by David Thibodeau
There is a little streak of Beetle Bailey in every normal enlisted soldier. The total regimentation of military life inspires some whimsical backlash. I spent February through April 1944, in a "tent city" in Barry, a Bristol Channel port in Wales. Nearly everybody in the camp was a buck private, with no hope of promotion. All of us were Field artillery Cannoneers, more accurately, Gun Crewmen Light Artillery, with an MOS (Military Occupational Specialty) of 844, and all of us were combat casualty replacements for whatever unit needed us after the Normandy landing and the hard fighting to follow.
Discipline got lax, and the few officers in charge showed no concern. They would put on a road march of 10 miles or so every day down one of those little English roads. All the way to the turnaround point, guys would jump into the bushes to hide, so when the Lieutenant reached the turnaround, he would have only 15 or 20 men with him. Then on the way back to camp, the malingerers would jump out of the bushes and rejoin the column, which grew to 200 or so by the time we turned into the gate, singing bawdy patriotic songs like, "Roll Me Over in the Clover."
Sometimes we would just hang out in our tent, and if the jut-jawed old First Sergeant was spotted coming down the company street, we would duck through the Maps and hide behind the tent, until he was gone.
One night German planes came over on their way to bomb Bristol. The anti-aircraft shells made a tremendous booming up in the night sky. The sounds of those German aircraft engines overhead filled us with wonderment at the nature of the enemy we would soon face. There were enemy guys up there, not far away, sitting in little bucket seats!
We learned next day that it was Army Territorial Service (ATS) women "manning" those guns firing at the German airplanes.
About May 1, they broke up the tent city in Barry, and I and some others went by train to another camp at Braunton, a windswept place on the south shore of Bristol Channel. The men there were a mixture of Infantry Riflemen, Combat Engineers and Field Artillery Cannoneers. We were all combat replacements for the 4th Infantry Division, which was to land on Utah Beach in Normandy June 6, and would soon need us, especially the Riflemen, as Infantry fighting is a meat grinder.
Discipline tightened up at Braunton. We had to furl our six man tents after breakfast, so there was no place to hide any more. We did road marches, fired 50 cal. machine guns, qualified again with our rifles, and even shot bazookas. The Lieutenant who taught a class in mines and booby traps was himself killed by a German "bouncing Betty" booby trap later on. The bouncing Betty shot a grenade about head high, and there was no time to duck.
German S-Mine aka Bouncing Betty
We returned from a road march on June 6 about 11:30 AM, and a Lieutenant announced the landings in Normandy were on. The 4th and 1st Infantry Divisions and the 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions were the only American units in the first landings.
In two days we were on a train headed for the Channel Port of Weymouth, where we boarded an LST (Landing Ship Tank). Loaded with packs and duffel bags, we found places to settle down as the ship pulled out into the English Channel. We were headed for the big adventure.
With the Germans still a couple of hundred miles into Russia and months of hard fighting remaining in Italy, along with the campaigns ahead in France and Germany, there was plenty of war left.
