United States Army
Co E, 319th Infantry, 80th battalion, Third Army
If my dad's in this picture, I don't recognize him. Perhaps he was taking this picture of his buddies. His chest was completely enclosed in a cast and his hair grew threw it.
Each soldier had his own nurse Now the South Campus of.
Ruth Crowley, my dad's nurse. the University of Memphis
My dad talked very little about the war. He said he was stationed with Scottish soldiers who did not like being called English.
From a web site on the 80th Battalion:
The 80th Division set sail aboard the SS Queen Mary on July 4, 1944, landing a few days later on July 7 at Greenock, Firth of Clyde, Scotland. The arrival of the 80th Division in England brought the European Theater of Operations total of U.S. Divisions to 22: 14 infantry, 6 armored, and 2 airborne. By the end of the campaign, there would be a total of ?? Divisions in Europe.
The Division proceeded south to Northwich, England via trains for additional training. Training included learning how to waterproof equipment for the upcoming channel crossing. The Division crossed the English Channel in LSTs and Liberty Ships landing in Normandy on Utah Beach shortly after noon on August 2, 1944, D-Day + 57 and assembled near St. Jores, France. A few days later on August 8, 1944, the 80th was initiated into battle when it took over the LeMans bridgehead in the XX Corps area.
My dad only talked about the war, when the movie Patton came out. He chuckled at Patton's audacity. He refused all promotions as he didn't want to be responsible for others. He did not want to know the replacements, they didn't last. My mother used to laugh and laugh at what my dad had learned. He was a farm boy but most of his outfit were big city boys who gambled, drank, smoke, whored. They trusted my dad to be the banker. They also trusted him to be the point man as they fought in small villages and on farms. My dad never got lost.
A few side notes:
his brother Neil was drafted by the Dutch Army but they let him enlist in the US Army instead. So he tried. The US Army had better training and weapons and weren't the front lines, yet.. He was 4-F.
his brother George was in the quartermaster corps and only drove a truck. Of course it was a gasoline truck and he had to re-fill Patton's tanks on the front lines in North Africa.
his brother-in-law George Freeman had been in the Army Air Corps. He was the radioman/navigator in a two-seater plane that bombed Japan.
his brother-in-law Ed Venzke was in the Army Air Corps too. He flew over the Hump and dropped supplies to the ground troops in Burma, Austrialians, I think.
From article Downtown
From Heading History and the City of GrandRapids
From web site: MyCityofGrandRapids.info