This is the continuation of a story begun on our June 2013 Home Page. To go to an archived version of that page, click here: June 2013 Home Page Archive. To return to this month's actual Home Page, click on the Signal Corps orange Home Page menu item in the upper left corner of this page.

continuing...

From the 23rd of May until the morning of June 1 the 56th was kept in complete isolation from the rest of the world. Then at 0730 on June 1 the tour of duty our Signal man and his fellow soldiers were on took its next step forward; advance units of the 56th were ordered to begin boarding LST #54, at Falmouth Bay, England.  

On June 5, 1944, at 1:00 am, LST #54 set sail for continental Europe.

If our soldier was like any of the others that set out on that June morning for France, then he probably felt both anxious as well as at ease. Having been provided with floatation gear, and finding himself riding alongside communication vehicles he was well familiar with, it was clear that a watery landing like the ones he had trained for lay ahead. Yet there was likely no fear in these thoughts, as he already had more than two years under his belt doing just such a thing. On the personal side however, there must have been a few nagging thoughts in his mind… nagging thoughts that said that no matter the outcome, it was time to move this life experience to its next stage, because only by continuing the march could our soldier eventually hope to conclude his tour and wend his way back to that warm bed he left behind… as well as the girlfriend or wife, and the family and life he missed so.

For our Signaleer, by this stage, nearly 3 years down the road from when he was drafted, the recognition had fully set in: unless he and those around him continued moving forward… and finished their tour of duty… there would never be an end to this war. And without a clean, clear, unambiguous end, our soldier of the 56th Signal Battalion knew that he might spend the rest of his life never seeing home again. From this standpoint at least, while the tour of duty our WWII soldier was on was different from that our future Vietnam and Afghanistan soldiers would live, the thought was the same: approaching the unknown and fearing a bad outcome was subsumed by a determination to get it on and get it over with, if only so that one could go home again.

     THE 56TH SIGNAL BATTALION AT OMAHA BEACH - NORMANDY

On June 5, 1944, the elements of the 56th that loaded up in Falmouth Bay found themselves trying to make a landing at the Easy Red Sector, on Omaha Beach, in Normandy, France. They were part of the US Army’s Fifth Corps.

As background, the Fifth Corps was part of the First US Army, sharing its position along with a sister unit called the 7th Corps. The 5th Corps held within it two Infantry Divisions, the1st and the 29th. Each Division had about 10,000 troops. The 56th Signal Battalion’s task was to provide advance radio and wire teams to support the 5th Corps. In the case of our typical Signal Corps trooper living out his tour of duty during the Second World War, he was one of the 200 56th Signal Battalion Signaleers included in the 5th Corps’ first landing at Omaha Beach.

In that capacity he and his mates were assigned to provide communication support during the landing and in its immediate aftermath, between 5th Corps’ Headquarters and the 1st and 29th Infantry Division’s Headquarters. To do this the 200 odd men he was part of were broken down into wire communications teams, loaded onto separate Naval LST craft, told that from this point forward they should consider themselves both assigned and attached to the two Divisional Infantry Initial Assault Groups that hit the beach, and to do their best to support them. Having never been on one, most of our readers will not know that an LST, or Landing Ship Tank, is nearly as long as a football field. It’s also some 50 feet wide, with a set of doors at the front end that open in opposite directions to allow the loading and unloading of tanks and other vehicles.

Having both a top and a lower deck, the vehicles on an LST can be moved around by means of an elevator. As originally intended, the ship is designed to be able to reach the shallows of a shoreline and unload its vehicles directly onto the beach. The truth is however that rough seas and sub-standard shorelines often made this impossible. That was the case at Omaha Beach.

On June 5, 1944, LST #54 wallowed in rough seas and rainy weather for several hours en route to the Easy Red Sector of Omaha Beach. When it became obvious that the flotilla it was a part of was not going to land that day, the entire task force returned to port, where it passed a miserable night before departed in darkness early the next day.

Following the same course as the day before, LST #54 finally made its approach to the Omaha Beach site, where DUKW Radio vehicles were set afloat from the ship, moving on their own into the waters as LST #54 and the rest of the flotilla approached the shoreline. Instantly the DUKWs came under heavy enemy fire. Under this withering fire men were dropping all around, while significant damage was being inflicted on the DUKW vehicles and the radio equipment they contained. Still, LST #54 soldiered on, and tried repeatedly to nose itself up to the Omaha Beach disembarking point.

All of this took place in the shadowy hours of pre-morning dawn. By the time of first light it was clear that the Germans had their artillery fire zeroed in, and in spite of all of the work the infantry boys did to secure the landing area the lack of a deep enough level of secure beachhead forced ships like LST #54 to back away from shore to anchor a mile or so out from Easy Red beach, and hope for another attempt later in the day after the infantry could secure a deeper section of the beach.

Over the next few hours most of the other landing craft involved experienced the same scenario, to the point that dozens of ships began to build up behind the one our 56th Signal Battalion soldier sat in. To try to turn the situation around, the beach masters called the landing ships with tanks in them to come ashore, come hell or high water, and discharge their troops and cargo. The communication boys, in the LSTs anchored off shore, having nothing but communication vehicles in their LSTs, sat out this part of the show.

Riding at sea for what seemed like forever, finally, on June 7, 1944, at around 1000 hours, LST #54 got its call to approach the beach for unloading. Even then however, it soon became apparent that as valiant as the 1st ID’s fighting had been, the depth of penetration of the line of security ashore had not reached the point where the LST’s radio cargo and vehicles could do much good before being put out of commission by German artillery fire.

To try to figure out how to help the cause, instead of just sitting on an LST bobbing in the waves and being told what to do, one of the Officers on LST #54 took charge of things. He called out to the 56th Signal Battalion EM we are following and ordered him to accompany him ashore. The Officer’s plan was to go ashore himself and find out what could be done to move things along.

Who was this Officer?

It could have been 1st Lieutenant Dean Chase. Lieutenant Chase was one of the Junior Officers in Company A of the 56th Signal Battalion, was from Virginia, and graduated as part of U.S. Army Signal Corps OCS Class 42-03. Or it could have been 2nd Lieutenant George W. Galusha, a California man that graduated as part of U.S. Army Signal Corps OCS Class 43-14 and was also serving in Company A of the 56th.

Then again it could have been 2nd Lieutenant Robert L. Hilliard, from Illinois, a graduate of OCS Class 42-09 and another member of Company A, or maybe even 1st Lieutenant Roger D. Lumb, from Wisconsin, a graduate of OCS Class 42-09, and an Officer in Company B of the 56th. All of these Junior Officers, graduates of Army Signal OCS, were present in the Omaha Beach landing.

Whoever it was, this Officer called for the EM Signaleer we are following to hitch himself to the Officer’s side and follow him ashore. Together they transferred to a Navy Higgins craft that was running shuttle service between the waiting LSTs anchored at sea, bringing both wounded friendlies as well as wounded and disoriented enemy prisoners off shore, while taking replacements back on shore.

Once in the Higgins they headed for shore, where enroute they would have seen a sea filled with the debris of war, as well as the bodies of young men in clearly recognizable OD uniforms. Mixed in with the flotsam and jetsam around them were vast stretches of oil, and equally large stretches of discolored sea water… sea water discolored with the distinct color of red that comes only from blood.

By this day, June 7th, small arms fire would have been suppressed, but artillery fire would still be coming in. Most noticeable of all however, while the situation along the beach was guardedly under control, the air all along it would have still hung heavy with the terror that only the day before would have been so thick that it could have been cut. Bodies, machines blown to hell, sand drifting up to and entangling those trying to wade ashore, confusion, noise, all of this and more, while no longer running at the level it had run the day before, would have been perceptible just below the surface.

Being Signaleers from the 56th Signal Battalion on a mission, our two men would have moved up the beach to reconnoiter the place at the top of the beach where the 56th was assigned an exit point, from which the unit, when it finally came ashore, would be able to put the beach behind them as they secured a place where they could pause to reorganize. Scouting for just such a place, our two men would have gone looking for what they knew of as Exit E-1, their assigned departure point. In doing so they would have passed the infamous German WN-65 concrete armament bunker, on their right, as they worked their way up the small hill towards Exit E-1. If they could get from the landing point to Exit E-1, they could then reorganize and move out in the direction of St. Laurent-sur-Mer, the goal of the first day’s orders.

It being just the two of them, our EM Signaleer and his Lieutenant would have quickly found that after going only 800 yards from the beach they were in the midst of troops of the 1st Infantry Division who were fully engaged in short range, small arms combat. Being communications guys, they would have also quickly figured out that the sniper fire and hedgerow resistance the 1st ID boys were trying to subdue was too much to allow the 56th men to lay wire in the area without losing most of the men involved. The fact of the matter was, while the area along the waterline was somewhat secure, the area where the beach met the headland was still being aggressively contested by the Germans.

Knowing that there wasn’t much they could do until the area was secured, after a few hours of reconnoitering our two men would have returned to the shore, where they would have boarded another Higgins for a ride back to LST #54. In what must have been a poignant reminder of what lay ahead for many men of the 56th, as they returned to their LST they would have seen literally truckloads of fallen American soldiers being loaded, to be taken somewhere for close-by burial.

For our EM Signaleer, three years into his tour of duty, this is what he would have seen; and his tour was not over yet. The fact was,  in the middle of a beach landing and assault that tried to take a few hundred feet of ground on the continent of Europe, take it back from the enemy and hold it, there was no time for fear, none for sadness, no value in wondering why, no time to give a proper burial to those who secured the few feet of land the Americans were able to stand on that day of June 7, 1941, and even less time to pause and reflect on when this tour of duty would end, or how.

Our Signaleer would have spent the night of June 7 back on LST #54, where finally, at 0945 on June 8, 1944, his craft would set him and his unit ashore. In short order they would move their vehicles from the LST to Navy Rhino vessels, a kind of motorized mesh raft. From there, loaded with both troops and vehicles, each Rhino would head for the Normandy shore, making its way up onto the beach in about 4 feet of water. From there the 56th would make its way up to the previously scouted Exit E-1.

Lucky for the Signal boys that made up this contingent, the 1st ID had cleared a pathway between the numerous enemy mine fields, from the water’s edge all the way up to Exit E-1. And since the vehicles they were taking with them had been waterproofed before embarking England, they would have had no difficulty in taking them through the last several feet of water that had to be covered before everything and everyone was on dry land.

As for the EM Signaleer we are following, having been ashore the day before, on this day he would have noticed that something was different from what he had seen the day before. What he would have noticed was that on this morning, at 0945 on June 8th, the waters along the shore would have been cleared of floating dead bodies. Debris, yes… lots of it would have been floating around… clothing, boxes, equipment, damaged landing craft, everything. But floating American soldiers, not any more. Unlike the day before, they were all gone… and while the place looked like a war zone, it was at least a sterile war zone.

As soon as the 56th was fully ashore the men set about de-waterproofing their vehicles. This was then followed with the time worn task of laying twisted pair wire to get the telephone nets up and running as soon as possible. While for some the occasional enemy artillery fire might have given them a start, for most, having spent several days watching the scene from an LST, all that mattered was getting the job done.

- - - - -

The end of the first day ashore marked a milestone in our Signaleer’s tour of duty. But it was only one step along the path that would form a completed tour. As the sun sank on the evening of June 8, he and his unit secured an apple orchard in which they bivouacked for the night, before setting off early the next morning to begin laying cable again. Secure as they might have felt, this was to prove no cake walk for them. The Germans were not about to roll over and cry uncle. Within a few minutes a low flying ME-109 dropped dozens of anti-personnel bombs directly over the encampment. And just like that, the unit had its baptism of fire as 28 men of the 56th succumbed to wounds or were killed.

With this baptism of fire behind him, and the perilous crossing of the English Channel over, from this point forward, for our Signaleer, this phase of his tour of duty involved nothing more than doing what he had been taught. But one wonders: if he had paused to think about it, might it have occurred to him how strange this tour of duty was turning out to be?

More than just his being part of a massive effort to defeat the Germans, for him, as an individual, this tour was turning out to be more like a chautauqua, that is, a journey where there is a beginning, a middle and an end… and that if one is ever to resume one’s normal life again one must live through each of these three phases, learning the lessons of life in the process, and most importantly, attaining the original purpose that started the chautauqua in the first place. That is, one must not only travel the road and learn from it, one must also survive the road and accomplish the goals of the chautauqua too. Travelling the road, living through the journey, and learning the lessons along the way are all well and good, but if the goal of the chautauqua is not attained, then the journey will never end.

As to how any of this applies to our analysis of what differentiates a tour of duty today from those of WWII, the question must be asked: what were the goals of a tour of duty in WWII? And what are they for a combat soldier in one of today’s wars? Unless they are known, and in our story here our Signaleer accomplishes them, his tour of duty will have a bad ending. The point being that while our Signaleer may be the one making the tour, those who are laying out the steps and stages along the way will be the ones that determine whether the tour will achieve its end goal or not. Both then… in WWII… and today, whoever lays out the steps that make up a tour of duty for a typical soldier during war time had better know what they are doing, or else the tours they prescribe will never end… they will just evolve, from one soldier to the next, as the chautauqua’s goals fail to be reached, and one soldier is co-opted to fill in the space left by a predecessor as he falls by the wayside… as the war goes on forever.

Whether our hypothetical 56th Signal Battalion soldier thought these thoughts as he made his way along the beaches and road ways in the vicinity of St. Laurent-sur-Mer and Colleville-sur-Mer, we will never know. What we do know however is that as far as he was concerned this was not a sightseeing tour. To him this was not the pretty French countryside of St. Laurent-sur-Mer and Colleville-sur-Mer, France, but the Sectors that led to Omaha Beach’s Exit E-1; sectors that he knew as FOX, EASY, DOG, and CHARLIE. Sectors all in need of twisted wire cable and telephones to link the 5th Corps HQ with those of the 1st and 29th ID, as well as connect these with the various support troops attached to the 5th Corps, including the Anti-Aircraft boys, Engineering, Hospital units, Artillery, Supply, and Intelligence, and any others that showed up and claimed a need to communicate.

On the surface, that was our 56th Signal Battalion soldier’s mission during the assault on Omaha Beach, in the Easy Red sector. But as we hinted above, something else was going on under the surface. Under the surface he was living through a tour of duty that centered around marching himself from that soft warm bed he was drafted out of to Hitler’s front door. Our signal man’s tour of duty was turning out to be one endless march to get in the face of the enemy… up close, and personal. So that the enemy could be killed, and this chautauqua come to an end.

- - - - -

With the beach areas along the coast of France secured, our man’s tour of duty continued… inland, east, towards Germany. Unknown to our Signaleer at the time, his tour of duty was about to take a turn for the worse, as the 56th Signal Battalion made its way toward the Ardennes.

Of all of the steps and stages that the 56th went through enroute to face Hitler, the 1944-45 winter Ardennes campaign proved the most trying. The Ardennes was a densely forested area of Wallonia that covered portions of Belgium, France and Luxembourg, along what was then called the Western Front. As most readers know, the Germans mounted a surprise attack that caught the Allied forces completely off guard. This battle, known as the Battle of the Bulge, became the costliest battle in terms of US casualties during all of World War II. Yet while it proved costly to Uncle Sam, it hurt the Germans even more, as it depleted their war-making resources to the extent that the country was never able to recover. As a result, for Germany, the Battle of the Bulge became the final significant offensive operation of the war.

The 56th Signal Battalion played a prime role in the Battle of the Bulge, and our Signaleer’s tour of duty took him right through the middle of it. The 56th arrived in the city of Eupen (pronounced OY-pen), Belgium, in October of 1944. Over the month preceding their arrival in Eupen, the unit had marched through Bastogne and Luxemburg, and was tired and ready for a rest upon arrival at Eupen.

Part of the problem was the weather, which got colder with each passing day, sapping the men’s strength in the process. This being a war rather than a training exercise, supplies were hard to come by, as the supply lines rarely kept up with the advancing troops. From a practical standpoint, everything was in short supply from the gas needed to run the vehicles to clothing, food, and repair equipment, and so the idea of stopping for a bit to rest in Eupen made sense.

For those unfamiliar, Eupen played a crucial role in the Battle of the Bulge, as it sat along the Amblève River, which in turn served to protect the Allies’ northern flank. Unless it was held the Germans would have direct access to the Allies’ flank, as well as both Spa and Verviers. Eupen also served as a necessary part of any supply line the Germans might require if they choose to attack any of these places. And to top all of this off, it was the locus of a bridge connecting Eupen to Malmédy, making it imperative that the Germans take both the town and the bridge, as they were both needed if the 1st SS Panzer Division was to mount a major armored thrust to dislodge the Americans and push them back. Because of this, taking control of Eupen early in any exercise to drive back the Americans was critical for the Germans.

Upon their arrival in Eupen Companies A and B of the 56th were assigned a large, empty leather processing factory for their quarters. For nearly three months the units remained there, complaining about the smell of leather, but happily accepting the fact that the building was secure, closed and warm. From this location the 56th went about its task of providing signal links and an overall telephone based communication network to serve the units it supported.

Sometime in the pre-dawn daylight hours of December 16, 1944, the unit was awakened with the dull thudding sound of enemy artillery shells leaving their tubes enroute to Eupen. A sound sequence composed of an initial thud, followed by an incoming whistle-cum-swishing sound, followed in turn by the crack of the exploding shell, artillery is one of the more memorable sounds of war a soldier will ever hear. For the men of the 56th Signal Battalion, the sounds they heard that morning were unmistakable.

As the 56th roused itself for combat, the explosions drew nearer until they were in the back yard of the building. Amid the smoke and rubble of damaged vehicles, the unit was alerted and ordered to take up defensive positions.

On the horizon, barely visible, could be seen German paratroopers dropping into the area. Some landed in the large open field to the side of the Tannery where the 56th was housed. With the confusion that ensued it was difficult to gather the unit for any sort of offensive action, and so Companies A and B were ordered to leave Eupen and retreat about 10 miles to the rear, to await further orders.

As the battle unfolded wire communications throughout the Fifth Corps area began to suffer, with most damage coming from artillery, tanks rolling over ground laid wire, and trees falling in the process and dragging down the wires strung through them. A call to action was ordered, and the 56th’s men set up round-the-clock repair teams. Most men barely had enough time to catch a wink of sleep.

Typical of ground combat during WWII, the constant activity of troop movement and the advancing and dodging of tanks and vehicles made it near impossible to lay wire where it was needed, never mind keep it functional as everything and everyone tramped over it. Add to this the wet, snowy weather, and even when the wires could be kept intact and isolated from the water, the telephone equipment itself broke down. Maintaining effective wire based communication proved almost hopeless, but was made all the worse along about the afternoon of the first day when enemy air support ramped up and dozens of daytime raids and attacks were made by low flying Messerschmitts. Air activity of fighter planes increased considerably, with loss and damage on both sides.

While only a side show, along about this time two of the Signaleers of Company A managed to capture a parachuting enemy pilot from a damaged Messerschmitt, as he dropped into an open field near the unit. As the story goes, almost instantly another ME-109 roared overhead at only a few hundred feet, presumably to learn the fate of the fellow airman. Considering that it was only the day before when the men of the 56th learned of the massacre of captured American POWs at Malmédy, it was to be expected that some of the Allied troops on the ground aimed their 50 calibers in the direction of the parachuting pilot. As it was, he was not hit. Covered with oil and dirt he was escorted from the field and taken as a POW… fortunately for him by the Americans, who would likely give him much better POW treatment than those 80 that died at Malmédy.[1]

- - - - -

The Battle of the Bulge marked a turning point in the war against the Germans, as seasoned troops and active resistance tapered off over the next few months, with the fall of the country coming shortly thereafter in April. From Eupen the 56th moved on to Kassel, Germany. And as the Soviet Red Army nosed its way into Berlin on 16 April, 1945, the 56th found itself leaving a defeated and leveled Kassel for its next destination, somewhere near Liepzig. Since Eisenhower had decided to let the Soviets take the glory for the fall of Berlin, the U.S. units in the area served a different purpose. In various fashion they were fanned out to secure the surrounding countryside, take critical towns, airports and junction points that would put full stop to Germany's war effort, and bring the government that fostered this curse on the world to an end once and for all.

The destination the 56th was headed towards was not made known to the men, but in usual fashion it all seemed to be well planned, timed, under control, and in a generally eastward direction, as said above, towards Liepzig. Then suddenly it all changed. The tour of duty that seemed on track for our Signaleer to find himself in Berlin was ordered to turn on a dime and head out in a new direction, to join up with Third Army forces, at which time they would then both turn sharply to the right and head southeast in the general direction of the Czech Republic.

Unbeknownst to our Signaleer, this forced march southeast instead of east would prove to be one of the last major steps in his tour of duty, and perhaps the most important. As the 56th approached the city of Weimar, Germany, the countryside turned eerily quiet. Moving towards a spot just to the northeast of Weimar, in the center of a triangular area between the towns of Neiderzimmern, Ettersburg, and Gaberndorf, the unit came upon the concentration Camp at Buchenwald.

At this point in our story we will segue to the words of the Signaleer whose real life story we have been using as background for this story: a US Army Signal Corps Signaleer known as Robert Howard Searl Sr., Technician 4th Class, a member of the 56th Signal  Battalion, Company A.

Technician Searl, in writing of his war experiences, reported that as they entered Buchenwald “It was apparent that the German forces had hurriedly abandoned the enclosure and the restraining gates were open, and many of those forcibly retained at the camp were confused and milling in the roadways, heading in all directions. Most were beyond the ability of movement or willingness to travel and sat dazed by the roadside, with no realization of direction or purpose. Hardly recognizable as humans, most were dressed in the easily noticeable striped rags.

“Directly inside the enclosure were human stacks of gaunt and emaciated exposed naked bodies in horrible positions of death, awaiting the oven fire of final destruction. The profound smell of death prevailed the area. Too late for long awaited freedom or recovery for those piled as refuse, but the motionless mercy of death had ended their suffering. As we stared at this, our sacrifices and the price of war seemed justifiable and our purpose made clear. The feeling was in all of us that the end was near for enemy resistance. As we quickly left the area the forward troop progress was almost without interference or enemy contact, as we headed for Czechoslovakia."

After Buchenwald, Signalman Searl’s tour of duty took him and the 56th on to Pilsen, Czechoslovakia, where for all practical purposes his tour of duty came to an end. Arriving after dark on May 6, 1945, the scene was one of triumph. By that time it was clear to the Germans that they had lost the war, and troops were surrendering by the hundreds to any US unit they could find. Clearly, they preferred to be taken as POWs by America than the thousands of Russians roaming the streets. For the men of the 56th Signal Battalion, it had been a long war. Most had endured 3 years away from home. A few days later, on May 8, the Second World War officially ended in Europe. All that was left was to get back home to that warm bed our Signalman had been drafted out of long, long ago.

- - - - -

Having tried to show what a tour of duty was in WWII, we can close the story here. Our point has been made. Unlike a tour of duty in Vietnam, Iraq, or Afghanistan, the tours of duty soldiers went through before the Korean War were unique in America’s history. In Technician Searl’s story above one can see what they were: they consisted of a long march, without deflection, departure, or break, whose purpose was to take America’s soldiers from their homes to the center of power of the enemy: Berlin. And once there to grind that enemy to dust and end once and for all the warring efforts that the enemy brought on the world. In Part III of this series we will look at how this kind of tour of duty has changed over the years, to the point that now wars are fought without need or regard to find, fix, kill, and end the enemy's capacity to govern his country. No longer is the objective to remove the enemy's military capacity to wage war, dismantle his government and remove its leaders, now it is only necessary to reduce his capacity to strike, while leaving yourself open for him to strike back at in the future, when he feels so inclined.

For an analysis of what caused the structure and purpose of a tour of duty to change, and what this says about America's resolve to win the wars it fights, continue reading Part III in this series.

 

         

Epilogue

During his tour of duty US Army Signal Corps Technician Searl received the following medals and awards: Good Conduct Medal, American Defense Medal, American Campaign Medal, European-African-Middle East Medal, World War II Victory Medal, Army of Occupation Medal [Germany], Initial Assault Bronze Arrowhead Award, Army Meritorious Unit Award, ETO Battle Campaigns [Normandy - Northern France] [Rhineland - Ardennes/Alsace - Central Europe] . In July, 2015, former Tech Seargent 4th Class Searle sent an eMail to this Association in which he commented...

"...a current resident of Wilmington, North Carolina, having recently moved to this location from Ocean City, Maryland. During the change of location process, I happened to run across a copy of an article from the OCS Association, written in June 2013 entitled “A Tour of Duty” written by one of your Association writers. It was a very interesting account based on my very own personal experiences as a “Signaleer” member of the 56th Signal Battalion in WWII in Europe. The reference data was very well prepared and written and made very accurate depiction of data as reported from my many WWII experiences as I have posted on the Internet in the past, for all the world to read. The reporters other observations and comments were well done. I did want to pass along my appreciation for his work. A few days ago, to Re-read the story once again on this July 4th brought back many memories in addition to being the 70th Anniversary of my honorable discharge from the military on July 4, 1945. My final rank was Technician 4th and my period of service was over 4 years, with 36 months spent overseas from 1942 to 1945. I am 97 years of age. You may be interested in my contributions to the WWII related sites below. I have enjoyed your OCS publication .

– Patrick Elie - France. My Text Dday WWII

– Omaha Beach [Robert H. Searl]   Pbase Photos  or GOOGLE - “Bob Searl WWII Photos” WWII related Photos R.H. Searl  

– Frank Everards - Belgium WWII Veteran Story #46 R.H. Searl Falaise, France Aug 1944"

Footnotes

[1] The Malmédy massacre was a war crime in which 80 American prisoners of war were murdered by their German captors. The massacre was committed on December 17, 1944, by members of Kampfgruppe Peiper (part of the 1st SS Panzer Division), a German combat unit that played a major role in the Battle of the Bulge. - To return to your place in the text click here:

Additional Sources

Many of the photos in this article are courtesy of the private collections of men of the 56th Signal Battalion. The full collection can be seen at pbase.com. Few of the photos in the collection are listed as copyrighted. Credit for all reproductions here are extended to the individuals who took and shared these photos of the men of the 56th Signal Battalion, a historic and heroic Signal unit. Hooah!

TOUR THE BATTLEFIELDS OF NORMANDY

 

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