Locked & Loaded Magazine Special Edition Issue: 2487th Quartermaster Truck Company (Aviation)

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& Kaitlyn Ramey, Editors-In-Chief

STANG MAGAZINE PRESENTS

THIS IS THE STORY OF AN UNKNOWN HERO. THIS IS THE STORY OF MY GRANDFATHER WHO WAS JUST ONE OF THOUSANDS OF BRAVE MEN JUST LIKE HIM.

PREFACE

My grandfather was the greatest man I have ever known. He was also the greatest loss I have ever had to endure. He passed away from leukemia when I was eleven and the hole in my heart has never healed. Even now, thirty one years later, I cherish every single memory I have of him. His name was Paul Joseph Guiton.

Growing up in the rolling green hills of what the locals know as Irish Hill in Northeast Pennsylvania, my family comes from a long line of Irish kin who immigrated here from Ireland. My grandfather was the patriarch of my direct Guiton family, with him being just one brother of many other Guiton siblings

and their respective Guiton families. As you can imagine growing up on Irish Hill and in a traditional Irish family, each Guiton family had many children, grandchildren, and now great grandchildren. Where I come from, it was difficult to keep names straight and it could get very confusing at times. When in doubt, all you had to say was you are a Guiton and that was all that was needed. We were all family one way or another.

When I was young, my grandfather would always have me sit with him and watch black and white World War II documentaries. He would always emphasize to me how important they were and the history involved. As I got older, he would tell me bits and pieces why he made me sit and watch those

documentaries, but he never dove into the details. He would mention once in a while that he was in the Army and he drove truck. He told me that he was in Europe during the war and that was about the extent of it. I would see some items from his military locker from time to time like his uniform and some old black and white photos while in Europe. It wasn’t until a few months ago when I started to research his true history in the military did it all make sense and come to light. As a matter of fact, the more I dug into his history, the more I found. The more I found, the more I was amazed by the details. It was like following a rabbit down the rabbit hole. The deeper I went, the more his story took twists and turns. The more it twisted and turned, the more I got lost in one of the biggest and best history lessons of my life.

You see in the end, I found out that my grandfather was a bonafide war hero. In every sense of the word, he was a man that did more in his lifetime than most of us could do in multiple lifetimes. I am so very happy and thankful for those memories that I have of watching those black and white World War II documentaries with him. I am also so very happy and thankful for my grandfather always reminding me to pay attention because one day I would understand the importance. Well that day is today and this is his story. This is the story of an unknown hero. This is the story of my grandfather who was just one of thousands of brave men just like him. All of them are unknown heroes. His story should be told and so should theirs.

THE UNIFORM

CHAPTER 1

THE RESEARCH BEHIND EACH PATCH AND PIECE OF MY GRANDFATHER’S UNIFORM WAS LITERALLY THE START OF A NEW HISTORY LESSON FOR ME.

So where do I even start? Let’s start somewhere safe, way before we even get close to the rabbit hole. A few months ago my friends and I were setting up a trip to the Battleship New Jersey for our annual car show. This year, we wanted to dress up in World War II era uniforms and attire. That is what actually got me thinking about my grandfather’s history in the Army. I wanted to replicate his uniform. As I thought more and more about it, I decided why not do some investigative work and find out about his service.

At first, I just started with random information trying to figure out the basics of my grandfather’s military service. I had my mom send me pictures of everything she had in storage and anything she could find from his military locker. She sent me pictures of my grandfather’s military uniform, letters that were sent to my grandmother while they were dating during the war, and photos that my grandmother kept in her scrap book. With the pictures of his military uniform, I was able to start to research the history behind each patch, each ribbon, and each piece of regalia. With the letters and pictures from the

scrap book I was able to at least get a general timeframe of events and locations.

The research behind each patch and piece of my grandfather’s uniform was literally the start of a new

history lesson for me. Within only an hour, I was already getting this feeling that once I start, there was no turning back. Right away I noticed patches for both the “Mighty 8th” and the 9th Army Air Force, a diamond shaped patch over the right breast pocket with a golden eagle with a circle around it, and four gold bars on the bottom of the left sleeve. I also noticed a gold wreath patch and various ribbons. The research on the patches and ribbons alone made my head spin with excitement to learn what they actually meant.

For example, my grandfather having both the “Mighty 8th” and the 9th Army Air Force patches meant that he was a part of both. Before the Air Force split and became a separate entity, the Army was known as the United States Army Air Force (USAAF). With these patches, he must have been involved in the European campaign, really did spend time in Europe like he said, and who knows, maybe he was at the infamous Normandy invasion that we always watched movies about. Later on, my research found that my grandfather was under the “Mighty 8th” USAAF while in England and once he left

England, he became a part of the 9th under the Air Force. Thanks to my grandmother’s letters, I found out he was a part of a detachment unit called Detachment A of the 2487th Quartermaster Truck Company (Aviation).

Moving on to the golden eagle with a circle around it, my research shows that this patch is known as the “Ruptured Duck” and was only issued to those who were honorably discharged. Meaning my grandfather completed his time in the military and fulfilled his obligations with honor. The four gold bars on the bottom left sleeve were very interesting to see. It turns out that they represent four six-month tours overseas. It looks like my grandfather spent at least two years in the European Campaign. Using letters and dates from my grandmother’s scrapbook helped to verify a lot of the data that I found later in my research.

Next up, the gold wreath. This thing looked official. Looks like the gold wreath was a Meritorious Unit Commendation Award and was awarded to units for exceptionally meritous conduct in performance of outstanding services for at least six continuous months during a period of military operations against an armed enemy on or after January 1, 1944. According to the research, although service in a combat zone is not required, the unit’s accomplishments must be directly related to the larger combat effort. The unit must display such outstanding devotion and superior performance

THE UNIFORM

of exceptionally difficult tasks as to set it apart from and above other units with similar missions. The degree of achievement required is the same as that which would warrant award of the Legion of Merit to an individual. Only in rare cases will a unit larger than a battalion qualify for this award. For services performed during World War II, this award was limited to service units and was restricted to services performed between January 1, 1944 and September 15, 1946. Members of units that received the Plaque were entitled to wear on their right sleeve a two inch square of olive drab cloth on which appeared a golden yellow laurel wreath, one and five-eighths inches in diameter. It looks like my grandfather was involved in a unit that received a seriously prestigious award for their services in combat.

With regard to the various colorful ribbons on his uniform, it looks like my grandfather earned the EuropeanAfrican-Middle Eastern Campaign Ribbon (with five stars above it) indicating that he served in five campaigns, the Army Good Conduct Medal (AGCM) given to enlisted Army personnel who carry out three consecutive years of honorable and faithful service, and a rainbow looking ribbon known as the World War II Victory Medal for obvious reasons.

The one item on his uniform that really puzzled me was a gold pin of propellers with wings on his collar. My research found that it had something to do with Air Command. And that my friends is where I started to see the opening of the rabbit hole! Air Command? What the heck did my grandfather have to do with Air Command when he told me he

just drove trucks during the war? The only information I had when I started was that he was in the Army, he drove trucks (Deuce and Half as they called them, a.k.a. “Jimmy”), and he was in Europe during World War II. I had no other information until now. Let’s just say I researched the hell out of the data I found regarding his uniform, the dates I compiled using both the data and my grandmother’s letters, and I started to note possible leads from small conversations that I had with my mom regarding what she remembered as a kid listening to my grandfather.

With the information that I was obtaining from the uniform, letters, and my grandmother’s scrapbook full of pictures, I was off to a pretty good start and I had no clue where this investigation was going to take me. Let’s just say I was not prepared at all for what I was going to find out next, let alone what I would find out as I was even writing about this research!

THE RABBIT HOLE

THE RABBIT HOLE

As noted earlier, my research found that my grandfather was under the “Mighty 8th” USAAF while in England and that he was a part of a detachment unit called Detachment A of the 2487th Quartermaster Truck Company (Aviation). Once he left England, he became a part of the 9th under the Air Force. Well, it goes a lot deeper than that! Once I found out the unit that my grandfather was under, all I did was what any curious individual with a computer would do. I entered the never ending abyss of Google. I typed in my grandfather’s unit name and BAM, my research

went sideways! I started finding random data, random photos, random comments, random everything. I couldn’t really pinpoint his exact unit of Detachment A because there was little to no data on that specific Detachment, but I did start to find a bunch of stuff related to the 2487th Quartermaster Truck Company (Aviation) in general. With cross referencing, this is what I found in a nutshell.

After leaving England, I believe that my grandfather was under the 9th Air Force Service Command,

TO FIND SOMEONE WHO COULD CONFIRM ALL OF MY RESEARCH AND HELP ME CONTINUE WITH MY GRANDFATHER’S STORY WAS A MIRACLE, A BLESSING, AND WHAT I WOULD SOON FIND OUT.... IT WAS FATE.

©

71st Fighter Wing, 366th Fighter Group, 366th HQ Squadron, Team B 26th Service Group, and ultimately Detachment A of the 2487th Quartermaster Truck Company (Aviation). Let’s just say units got moved around a lot back then, but he was mainly assigned to a Quartermaster service unit to provide fuel, supplies, and transportation to the famous division called the 67th Tactical Recon Group. The other half of his unit was designated to provide fuel, supplies, and transportation to the 366th Fighter Group. Both of which helped make the French coast safe for the Normandy invasion. As they moved further into Germany, they played a part in the Battle of the Bulge. I found out that the 67th Recon Group that my grandfather was designated to was the first to fly Spitfires and P-51 Mustangs with surveillance equipment in Europe! There was even a book written about his Recon Group that is super rare to find. It was called “Peck’s Bad Boys of the 67th Tactical Reconnaissance Group” written by Richard Applegate. I found only one printed copy left in existence and it goes for about $100. I did however find a digital version for Kindle and bought it immediately and reviewed it. It was a very interesting read and really highlighted the importance of the 67th Recon Group in paving the way for the Normandy invasion and beyond. It is a great read for history buffs who want to read about the evolution of WWII aircraft, especially the P-51 Mustang and our military utilizing surveillance equipment strapped to combat aircraft. I know right? How cool is that! Now if I could just actually find some dates, the exact path he traveled while in Europe, and hopefully stumble upon some

photos, maybe I could verify all of my research thus far and find out if he landed on the beaches in Normandy. I mean after all, that was one of my initial goals. I had to figure out why those documentaries were so important to him, especially the Normandy ones and landing on the beach.

thought, why not just search his unit name on Facebook. After all, sometimes I got lucky in the past in finding things on social media simply by searching the name. So, I hopped on Facebook and searched for “2487th Quartermaster Truck Company (Aviation)”. You would not believe what popped up! There was actually a picture of the Normandy invasion and one comment below it regarding my grandfather’s unit! The comment was made over seven years ago by a Mr. Larry Payne. The picture that he commented on is one that will blow your mind if you have never seen it before. Right there under this amazing Normandy invasion photo (which pictures a beach full of trucks staging for travel, ships all along the coast, and hundreds of balloons flying overhead) was a comment by Larry that read: “My dad was with the 2487th Quartermaster Truck Company Aviation. They serviced the 366th Fighter Group. When they landed at Omaha Beach, their trucks were loaded with mesh metal landing mats used to construct the first Allied airfield on the continent, Airfield A-1. The 366th was the first Air Corp Group to occupy the airfield. As far as

THE RABBIT HOLE

CHAPTER 2

logistics and what a lot of people don’t know and history doesn’t tell us, is that our guys were still running all the way back to the beaches in France for supplies even after they moved into Belgium. Dad’s unit was recognized for logging over a million miles on the European Continent between D-Day and the German surrender in May of 1945. Good to see these units getting some recognition!”

Mind my language, but holy shit!

Right then and there, I had instant confirmation, a new lead, and just found out my grandfather was a part of history and even made history!

To find someone who could confirm all of my research and help me continue with my grandfather’s story was a miracle, a blessing, and what I would soon find out... it was fate. In an instant, I took a chance and direct messaged Larry on Facebook. He responded not long after and that my friends is where Larry not only helped me to find the rabbit hole, but he helped me to go even deeper down the rabbit hole! It was time to find out what Larry knew and hold on for the ride.

LARRY

LARRY , S RESEARCH

LARRY , S RESEARCH CHAPTER 3

After that first Facebook message, Larry and I couldn’t stop talking to one another about the 2487th Quartermaster Truck Company (Aviation). He told me all about his father, Alton Dock Payne. He even showed me pictures of his medals and we compared them to my grandfather’s.

After weeks of constant communication, the information that Larry was providing to me was pretty unreal! Like I said earlier, once I started, I had a feeling I couldn’t stop and everything Larry was sharing with me just made me smile even more by the day. He was able to provide me with stories about his father, pictures handed down to him by his father, and notes from his own research that he conducted over the past twenty years.

Larry provided me with tons of pictures of his father’s assigned Platoon and what life was like while they were deployed in Europe. Larry even sent me information specific to my grandfather’s Platoon such as their individual station list and locations they were known to be at. According to Larry, after arriving in Europe,

my grandfather’s Platoon was stationed in Middle Wallop, Le Molay, Toussus Le Noble, Charleroi, Vogelsang, Limburg, and Eschwege. Whatever Larry had, he shared and it really started to get this investigation rolling. Even though most of what Larry had in his research was on the 1st Platoon, it was vital in helping me to solve a lot of mysteries and to pursue additional leads regarding my grandfather’s Platoon.

Larry confirmed a lot of my initial information and also gave me some ideas on how to continue to find more about my grandfather’s particular Detachment A, which seemed to be like trying to find a needle in the haystack. The key words here: “military records”. As luck would have it, I live within a few miles of the Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania who houses tons of online Army military records. With a small fee, I was able to find my grandfather’s Detachment A unit service records with dates, locations, and brief memos. Score! With those records, we started to validate and recreate a map of their adventures from start to finish, including my grandfather’s Detachment A. With those

LARRY WAS BECOMING THE KEYSTONE TO THIS WHOLE INVESTIGATION AND LITTLE DID I KNOW, HOW FATE HAD INTERVENED TO MAKE THAT HAPPEN.

records, we were able to confirm and validate both Larry’s research and my own up to this point. Even though the Carlisle records confirmed dates, locations, and basics, they were just that, very basic. But thanks to Larry and his research we could add to those basics with details. Not only did Larry have information about his father’s adventures in Europe, he had information about his adventures from the very start!

I found out from Larry that the 2487th was originally designated as the 820th Quartermaster Platoon assigned to Duncan Airfield in Texas in March of 1942. They were there until October 1942 when they were moved to Stinson Airfield, Texas. On January 13, 1943 while at Stinson, they were redesignated as the 2487th Quartermaster Platoon. On August 9, 1943 they were shipped to Camp Patrick Henry in Virginia and on September 5, 1943 they were loaded on the General John Pope and shipped to Greenock, Scotland.

They arrived in Scotland on September 13, 1943. They arrived as a 105 man Company in Membery and functioned as such for the first few months. There they were split and assigned to support different Air Groups. They were divided into two platoons with 1st platoon (Larry’s father’s platoon) assigned to support the 366th Fighter Group and 2nd Platoon (my grandfather’s platoon) assigned to support the 67th Reconnaissance Group. The commanding officer, Captain Colina, remained with 1st Platoon and 2nd Platoon was under the leadership of Lieutenant Harry Weiner and later Lieutenant Irwin Zussman. However both Platoons were still officially under the command of Captain Colina. They operated in close proximity of each other throughout the war. It is really confusing but my grandfather would have officially been in the 2487th QMTC (Quartermaster Truck Company), IX Army Air Corp, IX Air Service Command, 26th Air Service Group. So that explains my grandfather’s “propeller with wings” pin on his uniform!

Larry then filled in more gaps or made more depending how you look at it. He told me that after the break through at St. Lo (a small town in France that was one of the first to be liberated by the Allied forces right after the Normandy invasion), the two Platoons of the 2487th were never more than five miles from the front lines. They were actually driving all the way back to the Normandy beaches for their supplies until the German surrender in May of 1945. The amount of materials, bombs, ammunition, airplane parts, fuel, clothing, food supplies, and other items that were consumed by the 67th Recon Group and the 366th Fighter Group was massive. The 2487th Quartermaster

platoons were awarded the Meritorious Unit Citation for their relentless service. Larry was able to confirm my research on my grandfather’s awards and even provided copies of all the documentation straight from military records. The new information that was really puzzling me now was “never more than five miles from the front lines”. I thought my grandfather just drove truck during World War II. What do you mean he was always near the front lines? Now my head was really spinning. All I really wanted to know was about Normandy and now I am finding out that he was always near the front lines! But there is that particular elephant in the room. Larry, was my grandfather at Normandy? The answer could not come soon enough.

According to Larry’s dad, the 1st Platoon went ashore at Normandy at 3:00 a.m. on June 13th (D+7, a.k.a. seven days after the initial invasion day called “D-Day”) and they landed under fire at the beach because it was being strafed by German Migs. The 2nd Platoon (my grandfather’s) landed in early July about three weeks after the 1st Platoon. Booyah! There it is!

According to Larry’s dad, even though the Company was split, my grandfather’s Platoon did in fact arrive at Normandy and was a part of the invasion! With that news, a wave of emotions came over me and it all of a sudden made sense why my grandfather made me watch those documentaries and why he told me to pay attention. He was there! We were not watching a documentary, we were watching memories of his Company, of his fellow soldiers, of his friends, and of my grandfather! I was completely blown away at this point. Let me tell you.

LARRY , S RESEARCH CHAPTER 3

Larry was becoming the keystone to this whole investigation and little did I know, how fate had intervened to make that happen. I’m not talking about how I randomly found Larry, I’m talking about how Larry randomly started his own investigation 20 years ago. I will tell you that story later on. Fate also intervened in this investigation when Larry provided me with a photo that he had of his father’s Platoon with a list of names. I will also tell you that story soon. The twists and turns of this rabbit hole were only beginning!

THE BEGINNING

CHAPTER 4

So now that I was able to confirm that my grandfather was indeed at Normandy and I had some data to expand my search regarding his travels throughout Europe, let’s start at the very beginning. Let’s trace his steps from start to finish.

As noted earlier from Larry’s research, the 2487th was originally designated as the 820th Quartermaster Platoon assigned to Duncan Airfield In Texas in March of 1942. They were there until October 1942 when they

were moved to Stinson Airfield, Texas. On January 13, 1943 while at Stinson they were redesignated as the 2487th Quartermaster Platoon. August 9, 1943 they were shipped to Camp Patrick Henry Virginia and on September 5, 1943 loaded on the General John Pope and shipped to Greenock, Scotland.

According to the records that I acquired from Carlisle, Larry’s information was indeed correct. They were at Duncan Airfield in Texas, sent to Stinson Airfield in

I WAS COMPLETELY FLOORED TO FIND MY GRANDFATHER IN THE PICTURE STANDING IN THE FRONT OF THE LINE WITH HIS COMPANY WAITING TO BOARD HIS SHIP TO LEAVE FOR EUROPE!

Texas, sent to Camp Patrick Henry in Virginia and then shipped off to Europe. The timeline from the Carlisle records gives a general location list of each of the Platoons. Platoon 1 with Larry’s dad had arrival in England on September 13, 1943 and then traveling to France, Belgium, Holland, back to France, Holland, and then ending in Germany until the war was over. My grandfather’s Platoon 2 (Detachment A) was stationed in England, France, Belgium, and then Germany. That makes sense because my grandfather would always tell my mom that he was in France and Belgium mostly.

The records state that they arrived in England on September 13, 1943 aboard the “HR-489” per water transportation report dated September 22, 1943. I tried to find pictures of the “HR-489” but nothing came up. From my research, the ports that the military left out of the United States by the thousands were designated Ports of Embarkation. Not only did the military leave on military ships, but hundreds of civilian passenger ships and cargo ships were utilized in the transportation effort. Camp Patrick Henry in Virginia was near the third largest Port of

THE BEGINNING

CHAPTER 4

Embarkation and that port was called the Hampton Roads Port of Embarkation (HRPOE or HRPE). My guess is that the ship they left on was coded “HR-489”, meaning “Hampton Roads” ship 489 for secrecy and coded movement. Thanks to Larry’s information, it turns out that the ship “HR489” was actually the newly commissioned ship, the General John Pope. Even though Larry’s information stated that my grandfather’s and his father’s platoons arrived in Greenock, Scotland, the Carlisle records made no mention of their arrival location. Maybe another example of classified material. However, I was able to verify that the General John Pope did arrive in Greenock, Scotland, with soldiers from Hampton Roads, while researching the history of the ship which is noted later.

Some history on the Hampton Roads Port of Embarkation and Camp Patrick Henry should be noted

here. As mentioned, Hampton Roads was the third largest United States Army Transportation Corps Port of Embarkation in terms of passengers and second in terms of cargo tonnage on the East Coast of the United States during World War II. Until June of 1942, Hampton Roads was a sub-port of the New York Port of Embarkation.

Hampton Roads Port of Embarkation, administratively based in Newport News, Virginia, included the exclusively cargo sub port of Baltimore. The port, along with its Baltimore cargo port and the Philadelphia cargo port that was also a sub-port of the New York Port of Embarkation (NYPOE), was mainly focused on shipments to the Mediterranean and European areas. Troops were temporarily quartered in embarkation

camps where the port was responsible for ensuring final outfitting before embarkation with HRPOE’s Camp Patrick Henry being capable of housing 214,000 troops.

Searching on Google, I was able to find dozens of photos of Camp Patrick Henry, Hampton Roads Port of Embarkation, and ships docked and leaving Virginia. While scouring the internet for photos of ships being loaded with troops and possible trucks like the ones my grandfather drove, I came across a photo that just seemed familiar. I can’t explain it, but every time I glanced over this photo, it was calling to me. Well, I decided to take my time and study the faces of every soldier in the photo. Like I said earlier, I have no idea how fate was shining her blessings on

me during this investigation, but on that day I was completely floored to find my grandfather in the picture standing in the front of the line with his Company waiting to board his ship to leave for Europe. I needed confirmation so I immediately circled the man who I believed to be my grandfather and I Facebook messaged my mom. It only took a few seconds and her response made me instantly cry. All she said was “Yes, that is most definitely my Daddy!”. I could not even believe it! I took photos that I had of him from that timeframe and I put them side by side with the photo I found. It was a match without a doubt.

To top it off, a batch of photos were taken by the same photographer who seemed to follow that particular group of soldiers across the Atlantic and into Europe. He also had photos of them unloading their trucks and sitting on the ship. I looked at every photo and the soldiers match up from one picture to the next. With their facial expressions, it was almost as if you could tell their personality and character and you were watching different episodes of a television show watching their journey unfold.

THE BEGINNING CHAPTER 4

I am pretty sure I identified yet another photo that my grandfather was in and he was sitting in front of his Company holding his rifle. My mother agreed and she also agreed that the soldiers in each photo appeared to be the same ones and they looked an awful lot like the younger versions of the men she met at my grandfather’s war reunions. To me, this was just simply amazing. Looking at the photos of the ships, photos of the port, photos of the soldiers, and being able to finally track down a starting point of my grandfather before heading to Normandy was unreal. My heart was full and this was just the beginning of his story.

Here is some history regarding the ship the General John Pope. The USS General John Pope (AP-110) was launched under a Maritime Commission contract on March 21,1943 and was acquired by the Navy on July 2, 1943. It was placed in ferry commission the

same day for transfer to Baltimore for conversion to a transport by the Maryland Dry Dock Company and commissioned in full on August 5, 1943 with Captain George D. Lyon in command.

After shakedown, the USS General John Pope (AP-110) sailed her initial voyage from Newport News on September 5, 1943 with over 6,000 troops and civilians bound for Greenock, Scotland, and after disembarking her passengers there, returned to Norfolk on September 25, 1943.

I actually found a picture of the USS General John Pope (AP-110) docked at B/S Pier 6 at the Hampton

Roads Port of Embarkation in Newport News, Virginia. This photo was taken immediately before her maiden voyage to Greenock, Scotland with my grandfather and his platoon on board before departing on September 5, 1943. Other pictures of the USS General John Pope show her leaving Europe to return to the United States and one photo shows her with freshly painted ocean camouflage.

After Germany surrendered in World War II, the USS General John Pope was decommissioned to return to transport service. Not long after, it was recommissioned back to military service by aiding in

various conflicts in the Pacific including Japan, Korea, and Vietnam until its final years while earning various awards and recognitions for her services.

The final years of the General John Pope began when she was placed out of commission once again on May 1, 1970, transferred to MARAD, and laid up in the National Defense Reserve Fleet at Suisun Bay, California. She was struck from the Naval Register on October 26, 1990. On May 5, 2010, after resting nearly forty years at anchor in Suisun Bay, the General John Pope was towed to Pier 70 dry dock for hull cleaning at BAE Shipyards, in San Francisco Bay. On May 18, 2010, the last surviving P2-S2-R2 U.S. Army Transport vessel of her type, the General John Pope departed San Francisco Bay for her final voyage to Texas. After a brief stop in San Pedro California, she made passage through the Panama Canal on June 15, 2010, continuing on to ESCO Marine in Brownsville, Texas where she arrived at her final destination for dismantling. The irony of the final destination for the ship that took my grandfather to Europe, returning home to Texas where he began his journey, is pretty crazy. Full circle I suppose. After leaving Hampton Roads, my grandfather and his Platoon arrived in Greenock, Scotland and then traveled to England for training and preparation. While in England they prepared for the historic Normandy invasion. My grandfather’s Detachment A was assigned to the 67th Tactical Reconnaissance Group and Larry’s father’s Platoon was assigned to the 366th Fighter Group. Like Larry noted earlier, even though the 2487th Quartermaster Truck

THE BEGINNING

CHAPTER 4

Company (Aviation) was split up, they were never too far from each other throughout the rest of the war. In fact, they were never more than five miles stationed from the front lines.

Now let’s get on to talking about Normandy because that was the whole purpose of this investigation. Let’s talk about the largest seaborne invasion in history and then we will get back to fate and her wonderful blessings.

NORMANDY

CHAPTER 5

So if you have never heard of the Normandy invasion during World War II, you should really learn about it. The Normandy invasion was basically the Allied Forces sneaking into France, without the Germans knowing they were coming, in the largest seaborne invasion in human history. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of documentaries, movies, and stories regarding this invasion and the day the Allied Forces landed on various beaches along the French coast. The day they landed was nicknamed “D-Day”. Two of those beaches were designated for landing of the United States military. They were code named Omaha Beach and Utah Beach and were basically dead smack in the middle of the invasion map. The beach where my grandfather landed and where Larry’s father landed was Omaha Beach. Like I said before, if you have never seen the picture of the Normandy invasion that led me to meeting Larry, it is attached to the front of this chapter. You can see hundreds of ships, balloons lining the sky, and hundreds of trucks and cargo transport vehicles being staged on the beach. If you are wondering what all the cables are that are trailing beneath all of the balloons, it is not to

keep them in place. The cables were used to prevent German fighter planes from flying underneath and attacking the boats. Keep in mind, this photo is only one photo depicting mainly Omaha Beach. Close your eyes and imagine putting together five or six of these photos together to get a full panoramic view of the entire invasion of the coast. That is absolutely insane! I can’t even begin to imagine being in the midst of that!

Larry and I both would like to believe that somewhere in that picture, whether out at sea on a ship or on the beach in the staging area with the truck transport, is my grandfather and Larry’s father and the rest of the 2487th Quartermaster Truck Company (Aviation).

Remember how earlier I was talking about jotting down notes and possible leads using my mom’s conversations with my grandfather? What she remembers from her conversations with him about his time in Europe was that he said he was in France and Belgium, he was once on a landing strip near a fuel drop that was bombed by the Germans (which comes up in my research later), he drove fuel trucks for airplanes when they liberated one of the large concentration camps (also discussed later),

THIS JOURNEY GETS A LOT MORE CRAZY AND SO DOES THE STORY OF THE 2487TH QUARTERMASTER TRUCK COMPANY AVIATION.

and that when they landed in France, it was still dark and they didn’t know how deep the water was because the boats tried to get as close to shore as possible without getting stuck. Even though he mentioned this and I knew of this before my research went deeper, we didn’t know if he meant Normandy or not. Now that we know it was Normandy, this story is very interesting. To hear his first hand experiences of the invasion is epic.

My grandfather told my mother that due to the water level, they were almost standing up inside the truck going down the ramp off of the boat and the guy that was in the truck with him was so scared that he bailed out and left everything including his gun and helmet. My grandfather was scared too because he couldn’t swim. My mom also said that when she was at the military reunions with my grandfather, she remembers that half of the unit arrived before dad’s group landed.

When I talked to Larry, he stated that his dad did talk about Normandy but briefly. He described the blimps floating overhead with cables hanging down to keep the German planes from diving directly on to their ships. He talked about how the Battleship Texas, which was positioned broadside to the beach, would lay nearly on its side then pop back up when it fired its big guns. His dad talked about dead bodies that were still being washed up on shore when they arrived seven days after the invasion. His dad talked about helping the engineers place the landing mats because they were in a hurry to get their fighter bomber group on shore with them. He never went into a lot of detail though unless he was talking about drinking and chasing women. Larry said it was hard to get him to talk about most of the war.

Larry was fortunate in that he was actually able to correspond with six members of his dad’s Platoon.

Unfortunately they all started the conversation with “oh you are Dock Payne’s boy, well let me tell you about your dad”. They didn’t really want to talk a lot about the war. Larry was able to get some dates, times, and pictures. Included in those pictures were daily life photos of the 2487th Quartermaster Truck Company. One photo is the Company’s Captain Colina leading the Company from their camp in England to the staging area for the invasion. Another picture was taken in the Bivouac area on top of the cliffs at Omaha Beach (which are famous for the initial invasion where the Army Rangers scaled the cliffs using ladders). One picture is of soldiers Frank Neimier and Jack Keller somewhere in France. Another picture is of the foxholes the Company dug in an apple orchard (that they used as a staging area) once getting off the beaches. Another picture is of soldier Coy Shirley who was the youngest man in the Company (which will be mentioned soon) and one picture of soldier T.j. Gogerty who was the oldest man in the Company. There were multiple pictures of St. Lo as it looked when the Company moved through it after the initial invasion. There is even a photo of the Platoon members sitting on a German wooden decoy tank that they found. If you look closely, one of the members is holding an axe. That’s because they chopped that tank up and used it for firewood! Every photo collected from Larry, from other parties, and from the ones my mom found later (when I was just about finished with this investigation) are all provided in relevant chapters or in the back of this publication.

Looking at the photos, you can only imagine what those days must have been like for my grandfather, his Platoon, his truck Company, and for the rest of the soldiers involved. Larry said it best, “Those guys were

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special. They stared death in the eyes and didn’t even blink!”.

There are hundreds of thousands of personal stories associated with D-Day, the Normandy invasion, and that whole operation, which was called “Operation Overlord”, but it is rare to find a personal account from a soldier of the same unit that your family member was with. Thanks to Larry, he directed me to an article online and to a soldier that he was able to meet in person. Remember the picture of soldier Coy Shirley, the youngest man in the Company that I mentioned earlier? Well, he was the last surviving member of the 2487th Quartermaster Truck Company and the article talked about him celebrating his 74th wedding anniversary with his wife and brief highlight of his memories of the Normandy invasion. Coy lived in Mayflower, Arkansas and if you want to read the

whole article, simply Google search “Mayflower Couple Celebrates 74th Anniversary”.

In the article, Coy talked briefly about his journey to England and the day he landed on Omaha Beach. According to Coy, he was one of about 5,000 men on the USS General John Pope, a troop transport making its maiden voyage. They traveled to Scotland without an escort and some were afraid of being attacked. Coy said that during the trip, a German submarine got on their tail just around the same time that a hurricane was brewing in the north Atlantic. The Captain found out the submarine was tailing them, and because the USS General John Pope was a new ship and fast, the Captain headed straight for the hurricane. He knew the submarine could not surface to fire torpedoes. Coy recalled that they lumbered day and night on the ship

and that it would go up and down with such force that it would peel the paint on the I-beams. They were in the hold, two stories down. Back then, black soldiers were made to sleep up top because the military was segregated. Unfortunately due to the horrendous storm, they lost soldiers during the trip.

Coy said they landed in Scotland and rode a train to Bishop Stratford, England for additional training, going from one airfield to another as they prepared for the invasion in France. Coy said they were doing all kinds of dangerous training, going through maneuvers, and not knowing when exactly they were going to be called upon to get on a boat and go to France. Coy said it was June 13, 1944 when they landed at Normandy, seven days after D-Day. Coy said they left England about 1:00 a.m.

Coy recalled that when they arrived to Omaha Beach in Normandy, the beach was under fire. It was a very unpleasant sight to see and bodies were floating in the channel that hadn’t been moved. He said he will never forget it. The Germans were flying over with their fighter planes and strafing the beach. The Platoon had their trucks waterproofed but Coy recalls sitting in the front seat of his maintenance truck with the driver and the water was all the way up inside the truck (the same way my grandfather recalled his landing at Normandy). The staging area was in an apple orchard and the first thing the men did was dig foxholes where they stayed for three weeks. Coy recalls that his foxhole buddy was George Heath of Illinois. As luck would have it, Larry was able to provide me a photo of the foxhole area in this apple orchard that Coy spoke of.

Coy said that while they were in the foxhole, they had an air raid one night and the Germans were bombing the area and still strafing the beach. They were laying in the foxhole and anti-aircraft guns were going off all along the coast. He said that at about 8:00 p.m. he suggested to

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his foxhole buddy George Heath that they get up and watch the fireworks! George declined, but Coy recalls just having an urge to get up and watch what was going on. Coy said he stood under the apple tree near the foxhole for five to ten minutes and just watched the anti-aircraft attack light up the sky. Coy said it was kind of like a Fourth of July celebration and then all of a sudden he heard a loud “shhh” and a piece of shrapnel as big as his fist came through the apple tree. It went through the pup tents and right through his sleeping bag. Coy said that George right away came out of his sleeping bag and joined him. Coy highlights that the shrapnel burned a hole in his sleeping bag and that would have been the end of him if he had been lying there. Coy kept that piece of shrapnel for obvious reasons.

Coy recalls that they were always about four or five miles from the front lines at all times. In the moving, he lost that piece of shrapnel but was able to keep it just before

the war was over. Coy’s wife said that God protected him that day and throughout the war because he had a wife at home and a baby that he hadn’t even met yet. Coy said he wrote to his wife every day during the war and she would send her pictures and letters thanks to George, his foxhole buddy. Coy said that George enjoyed taking photos and set up a dark room when they were traveling in Europe. Coy said that George taught Coy how to develop photos and that the whole Company would bring their film and photos to Coy and George. Hey who knows, maybe all of these photos that Larry and I have collected were actually developed by Coy and George! How crazy would that be!

Coy said that the 155 men of his Company were mostly truck drivers and that they didn’t lose a single man, even though they had to go to the front lines almost daily to transport supplies. Coy was a mechanic and his only injury was one to his back that he hurt when a truck’s transmission fell on him. Coy said he was the shortest in height so he was always told by the head mechanic that he would be the one going under the vehicles. He said the transmission fell due to two soldiers holding up the transmission with a rope and one letting go briefly to light a cigarette. Coy stated that they didn’t have any garages until they arrived in Germany and everything had to be done in the field and with whatever they could

find. When they did have a garage in Germany, it was in a bombed out building.

Throughout their time in Europe, Coy said that they followed the American 9th Army and General Bradley from Normandy to Muenster, Germany. Coy said that the soldiers knew the war was coming to an end when they started to see Germans giving up by the thousands. Coy’s Company Commander was going around telling everyone that they had gotten word that the war ended. He said there was a lot of shouting and praising. After the war ended, Coy got on a converted B-17 to leave Germany and flew to France to get on a ship to come back to the United States. He got off the boat in New Jersey and rode a troop train to Fort Chaffee near Fort Smith for his discharge. Then he took a private bus to Mayflower to reunite with his family.

Reading Coy’s story and the full article was simply amazing. It made me feel closer to my grandfather in multiple ways. It was connecting the dots, verifying the research that Larry and I have collected, and more importantly, it was making the whole project come to life with more color and personalization. I felt like I was

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starting to know specific soldiers in his Company, see events through their eyes, and beginning to feel a higher level of respect for what they must have gone through and on a whole new level. This wasn’t just a “research project” or an “investigation” anymore to follow my grandfather’s story through Europe. This was now becoming one of the biggest history lessons that I have, not only been able to learn from, but to feel at the same time. Little did I know, the connections between all of these soldiers, Larry, his father, my grandfather, my mother, and myself were about to get a whole lot closer. I was soon to find out how fate stepped in almost 20 years ago, influencing Larry to start his research and how fate will, yet again, take us deeper and deeper down this rabbit hole!

Now that I read the article, I consulted with Larry about Coy’s reports. Larry said that the exact date that the 2487th landed in Europe after their time in Scotland is a bit fuzzy because all historical records come from base assignment dates. The entire Company didn’t arrive until

July 11, 1944 so their base assignment would be shown as still in England until July 11. Larry’s dad told him that he went ashore on June 9th, 1944 but others in his Platoon say they landed on the 13th and some say June 18th. He did not know the designation of the landing craft they were on but he did recall they were positioned between the USS Battleship Texas (which has its own amazing story about Normandy) and the USS Battleship Arkansas when they arrived offshore at Normandy. I actually found a map layout of the ship placement during D-Day that confirmed Larry’s father’s information.

In the photo you can see clearly where the Battleship Texas and Battleship Arkansas were located just off the coast of Omaha Beach. Too bad we haven’t found any photos where we could clearly identify the ship they were on right before landing on Omaha Beach. From further research, Larry believes that his father’s Platoon was actually spit up in three waves and arrived on the beach at different intervals.

The importance of the 2487th Quartermaster Truck Company (Aviation) landing at Normandy was vital. The first trucks unloaded from the 2487th Quartermaster Truck Company (Aviation) were carrying mesh metal landing mats that were used to construct the runway at Airfield A-1, which was the Allied first airfield built in France. Larry’s dad said they helped the engineers place the mats and the first planes to land there were those of the 366th Fighter Group. They landed there on the 13th of June so it is reasonable to believe that the first components of the 2487th did arrive on the 9th of June as his dad had told him. The importance of building the first Allied airfield in France is literally the keystone in the whole Allied operation against Germany. Being a part of

that alone is hero status in my eyes. My grandfather and Larry’s father literally paved the way for the remainder of the Normandy invasion and for the arrival of the 366th Fighter Group and the 67th Tactical Recon Group for which they are assigned. The importance of those two air units will be explored later.

So before I get more into talking about Normandy, let’s get back to this rabbit hole. Let’s quickly highlight how fate stepped in regarding Larry’s research and the personal connection between Larry and this soldier we’ve been reading about named Coy Shirley. As I was finishing this project, a bunch of “crazy fate shit” started happening and as I was telling Larry all about it and how I think fate was directing us to complete this journey, he told me something amazing.

Guess how Larry met Coy? Well here is the story. About twenty years ago, Larry’s brother and Larry were looking to buy a lot on Lake Nimrod. Larry found an ad in the paper that had a five acre lot for sale with a structure on it. Larry called the number and asked about the lot and he discussed the price with the owner, to find out that the ad was printed incorrectly and instead of the lot being 5 acres, it was only a half of an acre. Larry asked the gentleman his name and number so that he could think about this change in information. Larry wanted to think it over and call the gentleman back later. Well, the gentleman said that his name was Coy Shirley! Larry immediately remembered how unique that name was and his dad talking about a friend of his named Coy. Larry asked Coy immediately, “Mr. Shirley, have you ever met a guy named Dock Payne?”. Coy’s response was epic. Coy said, “Oh hell yes! We went all across Europe together

and our foxholes were next to each other!”. With that, Larry told Coy that he needed to talk to him and they actually met the very next day. That was where Larry’s research began and that my friends is fate to a whole new level! Trust me it gets even better.

So let’s recap the blessings of fate up to this point with what you now know. We are not talking about the random fate of me meeting Larry or about the things you will find out later. Let’s just look at everything involving Coy Shirley by itself. Coy should have been killed from that shrapnel in the apple orchard, but because he decided to watch the night sky being lit up by anti aircraft guns, he was spared. Side note, every member of the whole Company survived Normandy and World War II. Keep in mind Coy was also the one who was helping to develop the Company’s photos throughout the war. Because he was spared, he was able

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to make it home to his family, live a long life (actually lived the longest out of all of them), tell his story, meet Larry who eventually would tell his dad’s story, provide Larry with the information needed to help me tell my grandfather’s story, and was probably responsible for the existence of every photo that the Company had to document and share their story to loved ones, each other, and beyond. Coy was meant to survive and without him, so many things would have never happened!

This is no rabbit hole we are in my friends, this is a whole rabbit colony of tunnels, rooms, and twists and turns of epic proportions! For what you don’t know yet, would be the focus of a chain events that will absolutely blow your mind! But I must not digress. Let’s get back to Normandy.

Let’s just play devil’s advocate here and for those who know nothing about the Normandy invasion, Omaha Beach, and Utah Beach, here is a quick history lesson on the terrain, operation, and logistical nightmare that the Allied forces faced when landing in France to attempt to drive back the Germans. The sites of the American landing in Normandy have been immortalized under their code names, OMAHA Beach and UTAH Beach. Both sites had the advantages of shelter from westerly storms and a very wide beach at low tide. Deep anchorages were two miles or more offshore, but tides were high enough so that LSTs (landing crafts) could be beached at high tide and completely dried out, a useful expedient developed during the operation. OMAHA was a five-mile stretch of flat beach, running in

an east-west direction near Vierville, St. Laurent, and Colleville-sur-Mer, backed by low sandy hills and flanked by steep rocky cliffs rising from the water’s edge. Unfortunately, both the beach and natural exits leading inland from it were commanded from higher ground which had been occupied by a German infantry division during the short interval between the final Allied reconnaissance flights and D-Day. OMAHA was therefore the scene of the most dogged enemy resistance and the heaviest casualties.

Some fifteen miles to the west, UTAH Beach stretched in a north-south direction along the southeastern shore of the Cotentin Peninsula. Since it was backed by a lagoon more than a mile wide, with narrow artificial causeways for all exit roads, UTAH did not appear

to be a very promising landing site. But the German

defenders of this beach were too few and scattered for effective mutual support, and were also disorganized by American airborne landings in their rear. Consequently, the initial phases of exploitation proceeded faster at UTAH Beach than at OMAHA.

Maintenance of both beachheads after D-Day required that the flow of supplies start as early as possible after the footholds had been assured, a logistical feat to be accomplished in close cooperation with the tactical forces. The first Quartermaster units in Normandy were organic divisional OM companies and service companies attached to the assault forces. This is where the Quartermaster units were vital. As unloading activities on the beaches hit their stride, masses of supplies began to pour into the dumps. The plan was to center storage, distribution, and services in Cherbourg and a few of the smaller towns on the Cotentin Peninsula until a large, semipermanent service area could be developed around Rennes and Le Mans. But Cherbourg fell about ten days later than expected. On July 1, tactical gains were roughly 16 days behind the OVERLORD schedule, and on D plus 49 the southern limit of the beachhead was no farther inland than where the army rear boundary had been expected to be on D plus 20. In short, supplies were concentrated around the beaches in much larger quantities and for a much longer period of time than had been anticipated. Crowding and confusion, and lack of proper inventories and systematic segregation of supplies, previously ignored, began to cause difficulties.

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The supply areas behind both UTAH and OMAHA Beaches were of necessity situated in open country, for the small villages in the beachhead offered few closed storage facilities. Such an area consisted of a number of supply dumps each spread over five to eight typical small Norman fields surrounded by hedgerows, with hastily improvised muddy access roads and poor internal communications. Supplies were moved directly by trucks or DUKWs from the beaches to the dumps.

Larry was able to provide a narrative regarding the unit’s services at Normandy and shortly after,

which highlighted the importance of the unit and the overwhelming amount of work they completed. It was submitted under the signature of the Unit Commander of the 2487th Quartermaster Company (Aviation) detailing the type of work done by these soldiers directly after landing in Normandy and reads as follows:

“In the past two months, both Platoons, one at Middle Wallop and the other at Thruxton, performed excellent service in carrying out their primary mission servicing the 366th Fighter Group and the 67th Observation Group. In addition to hauling bombs, ammunition, and gasoline for the Groups, transportation for the respective Service Teams was carried on as well. In this period of time, a total of 78,661 miles were rolled up in 13,301 hours of operation. Through extensive use of 1st and 2nd echelon set ups employed by the unit - deadline vehicles were limited to an average of two per day. Through the

excellent efforts of Staff Sergeant John B. Pelligrino, Motor Maintenance Sergeant, and his section, vehicles were kept steadily rolling in the haul of supplies needed for use by a fighter squadron.”

Another narrative provided by Larry was a narrative for the month of September 1944 submitted by Captain Robert F. Colina, Unit Commander and reads as follow:

“2487th Quartermaster Truck Company (Aviation), less Detachment “A”, no sooner had its Bivouac area established at Dreux when the job it had to do soon became not only apparent but very much a reality. In one month’s time the 24 cargo hauling vehicles of this unit traveled a total distance of 72,649 miles, hauling all class supplies consumed by the Fighter Bomber Group beings services and the Service Team to which the Truck Company is assigned. Through the capable performance of the Units mechanics, Staff Sergeant John B. Pelligrino, Tech 5 Grade Coy F. Shirley, and Tech 5 Grade George Heath, all trucks were kept in operation. These men not only performed 2nd echelon maintenance to keep the vehicles rolling, which is their assigned jobs, but 3rd echelon maintenance as well, which is more than their assigned jobs. It is with pride that this organization can point to these men for a job well done. The drivers are to be especially commended for their endurance in driving day and night, back and forth from the beaches, where the supply dumps were located, in assuring that the consuming units always had the supplies so necessary in carrying on their part of the war. Hauls were made over minimum distance of 300 miles, many as much as 600 miles. In addition to hauling supplies for the Fighter Bomber Group being serviced, this organization has also

been instrumental in hauling personnel and equipment of other units from airdromes to newer locations. Among these are the 29th Tactical Group, moved from St. Quentin, France to Arnol, Belgium, a distance of approximately 150 miles: the 122 MP Detachment from Courvron France to Dole France, a distance of approximately 200 miles.”

Now I have to stop again here for a quick second to highlight yet another act of fate only because it literally just happened as I was trying to finish this chapter. As I was writing, I decided to jump on Google and Facebook again and see if there was any other information about Normandy and the 2487th that I was missing. Keep in mind the names of the soldiers that were just mentioned in the Unit Commander’s narrative - Coy Shirley, John B. Pelligrino, and George Heath. Well, there he is again. Coy Shirley again.

My quick research on Google seemed to dead end, but when I searched the unit’s name on Facebook again, a photo popped up posted by a Paulette Omdahl and the photo was of her father. I must have missed this the day I found Larry or maybe it never showed up that day in my search for some reason. The photo was posted on May 26, 2018. I thought what the hell, that is still pretty recent. I’ll just message her like I did Larry and maybe she would have some information on her father’s particular unit and hoping her dad was with my grandfather in Detachment A. Like I said many times before, in all of my research, finding any information on Detachment A was almost impossible. I’ll take any chance I can get at this point. Maybe for secrecy or classified information with assignment to the 67th Tactical Recon Group, records simply do not exist online for Detachment A. Who knows. The only real

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information I have regarding their confirmed movements and locations was from some brief military records, some narratives of soldiers in the 1st Platoon, and basic historical data I found on the internet. Regardless I was shooting in the dark, but took the chance and messaged Paulette.

Within literally a minute, after messaging Paulette that I was doing research on her dad’s and my grandfather’s unit, she responded with “Interesting. What was your grandfather’s name? My dad hosted an Army reunion in Minnesota one summer.” I told her his name was Paul Guiton and that he was with Detachment A. I was floored with her response. She wrote “I remember Paul! His wife was Ginny, correct?”. I couldn’t believe it! MIND BLOWN! She not only knew my grandfather, but she knew my grandmother as well! It turns out, her dad was in the same Platoon (Detachment A) as my grandfather! Both of my grandparents attended that Army reunion in Minnesota that was at her house! So that is where fate started to unveil its tricky self yet once again. Before I knew it, I started picking her brain left and right for any information she had regarding my grandfather and her father.

This is where it gets really INSANE! She stated that her parents visited my grandparents in Florida a few times before that reunion. Now, when I was a kid, I lived almost every summer in Florida with my grandparents. All of a sudden, I started having flashbacks of an older couple that would often visit at both of our houses in Florida and in Pennsylvania. The only thing I could remember was my grandparents always saying that, “Al and Ann were coming to

visit.” So obviously, I had to ask Paulette, “What was your mom and dad’s names?”. She responded Albert and Ann Seidlik. I couldn’t believe it! I actually knew her mom and dad! I have spent summers with them as a kid! Paulette started sending me photos of her dad and my grandfather together at the military reunions they had since the war. It turns out that most of them made a promise to

each other to continue to meet throughout their lives. This was unreal!

I immediately messaged my mom to report the latest news and as fate were to have it again, she knew Paulette and her daughter and even visited them in Minnesota as well! My mom met a few of my grandfather’s war buddies but couldn’t remember their names (and this is where

the Platoon photo provided by Larry comes into play).

The irony I swear! I immediately sent the Platoon photo that Larry provided me of his father’s Platoon to my mom and she sent me back a list of all the guys she remembers meeting. Can you guess who was on that list?

My mom met Coy Shirley, Paul Kubis, Nelson Stephens, and Stu Ebels. To make this even more crazy, It turns

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out that Stu Ebels was my great uncle. He was my grandmother’s brother, was in Larry’s father’s Platoon, and the reason why my grandfather and grandmother even met. Stu Ebels had a wedding (his wedding) in Texas and my grandfather was the Best Man, while my grandmother was the Maid of Honor. Since that wedding, my grandparents kept in touch throughout the war and my grandmother and grandfather eventually were married. Now mind my language, but isn’t that some shit! HOLY SHIT!

My mind was rocked! How in the hell did I find Paulette randomly, how in the hell was her parents the same ones I knew from childhood, and how in the hell did my mom know and remember everyone we were all researching (now that she knew the names)? Well, I immediately messaged Larry to find out if his father was ever at any of these Army reunions and has ever mentioned any of the same names.

Larry responded that his dad would always talk about Paul Kubis, Paul Watts, Carl Ness, John Pelligrino, Blake Blount, Captain Robert Colina, Irwin Zussman, Paul Guiton (MY GRANDFATHER), Stuart Ebels (MY GREAT UNCLE), Jack Keller (nicknamed Killer), TJ Gogerty, William Poison, Wayne Nitzel, Vernon Titsworth, and Coy Shirley. Low and behold, Coy Shirley yet again. I told Larry everything about what I just found out, especially how my grand parents met and how I was now related to Stuart Ebels who was in Larry’s father’s Platoon. Once I told Larry about Paulette and me spending summers with

her father Al Seidlik as a kid, Larry had some more interesting connections to share. When Larry started his research 20 years ago, Larry not only picked Coy Shirley’s brain for information, but one of those six other Platoon members he interviewed and corresponded with was Al Seidlik! Guess who gave Larry most of the photos that he had from his research? Yes, Coy Shirley!

It didn’t take long and Paulette started sending me photos that her father had since the war. She even found her father’s hand written memoirs. Within an hour, she typed them up and emailed me a copy. I showed Larry the photos and the information and he was floored. Everything we have been researching was confirmed by yet another personal account and from a different soldier of the unit.

In the photos that Al had and Paulette just sent me, Larry immediately identified soldiers John B. Pelligrino and George Heath in one of them. Remember earlier in this chapter how I said to keep in mind the names listed in the Unit Commander’s narrative about how the units did so well at Normandy and the Unit Commander mentioned Coy Shirley, John B. Pelligrino, and George Heath? Well, Paulette just sent me a photo of John B. Pelligrino and

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The irony of seeing these photos as I was writing about them was surreal. This was definitely a visual confirmation of their tireless and relentless work ethic and dedication throughout the war.

Now at this point, my research was definitely not a history lesson and it wasn’t just getting a little bit personal. This was now extremely personal. I knew some of these men, shared memories with some of these men, and I was even related to some of these men. The same goes for my mom and Larry. In more than one way, we personally knew members of my grandfather’s Quartermaster Company. This was now fate connecting all of us together to tell their story. We were meant to tell their story and there is not one person on this planet that could change my opinion on that.

At this point, there was nothing that could surprise me. This rabbit hole couldn’t get any deeper. I would love to tell you that it didn’t and just carry on with the research, but that would be a lie. This journey gets a lot more crazy and so does the story of the 2487th Quartermaster Truck Company (Aviation). Let’s keep it moving. Let’s review Al’s memoirs.

George Heath working on a truck, literally just minutes after I was writing about these two men in this chapter!

CHAPTER 6 AL , S MEMOIRS

After Paulette sent me her father’s memoirs, it didn’t take me long to review them. There was no stopping me in the task at hand to tell the story of the 2487th Quartermaster Truck Company (Aviation). Al’s memoirs were very helpful in filling more gaps and also in providing yet another personal account of their experiences in England, Normandy, and beyond during World War II.

According to Al, the 2487th Quartermaster Truck Company (Aviation) was shipped from Stinson Field, Texas by troop train to Camp Patrick Henry in Virginia in August of 1943 and then sent overseas. They spent a year at Stinson Field training and then spent 30 days at Camp Patrick Henry waiting for a ship to take them across the Atlantic.

On September 5, 1943, they boarded the General John Pope along with 7700 other men for the trip and spent seven days at sea. Three of the seven days they rode out a big storm and the storm washed the life boats and everything off of the top deck. Everyone was sea sick, including the Captain

of the ship, except for old sea legs Al and one other man. The storm even cracked the ship about six feet down each side. On the seventh day, they landed at Glasgow, Scotland. From there, they traveled to England and went by troop train to an air base 30 miles from London. Bishop Stafford was the name of the base. Al remembers boarding their train. As they were getting on their train, the English Red Cross was giving out tea and sweet rolls. They were placed on the seats without anything underneath. Not even a plate or a napkin. Al said that when he reached down to pick up the sweet roll the dust raised to the ceiling. You could not even see the roll anymore. He said he wasn’t hungry any more after that. Their first night in England was scary as air raids were already happening. Al said that this was the first time that many of them were out of country and all of them were scared, even though they didn’t want to admit it.

From Bishop Stafford, they got their trucks and started to haul bombs and ammo and airplane parts to all parts of England. They did this for almost nine

AL’S MEMOIRS WERE VERY HELPFUL IN FILLING MORE GAPS AND ALSO IN PROVIDING YET ANOTHER PERSONAL ACCOUNT OF THEIR EXPERIENCES.

months. There was a lot of fog in the winter and sometimes it was so thick that one man had to walk on the side of the road and feel for the edge of the road. They drove with a complete blackout and no lights. The only lights they could use were the 1/2 inch rear lights called “cat eyes”. They often drove off of the road. It happened a few times that they took down some trees along the side of the narrow and crooked roads. Of course, they drove on the left side of the road. In April they were sent to learn to waterproof the trucks so they could be driven in eight feet of water. When a truck was ready for testing, they launched

the trucks into eight feet of 30 degree water and drove for approximately 1/2 mile in the cold water.

Three days after D-Day, they loaded the trucks and equipment on a landing craft to cross the English Channel to France. On the night of June 11, 1944, they crossed the channel in a storm, landing on Normandy Beach at 2:00 a.m. on June 12. There was no place to go as the front lines were less than three miles from where they landed so they spent the first few days helping build the first landing strip for planes on the beach.

The 2487th spent about 30 days camped in a farmer’s field (about three acres) with a hedge row around

it. This was at St. Pier DeMonete on the beach. As the front moved inland, the truckers runs got longer. They would often run day and night and for hours and hours at a time. One day Al was on a run and didn’t get in until after dark. Unknown to him, an anti-aircraft gun had set up on the other side of the hedge row. When bed check Charlie (a German plane) came over at 11:00 p.m., they started to shoot and Al went through the top of the pup tent! Al said that whenever the Fighter Group that they were assigned to would move, they would move with them. It didn’t matter when or where they went, they were always with them.

After the liberation from the Germans, the wine and food flowed free. You couldn’t buy a drink or anything.

People lined the road sides offering food and wine and flowers. They arrived to Paris late in the evening unloading the truck and spending the night in a dormitory at the university. The next day it was back to the beach. The camp was then moved to an air base just outside of Paris. The stay there was very short, only a few days before they were moved to a camp near Luage, Belgium. Here they moved into houses close to the air base. They spent most of the time hauling airplane gas, ammo, bombs, and airplane parts from the beach. When there was a plane on the ground they would have to go with the parts regardless of the time of day or weather conditions.

The truck Al drove had a .50 caliber machine gun mounted on top of the cab. When they traveled with four or more trucks in a group, it was one man’s job to

AL , S MEMOIRS

man the gun. One truck out of six had a machine gun mounted on it. The man that operated the machine gun stood on the passenger seat in the truck. From Luage, Belgium they moved to Asch, Belgium where they built a camp in a forest area by the air base. The funny thing about that camp and forest was that they were not allowed to chop down trees for firewood. If they did, they would get fined. They lived in a tent and built a shop for a place to work on the trucks. The air base was known as Y29. On New Year’s Day, the German planes came over to raid the air base. It happened that the P-47 was just taking off on a mission and the P-51 was just coming in so the Germans didn’t have much of a chance. They were all shot down.

The next move was to Munster, Germany in about April. They were there until the end of the war hauling supplies from France. They crossed the Rhine River, over 1800 feet long, on a pontoon bridge, using only one lane and the travel was very slow. The Army built a wooden bridge across that river. It took them two weeks to build the bridge over 1800 feet long that would carry a tank weighing over 90 tons. When the war ended, the 2487th QM Truck Co. was disbanded.

After typing up Al’s memoirs in this publication, I reached out to Paulette to see if she had any photos of just her dad from the war. She provided one with him at Airfield Y29 in Asch, Belgium. The main cover photo for this chapter shows Al standing in front of his tent at Airfield Y29. I had the pleasure of meeting and spending time with Al and his wife Ann when I

AL , S MEMOIRS

CHAPTER 6

was younger. They were two of the nicest people that you would ever meet in your life. It has been my absolute pleasure to have known this man and his wife and to share some of his story. It must have been an honor for my grandfather to stand side by side with Al through the most difficult of times and to have both survived, had a long life, and to have had wonderful families.

The other photos in this chapter were provided by Larry. They depict Al and Larry’s father’s Platoon 1 at Asch, Belgium. According to Larry, their name for the base was “The Mud Hole in the Pines”. One of the pictures shows them stealing blast from the railroad to put to use in and around the Bivouac area, another photo is of Coy Shirley manning one of the .50 caliber machine guns that Al mentioned that were on some of the trucks, and another photo is of George Heath with the tail section of a German plane that was shot down over Y-29 when the Germans attacked. This was one of 36 German planes shot down that morning at Y-29. As mentioned earlier by Al, on New Year’s Day, the German planes came over to raid the air base. Not only did they raid the air base of Y-29, but they raided almost all of the Allied Force air bases in and along the front lines in one final move to try to take control of the war. This was called Operation Bodenplatte and will be reviewed at a later chapter.

JIMMY RED

JIMMY AND THE RED BALL EXPRESS

JIMMY AND THE RED BALL EXPRESS

CHAPTER 7

Now that we have traced my grandfather’s steps from the beginning and up to the landing in Normandy, I see it only fitting to highlight some information regarding the 2487th Quartermaster Truck Company’s main mode of transportation - the Deuce and a Half, a.k.a. the “Jimmy”. So what exactly is a Deuce and a Half, or a “Jimmy” if you will? Well, the “Deuce and a Half” or “Jimmy” was a 2-1/2 ton 6x6 truck made by four different companies during World War II. They were built by GMC (Chevrolet Divisions of General Motors), International-Harvester, Studebaker, and Reo. The International trucks went to the USMC in the Pacific and the Studebaker and Reo trucks went to the Russians and Australians through Lend-Lease. The U.S. Army in Europe was completely GMC. The GMC CCKW is a 2.5 ton 6X6 U.S. Army cargo truck that saw service in World War Il and the Korean War, often referred to as a “Deuce and a Half” or “Jimmy”. The CCKW came in many variants, based on the open or closed cab, and Long Wheel Base (LWB 353) or Short Wheel Base (SWB 352). Built to 812,262 copies, CCKWs were employed in large numbers for the Red Ball Express, an enormous convoy system created by Allied forces to supply their forces

moving through Europe following the breakout from the D-Day beaches in Normandy, from August 25 to November 16, 1944. When the port facilities at Antwerp were opened, at its peak the Red Ball operated 5,958 vehicles and carried about 12,500 tons of supplies a day.

So why were the truck transport units crucial in the Normandy invasion and World War II for that matter? Well it is obvious, without a constant supply of soldiers, supplies, ammo, bombs, food, vehicle parts, airplane parts, and methods of open travel and communication, your military strategy is absolutely worthless. You can not win a war without constant materials and communication. Period. Without any of this, you can not advance, can not endure lengthy campaigns, and can not keep the “squeaky gears of the material properly oiled”.

The routes that the Allied forces utilized throughout the Normandy invasion and throughout Europe were so heavily traveled by truck transports that they gave the whole thing a name in history. It was called the Red Ball Express as recently mentioned. This is also a huge history lesson on its own. Trust me. Google it and enjoy the history lesson.

As mentioned earlier, my grandfather’s Company traveled from the front lines all the way back to Normandy for constant supplies to keep the war machine moving. For their tireless efforts and in the face of constant danger, they received the Meritorious Unit Commendation Award. I can’t even imagine the time and energy needed to do what they did, let alone the things that they were able to see throughout the war, even after Normandy. They traveled all over Europe and witnessed everything that occurred from start of finish. My grandfather and Larry’s father and the

rest of the 2487th Quartermaster Truck Company were true road “warriors” in every sense of the word! They literally saw everything from the front lines to the rear, were in and around battles all day long, and were an open target for any German who saw them in their path. I can’t even imagine the courage that it takes to keep sticking your neck out, on limited sleep, and with little to no heavy protection.

Larry’s research confirmed that the 2487th began to operate temporarily as part of the Red Ball Express.

JIMMY AND THE RED BALL EXPRESS

Ground forces had pushed out from the beaches to form a pocket but still had not been able to break through German defenses further inland. On July 26, 1944, the 1st Army under command of General Omar Bradley broke through at St. Lo and on August 20, 1944 Allied forces closed the Falaise Pocket forcing thousands of German Soldiers to surrender. German forces were in retreat and the allied troops were in fast pursuit which meant it was time for the 366th to relocate to a more forward position. The 2487th was on the move now and would no longer operate as part of the Red Ball Express. Like Al noted in his memoirs, whenever the Fighter Group moved, they moved with them.

As the war progressed, the 2487th in addition to their charged duties would be involved in the movement and relocation of field hospitals as well as other units needed by the advancing Allied forces. Long hauls were the norm for the unit. As late as April 1945, trucks of the 2487th were still running back to the beaches at Normandy for supplies. Often they would be called upon to ferry medical supplies, ammunition, and other items to front line troops and once General Patton’s 3rd Army started to race across Europe, they would aid in re-supply of fuel dumps along his route. On occasion, their drivers would be asked to bring dead and wounded from the front to the back to the field hospitals or the burial grounds established for interment of Allied

troops. On rare occasions, drivers would bring prisoners with their escorts back to field headquarters for interrogation.

By the war’s end, the 2487th Quartermaster Truck Company (Aviation) would receive participation credit for four battle zones, several letters of commendation, and a Meritorious Unit Award. One member of their company would receive a purple heart. As a unit they were the first Trucking Company to log 100,000 on the continent of Europe. By the war’s end, with the two units combined, Team A and Team B, they had logged just under a 1,000,000 miles.

LARRY , S INTERVIEWS

LARRY , S INTERVIEWS

Over the years Larry had the opportunity to correspond with a limited number of members of the 2487th Quartermaster Truck Company. The correspondence was by phone, letters, and personal meetings. He was able to correspond with Coy Shirley (Tech 5, Mechanic),

Paul Kubis (Corporal, Truck Driver), Alton Payne (Corporal, Truck Driver), Albert Zeidlik (Corporal, Truck Driver), and Frank Neumeier (Sergeant). Larry was able to provide the narratives of each soldier and categorize them by the event and/or location.

Speaking about the crossing of the Atlantic to Europe:

Paul Kubis - “We left Port from Hampton Roads, Virginia aboard the General John Pope, one of the convoy of ships bound for England. The first two days out, fog was so bad the ships in the convoy were continually sounding their fog horns to avoid collisions. The fog cleared and we ran into a huge storm”.

Alton Payne - “The storm was so bad that everything not tied down securely was lost overboard including all the life boats. The ship’s bell top side rang continuous for a day and a half”.

Coy Shirley - “The troops were housed below deck. The 2487th was on the third level. There were 7000 troops aboard the ship which was 1000 men over capacity. There was a group of colored troops that were housed topside at the rear of the ship and several of them were lost overboard during the storm. Every man on the ship including the crew was sick. The crossing took eight days”.

Speaking about the arrival in Europe:

Albert Zeidlik - “We stepped off the General John Pope at Greenock Scotland and directly into the war. We were greeted by German air raids that very night as well as nearly every other night while we were in England”.

Frank Neumeier - “We landed on the 13th of September 1943 and were damn glad to get off that boat! They loaded us on buses and drove us to Bishop Stafford England”.

Speaking about England and the buildup to the invasion:

Albert Zeidlik - “We spent nine months in England hauling supplies of all types needed by our fighter bombers. At night we had to drive with only a small light called a cat eye. On dark foggy nights it was not

GERMAN PLANES WERE STRAFING THE BEACH WHEN WE WENT ASHORE. IT WAS NIGHT AND WE CAME ASHORE BLIND WITH NO LIGHTS AND BEING UNDER FIRE.

uncommon that a truck would straighten out a curve and end up in someone’s yard or a farmer’s field”.

Coy Shirley - “We spent a year training in the Texas desert on Kings Ranch for deployment to North Africa and ended up instead in England. This meant training all over again for a totally different type of warfare. In addition to our normal duties, we were crawling for 75 yards under live fire on our bellies and learning to waterproof our vehicles and drive them in five feet of water in preparation for a beach landing at high tide”.

Alton Payne - “All I have to say about England is that by the time of the invasion, I was ready to swim the English Channel to get the hell out of there”. (Don’t know what he didn’t like about England but it had to be bad because he couldn’t swim a stoke)

Speaking about the landing at Normandy:

Albert Zeidlik- “Our Platoon (1st Platoon) landed on Omaha Beach at 3 A.M., June 13th (D+7). Our trucks were water proofed anticipating a high tide landing but we drove instead off on to dry ground.”

Paul Kubis and Coy Shirley - “German planes were strafing the beach when we went ashore. It was night and we came ashore blind with “no lights” and being under fire. We weren’t allowed to use our headlights. We formed up on the beach and our Captain Robert Colina walked in front of the column with a flashlight in one hand and a .45 caliber pistol in the other and led us off the beach”.

Alton Payne - “We arrived off the coast around mid day on the 12th of June and sat several hundred yards out until it was time for us to go ashore. We were positioned between the Battleships Texas and Arkansas. They were still shelling German held positions in land from the beach.

LARRY , S INTERVIEWS CHAPTER 8

The front lines were barely a mile in from the beach. Our Bivouac area was about a 1/4 mile off of the beach in an apple orchard just a few yards from what would become the first Allied Airfield on the European continent. Our trucks were loaded with mesh metal landing mats that were used in construction of the Airfield designated A-1. We helped the Engineers place the mats. The Bivouac area was strafed nightly for the first week we were there. We lived in two-man foxholes covered by two canvas shelter half laced together”.

Speaking about the mix up going behind enemy lines:

Alton Payne - “We were at Airfield A-70, Laon France when Patton’s Army when it started its drive toward Berlin.

Our unit was one of several in the area asked to help resupply fuel dumps along his route. The orders were passed down from command for us to resupply a dump near Nancy France. We rolled into Nancy with five trucks loaded with fuel and ammunition. We received a very friendly greeting from the town’s people. We were told that we were the first Americans they had seen and then we were advised that the Germans were still in that area. We were 1/2 a mile behind enemy lines! They took us to meet an Allied spotter who was set up in an old barn. He had a radio and was able to contact Allied Command, and we were told that there had been a mix up and we were supposed to be at Nance France not Nancy. We were shown the safest route back to Allied held territory and we wasted no time getting there!”.

Speaking about Asch Belgium, Airfield Y-29 (The Mud Hole in the Pines):

Coy Shirley - “Our Airfield at Asch Belgium was located in the direct flight path for German Buzz bombs headed for the port at Antwerp. The first few weeks there we made nightly dashes from our tents to foxholes dug at the edge of a pine forest behind our tents. The rainy season was on us and the foxholes quickly filled with water. The rains stopped but winter temperatures quickly turned the water into ice. After that we just rode out the nightly raids in our tents. On January 1, 1945 our airfield was attacked by 60 German aircraft. A squadron of our fighters was in the air circling the field waiting on a second squadron to get air borne when dog fights began to break out right over our field. We were able watch the whole thing which took about 30 minutes from start to finish. We had no losses or casualties and were able to shoot down most of the attackers. A few days after the attack, our field was visited by Generals Spaatz and Doolittle. Our pilots received distinguished service awards and all ground units received letters of commendation”.

Marvin W. Miller, Pilot 390th Fighter Squadron – “The Germans last thrust came in December, 1944. The Battle of the Bulge. They got as far as the Nice River and our Airfield Y-29 was only a 1/4 mile away. When our planes were taking off in that direction the Germans were firing at us from the ground”.

Robert Brulle, Pilot 391st Fighter Squadron – “The Germans were aware of our airfield at Asch Belgium Y-29, and looked upon it as a thorn in their plans. On December 26th the Germans hit our field with serious night bombing and strafing. They made four separate

attacks with anti-personnel bombs and canon fire strafing. The first attack took place at 1918 hours and the last at 2330 hours. They caused minor damage with only one ground personnel injured”.

Bob Balkam, Air Traffic Control – “If the Germans had made it to Antwerp we would have been totally cut off at Airfield Y-29!”

Letter from Major George E. G. Prayer reads as follows:

Headquarters 366th Fighter Group Office of The Intelligence Officer

APO 151 U S Army

1 January 1945 to 31 January 1945

Item (6) --- “New Years day found the Luftwaffe operating in large strength, making a grand scale attack on Allied Fields in France, Belgium and Holland in an attempt to catch our planes on the ground and neutralize them.

Approximately 0920 hours site Y-29 became the victim of this large scale attack when a force of 50 plus FW-190’s and ME 109’s attacked the field from the NE coming in on the deck. At the time of the attack, the 390th Fighter Squadron was airborne preparing to going on a mission. When the E/A were spotted, they, the 390th Fighter Squadron, jettisoned their bombs, and intercepted the enemy. The 390th held the E/A off the field long enough for the 487th Fighter Squadron, 352nd Fighter Group, who were at the end of the runway getting ready to take off on a mission to become airborne and join the fight. It was indeed a beautiful sight, the P-51s and 47s engaged in dog fights with the enemy. Team work and cooperation was the theme. Once in a while a FW-190 or ME-109 would get away from his opponent and make

a strafing run over the field. The ground personnel, who were out where they could get a good view of the dog fights, would hit the dirt or a foxhole if near one. As soon as the plane had passed over them, they would come back out in the open again to watch the show. Of course when an E/A was knocked out of the sky a rousing cheer would originate from the audience. For the majority of the ground personnel, this was the first time they had ever witnessed a dog fight and it was a sight they will never forget. The fight lasted until about 0950 hours, the score being in our favor. Claims total between the 366th Fighter Group, 352nd Fighter Group, and the 784th AAA were 35-2-7.”

Alton Payne - “Following the attack on our field I along with other drivers were sent out to clean up enemy crash sites near the field. One German aircraft nosed in right at the end of our runway. We went to the sight and the

LARRY , S INTERVIEWS

pilot had been thrown from the plane on impact. The body was mangled and the chest cavity torn open with the heart actually outside the body and still beating. The dead pilot was initially identified as the German’s leading air ace. We salvaged the tail fin from the plane and I picked up a souvenir from the pilot, his pistol. It was a sight I will never forget. I carried the pistol until I returned to the States. At Jefferson Barracks, Missouri where I was mustered out the line we had to go through to declare war souvenirs. The line was so long and I was so ready to leave there that I threw the pistol into a well located near the parade field”.

67TH TACTICAL RECON GROUP

CHAPTER 9

67TH TACTICAL RECON GROUP

CHAPTER 9

Now let’s get into some of the most fascinating information that I have discovered and into some of the history that I really love. I have always been fascinated by the Fighter and Bomber groups of World War II. To find out that Larry’s Dad, Doc Payne, and my grandfather, Paul Guiton, were part of the 2487th Quartermaster Truck Company (Aviation) and that they were both assigned to different air units was amazing. They were assigned to support two of the most influential air units in Normandy history, as well as World War II history in general. From the Normandy invasion, to sweeping across Europe, to the Battle of the Bulge, and to fending off the Germans during Operation Bodenplatte, the air units of the 67th Tactical Recon Group and the 366th Fighter Group were vital in the victory against Germany. Each of these air units has quite the history. Let’s review each of them individually, starting with my grandfather’s assigned air unit, the 67th Tactical Recon Group. Keep in mind that wherever the air units traveled, the 2487th Quartermaster Truck Company had to follow. The research on these two different air units

helped to confirm my grandfather’s and Larry’s dad’s locations, destinations, experienced events, and put into perspective what life must have been like for them throughout Normandy and beyond.

The 67th Tactical Recon Group was part of the 8th and 9th USAAF. Their insignia and patch was most remembered as having a picture of a blue sky with a blazing sun, four stars in a unique formation, and everything divided by a lightning bolt. I was able to find a photo of the insignia and patch made after 1947. I believe I also found the original design, that had an arrow instead of the lightning bolt, which was used during World War II. Both photos are attached to this chapter.

The 67th Tactical Recon Group had multiple squadrons including the 12th, 15th, 30th, 33rd, 107th, 109th, 153rd, and 161st Recon Squadrons. They were also usually paired with the Headquarters (HQ) Squadron. Fun fact: they are the oldest in the American Air Force dating back to 1917. Although formally with the 8th Air Force, the Group flew Spitfires and Bostons

THEY WERE ASSIGNED TO SUPPORT TWO OF THE MOST INFLUENTIAL AIR UNITS IN NORMANDY HISTORY, AS WELL AS WORLD WAR II HISTORY IN GENERAL.

(Havocs) with the British Royal Air Force (RAF) and trained on detachment at various stations until they were assigned to the 9th Air Force for combat operations in November of 1943. They trained in England at Membury for more than a year before beginning operations. From there they went to Middle Wallop, Hampshire and flew adapted Mustangs in reconnaissance missions over northern France until July of 1944. The 67th Tactical Recon Group also used P-38s, P-51s, and F-5s to fly artillery-adjustadjustment, photographic-reconnaissance, and visualreconnaissance missions. They received a Distinguished Unit Citation (DUC) for operations along the coast of France when the group flew at low altitude in the face of intense flak to obtain photographs that aided in the invasion of the Continent between the dates February 15 to March 20, 1944. They also flew

weather missions, made visual reconnaissance for ground forces, and photographed enemy positions to support the Normandy campaign and later assist First Army and other Allied forces in the drive to Germany. They took part in the offensive against the Siegfried Line (September - December 1944) and in the Battle of the Bulge (December 1944 - January 1945). The 67th Tactical Recon Group also photographed dams on the Roer River in preparation for the ground offensive to cross the river, and aided in the Allied assault across the Rhine and into Germany (January - May 1945). They returned to the United States (July - September 1945) and were inactivated on March 31, 1946. In 1947, they were reactivated and were a part of various missions in Korea and Japan. Some fun facts about the World War II aircraft listed in the previous paragraph if you know nothing about

them: Spitfires were the primary fighter planes of the British Royal Air Force (RAF), however the designer of the Spitfire (R.J. Mitchell) wanted the aircraft to be called the “Shrew” or the “Scarab”. It was Robert McLean, head of Vickers Aviation, who preferred the name “Spitfire” because it was a name he used to call his daughter Annie, describing her as “a little spitfire”. Spitfires were the best fighter planes used until the British and the North American Aviation designed and produced various versions of the P-51 Mustang for the RAF and later adopted by the USAAF. The “P” in P-51 stood for “Pursuit” because these new fighter planes were meant to escort the Bomber units. The P-51 Mustang had a twin called the P-51 “Apache” that was mainly made for ground attacks and dive bombing. With various prototypes and testing with different version engines, the P-51s became the faster fighter planes in comparison to the Spitfires.

The P-38s, if you ever saw a picture of them, were a very odd looking fighter and fighter-bomber plane nicknamed the “Lightning”. The P-38 Lightning was also called the “Fork-tailed Devil” by the Germans. They were made by Lockheed Martin and became one of the first high-altitude interceptor and heavy armament aircraft with a high rate of climb. They could even travel longer distances than the Spitfires and Mustangs. The F-5s were basically P-38 Lightnings but the F-5s were strictly designated for photographic reconnaissance. Since the “P” was already used for “Pursuit” aircraft, they were designated “F” for “foto”, which is as close as you can get to “photo”. Interesting right? Now if you ever see any pictures of World War II aircraft, look at the letters and numbers

67TH TACTICAL RECON GROUP CHAPTER 9

on the side and you might be able to find out what the plane was actually used for.

Another fun fact, the 67th Tactical Recon Group flew antisubmarine patrols along the east coast of the United States after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. Like I said in the Preface, my grandfather was assigned to support the 67th Recon Group and they were the first ones to equip P-51 Mustangs with reconnaissance equipment. As also noted earlier, there was a book published about them called “Peck’s Bad Boys of the 67th Reconnaissance Group”. Their unit Commander during the Normandy invasion was Colonel George W. Peck.

In the book, I found some interesting information and I will share a brief sample without giving the

whole book away. In the book, I found a quote from a newspaper article from The Stars and Stripes, by a gentleman by the name of Quesada who discussed the installation of the first surveillance equipment. According to Quesada, “They fell flat on their faces trying to install a camera in a Mustang back home. They’ve been fooling around with it for almost a year. These kids here (soldiers in Europe prepping for the invasion) did it in just a few days. It’s a good recon plane now”.

Also in the book I found some interesting statements by Colonel Peck. According to Colonel Peck, “The day before the invasion, a German recon pilot was allowed to fly over Dover without interruption by our anti-aircraft guns. We had planted imitation rubber tanks and guns there and even dummy gliders. Plus, we made sure that he noticed the area was swarming

with troops. As soon as he left with his photos, we moved our troops down to Portsmouth. That was just prior to crossing the channel for Normandy on June 6”. If you didn’t know this interesting fact about the invasion at Normandy, yes, we tricked the Germans thinking we were mounting an assault at a dummy location. We utilized blow-up balloons that looked like tanks and other vehicles to make it look real, while we were really getting ready somewhere else. On the day of the invasion, we even utilized small toy soldiers attached to little parachutes and dropped them out of planes at a different location in France. From a distance, those toys look like thousands of soldiers paratrooping to the ground below. In fact, those little toy soldiers with parachutes became an actual toy sold in the United States after the war, but a much smaller version. If you are old enough, you

probably remember them. Now you know where they came from.

Peck continued to discuss D-Day and the round the clock work that his boys completed. According to Peck, “On D-Day we were taking pictures around the clock. Continuous strip cameras were used on our low-flying planes, giving an uninterrupted flow of pictures which could even determine the depth of the water along the invasion beaches. These photos also gave us beach gradients, tide levels, and the height of obstacles on the beach”.

In my online research pursuits, I found one of those surveillance photos taken by a pilot of the 67th Recon Group showing German soldiers running from the beach as they were placing Czech “hedgehogs” in the sand to stop the flow of a potential invasion. The hedgehogs were static anti-tank obstacles made of steel with angled beams and points invented by the Czechs. The Germans placed them on the beach so that at high tide, invading ships would not

67TH TACTICAL RECON GROUP

CHAPTER 9

see them and the metal points would pierce ships and get them stuck right before the beach to become easy targets. Have you ever played the old school Jacks game? It is the game where you have a bunch of metal X shaped spikes on the ground and have to bounce a small ball and pick up as many as you could before the ball hit the ground again. The Czech hedgehogs looked just like the Jacks. However, the Jacks game was not made based on the Czech hedgehogs of World War II. Actually, the Jacks game was invented around 1190 B.C. around the time of the Trojan War.

After the landings at Normandy, the Allied ground forces received constant backup from the air with the help of tactical air support from visual and photo recon planes, as well as from the fighter planes. Peck said, “We the 67th were the first air units on the

beachhead. We were located at a small French town called Le Molay, just behind the front line. The only problem we had was that artillery was all around us. But fortunately, they didn’t hit our air base. Our P-51s had a large camera in the tail, the K-17, with a 24-inch focal length. But the small camera behind the pilot shot to the side and down, taking what we called an oblique rather than a straight-down shot. Our P-38s had three big K-17 cameras. The first one was at an angle to the left of five degrees, the next one shot straight down, and the one behind took pictures at an angle the other way to the right of five degrees. The result from high altitude was that you could take an aerial path ten miles wide and get excellent

detail. With the P-38s, we did the whole front line every day, weather permitting, to located targets for artillery and fighter bombers. As we were flying over the Atlantic near the Normandy beachhead, I would often think of my brother, Charlie, who was an engineering officer on the Destroyer Grayson serving in the Pacific. Here we were, both in our twenties, with a tremendous responsibility in our hands at such a young age”.

The 67th’s primary mission after D-Day called for complete aerial photographic coverage of the First Army’s front to a depth of ten miles behind the enemy lines on a daily basis. “Not only were our photographs made and distributed to all ground units,” Peck said, “but we developed an entirely new procedure of synthetic projection of vertical photographs on oblique grids”.

To help track my grandfather’s travels, I was able to find a station list and time frame of the 67th Tactical Recon Group while in England and throughout Europe. Just like Peck mentioned in that book, their first location was Le Molay. That was listed on the list I found and the remainder of their base locations is as follows (I also provided a Google map picture and connected the dots to give you an idea of his travel path):

September 1942 - Membury, England

December 1943 - Middle Wallop, England

July 1944 - Le Molay, France

August 1944 - Toussus le Noble, France

September 1944 - Gosselies, Belgium (Charleroi)

March 1945 - Vogelsang, Germany

(Remagen, Germany - may have been a temporary station along Rine River)

April 1945 - Limburg an der Lahn, Germany

April - July 1945 - Eschwege, Germany

I was able to come across an article on a website called historyofwar.org that pretty much verified all of my research but added some detail here and there. It really highlights the heroic deeds of the 67th Tactical Recon Group and, by proxy, the heroic deeds of my grandfather’s Detachment unit for their side-by-side service and support to the 67th Tactical Recon Group. It is as follows and helps to put everything in order: The 67th Reconnaissance Group flew with the 8th and 9th Air Forces during the campaign in Europe in 1944-45, taking part in the D-Day campaign, the advance through France, the Battle of the Bulge, and the final invasion of Germany. The group was activated in the United States in September 1941. Only three months later, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and the group was pressed into service, flying antisubmarine patrols off the U.S. East Coast. In January 1942, the group began to train for a move overseas and it moved in August - October 1942. At this point its training was incomplete, and it didn’t

67TH TACTICAL RECON GROUP

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begin operations until December 1943. By then it had been transferred from the 8th Air Force to the new 9th Air Force, which was to provide tactical support for the American army in Europe. When the group did begin operations it used a number of fast fighter types - the P-39 Airacobra, P-51 Mustang, and the F-5 version of the Lightning. It carried out a wide range of reconnaissance activities, ranging from artillery spotting close to the fighting, metrological flights, bomb damage assessment to support the strategic bombing campaign and the medium bombers near the front, and photographic reconnaissance and visual reconnaissance to directly support fighting units. The group was awarded a Distinguished Unit Citation for its role in the preparation for the D-Day landings. Between February 15 and March 20, 1944, it carried out a series of dangerous low altitude flights along the French coast, building up a picture

of the coastline and the German defenses. It eventually photographed 160 miles of coastline and two inland strips each 120 miles long.

During the Normandy campaign, the group mainly supported the U.S. First Army, flying a mix of shorter range weather flights and visual reconnaissance in support of the fighting and photo reconnaissance. It was also used to direct the fire of the powerful naval guns lurking just off the coast, helping to dispel a belief that fast fighters would be unable to correct artillery fire. The group began to move to France as early as June 1944, with the first squadron already in Normandy by the end of the month and the entire group across by July 31.

In September - December 1944, the group supported the attack on the German Siegfried Line (the West Wall). In December 1944 - January 1945, it took part in the Battle of the Bulge. In the period before the German attack, the group was the main reconnaissance unit for General Hodge’s First US Army. The group did spot some German movements before the battle, but a period of bad weather arrived on November 17. Over the next month, there were ten days on which no operations were possible, but in the same period the group flew 361 missions, of which 242 were judged to be successful. Increased German activity was noted, but the available information of a German buildup was misinterpreted and the attack still caught the allies by surprise. The bad weather continued into January and the group was unable to fly for thirteen days during the month. It flew 451 sorties on the other eighteen days of the

month, a mix of artillery spotting and visual and photographic reconnaissance.

From January - May 1945, the group supported the final advance into Germany. It was used to photograph the Roer River and the Rhine before the crossings of those rivers and to find German positions during the advance into Germany. The group returned to the United States in July - September 1945 and was inactivated on March 31, 1946.

To further highlight the impact that the 67th Tactical Recon Group made in the Allied Forces winning the war against Germany, I stumbled across an article written by Audrey Lemick. She was the wife of one of the pilots of the 67th Tactical Recon Group, whose name was Sergeant Charles D. Lemick. He was not only a pilot, but an amateur photographer who recorded his wartime journey though Europe. Most soldiers were told that they were not allowed to photograph anything while in combat, but most soldiers didn’t always exactly follow that rule. Thanks to Sergeant Charles D. Lemick we have some amazing photos of the 67th Tactical Recon Group’s travels. Here is the article that Audrey Lemick wrote:

“When most people think of the U.S. Army Air Forces in World War II, the first image that usually comes to mind is that of the heavy bombers, the B-17s and B-24s, that ravaged targets in Europe and the B-29s that wreaked havoc on Japanese cities in the Pacific.

Second comes recognition of the fighter squadrons that dueled with enemy pilots to protect the aerial

fleets of bombers or strafe targets on the groundtrains, truck convoys, and enemy positions.

Hardly any thought these days is given to the brave pilots who risked their lives taking aerial photographs so that the bombers could find their targets and later assess the effectiveness (or lack thereof) of the bombing.

Photo reconnaissance was a vital part of the Allied war effort, and the 30th Squadron, 67th Tactical Reconnaissance Group of Lt. Gen. Lewis Brereton’s England-based U.S. Ninth Air Force played a key role in aerial photo mapping, target selection, and documenting enemy troop concentrations and fortifications.

67TH TACTICAL RECON GROUP

The squadron’s mission was to take still and motionpicture films of enemy positions, bomb-damage assessment photos following bombing raids, and included, as a 1943 Air Force booklet pointed out, “securing information necessary for planning the employment of a striking force.” The 67th Tactical Reconnaissance Group was awarded a Presidential Unit Citation for its most storied job of flying missions “at minimum altitudes along the Normandy invasion beaches immediately preceding Allied landings [on June 6, 1944].”

Eventually, the group’s converted P-38 (F-5) Lightning and P-51 Mustang (F-6) camera planes flew more than 5,000 missions, took over 2,200,000 photographs, operated over France, Belgium, and Germany, and were the first American planes to operate from bases east of the Rhine River. At war’s end, members of the squadron became witnesses to Nazi atrocities at the Buchenwald concentration camp outside Weimar, Germany.

Sergeant Charles D. Lemick of Gary, Indiana, an instrument repair specialist who performed maintenance on instruments carried by unarmed P-38 camera planes, served with the squadron. An avid amateur photographer, Lemick recorded his wartime journeys through England, France, Belgium, and Germany. Although orders were issued prohibiting Gls from taking pictures in combat zones, that order was, luckily for historians, widely ignored. The result is a remarkably candid view of the war by amateur photographers”. Attached are photos from Lemick including pictures of a downed fighter plane, a group picture of his Recon Group the 30th Squadron, pictures from the liberation of the Buchenwald concentration camp in Germany (which will be discussed later), and other amazing shots.

In my Google search regarding the 67th Tactical Recon Group, not only did I find the above mentioned information, but I also came across the breakdown of how the Recon Groups and Squadrons were organized under the 26th Service Group as a whole. I also found an original drawing of their coat of

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arms where my grandfather’s 2487th Quartermaster Detachment A was listed under the visual breakdown of the Group. This was actually the first time I found my grandfather’s Detachment A even listed in any historical record online. What was really awesome was that this entire Service Group’s motto on their coat of arms was “Victoria Ad Finen”, which translated means “Victory To The Final End”. The 67th Tactical Reconnaissance Group’s motto was “Light From Darkness”. What I also found online were pictures

of each unit’s banners and on their banners was a symbol that I saw before. Can you guess what it was? It was the wings on a propeller, the same exact one my grandfather had pinned to his World War II uniform!

Also in my online searches, I found a bunch of amazing photos. I have attached some photos of the 67th Tactical Recon Group, photos of items that I found on Ebay that were for sale and had handwritten information on the back confirming my research, and painting of a 67th Tactical Recon P-51 Mustang flying over the beaches of Normandy during one of their missions. If you look closely at the numbers, you might be able to find the actual plane in my photos or pretty damn close. Also attached is the only narrative on record that we have found regarding my grandfather’s Detachment A of the 2487th Quartermaster Truck Company (Aviation). There are no other records that we can find regarding

actual, factual data regarding their locations and assignments. Special thanks to Larry for finding this. The narrative was written by First Lieutenant Zussman who was the Unit Commander of Detachment A after the Normandy invasion and reads as follows:

“On the 22nd of January 1944 the second platoon of the 2487th QM TRK CO (AVN) was designated as Detachment “A” then consisting of 1 officer and 44 enlisted men, was assigned to Team “B”, 26th Service Group, which was stationed at AAF 449. Organizational vehicles for operations were twenty six (26) 2½ ton cargo trucks, one (1) ¼ ton truck (Jeep), one (1) ¾ ton weapons carrier.

On the 4th of March 1944, PFC Joe Sedlet was assigned and joined to our Detachment. He had been with us before we had become a Detachment, but at the time of re-designation he was in the hospital recovering from injuries sustained in an accident.

On the 17th of March 1944, Pvts. Flowers, and Sanderson were assigned and joined. Pvt. Lackey joined on the 15th of April 1944 bringing this Detachment to its full strength of enlisted personnel, the total of forty eight (48).

On the 30th of March 1944, this Detachment started assault training in Wales.

Our Detachment was alerted for overseas duty 8th May 1944. Waterproofing of vehicles and preparation of men and organizational equipment for shipment was initiated immediately. On 17th May 1944, orders were received lifting alert and we returned to normal operations.

Alert orders were re-issued on 1 July 1944, and for 48 hours without halt, men of this detachment worked to meet the deadline date for shipment, water-

proofing all vehicles. At 0812 on the 4th of July 1944, the convoy pulled out of AAF station 449, and arrived at the marshaling area, Burksley C-12 at 1800 hours the same date.

After three days of processing and orientation at Burksley, convoy proceeded to RCRP-5, Leaving Burksley on the 8th July 1944 and arriving in Box on 9th July 1944. Detachment was broken down into three lots to facilitate shipment and arrived on the continent safely on 10th July 1944. (I’m guessing “Box” was code for “Sand Box” a.k.a. Normandy and

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that my grandfather crossed the channel to Omaha Beach on the night of July 9th and arrived early morning of July 10th).

Convoy reorganized on top side in beach marshaling yard and immediately after de-watering proceeded to destination, site A-9, Le Moley, arriving there the same day.

Due to the transportation shortage, the next move was made in shuttle style. For ten days commencing on the 20th August 1944, our men were constantly

on the road between site A-46 Buc, and site A-9. Our headquarters was finally established at site A-46 on 30th August 1944. (According to the dates this must have been Toussus le Noble, France)

Once again we were called upon to shuttle all outfits of the tactical units to our new destination at Charleroi site A-87. An advanced echelon of maintenance men and mess personnel and equipment was established at the new base, and this move

progressed with much greater ease and comfort then all past moves due to this advanced party. Move of headquarters was accomplished on 22nd September 1944.

On 23rd September 1944, eleven 2½ ton trucks were damaged in an explosion, five completely destroyed and six rendered unserviceable but repairable. Replacements were received on 5th October 1944.

One 2½ ton truck was stolen from a parking lot at Liege on the 28th September 1944. A report of survey was initiated on 4 October 1944, and approved on 6 October 1944. Requisition for new vehicles was initiated, but government freeze on replacements makes replacement unavailable at this time”. That was the end of the narrative and like I mentioned before, we have been unable to find any more factual data related to my grandfather’s Detach -

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ment A of the 2487th Quartermaster Truck Company (Aviation) as directly recorded or reported by their Unit Command. It would be interesting to find out about the explosion reported in the narrative that occurred on September 23, 1944.

366TH FIGHTER GROUP

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Now that we reviewed my grandfather’s assigned air unit, the 67th Tactical Recon Group, let’s explore the importance and history of the 366th Fighter Group. Larry’s dad, Doc Payne, was assigned to this unit as were the other half of the 2487th Quartermaster Truck Company (Aviation). Like I said before, the research on these two different air units helped to confirm my grandfather’s and Larry’s dad’s locations, destinations, experienced events, and put into perspective what life must have been like for them throughout Normandy and beyond.

The 366th Fighter Group moved in England over the New Year of 1944, setting up home first in Membury and then at Thruxton. The pilots’ first mission was a fighter sweep of the French coast in March of 1944 and from then until D-Day that June, they supported the Allied ground preparations for the invasion of France.

The 366th Fighter Group was awarded a Distinguished Unit Citation (DUC) for quite a singular action: when supporting infantry in the St. Lo area on July 11, 1944, the pilots discovered a column of enemy tanks as yet unknown to the infantry. Despite coming under intense fire, the Group, as well as striking nearby pillboxes, the intended target of the mission, attached

this column. This put many of the German tanks out of action before they engaged the infantry.

The 366th Fighter Group also carried out armed reconnaissance missions during the Battle of the Bulge (December 1944 - January 1945) and escorted bombers during the assault across the Rhine river. The Group’s last mission saw them attacking harbors at Kiel and Flensburg on May 3, 1945. The 366th Fighter Group remained in Germany after the war and, as part of United States Air Forces in Europe (USAFE), were part of the occupation force.

Larry was able to provide some photos of the 366th Fighter Group and I was able to find some other photos online. Larry’s photos show the assembly of the mats carried by the 2487th Quartermaster Truck Company (Aviation) to build an air field after landing at Normandy, aerial photos and maps of missions that the 366th Fighter Group took part in, and a photo of the Group’s planes on the air field. The photos

I found online were of some of the pilots and their nose art on their fighter planes. While online, I also came across a photo of the 366th Fighter Group’s unit patch which was half orange and half blue, separated by a bolt of lightning. Interesting how

Tactical Recon Group’s patch. Perhaps some more irony there.

Larry was also able to provide me with a list of their station locations which helps to follow the path of his father’s half of the 2487th Quartermaster Truck Company (Aviation) from England and until the end of the war. They were in stationed in Membury, Thruxton, Saint-Pierre-du-Mont, Dreux, Laon/Couvron,

Asch, and Handorf. Larry also provided a chart of the 366th Fighter Group’s mission statistics from March 12 - September 12, 1944. The chart is attached and shows just a sample of the amount of missions flown, fuel and ammo used, and other key data. Keep in mind, this is just a sample reflecting only six months while in the field. The amount of materials consumed is unreal and you can only imagine the work needed

366TH FIGHTER GROUP

for the 2487th Quartermaster Truck Company (Aviation) to keep it flowing smoothly and successfully. Granted, the information provided here is not as in depth as what I have provided for the 67th Tactical Recon Group that my grandfather was assigned to. For lack of time, room, and wanting to get this publication together for my family before the holidays, I implore that you do your own research online regarding

the 366th Fighter Group. They were just as equally important and vital as the 67th Tactical Recon Group in aiding in our victory over Germany. By the way, there is way more information available online for the 366th Fighter Group than there is for the 67th Tactical Recon Group. Once again, not sure if this was due to the level of secrecy or for classified purposes, but we are lucky to have found what we did.

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At this point, finding out about my grandfather’s true military history and his Company’s involvement in key events during World War II has been mind blowing! My grandfather, in every sense of the word, was a true unknown hero and that goes the same for Larry’s dad, Doc Payne, and the rest of the 2487th Quartermaster Truck Company (Aviation). Not only were they completely responsible for literally setting the stage for the arrival of all Allied troops at Normandy, responsible for supporting the Allied Forces on the front lines to continue pushing forward, responsible for supporting the 67th Tactical Recon Group and 366th Fighter Group to complete their dangerous reconnaissance and combat missions, they played a major part of almost every key event of the European Campaign, and from what I will soon find out, up to and including the final push to Germany leading to Hitler’s final defeat.

As I went further in my research of the 2487th Quartermaster Truck Company (Aviation), I continued to find references to their involvement in the Battle of the Bulge. Honestly, I really didn’t know much about the

Battle of the Bulge so I needed to find some more information. I found an article on the internet on the website that really sums up a lot of what we have discussed so far - Normandy, the Red Ball Express, the opening of the ports at Antwerp, the Siegfried Line, segregation in the military during World War II, and had information about the Battle of the Bulge and its importance. This article kind of summarizes how they are all connected and is a good read for anyone who knows nothing about World War II. It definitely helped me to put things in order and to see the significance of everything occurring all over Europe after the invasion at Normandy.

According to the article, after the breakout from Normandy at the end of July 1944, and the Allied landings in southern France on August 15th, 1944, the Allies advanced toward Germany’s borders very quickly. But then a rapid thrust into the Netherlands was blocked by recovering German forces, compelling the Allies to retreat out of Holland. The British slowly retook the Scheldt estuary to allow use of the key port of Antwerp.

Canadians advanced a second time into the Netherlands in hard winter fighting. American and French armies attacked the fortified Siegfried Line and Metz farther south, while other Americans bogged down in close and bloody fighting in the Huertgen Forest. The nearby Ardennes Forest, where Americans had fought Germans in WWI in 1918, looked to be

a quiet sector. It soon turned into a bloody battle zone when the German Army launched a surprise counterattack. The Battle of the Bulge, named for the bulge in American lines created by the German attack, is also known as the Ardennes Offensive. It was the last major German offensive campaign on the Western Front during World War II.

OPERATION BODENPLATTE

It took place from December 16th, 1944 to January 25th, 1945. It was launched through the densely forested Ardennes region of eastern Belgium, northeast France, and Luxembourg. The offensive was intended to stop Allied use of the Belgian port of Antwerp and to split the Allied lines, allowing the Germans to divide the Allied armies and stave off looming defeat for a little while longer. If the attack were to succeed in capturing Antwerp, four complete armies would be trapped without supplies behind German lines. Unfortunately for German ambitions, they did not have the tanks, aircraft, fuel or offensive punch left to even reach Antwerp. Still, many men would die trying while others died to stop them, then force defeat on the Nazi regime. American forces bore the brunt of the attack and incurred their highest casualties of any operation during the war. The battle also severely depleted Germany’s armored forces and all but eliminated the last of its air forces (Luftwaffe). The Germans’ initial attack involved 410,000 men; just over 1,400 tanks, tank destroyers, and assault guns; 2,600 artillery pieces; 1,600 anti-tank guns; and over 1,000 combat aircraft. Around 98,000 Germans were killed, missing, wounded in action, or captured.

For the Americans, out of a peak of 610,000 troops, 89,000 became casualties. Over 19,000 were killed. The “Bulge” was one of the largest and bloodiest single battle fought by the United States in World

War II and the third-deadliest campaign in American history (behind the Battle of Normandy 1st, and the Meuse–Argonne offensive that was a major part of the final Allied offensive of World War I that stretched along the entire Western Front).

During World War II, most U.S. black soldiers in Europe still served only in maintenance or service positions, or in segregated units, although a black combat division saw extensive action against the Japanese in Burma. Because of troop shortages during the Battle of the Bulge, Eisenhower decided to integrate the service for the first time. This was an important step toward a desegregated United States military, although that did not formally take place until after the war ended. More than 2,000 black soldiers volunteered to carry rifles and go to the front. Others served a vital role as drivers of supply trucks that ran 24 hours a day in the “Red Ball Express.” The 761st tank battalion was the first African American tank battalion to see combat in World War II. The “Black Panthers” received nearly 400 combat decorations, fighting in France, in Belgium during the Bulge, and ending the war in south Germany and Austria (I will have to research that at a later date).

Not knowing exactly how the 2487th Quartermaster Truck Company (Aviation) was involved in the Battle of the Bulge, other than what I had read so far about them being near the front lines, constantly supplying

their air units, and receiving awards for their actions in helping the Allied Forces to make the final push crossing the Rhine into Germany, I reached out to Larry for assistance.

Larry simply said, “Have you ever heard of Operation Bodenplatte? If not, you should Google it and you will be surprised what you read”. So I immediately started yet another history lesson.

Operation Bodenplatte (German for “Baseplate”), was launched on January 1, 1945 and was an attempt by the Luftwaffe (German air forces) to cripple allied air forces in the low countries during World War II. The goal of Bodenplatte was to gain air superiority during the stagnant stage of the Battle of the Bulge so that the German Army and Waffen-SS forces could resume their advance. The operation was planned for December 16, 1944, but was delayed repeatedly due to bad weather until New Year’s Day, the first day that happened to be suitable. Secrecy for the operation was so tight that not all German ground and naval forces had been informed of the operation and some units suffered casualties from friendly fire. British signals intelligence recorded the movement and buildup of German air forces in the region, but did not realize that an operation was imminent.

The operation achieved some surprise and tactical success, but was ultimately a failure. A great many Allied aircraft were destroyed on the ground but replaced within a week. Allied aircrew casualties were quite small, since the majority of Allied losses

were grounded aircraft. The Germans, however, lost many pilots who could not be readily replaced. Post-battle analysis suggests only 11 of the Luftwaffe’s 34 air combat groups made attacks on time and with surprise. The operation failed to achieve air superiority, even temporarily, while the German ground forces continued to be exposed to Allied air attack. Operation Bodenplatte was the last large-scale strategic offensive operation mounted by the Luftwaffe during the war.

Larry then told me to look up Airfield Y-29 during Operation Bodenplatte. What I found was amazing. Apparently, Operation Bodenplatte’s main targets were all of the Allied Airfields along the front lines (mostly Belgium at that time). The Germans were going to attack each and every Allied Airfield at the same time and they did this on New Year’s Day. Airfield Y-29 was where the 366th Fighter Group was located and in turn where his father Doc Payne was located with his Platoon of the 2487th Quartermaster Truck Company (Aviation). They were a part of the receiving end of Operation Bodenplatte and even participated in fighting off the Germans as they attacked the airfield! As noted in previous chapters, most of the air forces of the Germans were destroyed and involved in heavy dog fighting at the Airfields. As for my grandfather and his Platoon of Detachment A, we could not find any factual data of their location or what happened at their Airfield, but Larry is pretty sure my grandfather was stationed at Ophoven Airfield (Y-32) which was in Limburg, Belgium when Bodenplatte occurred. However,

OPERATION BODENPLATTE CHAPTER

according to the dates and everything I was looking up my grandfather may have been at Airfield A-87 Charleroi, Belgium because that is where the 67th Tactical Recon Group was located (they were there from September 1944 - March 1945). We don’t really know for sure.

Regardless, one of the stories that my mom remembers my grandfather talking about was how “he was on a landing strip near the fuel drop, and the airfield started to get bombed”. She also mentioned that he would also talk about how he remembers the “bombing of the landing strip and he went AWOL one day to go find his cousin who was a nurse in France and he went to spend the day with her”. Out of everything we have researched, his stories must be related to being at an Allied Airfield during Operation Bodenplatte while in Belgium and he was at an airfield that was attacked. So, yet again, I am going to conclude that my grandfather was a part of something important and yet again, his story is evolving into more than I could have ever imagined. There was just one other lead left that I had no answer for regarding my grandfather’s comments to my mom about the war. Well, at least everything that she could remember anyway. My grandfather told her once that he was “driving fuel trucks to resupply airplanes when they liberated one of the large concentration camps”. Now this lead did not

mean much to me when I heard it at the time, but as you know how this story goes…the rabbit hole was about to get a whole lot bigger and, yet again, to a whole new level

LIBERATION OF BUCHENWALD

CHAPTER 12

LIBERATION OF BUCHENWALD

CHAPTER 12

So what could I possibly tell you about my grandfather that would impress you even more regarding his military history while fighting the Germans in World War II? What else could I possibly find out? What if I told you that his Detachment A of the 2487th Quartermaster Truck Company (Aviation) was a part of the final push to break through to Germany and influenced the ultimate defeat of Hitler and his Nazi regime? Well, I already told you that and I already kind of knew that from what I have already found. Better yet, what if I were to tell you that my grandfather and Detachment A were part of the units that penetrated Germany, part of the units that intercepted distress calls from one of the largest and oldest concentration camps, and part of the units that were boots on the ground, physically involved, and on site to arrive, penetrate, and liberate the notorious concentration camp of Buchenwald? Well, he absolutely was and I had no idea about that, but I was soon to find out! So how in the hell did I find out this information? Let’s just say it was not from the internet, not from any information provided by Larry, and not by anything

that I did. This was fate yet again bestowing her blessings on this project.

Here is how I found out. As I’ve been writing this publication, I have been keeping in touch with my mom and sharing with her every little bit of information that I have discovered. While doing so, I was trying to cover all of my bases and I wanted to make sure that I didn’t miss anything. My mom knew that my grandmother had more letters from my grandfather from the war and after my grandmother’s passing, my Uncle Mike had possession of them.

By the way, here is a side note and some more irony for you. My Uncle Mike was in the Pennsylvania National Guard. The main headquarters of the Pennsylvania National Guard is at Fort Indiantown Gap, Pennsylvania. The 28th Infantry of the Pennsylvania National Guard is the oldest in the United States Army and during Normandy and the Battle of the Bulge, due to their ferocious fighting tactics and relentless desire to never give up, the Germans nicknamed the unit the “Bloody Bucket” because of the red Pennsylvania

TO FIND OUT THAT MY GRANDFATHER LIBERATED BUCHENWALD AND SAVED THOUSANDS OF LIVES MAKES HIM A BONAFIDE WAR HERO. IN MY MIND, THAT MAKES ALL OF THOSE SOLDIERS WHO WERE THERE BONAFIDE WAR HEROES.

“keystone” badge on their uniform that looks like a bucket. Also another bit of irony, I later in my career worked at the Fort Indiantown Gap base as a federal contractor for the Pennsylvania National Guard. I was the lead Psychologist responsible to meet with the top brass to review and implement much needed mental health and family services for our soldiers. I would often walk into the main headquarters building, and there on the wall were paintings honoring the Bloody Bucket 28th Infantry Division. In those paintings were locations where they earned their honors and respect including Gettysburg, Normandy, and Battle of the Bulge. I would later find out that when my grandfather was discharged after World War II, he was sent to Fort Indiantown Gap for final release from the Army. Crazy right?

So back to the letters. Knowing that my Uncle Mike had the letters, my mom went over to his house. Together, my Uncle Mike, Aunt Debbie, and my mom reviewed the letters, found a bunch of additional pictures from the war (probably developed in the field by Coy Shirley), and sent me everything they had to help with my research (even though they had no idea I was writing this publication). What they sent me filled a lot more gaps and like I said many times before, created new ones. There were photos of my grandfather’s Platoon of Detachment A, more photos of him and his buddies throughout the war, a tourist map of a concentration camp in Germany called Dachau, and even a newspaper clipping of the Army reunion that the whole crew attended in Minnesota with Al (remember he was Paulette’s dad).

LIBERATION OF BUCHENWALD

The clipping even had some quotes straight from my grandfather about the war and pictures of all of them at the reunion!

Now while looking at some of these new photos, I noticed pictures of buildings with barbed wire fences and German words painted on the sides of the buildings. I immediately had a flashback from childhood. I had seen some of these photos before! My flashback was a memory I had in elementary school. Not only had I seen these photos before, I actually had held these photos in my hands! In fact, when I was younger I found them accidentally, took them to school, and got in trouble for it! The problem was, I had no idea the full significance of them at that time, but I was just about to find out! You see when I was in about first or second grade, I used to go through my grandfather’s briefcase. After the war, he was a carpenter. He would often carry that briefcase to jobs and take me with him. He would let me carry his briefcase to make me feel a part of the team. The real reason why I loved that briefcase was because he had these really cool “flat” carpenter pencils (so they wouldn’t roll) and he had a battery operated old school calculator. When you turned it on, the screen would light up red. I always wanted to carry it and get into that brief case to use those cool pencils and that calculator. Not to mention, I loved it because it had a cool combination lock on

the outside built in. I would like to consider myself pretty bright, even at a young age, so it wasn’t hard for me to crack the code. It was “1, 2, 3” on the left side and “4, 5, 6” on the right.

Anyways, one day as I was flipping through his briefcase, I found these old black and white photos stashed in the back. I will never forget it because they were photos of stacks and stacks of bodies, photos of buildings with barbed wire, and photos of buildings with German words painted on the side! These were some of the same photos that my mom, uncle, and aunt just sent me! I remember taking the photos to school to show the librarian because they always had a historical display set up in the hallway and I’m not exactly sure what happened after that,

but the photos were taken from me and I remember my mom scolding me when I got home. I never saw or heard of those photos ever again, until now!

I Facebook messaged my mom right away about the photos she just sent me. I told her thanks for the photos but I know there are others and I knew what the missing ones were. Not that I wanted them for this publication, because I would never put them in here due to their history and graphic nature, I just wanted to solve the mystery of their ultimate demise. I asked where the other photos were. She didn’t know so she asked my Uncle Mike who said that some were given to my Uncle Tom in Florida to donate to a local Holocaust museum. Within a few minutes, my mom messaged my Uncle Tom and we were told that those photos that I

remember so vividly were ultimately donated to the South Florida Holocaust Museum after my grandfather’s passing. Then my Uncle Tom revealed to my mom the next level of this never ending rabbit hole and pointed to the obvious elephant in the room! Just as you and I were probably wondering, where did these photos come from and why. The answer - he took the photos, while in Germany, and on the day he helped to liberate the Buchenwald concentration camp! BOOM! My mind just exploded!

I could not believe what I had just found out! This was completely insane! I immediately started down this rabbit hole, scouring the internet for information on Buchenwald, and even tried to find the photos that were donated to the South Florida Holocaust Museum. I figured that they might be published online for research or maybe in one of the photos of the

LIBERATION OF BUCHENWALD

exhibits on their website. In my search, I actually did find some of the photos and thanks to technology and shared information, they have been used quite a bit on a lot of World War II historical sites and various research reports. They are always noted as “donated from anonymous”.

Also included in the letters and photos that my Uncle Mike had was that tourist map of the concentration camp of Dachau. Where the heck did that come from and why? My mom sent me photos of the map and images from the tour guide. She said it was from my grandparents when they traveled there when I was a kid. Then I had another flashback. I started to remember a trip that my grandparents took when I was about nine or ten years old, where they went to Europe. I will never forget it because my grandmother made me sit down and look at

each and every picture. At that age, I was bored out of my mind and didn’t want to look at these photos of fields and buildings. My grandfather did however, make the endless picture torture a little better because he started to hand me European coins out of his pocket that he brought home for us to keep as souvenirs. I actually still have those coins framed and on my wall.

But why was I forced to look at all of these pictures of France, Belgium, and Germany anyway? I had a hunch why, but my mom confirmed it. She said that my grandfather took my grandmother to Europe to retrace his steps from the war. They went to Omaha Beach, France, Belgium, and Germany. He took her on a tour of one of the concentration camps that was still intact while in Germany. The tour map was of the Dachau concentration camp that they visited

and that was why it was in my grandmother’s packet of letters and pictures. My mom said that while there, my grandfather became very ill and had to go wait in the car. I started to think about this. Why would he have a map of Dachau and not a map of Buchenwald? He liberated Buchenwald, but why visit Dachau way after the war? Why not visit Buchenwald? Something did not seem right here. I started to do some research and found that most of Buchenwald was torn down. Dachau did have most of its buildings still intact. Regardless, he could have still visited the site of Buchenwald if he was really retracing his steps to show my grandmother on their trip to Europe. I started to think that this visit to Dachau was intentional for my grandfather in some way. I started to think that maybe this was a means for him to complete some unfinished business in a way. In fact, while researching the history and information of both concentration camps, I came to a conclusion of why I believe it was so important for him to have visited Dachau specifically. I don’t think it was by mistake or only because it was one of the few that remain standing. I’ll explain once I give you an overview of Buchenwald.

Between 1933 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its allies established more than 44,000 camps and other incarceration sites. The locations were used for forced labor, detention of people that were deemed to be “enemies of the state”, and mass murder. Buchenwald was one of the oldest and largest concentration camps established by the Nazis. The camp was constructed in 1937 and built by the prisoners themselves as part of their punishment.

Buchenwald first opened for male prisoners in July of 1937. Women were not part of the Buchenwald camp system until 1944. The main camp was surrounded by an electrified barbed-wire fence (380 volts), 23 watchtowers, and a chain of sentries outfitted with fully automatic machine guns.

Most of the early inmates at Buchenwald were political prisoners, however in 1938, German SS and police sent almost 10,000 Jews to Buchenwald where they were subjected to extraordinarily cruel treatment, especially while building Buchenwald itself. The official goal of Buchenwald was the destruction of the prisoners (both physical and mental) by forced labor. In building the camp, they were forced to carry huge stones from the local stone quarry to the camp. If they were too small or weak, they were immediately shot by the German SS. Later, dozens of prisoners were chained to huge four-wheel carts and had to pull enormous loads of stone to the camp while being forced to sing. The German SS used to call those prisoners the “Singing Horses”. There was also a road leading up the entry of the camp called “Blood Street” by the prisoners. Thousands of prisoners died constructing this road.

Shortly after, especially during World War II, the German SS began incarcerating Sinti and Roma, Jehovah’s witnesses, convicts, homosexuals, the homeless, Polish and Soviet POWs, and resistance fighters from many parts of Europe. During World War II, the prisoner population expanded rapidly, and for a camp that was only originally built to house only 8,000, it soon reached 110,000 by the end of 1945. Altogether, almost 280,000 persons are ultimately imprisoned

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in Buchenwald and its 139 subcamps. After the influx of prisoners, Buchenwald became infamous for torture and death. Regardless of the type of prisoners, the Jews were always treated the worst.

Buchenwald had various locations within the camp that were designated for various types of horror. Buchenwald survivors told of the German SS murdering inmates by beating them to death, hanging, shooting, by injecting poisons into their hearts, medical experimentation, drowning prisoners in open latrines, working them to death at the nearby stone quarry, and much more. Beginning in 1941, a varied program

of involuntary medical experiments on prisoners took place at Buchenwald in special barracks in the northern part of the Main Camp. Medical experiments involving viruses and contagious diseases such as typhus resulted in thousands of deaths. German SS and physicians were testing new serums and viruses on prisoners. Prisoners also reported of other prisoners being dissected, harvested of their organs, and put on display to be utilized for medical research. There were also reports of various prisoners being executed and having their heads “shrunk” like the method the Jivaro Indians used. All of these reports were verified by evidence found by

the Americans who liberated Buchenwald, even the shrunken head of a Soviet POW officer.

Buchenwald also had a location called the “Stable” where the German SS soldiers carried out mass shootings. In the Stable, the prisoners had to enter a fake infirmary room and place themselves under a height gauge. At this time, a German SS soldier, disguised as a physician, would walk behind them to a height board to record their height. The German SS killed them with a revolver by shooting them through a small hole in the board placed at the height of the prisoner’s neck. The noise of those executions was masked by a radio at maximum volume so the prisoners in the next room did not know that the same fate awaited them merely a few minutes later.

The Jail, also known as the “Bunker”, was located at the entrance to the Main Camp. This was always full to capacity and prisoners were always tortured. In the detention cells they were forced to stand from 3 to 42 days straight in the cell or within groups, standing all day without any room or opportunity to lie or sit, confined in complete darkness, and rarely fed. Almost every prisoner who went to the Bunker left only when they died. Others were hung from the bars, injected with phenol or air, or sent to the Crematorium to be murdered.

The Crematorium area was the location for incinerating prisoners in large ovens, murders by hanging or shooting, and housed the dissection rooms where various other medical experiments took place. The dead were collected in the mortuary cellar and

transported to the oven room with the aid of a lift.

After the liberation by the Americans, it was discovered in the basement of the Crematorium that there was another execution room where the German SS had some 1,100 men, women, and adolescents hung on hooks on the walls.

Downhill from the Crematorium near Roll Call Square were replicas of the “Singing Horses” carts and a hanging post where inmates were bound by their wrists behind their back and hung from the posts by their wrists almost like a human totem pole. Roll Call Square is where day in and day out, as many as 20,000 prisoners would line up for roll call at dawn, then shipped off for forced labor. After ten or more hours of hard labor, the procedure was repeated in the evening. They were known to have roll calls that lasted as long as 72 hours straight with no other aim but to terrorize the prisoners. Refusal to participate was punishable by death. The prisoners were forced to remain standing and face the windows of the Bunker, through which they could hear the screams of the torture victims inside. On Roll Call Square, half-naked prisoners were flogged and fellow prisoners were hung on the gallows for all to see.

The camp gate was made of wrought iron and on the inside of the gate facing the camp it bears the inscription “Jedem das Seine”, based on an old Roman philosophy of “To live honorably, not to injure another, to give each his due”. The German SS interpreted this as “to give each his due” as in the right of the members of the “superior race” to humiliate and destroy others. They made sure that it was in

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plain view for all of the prisoners standing in Roll Call Square to see it at all times.

The reports of torture and death get much worse. Buchenwald even had its own building for stripping and tanning human skin. Prisoners would report that there were always stacks of human skin, both with and without camp tattoos. The prisoners reported that in Block 2 there was always a traffic of soldiers and it was called the “Pathology Block”. Prisoners reported always seeing soldiers leaving Block 2 carrying piles of human skin. Prisoners reported that

people were always getting skinned and the skin was then tanned and turned into book covers, gloves, hand bags, wall decorations, and even lamp shades. All of which were found when the Americans liberated Buchenwald. Prisoners who worked near this location reported that all of the things made were “gifts” ordered by German high command.

As Soviet forces swept through Poland, the Germans evacuated thousands of concentration camp prisoners from western Poland. After long, brutal marches, more than 10,000 weak and exhausted prisoners

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CHAPTER 12

from Auschwitz and Gross-Rosen, most of them Jews, arrived in Buchenwald in January 1945. In early April 1945, as American forces approached the camp, the Germans began to evacuate some 28,000 prisoners from the main camp and an additional 10,000 prisoners from subcamps of Buchenwald. The Germans were known to evacuate thousands of prisoners prior to the Allied Forces arriving in gruesome “death marches” where the majority of prisoners would die in transport or were simply killed and buried in unknown mass graves if time permitted. At Buchenwald, many children hid and fled in underground holes within the camp to avoid being taken on the death marches. About a third of the Buchenwald prisoners died from exhaustion en route or shortly after arrival from the death marches or were shot by the SS. Some were loaded on trains, sent to other concentration camps such as Dachau, and were never seen again. It was reported that almost 30,000 people died or were killed in the last few months of Buchenwald. However, many lives were saved by the Buchenwald “resistance” right before the Americans liberated the camp. The Buchenwald resistance were prisoners and members that held key administrative posts in the camp that were operating secretly within the camp waiting for the day to escape or a chance at liberating the camp when Allied Forces were close enough. When they heard the Americans were getting

close to Buchenwald, they obstructed Nazi orders and delayed the evacuation. On April 11, 1945, starved and emaciated prisoners and resistance members stormed the watchtowers, seizing control of the camp. This underground prisoner organization seized control of Buchenwald to prevent further atrocities by the retreating German SS camp guards. In a little more detail, the research identified that the Buchenwald resistance members were known as the International Camp Committee led by communists

and they were prepared to greet U.S. forces. They were listening clandestinely to radio reports and the inmates realized the Americans were close. The members of the resistance had a secret short-wave transmitter and small generator built and hidden.

On April 8 1945 at noon, two of the prisoners sent a morse code message to the nearby Allied Forces in English, German, and Russian. The message stated

“To the Allies. To the army of General Patton. This is the Buchenwald concentration camp. SOS. We request help. They want to evacuate us. The SS want to destroy us.” The message was repeated several times. Luckily enough, the Americans did receive it. The resistance had done everything they could do to hinder the evacuation. The morse coded message was their last hope. Not long after, the resistance intercepted a message from German high command that they were sending explosive to blow up all evidence of the camp including all of the prisoners. The resistance, posing as German SS soldiers responded that it was too late and the remaining German SS guards had already fled.

When the last of the German SS fled late in the morning of April 11, 1945, the prisoners distributed weapons long hidden from the Germans (including rifles, machine guns, and hand grenades) and took control of the watchtowers. A white flag was hoisted. In the adjacent woods, inmates now armed captured more than 70 German SS men. Later that afternoon, American forces entered Buchenwald. Soldiers from the Third U.S. Army division found more than 20,000 people in the camp, 4,000 of them Jews. With the camp now secured, American personnel had the

opportunity to observe and finally understand the depth of the terrors the Nazis implemented. They discovered that everything that was being reported by the prisoners was true, accurate, and more than anyone could have imagined.

With the help form the prisoners, American soldiers were able to pinpoint the scattered sites of years of murder and executions and photographed the six ovens in the camp’s crematorium, with human remains still present. The American soldiers discovered the horrors found in the various buildings and found hundreds of dead bodies stacked like firewood in open view all around the camp. There were even carts loaded with dead bodies stacked with firewood just sitting out in the open. The colossal tasks of documenting and communicating what had occurred in Buchenwald had only just begun for American investigators who ultimately shared the information to the world. The real evil that was occurring at Nazi concentration camps was finally confirmed. Lengendary CBS journalist Edward R. Murrow was one of those who came to the camp immediately after liberation, arriving on April 12, 1945. Three days later, he broadcast to audiences in the United States a description of what he encountered, a broadcast prefaced with strong warnings about the extreme content therin. These words have become famous. Murrow stated, “This is Edward R. Murrow. Permit me to tell you what you would have seen, and heard, had you been with me on Thursday. It will not be pleasant listening. If you are at lunch, or if you have no appetite to hear what Germans have done, now

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is a good time to switch off the radio, for I propose to tell you of Buchenwald”. You can Google Murrow’s radio broadcast and read his full transcript in detail, word for word of what he witnessed at Buchenwald.

By the end of the war, Buchenwald was the largest concentration camp in the German Reich. Approximately 56,000 men, women, and children were murdered or died from maltreatment, exposure, starvation, illness, or heinous medical experiments while in the Buchenwald camp system, the majority of them after

1942. Before the Nazis surrender on May 8, 1945, about 11,000,000 people died in the 520 concentration camps with the largest group of camp victims being Jews. Today, the Gate building of Buchenwald is one of the only buildings that remain standing. The clock on the building tower is stuck at 3:15 p.m. and has never been changed. It signifies the time Buchenwald was finally liberated by the Americans from the German SS on April 12, 1945. Three weeks later after the liberation of Buchenwald, the concentration camp of Dachau

was liberated. One day after Dachau’s liberation, Hitler committed suicide. On May 8, 1945, Germany surrendered and World War II came to an end. In reviewing this history of Buchenwald, I had a theory about why my grandfather wanted to visit Dachau when he took my grandmother to Europe instead of the site of the actual camp he liberated. Here is the key information leading up to my theory. While

at Buchenwald, the German SS knew that the Allied Forces were closing in. Just like the research shows, they tried to get rid of as many of the prisoners as possible and started to send them on “death marches” to mass graves or started shipping them out of the area, but nobody knows exactly where. The ones that were shipped out of Buchenwald on railroad cars were never seen again. Well, the concentration

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camp of Dachau has a railroad leading to it and it was rumored that those shipped from Buchenwald were sent to Dachau in those railroad cars.

According to my research, on the day of Dachau’s liberation April 29, 1945, which was just about almost three weeks after the liberation of Buchenwald, the scenes there were just as horrific as the ones found in Buchenwald, if not worse. According to some reports, the horrors that they found at Dachau immediately made the soldiers that liberated the camp start executing the remaining German SS guards that they captured. One of those horrific encounters was finding railroad cars filled with dead men, women, and children!

Yes, you may have guessed where I believe those railroad cars came from and who were in them. I believe they were the same railroad cars used to transport the survivors (at one point when they were still alive) out of Buchenwald right before the Allied Forces showed up to liberate Buchenwald! I believe that these were the thousands of missing people that nobody knew where they were shipped off to! Unfortunately, almost all of those poor souls perished in those railroad cars during transport or were intentionally left in them to die. They remained there in Dachau on those railroad tracks and in those railroad cars until they were found almost three weeks after the liberation of Buchenwald.

Part of my theory is that I believe my grandfather knew about the railroad cars and that he knew they were

the ones shipped from Buchenwald prior to his arrival to liberate the camp. I researched dozens of articles on Buchenwald and found nothing about the ultimate confirmed destination of the Buchenwald train cars.

However, I started researching dozens of articles on Dachau only because my grandfather visited there and had that tour map. Well, low and behold, this is a narrative that I found in one of the articles about Dachau - “Weeks earlier, Nazi commanders at Buchenwald, another notorious German concentration camp, packed at least 3,000 prisoners into 40 train cars in order to hide them from the approaching Allied armies. The train was supposed to arrive in Dachau a few days later, but the tortuous odyssey ended up lasting three weeks. All but a quarter of the train’s 3,000 passengers died from starvation, dehydration, asphyxiation, and disease. The survivors were herded into the concentration camp while thousands of fallen

LIBERATION OF BUCHENWALD

corpses were left to rot on the railway cars. If you’re a U.S. soldier arriving at Dachau, you’d almost certainly see the “death train” first. Bodies were stacked like cordwood”.

My theory is that my grandfather knew about Dachau and the railroad cars. My theory is that he specifically visited Dachau because he needed to pay his respects to those poor souls that could have been saved if the Allied Forces only arrived sooner at Buchenwald. Like I said before, I don’t think my grandfather randomly visited Dachau or because it was one of the only ones still standing. I believe he visited Dachau because he wanted to say goodbye to those that couldn’t be saved the day they liberated Buchenwald. My mom told me that she believes that the liberation of Buchenwald haunted my grandfather for the rest of his life. What he must have experienced there is something that nobody would wish to experience. The only narrative that I have regarding my grandfather speaking about Buchenwald in his own words is taken directly from the Army reunion article that was published when he visited Al and the rest of his Army buddies in Minnesota. In the article it says, “For Paul Guiton, being a member of the 2487th Second Platoon brought many memorable experiences. While hauling supplies in Europe, the Second Platoon took medical personnel and supplies to a concentration camp in Germany. “The people (prisoners) were scared of the Americans,” said Guiton. “They thought we (the Americans) would do to them what Hitler did”. The

scenes at the concentration camp were unbelievable, said Guiton. “Bodies were piled up next to a building like firewood.” And several feet of human ashes could be seen”.

Finding out that my grandfather and the Detachment A of the 2487th Quartermaster Truck Company (Aviation) helped to liberate Buchenwald was absolutely a surprise like no other! Researching this particular history lesson was very difficult and definitely one of the hardest yet. There are hundreds and hundreds of articles and videos regarding Buchenwald on the internet. There are even videos of the footage taken the day it was liberated. I caution you with what you will find and see with your own eyes. The pictures that I found in my grandfather’s briefcase when I was a kid was just a fraction of the visual horrors that have been recorded regarding the atrocities at Buchenwald and other concentration camps during World War II. They were also just a fraction of what my grandfather must have seen.

To find out that my grandfather liberated Buchenwald and saved thousands of lives makes him a bonafide war hero. In my mind, that makes all of those soldiers who were there bonafide war heroes.

TO THE END, MY GRANDFATHER WAS A FIGHTER AND TO THE VERY END MY GRANDFATHER WAS MY HERO.

Like I recently mentioned in the last chapter, three weeks after the liberation of Buchenwald, the concentration camp of Dachau was liberated. One day after Dachau’s liberation, Hitler committed suicide. On May 8, 1945, Germany surrendered and World War II came to an end.

Prior to us talking about the war ending and our research regarding the 2487th Quartermaster Truck Company (Aviation)’s return home, Larry wanted to relay one final story to me about our “famous” buddy Coy Shirley and another soldier Jack Keller. It was near the end of the war and Jack was making a run to Cologne Germany. Coy, being a mechanic, never got to go out on a run so he talked the Captain into letting him do a ride along. The Captain told him he could go but he wanted him and Keller to find a car and bring it back to him. Coy said that they got to Cologne and drove right up on a tank battle. He said the American tank was behind a church and that it would come out, fire across the river at the German tank, and then duck back behind the church. The German tank was doing the same thing but on the other side of the river.

Coy said after fifteen minutes he told Keller we better head back because those shells are starting to land closer. So they headed back. On the way out, Coy saw a garage with the door up about two feet. He could see wheels so he knew a car was in there. He told Keller to stop and let’s check this out. They got out and went to the garage and started trying to force the door up when all of a sudden they heard “tat-tat-tat-tat” and gravel started flying all around them!

They ran back to the truck and jumped under it. By now, they both realized they left their weapons in the truck. Coy said to Keller, “are we going to die here Keller”. Keller said, “no damn it! WE are not. I am going to roll out from under here, jump in the cab, fire the engine up, and haul ass out here! If YOU are not in the truck, then good luck!”

I couldn’t stop laughing after Larry shared that with me. Now back to talking about the return home. After the war ended I had little to no information regarding my grandfather’s travels or details of his journey home.

I reached out to Larry to find out if he had anything. According to Larry, after Germany surrendered all of the

men with 85 service points were moved into other units and shipped home. In the 2487th, this would have been married men and married men with children because they received additional points for having a wife and children. So some of the guys were home by the end of August while others arrived in October and November. Larry said that if I had access to my grandfather’s discharge papers it should list his unit assignment at time of discharge. Larry knew that some of them were transferred into the 475th, 476th, 485th, 488th, and 496th. He also knew that the 2nd Platoon (my grandfather’s) was absorbed into the 476th Air Service Group (ASG) in June of 1945 and the 1st Platoon was absorbed by the 475th Air Service Group (ASG).

Larry also said that after Japan surrendered things got real crazy though when President Truman said he wanted all the boys home by Christmas. They started moving them into any unit headed for home and sometimes it would be just a few of them at a time. He was able to find his dad’s last pay overseas pay voucher and it listed him in the 496th Air Service Group. With that he was able to find the ship that he came back on, the Mahanoy City, which arrived back at the same port they left from at Hampton Roads, Virginia. The 476th was also on the boat so Larry suspects that others from the 2487th were on there as well. Larry’s dad arrived back on October 27, 1945.

Thanks to my mom and getting more documents from my Uncle Mike, we had a picture of my grandfather’s

discharge paperwork. He also arrived back in the United States on October 27, 1945, making Larry’s research accurate and my grandfather more than likely also arriving back to Hampton Roads aboard the Mahanoy City on Pier 8. Once again, full circle. I also sent Larry a photo of an additional patch that my mom found. Larry said that the patch was probably a Headquarters Company patch. He said that my grandfather would have been transferred into a Headquarters Company in preparation for returning home.

There were large numbers of those formed right after the surrender for the sole purpose of processing and getting the boys home. Larry went through his dad’s last pay voucher and it was from the 496th Air Service Group Headquarters Company. His dad never mentioned them and he wouldn’t let them put it on his discharge paperwork because he wanted his documents to reflect that he was out of the 2487th. Larry said my grandfather’s documents say the same. He talked to several other members years ago about it and they were also the same. Attached is a picture of the badge we found that is probably a Headquarters Company patch.

I couldn’t find any pictures of the Mahoney City, but I did attach some photos of ships arriving in the United States shortly after the end of World War II. You can just imagine what it must have been like for those extremely crowded ships filled with more than happy soldiers returning home to see their loved ones! The pictures say it all.

As noted in a previous chapter, every single member of the 2487th Quartermaster Truck Company (Aviation) survived World War II and made it home. They all lived

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CHAPTER 13

long lives and had wonderful families. My grandfather made a promise to my grandmother that if he survived the war, he would marry her and take care of her for the rest of her life. He wrote about his lover for her and this promise in the dozens of letters he sent throughout the war. Well, my grandfather did exactly what he said and he married my grandmother and had eight children. They had four sons and four daughters, dozens of grandchildren, and great grandchildren. A good wholesome Irish family!

My mom is my grandfather’s youngest and she named

me after him. My middle name is Paul. My name is Daniel Paul Ramey. The highest honor I could ever have is to share my name with my grandfather.

Elmer Peterson, a member of Detachment A (2nd Platoon) was the only 2487th member to receive the Purple Heart. He was wounded on December 26, 1944. Larry believes it was when the Airfield was attacked by German planes. Every member of the 2487th Quartermaster Truck Company (Aviation) made a promise to each other to meet up throughout the rest of their lives. They lived up to that promise. They had various Army reunions throughout the years and attached are some of the photos that we were able to acquire from those reunions. The last reunion that my grandfather attended was the one at Al’s house in Minnesota in 1992. The same reunion

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that there is a newspaper article about. There is one final award that my grandfather received in his life that a lot of people don’t know about. In that newspaper article it talked about my grandfather receiving a “True Grit” award but it didn’t mention why. Well, I figured it out. At that reunion, my grandfather received the “True Grit” award from his friends. He received it because he still made it to the reunion despite being diagnosed and suffering from Leukemia. I remember when my grandfather passed away because it was the most difficult time of my life. It was only five months after that reunion and when that newspaper article was published. My grandfather passed away on January 30, 1993. That was the last time he would ever see the other members of the 2487th Quartermaster Truck Company (Aviation) and I would bet everything that my grandfather and his friends

all already knew that. To the end, my grandfather was a fighter and to the very end my grandfather was my hero. Larry’s father, Alton Doc Payne, passed away less than three months prior to my grandfather. Alton Doc Payne was also a fighter and to the very end was Larry’s hero. This final narrative will serve as my last piece of irony to share with all of you. This has been an absolutely incredible

journey in researching my grandfather’s military history. It has been my absolute pleasure to have shared their story. As written from my grandfather to my grandmother in a letter that he sent from Germany at the conclusion of the war:

“I didn’t know the 9th Air Force was going to send that letter to our folks. I did know we were awarded

the Citation (Merit ) and it is really something nice to receive. We were always called the “Fighting” 2487th and I guess we have a good name. All jokes aside, we were one of the best Truck Companies in England and over here. That’s why I felt bad when they broke the Company up and we lost our name. The Citation is the only thing we have to remember the Company now, but we all feel that we are still the same Company. Well

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that’s enough about us honey. I will tell you all the main things when I get home. It would take a book to write it”.

- Paul Joseph Guiton

2487TH QUARTERMASTER COMPANY

PHOTO GALLERY

QUARTERMASTER TRUCK COMPANY (AVIATION)

2487TH QUARTERMASTER TRUCK COMPANY (AVIATION)

PHOTO GALLERY

GALLERY

PHOTO

2487TH QUARTERMASTER TRUCK COMPANY (AVIATION)

PHOTO GALLERY

EPILOGUE

When I was young, my grandfather would always have me sit with him and watch black and white World War II documentaries. He would always emphasize to me how important they were and the history involved. As I got older, he would tell me bits and pieces why he made me sit and watch those documentaries, but he never dove into the details. He would mention once in a while that he was in the Army and he drove truck. He told me that he was in Europe during the war and that was about the extent of it.

A few months ago when I started to research his true history in the military, it all started to make sense and come to light. As a matter of fact, the more I dug into his history, the more I found. The more I found, the more I was amazed by the details. It was like following a rabbit down the rabbit hole. The deeper I went, the more his story took twists and turns. The more it twisted and turned, the more I got lost in one of the biggest and best history lessons of my life.

You see in the end, I found out that my grandfather was a bonafide war hero. In every sense of the word, he was a man that did more in his lifetime than most of us could do in multiple lifetimes. When my grandfather would tell me that

he was in the Army and he drove truck, what he was really telling me was that he crossed the Atlantic Ocean being chased by a German submarine and lost them in a Hurricane, was at the largest seaborne invasion in human history and stormed Normandy at Omaha Beach, helped build the first Airfield in France paving the way for the Allied Forces to free Europe, was assigned to the 67th Tactical Recon Group that outfitted Spitfires and P-51 Mustangs with surveillance equipment to do clandestine missions, saw every inch of the battle of World War II from start to finish by being a part of the Red Ball Express, survived the Battle of the Bulge and Operation Bodenplatte when the Germans attacked his Airfield on New Year’s Day, liberated one of the oldest concentration camps in Germany called Buchenwald, and was a soldier of the “Fighting” 2487th Quartermaster Truck Company (Aviation).

The blessings of fate allowed me to write the book that my grandfather himself wanted to do. This is the story of an unknown hero. This is the story of all of the unknown heroes of the 2487th Quartermaster Truck Company (Aviation).

This book is in loving memory of my grandfather and my hero Paul Joseph Guiton.

THE BLESSINGS OF FATE ALLOWED ME TO WRITE THE BOOK THAT MY GRANDFATHER HIMSELF WANTED TO DO. THIS IS THE STORY OF AN UNKNOWN HERO. THIS IS THE STORY OF ALL OF THE UNKNOWN HEROES OF THE 2487TH QUARTERMASTER TRUCK COMPANY AVIATION.