Against What Odds?

During WWII I was stationed in England at Shrivenham Manor House, and, since it was close to Cheltenham, one day I decided to visit the famous Cheltenham Fair, which was nearby. 

I went on my own and was enjoying myself, looking at the wares and eating the goodies, when out of the blue, I heard a pleasant female voice say, “Hello, Yank!” 

“And hello back atcha,” I said, looking in the direction from which the voice had come. I discovered the voice came from a pretty village lass who obviously wanted to strike up a conversation with me. 

At first I thought she wanted to sell me something, but after a short chat, I realized that she really wanted to strike up a conversation. Loving good conversation myself, I responded in kind, and we began trading information, she about England and me about America.

It wasn’t long before we left the sales tent, and, as it was with youngsters on a summer’s day, we began to feel comfortable with one another.

We spoke for about 2 hours, during which time, she invited me to her home, where she said she was sure her folks would be pleased to meet me. However, since it was growing late, I decided I had better return to the base, and we made a date for the following weekend. 

We parted in anticipation of meeting again the following weekend. But, as fate would have it, the very next day a messenger arrived at camp and handed me a TWX, a military telegram, with orders. These messages often ordered transfers and such, but were usually meant for a group or even a whole company. But when I opened mine, I saw, where there would normally be a list of many names, only one: mine!

This order commanded me, once again, to move on. Lamenting the lost weekend, I bid farewell to my garrison items, wondered what that pretty Yorkshire lass must think of that Yank who didn’t show up, and proceeded the next morning by Jeep and driver to a designated rail head where I joined many officers and soldiers standing alongside the tracks, waiting for a train which would take us to an undisclosed destination.

It finally arrived, and we proceeded to a place I recognized, Greenham Common Airfield, from which all those planes and gliders of the 101st and 428th Airborne had taken off just 60 days before on D Day

At Greenham, we de-trained and walked, in any sort of formation I remember, until we arrived on the tarmac of the airport. We were then assembled into a huge formation, which was broken up into smaller alphabetic sub-units. When we lined up to exchange our British pounds into a currency called Invasion Money, we received a little booklet telling us how to behave in France. 

After this procedure, the head honcho, a general, and many lesser ranked officers began reading out the information on the General Order and calling off names, the soldiers shouting “Ho!” when each name was called. After what seemed like hours, all the names had been read off – except mine. 

When the officer asked if anyone had been left off, I raised my hand and was ordered up to the front and shown to the officer in charge. When I showed him my TWX, of which he had no copy, he couldn’t believe it.

I was surprised when he asked me if I wanted to go along with them, which, of course, was a rhetorical question. I said OK, mostly because I had no real choice, but also because I had already exchanged my money and given away all my fancy garrison equipment.

I had never before flown in an airplane, and it wasn’t exactly first class. However, it was better than the alternative – a landing craft. We sat just like the paratroopers, in rows on each side of a C-47 (the predecessor of the civilian DC 3). 

It was exciting and overwhelming to see the English Channel completely covered with ships and boats of every type. On the coast of France we could see a huge floating dock. From the air, it seemed as if a person could walk from boat to boat across the Channel as easily as crossing a very wide bridge.

We landed at a little air strip and were immediately trucked to a bivouac – a field covered with tents. This would be our home for several weeks, during which time we formed a headquarters that would ultimately be the Communication Zone Services of Supply Headquarters of the European Theatre of Operations in the Seine Section. 

The brochure which was later printed indicated there were 32 officers and 105 enlisted men in the second detachment who flew to Cherbourg to begin this headquarters cadre. 

When I consider that I was 1 of the only 105 GIs selected for this incredible experience, I often wonder incredulously, against what odds?

Our experiences in the Normandy countryside were not too significant, and most of our time was spent marching around the infamous hedgerows that served as natural defenses for the Germans and created so much havoc for the GIs in the battle of Normandy. This marching was meant to keep us active while we were waiting for orders to begin organizing the future headquarters for supply in Paris.

To ease the monotony there was a farmhouse with barrels of apple cider in the yard. The cider was great if you didn’t mind standing in a long line, all the while fighting off the bees and flies. The scuttlebutt was that next door there was a thriving business designed to alleviate the loneliness of the GIs so far from home. I personally couldn’t understand how they could have had any customers, since the other GIs must also have seen the same basic training movies concerning VD that I did. 

Proof that certain urges, in some cases, are stronger than reason.