NORMANDY

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

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 (which is difficult to see in this picture), 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), 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 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

Normandy Chapter 5

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 came out of his sleeping bag and joined him right away. 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