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 To go to an archived version of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'sactual Home Page, click on the Signal Corps orangeHome Page menu item in the
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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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