Normandy 11-01

The Post Star

11-11-01

Rory Brosius Courtesy Photo
Local veterans of the U.S.- led attack on D-Day-June 6, 1944- at Omaha Beach, Normandy, France, speak Friday to students in the library at Hudson Falls High School. From left, Ashley Harrington of Oak Street in Hudson Falls, John Webster of Chestnut Ridge in Queensbury, Fred Harris of Spruce Street in Hudson Falls and Anthony Leone of Bluebird Terrace in Moreau.
Veterans, students learn from, inspire each other

By MATTHEW STURDEVANT

HUDSON FALLS -- As the sun rose on June 6, 1944, John Webster of Queensbury was packed shoulder to shoulder with about 40 other men on a flat-bottomed "Higgins" boat headed for Omaha Beach in Normandy, France.

The front end of the small boat flopped down into low tidal waves. Webster leapt down into armpit-deep water and charged toward who-knows-what.

Mortar shells and artillery fire blossomed a fiery garden before him.

"With the tide coming in, it was safer to go forward, and get shot than it was to stay on the beach, and get hit with mortar shells and artillery," said Webster, 81.

Decades passed before Webster would talk about his war experiences. His parents died before hearing about it, but Webster's children got him to open up about World War II last year.

Two days ago, he and three other survivors of the attack on Omaha Beach told their stories to about 100 students in the library at Hudson Falls High School.
Rory Brosius Courtesy Photo
Fred Harris of Spruce Street in Hudson Falls speaks to students about the U.S.-led invasion of Europe during a seminar on Friday afternoon at the Hudson Falls High School library.

Webster, Anthony Leone of Fort Edward, Fred Harris of Hudson Falls and Ashley Harrington of Hudson Falls spoke for three 45-minute periods as students listened intently to their eyewitness accounts of the U.S. invasion of Europe.

The interviews were videotaped and broadcast live on the Internet as part "The World War II Living History Project," headed by Hudson Falls High School teacher Matthew Rozell.

Rozell said he's dedicated to offering students more than the minimum knowledge of World War II required to pass the state Regents exam.

"I could teach World War II in 15 minutes if I was just going to teach to the test," Rozell said. "One multiple choice question, and zip -- they're off to college."

On Friday, however, the class was having in-depth conversations about battles that might only be briefly mentioned in a textbook.

"A young girl engaged me in a conversation about the battle in the Hurtgen Forest," Webster said. "She was showing me how the American Army was repulsed, and the reasons why we didn't gain any ground."

The student was Nicole Middleton, a 15-year-old sophomore in Rozell's honors class. She had just completed a research paper about fighting that took place in November and December, 1944, when the U.S. Army's 4th Infantry Division went into the dense Hurtgen Forest to seize the Rhine River crossings into Germany.

During the fight, a mortar shell exploded in the treetops above Webster. Tree tops and shrapnel showered down on him, raking his face of teeth and flesh, he said.

"He has shrapnel in his mouth, and he told us every time he shaved he could feel it," Middleton said.

Another of Rozell's sophomore honor students, Sarah Fischbeck, said it was apparent that the crowd of students who filled the library were face to face with the reason for their three-day Veterans' Day weekend.

"It kind of gave a meaning to Veterans' Day," Fischbeck said. "These men have such humility, and they each did such great things for our country in their own way, and they each found each other to be just ordinary men doing what they could for their country."

Fischbeck stayed all three periods just to hear more about the veterans, whose stories have become more interesting since Sept. 11.

"I think people didn't realize the respect and honor these men deserve," she said. "People didn't think about it too much because everything was going well in the world and then they see such atrocities take place in New York City and in Washington D.C., and you see now that we have to work as a nation, and after the nations kind of come together since September 11 we kind of realize how lucky we are to be in America, which has been said a million times before, but the truth to this statement -- you just don't take things for granted anymore. You could see in all their eyes the respect they had for the people who did die ... and they were still upset about it."

Rozell was pleased with the material he gathered for the Web site.

He started the "Living History" project in the late 1980s by asking students if they had grandparents who served in the military during World War II, and who would be willing to talk about their experiences.

It later became apparent that fewer World War II veterans were still alive, and Rozell began a more assertive effort to conduct interviews that are posted on the high school's Web site.

"I think eventually there's going to be a book," Rozell said.

(click here for still photos)

Editor
The Post-Star
P.O. Box 2157
Glens Falls, NY 12801

1/11/01

On 1 April, 1944, our slow-moving convoy designated UGS-36-bound for Africa-was attacked off Cape Cher-chel, Algeria by thirty German JU-88 and DO-214 bombers operating from Southern France. I was a loader on one of the Orlikon cannons engaged in a deadly duel with the black ghosts gliding over our heads. The DO-214s skimmed low over the waters of the Mediterranean, releasing their torpedoes while overhead, the JU-88s dropped stick after stick ofwhistling bombs. One of them fell in the water close to our port side, tipping our landing ship sharply to starboard. Heavy magazine in hand, I lost my balance and began to slide on the wet steel deck toward a certain watery death. Suddenly, I was jerked backwards as the gun pointer, reached out and yanked hard on the Kapok life preserver bindings, saving my life. I thanked him as he drew a bead on a low-flying JU-88, unleashing a stream of tracers into the dark sky above. After the war, we went our separate ways and-despite numerous efforts to locate him- he seemed to have disappeared into thin air.

Recently, I received a phone call from his daughter who informed me that her father had been ill for quite awhile. He gave up trying to locate me. Well, her call was a Christmas present, I'll tell you. She informed me that her husband had seen a web site presentation by the Hudson Falls High School titled "D-Day" featuring yours truly. My name was mentioned and the rest is history .Her dad will receive my monthly newsletter and also a special reserved copy of Vagabonds of War originally dedicated to him.

After all these years, closure. Makes one believe in miracles, doesn't it? Thanks to Matt Rozell, the Hudson Falls history teacher, I was reunited with the guy who saved my life when I was a kid in uniform. Thanksgiving time.

Respectfully yours,
Anthony F.J. Leone

As Veterans Day came and went this year, we notice many more American flags outside our houses with pride. We see them on vehicles, rippling defiantly in the wind. We now understand what it means to have liberty and freedom, and to see it under attack.

Everyone can understand the concept of patriotism, but not many truly understand what it is to live and breathe the sacrifices that true patriotism demands. As four men sit behind a table in the Hudson Falls High School library, they share the stories of the sacrifices of their generation. Fast approaching their eighties, some of these men are telling their stories for the first time, and they are sharing them with us- a generation which will shortly embark from our sheltered high school lives into a troubled world that will demand examples of courage and leadership that we may draw strength from, to fight our own battles.

Anthony Leone, Fred Harris, Ashley Harrington, and John Webster are all local veterans of World War II. All of these men participated, in one way or another,r with the D Day landings at Omaha Beach and the invasion of Europe. On the Friday before Veterans Day, 2001, Hudson Falls history teacher Matthew Rozell interviewed them before a crowd of over 100 students as part of the World War II Living History Project. Entitled “Normandy in Memory-The Invasion of Europe”, these interviews were broadcast live on the Internet and are archived at the WW2LHP website, http://web.hfcsd.org/ww2/D_DAY/Default.asp.. These are their stories.

D-Day, the Allied code name for the start of Operation Overlord, took place on June 6^th, 1944 when American, British and Canadian troops landed on five beachheads in Normandy to begin the much anticipated invasion of Europe. Omaha Beach accounted for the most casualties of all the beachheads, with 2400 American troops dead or wounded on June 6^th alone. Because of obstacles placed by the enemy, the ships couldn’t land the solders directly on the beach. They had to open the front of the landing crafts a distance from shore, drowning many and exposing the men to array of gunfire from Hitler’s Atlantic Wall.

After viewing student generated PowerPoint slideshows about the invasion, Mr. Anthony Leone of South Glens Falls was the first to speak. He was a member of the U.S. Coast Guard charged with landing men and materiel under fire at Omaha Beach on and after June 6^th, 1944. Mr. Leone was 18 years old at the time of the attack and spent most of his time on an LST (short for “landing ship-tank”), a huge vessel which was also used for evacuating the injured as well as prisoners back to England. “I was scared…. we were all scared.” said Mr. Leone of the fateful day. “We came in with the LSTs and opened the bow doors and dropped the ramps. But at the time, not even the small boats could get in among the obstacles, there were mines all over the place. They were killing our soldiers, like sheep to the slaughter.” Mr. Leone recalled the time when he let a thirteen-year-old German POW go free. “One German boy, he had his arm blown off up to his elbow. I was out feeding the prisoners and I came to him and I had a can of creamed chicken… I proceeded to take a spoon full and put it in his mouth. He took it in his mouth and spit it all over me. He was a Nazi, Hitler Youth, only 12 or 13, I think. About that time I wanted to take the .45 out and kill him, I felt like doing it, really. An older prisoner, 18 years old, same age as me, looked old enough to be my father at the time, saw it. He said ‘You must forgive him, he lost his parents in Berlin, the American air attacks killed his parents, and his entire regiment was wiped out- he is alone.’ I let him go…what harm could he do now?”

John Webster of Queensbury was a 19-year-old first lieutenant when he landed in the third wave of the Omaha Beach attack. As a combat engineer, Mr. Webster’s job was to clear the beach of obstacles, removing mines and clearing lanes for men and materiel to be landed. He described the attack as though it was yesterday. “I don’t think that there was ever a military operation so extensively planned as Normandy…it was almost certain we would have to land on the continent of Europe,” Webster said of his experience. Mr. Webster also explained why it was preferential to have been in the third wave of the attack. “The tide was low and when it was high tide, the obstacles were underwater so the Coast Guard couldn’t see them and it was much more dangerous. We did catch the Germans by surprise- the artillery hadn’t been zeroed in yet. It was safer to land in the earlier waves than in the later ones because by then the German artillery and pillboxes were on target.” Mr. Webster was on the beach from “H hour plus 30” (daybreak) until late morning. “At high tide there wasn’t much beach to stand on, and with casualties mounting, we and many others went over the “shingle” (long narrow dune) and headed inland. It wasn’t organized- it was more like small groups pushing forward for survival. It wasn’t so much a heroic action as it was to save our skins.” Although slightly wounded about 2:00 pm, Mr. Webster then captured his first German prisoner.

Mr. Webster recalled the high casualties and the brutality of war. “Like so many things in war, things didn’t go the way they were supposed to…. our outfit was one of those outfits.” Five months later Mr. Webster was engaged in the Battle of the Hurtgen Forest, where he received his second wound. “A mortal shell hit a tree and blew up near me, the shrapnel hit me in the face. I was knocked out. It was all removed except a little piece in my upper jaw- I can feel it every time I shave”, Mr. Webster said, emotionally.

Ashley Harrington of Hudson Falls was an Army anti-aircraft gunner who spent his time off Omaha Beach on a blockship targeting German warplanes attacking the beaches. Mr. Harrington described turning his attention to destroying German pillboxes, which carried 88-millimeter guns that blew soldiers and ships apart on the beach below. “ We sat there waiting…the planes stopped coming after awhile, so we said ‘well, why don’t we see if we can hit some of those pillboxes’. The pillboxes only had a little slit opening, so in order to destroy one, we had to get the shell inside of it. We caught heck for this because one thing that you learn in the military is that you don’t disobey orders. And you’re never supposed to shoot anti-aircraft guns at ground level, but that was beside the point as far as we were concerned. We ended up hitting a few,” Mr. Harrington explained. “I didn’t have a chance to go on the beach, and I was thankful for that.”

Fred Harris of Hudson Falls was in the U.S. Navy at the time of the attack at Omaha Beach. His job was to help tow “mulberries” across the English Channel. Mulberries were the code name for the large artificial harbors constructed in England to support the landing operations in northern France until a port harbor in Normandy could be secured. This was no small feat.

At night, Mr. Harris explained, “you were nervous and scared -it was pitch black, you could see the tracer rounds from our anti-aircraft guns at the other beaches, and you knew the German airplanes would soon be over Omaha. All you could hear was the gunfire and all you could see were the flashes of light in the sky. It was like a huge fireworks display, every night…”

After they had finished building the artificial harbors, Mr. Harris stayed at Omaha. “We were very close to shore and we could see hundreds of bodies piled up against the sea wall just waiting to be buried. That’s when it hit you -none of us could say anything, we just stared…. this was really the waste of war.” Anthony Leone added, “I’m the best excuse why war is futile, useless, senseless… Innocent people die. We lost 80% of our men. My friend “Beansie” got hit. He lost his arm, his left eye. Ended up down in a VA hospital-all his life he stayed in there. He was out of his mind. He died a couple years ago in the hospital.”

“These men where only a few years older then I when they went into battle. The horrific things that they had to see and live through are hard for us to imagine. I knew war was hard, but the things they said to you made you think a great deal about what they went through for their country.” Ryan Benway, another sophomore at Hudson Falls High School, said, “It touched me to think these men had an influence on my life today with something that happened over 50 years ago.”

In military terms, ‘D-Day’ is the first day of a major attack, but for a generation and for all eternity, it will be associated with thousands of heroes who risked and gave their lives for a cause that would serve the world justice. These four men, along with many others, reaffirm that freedom does not come without a price and that there is no glory in war. But in a way, they are the “glory” of war. They are the people who have ensured our freedom time and time again. In this tumultuous time, may we take the veterans of Normandy’s example, and strive in their honor so that one day our children can live in a land that is still free because of their sacrifices for all of us.

Postscript to this story: Following the Nov. 9^th broadcast of the interviews on the World Wide Web, Mr. Leone was contacted by a long lost shipmate- the man who had saved his life while his ship was under attack in the Mediterranean Sea two months before D-Day. Wrote Mr. Leone: “After all these years, closure. Makes one believe in miracles, doesn't it? I was reunited with the guy who saved my life when I was a kid in uniform. Thanksgiving time.”