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ACT II ~ OVERSEAS & COMBAT
On the 20th of December 1943 the regiment moved to Camp Shanks,
New York in preparation for overseas shipment. Passes were
issued for two nights and then the 508 was alerted Christmas
day. We loaded onto the USAT James Parker on the 27th and early
on the morning of the 28th we started drawing overseas pay. Lots
of money changed hands in crap games and poker and we also had
lots of mal de mer. We arrived in Belfast, North Ireland on
January 8, 1944, and ended up in the little town of Port
Stewart. It got dark about 4:30 pm and didn't get light until
about 9:00 am in the morning. Also, the higher you got into the
hills, the wetter it got. We learned what peat bogs were all
about. We all found out where that old Irish saying came from.
"If you can see the hills it's going to rain. If you can't see
the hills it's because it's raining." we did lots of night
training ... Not hard considering the time of year and our
location.
Someone on high must have heard our pleas to get out of Ireland
and on March 10th we arrived in Nottingham, England. . .what
joy!!! Here we were in the middle of a large industrial city in
the midlands. Don Jakeway said it best. "you can imagine our joy
when we first set foot in this wonderful city, after spending a
couple of months in that barren, cheerless area of North
Ireland. We busted our butts during the daylight hours getting
the camp ready, but once the sun set, we hustled those same
butts into town."
Everyone who was in Nottingham has his own story to tell about
the fine people in that city. About friendly pubs and families
that took us in and, of course, we reciprocated as best we
could. The English had not seen citrus fruit since 1939, so we
all smuggled out as much fruit as we could and those 10 lb.
sticks of bologna that all went into appreciative hands. Notice
how diplomatic I am about not mentioning the beautiful young
ladies of Nottingham. But they were there ...
We all knew that something big was about to happen and that we
would be part of it. England was coming apart at the seams with
men and equipment. We were busy day and night. We had a couple
of night jumps with just jumpmasters in the planes. We should
have anticipated later problems, for we were scattered all over
on landing. Nevertheless, we suddenly got our orders to move to
Folkingham airport and we were sealed in. The security about the
move to the departure airfield must have been pretty good
because two of our sterling soldiers, OB Hill and Davey Jones,
didn’t get the word. They arrived back at Wollaton Park in the
wee small hours only to find that the regiment had moved. They
found their way to the airfield and each took off one of their
sergeant's stripes on the inside when they stood side by side,
the sergeant's stripes still in place on the outside. They
reported to Captain Ruddy, "Sir, Sergeants Hill and Jones
reporting in from AWOL." They then switched sides with no
stripes showing on the outside and said, "Sir, Privates Hill and
Jones reporting for duty." Of such did we win the war...
COMBAT
Normandy was to be the culmination of twenty-two months of real
hard continuous effort on all our parts to be prepared and not
to be found |
