who was deployed on the M16 halftrack writing a letter.

This is definitely Max Mays behind the M-16 quad .50 caliber guns.

The M-16 is the second halftrack in their unit.

Dad (Bill Macker) with chow somewhere along the Rhine River area protecting bridges.

You can see the M-15 dug-in with guns raised in the back to the left.

The boys in the snow somewhere (Dad is bottom middle).

Belgium, Luxembourg, Netherlands?

 

 

Next: 467th AAA on Omaha

 

Prelogue

Before we get started on the trip articles and more background.

This is copy of my Dad’s obituary that appeared in the Washington Post in 2010.

May 22 2010:

MACKER, William J.

WILLIAM J. MACKER (Age 85)

On Saturday, May 22, 2010, of Bethesda, MD. Beloved husband of Patricia F. Macker; father of Ann Marie Macker, John (Nancy) Macker, Margaret (Wayne) Jaquith, Mary Kay (Mark) Gillespie, Patricia (John) Winter, William Macker, Joseph (Sandra) Macker; brother of Evelyn Macker and the late Harold, Sarah, Katherine and Carrie. Also survived by 19 grandchildren, five great-grandchildren and many nieces and nephews. Bill was a WW II Veteran who landed on Omaha Beach the morning of June 6, 1944 (D-Day), served in 5 major campaigns, and received the Presidential Unit Citation. He worked for PEPCO, retiring after 39 years of service.

But this is how I like to remember him. Smiling and enjoying the small moments. He deserved those moments. God Bless you Dad.

 

 

Next: Unit Commendations for Battery A 467th AAA

Early Memories and Going Back as an Idea

First off, I would like say I have seven fantastic siblings and we all grew up in a moderately sized house in Bethesda, Maryland throughout a good portion of the 1950s-1970s. We had two loving parents who gave us a great start on life’s adventure. Our wacky suburban neighborhood is recalled by many who spent cherished childhood time there as “good old Edward Ave”. But those stories are for another time, we are here to talk about our Dad or “Pop-Pop” as he is known by his 19 grandchildren with lots of great grandchildren on the way at the time of this writing.

My personal interest in D-Day began at a young age as I often heard rumors and stories that Dad landed at some beach called “D-Day” when fighting in World War II. Yet these stories rarely came from Dad. He was proud of his service and loved to speak of his “brothers-in-arms” and the times they shared when the topic came up, but he rarely spoke of it focusing more on his family, his work, and his faith. This is a trait I appreciate and marvel at more as the years go by although I continue to yearn for more interesting stories about his time in Europe. He did little preaching but rather spoke through “action” on a daily basis. Never too busy to lend a hand, do a myriad of housechores (which he did almost religiously), or help someone in need even after a hard day’s work. Occasionally his war days would come out in small ways around the house. He used to “burn his toast” in the toaster on purpose and then scrape off the black carbon. When I asked him about this he would explain that in Europe they had a “gasoline” run camp stove and they would make their toast over the open flame and then scrape off the burn marks. He seemed to just like his toast that way even given more modern conveniences.

His smile was frequent and infectious at parties and as a child if that smile was ever erased something was wrong and you hoped you hadn’t caused it.

It is important to understand the deeper man a little bit before a story about one particular trip and one particular episode in his life. Rather than a “glory days” story I see these articles more as describing a very humble man who with many other recent high school graduates became involved in a series of extraordinary historical events that changed the world forever.

Again these articles are more about my experiences and knowledge about the events and if you were a young kid in the late 60s you couldn’t miss the constant barrage of WWII films on television. Classics like: “The Great Escape”, “The Guns of Navarone”, “The Dirty Dozen”, “Kelly’s Heroes” and even the TV series reruns of “Rat Patrol”, “Hogans Heroes”, and ”McHale’s Navy” were frequently shown. It was all good fun and soaking into our brains at the time. The nostalgic and adventurous Hollywood views of WWII were a strong influence and I was no exception to its infection often resorting to playing war games with friends in the nearby woods. Capture the flag type games with elm sticks where you would find yourself creeping quietly along the creek so you left no tracks for the enemy to follow as you escaped his prison camp. How fun it all seemed?

It wasn’t until my Dad invited me to go see the “Patton” movie in the 1970s at the Hoff Theatre at the University of Maryland that I really began to get a picture of what the European WWII conflict was like. A much more complex story for my father and for all involved. He kept saying things like “Yeah that’s what it was like for us”, “Nuts!”, “we were attached with the 3rd Army at Bastogne after Normandy”, “ we were at the Battle of the Bulge”, and “ the Bulge wasn’t too good for my brother Harold and his buddies in the infantry”. This was way different than what the movies could portray this was upfront and personal.

And then every once in awhile in years to follow the occasional “I’d like to go back to Europe someday to see things again but your mother wont get on a plane”. My mother did always say she wouldn’t get on a plane. The thought of getting on a boat to Europe was floated over the years but that never materialized perhaps for good reasons.

His D-Day landing itself was still a bigger mystery to me at this time but I was interested enough that I began reading stories about Normandy and over the years we had occasional opportunities to talk about other things that he could remember and his life in the AAA halftrack crew. I even took a side trip to Normandy while on vacation in Europe in 1990. My oldest brother John has a particular keen interest in war history and in the early 1990s we began slowly collecting as much as we could about Dad’s time in the service, his records, letters, unit commendations, including getting all his campaign medals and ribbons and my brother Bill made a nice shadow box for Dad that was presented to him by the family and all the siblings were there to enjoy it with him. I think this was a great experience to share with Dad as a family and the shadow box stands as a reminder to this day.

In the early 1990s, as the 50th Anniversary of D-Day was approaching there was brief discussions of maybe we could go back but plans seemed vague and distant.

How would this turn out? Keep reading the following articles if you’re interested.

 

 

Next: Prelogue

467th AAA Campaigns: the Long Road

I created the following google maps tour to follow some of the 467th AAA AW Bn Battery A first Platoon sites through their tour with notes on each location.

TBD

I have a more complete an accurate google tour of the deployment data week by week and published this recently on both the Google Earth history and military communities. If you search 467th AAA in Google Earth you should find it.

To summarize, the men of the 467th AAA Battalion participated in five major battle campaigns during their eleven months in combat. They saw action in nearly every major battle across northern Europe including the morning at Omaha Beach, the breakout at St. Lo, the Battle of the Bulge, and the crossing of the Rhine River around Remagen, Germany and later into western Czechoslovakia. They finished their tour in the Munich area acting military police near and after the war ended. The Battalion earned five Battle Streamers in total as follows.

Normandy

• The 467th AAA Battalion was awarded battle participation credit in the Normandy Campaign by letter, Headquarters, European Theater of Operations, United States Army, file AG 200.6 OpGA, subject, Battle Participation Awards - Normandy Campaign (No 1), dated 16 November 1944. General Orders No. 102, War Department, Washington 25, D.C., 9 November 1945.a. Combat Zone: European Theater of Operations, exclusive of the land areas of the United Kingdom and Iceland.b. Time Limitations: 6 June to 24 July 1944.

Northern France

• The 467th AAA Battalion was awarded battle participation credit in the Northern France Campaign by letter, Headquarters, European Theater of Operations, United States Army, file AG 200.6 OpGA, subject: Battle Participation Awards - Northern France Campaign (No 1), dated 1 December 1944, as amended, letter, Headquarters, European Theater of Operations, United States Army, file AG 200.6 OpGA, subject: Battle Participation Awards - Northern France Campaign (No 2), dated, 31 January 1945. General Orders No. 103, War Department, Washington 25, D.C., 13 November 1945.a. Combat Zone: European Theater of Operations, exclusive of the land areas of the United Kingdom and Iceland.b. Time Limitations: 25 July to 14 September 1944.

Rhineland

• The 467th AAA Battalion was awarded battle participation credit in the Germany Campaign by letter, Headquarters, European Theater of Operations, United States Army, file AG 200.6 OpGA, subject, Battle Participation Awards - Germany Campaign (No 2), dated 5 February 1945. General Orders No. 118, War Department, Washington, D.C., 12 December 1945.a. Combat Zone: Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, and France east of the line: Franco-Belgian frontier to 4 degrees east longitude, thence south along that meridian to 47 degrees north latitude, thence east along that parallel to 5 degrees east longitude, thence south along that meridian to the Mediterranean coast, except the area of the Ardennes-Alsace combat zone is excluded from 16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945.b. Time Limitations: 15 September 1944 to 21 March 1945.

Ardennes

• General Orders No. 114, War Department, Washington 25, D.C., 7 December 1945.a. Combat Zone: Euskirchen, Eupen (inclusive), Liege (exclusive), east bank of the Meuse River to its intersection with the Franco-Belgian border, thence south and east along this border to the western border of Luxembourg, thence to Metz (inclusive), east bank of the Moselle River to Epinal (inclusive), Strasbourg (inclusive).b. Time Limitations: 16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945.

Central Europe

• General Orders No. 116, War Department, Washington, D.C., 11 December 1945.a. Combat Zone: The areas occupied by troops assigned to the European Theater of Operations, east of a line 10 miles west of the Rhine River between Switzerland and the Waal River until 28 March 1945, and thereafter east of the east bank of the Rhine.b. Time Limitations: 22 March to 11 May 1945.

ASSAULT LANDING

• In accordance with the provisions of paragraph 5f, section 1, WD Circular 465, 1944, the 467th AAA Battalion was designated as having participated in the Normandy Beach amphibious assault landing. Time Limitation: 6-7 June 1944. General Orders No. 70, War Department, Washington, D.C., 20 August 1945.

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