Oral history interview of Carl D. Beck

Collection:: Veterans History Project: Oral History Interviews
Title:: Oral history interview of Carl D. Beck
Creator:: Kyle, Glen
Beck, Carl D., 1925-2015
Date of Original:: 2004-04-12
Subject:: Leadership--United States
Arnhem, Battle of, Arnhem, Netherlands, 1944
Sherman tank
Lancaster (Bomber)
Lend-lease operations (1941-1945)
World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American
Johnson, Howard Ravenscroft, 1903-1944
McKaig, Frank
Niland, Frederick, 1920-1983
Niland, Preston, 1915-1944
Niland, Robert, 1919-1944
Niland, Edward, 1912-1984
Sampson, Francis L., 1912-1996
Hill, Gus, -1945
Bay, John O., -1944
Roosevelt, Eleanor, 1884-1962
United States. Army. Airborne Division, 101st
United States. Army. Parachute Infantry Regiment, 501st
United States. Army. Airborne Division, 82nd
United States. Army. Parachute Infantry Regiment, 508th
Location:: Belgium, Wallonia, Luxembourg Province, Arrondissement de Bastogne, Bastogne, 50.00347, 5.71844
France, Carentan, 49.29476595, -1.25231194060659
France, Cotentin, 49.2416784, -1.37331805200258
France, Grand Est, Haut-Rihn, Colmar-Ribeauville, Colmar, 48.0777517, 7.3579641
France, Île-de-France, Paris, 48.85341, 2.3488
France, Mourmelon-le-Grand, 49.1373278, 4.3660294
Germany, Berchtesgaden, 47.63108, 13.0021634
Luxembourg, 49.8158683, 6.1296751
Netherlands, Eindhoven, 51.44855695, 5.45012252185714
United Kingdom, England, Bristol, 51.4538022, -2.5972985
United Kingdom, England, Lambourn, 51.5097754, -1.5311125
United States, Georgia, 32.75042, -83.50018
United States, Georgia, Atlanta Metropolitan Area, 33.8498, 84.4383
United States, Georgia, Stephens County, Currahee Mountain, 34.52927, -83.37572
United States, Georgia, Stephens County, Toccoa, 34.57732, -83.33239
United States, Missouri, Clay County, Avondale, 39.15417, -94.5469
Medium:: video recordings (physical artifacts)
Betacam-SP
Type:: Moving Image
Format:: video/quicktime
Description:: In this interview, Carl Beck recalls his experiences as a paratrooper with the 101st Airborne in Europe during World War II. Barely age seventeen, he "borrowed" his brother's age to enlist in the airborne. He describes his community as "hardscrabble" folks who didn't know they were poor. He describes the wave of patriotism that swept the country and how basic training made them want to fight. He describes in detail airborne training and the preparations for the invasion of Europe, including night jumps off the coast of England. He recalls the marshalling yards, which he likened to a medium-security prison: easy to get in, hard to get out. he recites the speeches of the unit's leaders and describes the "Rebecca" navigation system that helped guide the gliders in to land. He remembers the difficulties of the flight in, how they had to leave the plane in an abrupt manner, and how the plane later crashed. He recalls how he met up with a member of his unit and explains how signs, countersigns, and clickers worked. He explains that passwords were particularly chosen to have letter sounds that were difficult for German speakers to pronounce. He recalls being sheltered and fed by the French and relates his feelings toward the people of Normandy. His unit later parachuted into Holland and he remembers working with the Dutch underground. He lists in detail weaponry including A6 machine guns, 76 mm guns, 50-caliber guns, and using turret defliades. He describes Christmas dinner in 1944, marching down a hill while eating a frozen turkey leg. He recalls the war's end, its effect on him, and what motivated him to reenlist.
Carl Beck was a U.S. Army paratrooper in Europe during World War II.
VT 5, CAM 1 (TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE: The same sound problem that was through most of the Tozzer Itv begins again on page 38 of this transcript.) INT: If you could, give me your name and where you're from. CARL BECK: Yeah. I'm Carl Beck. I was born and raised in little town called Avondale, Missouri right hard by the Kansas border, and I've lived in Atlanta since retirement from the Army in 1963. INT: Ahm ... when did you first go into the military? CARL BECK: 1942, in December of 1942 I was, ah, barely 17, barely, and was born in 1925, by the way, and so I sort borrowed my brother's age, with my parents' permission, of course, because they knew I was gonna join somethin'. And, ah, I joined the Airborne and went to Tacoa (Phonetic), arriving there in December of 1942 and, ah, took our airborne basic training there at Tacoa. About 12 weeks, I think it was. Ah, the pipe line back in those days was to go basic training, Benning for jump school, McCall for advanced training, and then overseas, whether it's the Pacific or to Europe. We -- I was in the 501 Regiment of the 101st and we ended up in Europe and, ah, arriving in Scotland actually in, ah, 1944, January, 1944. INT: Ahm, back before that, do you remember where you were and what you thought about Pearl Harbor? CARL BECK: (Laughs) I sure do! I -- of course, know, this is a little hardscrabble town back durin' the Depression. You know, everybody was poor. I mean, you know, we lived in a house with no electricity, an outside, ah, facility. Ah, we -- we'd get, ah -- we'd butcher hogs durin' school. We'd get out of school to go from house to house, raised chickens, shoot rabbits, ah, to make a livin'. But yet everybody was in the same situation. You know, we didn't know we were poor. Everybody was the same -- same way. I remember Pearl Harbor that, ah, it was a Sunday and, ah, we had, ah -- we had this high -- or grade school and, ah, we used to kinda ease into the coal shoot and get up and shoot hoops, you know. So, ah, we'd kinda -- everybody knew about it, (Laughs) you know. So we were coming back from that there -- from that little expedition and that's when we we heard about Pearl Harbor. And, of course, you know, people say, "Well, you know, attack us? Gonna hit -- where is Pearl Harbor?" You know, first of all, that is kinda the big question. You know, we said, "Well, come on. Let's get the Army and the Navy and all this other and let's go whip 'em! We're gonna whip up on these guys." You turn around, you look around, "Well, where is the Army and Navy?" We didn't have one, you know. So that was kind of a disappointment to us and, ah, you gotta realize that this was at the height of the Depression. You might say it was beginning to ease a little bit. But it -- it -- it meant that just this wave of patriotism swept the land. I mean ... I personally and I think most of my contemporaries would rather do anything than get called 4F, you know. I mean everybody was joinin' the service. That was "the" thing to do. Now that was one of the reasons I sort of borrowed my brother's age and, ah, ah, joined the Airborne. And, ah, that's pretty much what it was like. You've gotta kinda judge it by the times, that, ah, everybody was kinda poor and hung together and, ah, that's kind of, like they say, the way it was. Ah, and -- and, again, this wave -- it's hard to describe this wave of patriotism, ah, that -- that swept the land at that time. Now everybody went in the service, everybody that I knew. (Laughs) It might have -- it might have been a better (Laughs) better. They'd get away from the Depression. Some people would tell you that, but that's (Unintell.) not true. INT: (Clears Throat) Tell me a little bit about your training. CARL BECK: Well, we, ah, arrived in Tacoa, ah, in December, like I said, in December, 1942 and, ah, the idea of airborne basic was to put all the pressure on you that you could, every mental, kind of physical pressure they could and make you want to fight. I mean they would just flat make you, ah, do anything to wipe people out, and I'm proud to say that those of us who survived that training in Tacoa, ah, not a one of us washed out of jump school because we washed them out first. And this was pretty much the way we find now that Green Berets and Rangers are training now, that to get your people that are not gonna make it, get 'em out of there. I mean we had a mountain up there called Curihy (Phonetic). It's three-and-a-half miles up and three-and-a-half miles back. And we would run up Curihy, you know, at least once a week. And I mean one time we were runnin' around the (Unintell.) quadrangle, ah, one Saturday morning just to see how many times we could make. We ran and ran and ran and, of course, we were late for breakfast and I ended up with one prune! Okay? But, you know, you don't complain. You just keep on goin'. And this was part of the training. Ah, we had a (Unintell.) and we went down this old railroad bank. Again, it was around seven miles roundtrip. The, ah -- we had on -- had light-- ah, light packs and individual weapons. We didn't have (Unintell.) weapons. Well, one time a rumor got out that this lieutenant had fallen out, a platoon leader. And people don't fall out. When he found out about that, we got our mortars and machine guns and he ran us down that thing and back, you know, until we -- our tongues were hangin' out. And, ah, McCall is another example of -- how they're -- even after jump training. We had a commanding officer of the 501 called Howard Johnson. He was a legend. We called him Jumpy. He loved to lump out of airplanes. And Jumpy would get up on the back end of a duce-and-a-half truck and say, you know, he would harangue the whole regiment. You know, he'd say, "What are we were here for?" And you were supposed to respond by sayin', "Fight!" Okay? Well, we got to usin', ah, words like, ah, "furlough" and other "F" words and when he found out about that, he ran us around that (Laughing) quadrangle until out tongues hung on. From then on what we were there for was the fight, you know. So -- and that was Jumpy's way of, ah, of gettin' us some additional training, you might say. Ah, but that -- but that was the kind of leadership we had, too. I don't want you to be mistaken about this, because those officer and NCOs that we had were just first class people and they'd get you in and they'd try their best to get you out. And I can't say enough for that leadership. INT: Ahm (Clears Throat) ... once you got to England, ahm, there was still a lot of training to do? CARL BECK: Oh, yeah. We made -- we made four night jumps, ah, over this period of time from January to June. Ahm, usually -- well, the last of the four jumps we flew at night around Bristol, the Chan-- or the, ah, Irish Sea, turned around over Bristol and it, fortunately, was at night you could look where I can see just miles and miles of C-47s draggin' gliders. And we would turn then and this whole armada would turn back around and we'd jump about four miles away from the drop zone -- or the airport that we took off from. And, ah, they were all night jumps, so -- and that was the purpose of Normandy at that time, was to -- was to go in at night. And, ah, like I say, the four night jumps were -- kinda took its toll on us, but, ah, again, we survived and we were better for it. Ahm, so that was, ah -- by the time we got ready to go to Normandy, of course, you would hear all sorts of rumors about what's gonna happen. We went into a thing called a "marshalling area" which is, ah, at the end of the airport. And it's like goin' into a medium security prison. You can get in, but you can't get out. The food's pretty good, too. Didn't -- didn't mind that at all. But that's where we got briefed on where we were gonna drop. Ah, and we stayed in that marshalling area, of course, until we did take off. Well, it was during this time that, ah, after we were briefed that, ah, ah, Jumpy Johnson, in his typical aggressive manner, jumped up on -- he had a bowey knife. It'as about that long. It's kinda like a short sword. And, ah, he jumped up on the back of the duce-and-a-half and pulled that knife out and says, "I hope to plunge this in the heart of the dirtiest bastard in France." And everybody went, "Yea! Yea!" You know, and just go -- and, ah -- but we had a wonderful company commander named McKeg (Phonetic) and we marched back to our tents and he just made the simple statement -- you know, he said, ah, "I wouldn't trade places with any son-of-a-bitch in the world!" (Laughs) (Unintell.) And, ah, that's pretty well how he felt about it. Well, of course, we ended up leadin' the airplanes on the equipment bundles and so forth on the 5th of June. You understand it was double daylight savings time. And although it was 11 o'clock at night when we took off, the cameras and all were still running because you could -- you know, it was still -- there was only about four hours of darkness in those latitudes at that time of year anyway. So that's why you could see the -- the airplanes takin' off. So that when we took off from a place called Walford Park -- it's about near a little town called Lamborne (Phonetic), ah, up the Thames River, biggest town I guess is Swendon (Phonetic) nearby. And, ah, we flew then generally south over the Channel and made a turn to come over the Cotenden (Phonetic) Peninsula kinda in a northerly direction. Well, as soon as we hit the coast, we hit a cloud bank and back in those days you had a C-47 in view of these, three, three, and three, there would be. You know, it took nine planes to haul a company. Well, the lead plane had the Rebecca, which was emitting to the -- and receiving device, hand-cranked device for the Pathfinders. Well, when we hit the cloud bank, the formation disintegrated pretty badly. Then we started pickin' up 20-millimeter fire. We were at 800 feet actual altitude and that's murder. Twenty-millimeter's lethal, but it's beautiful. I mean it's all kinds of colors and bright. When our airplane got hit and when your plane got hit, it sounded like it's like you're head's in a bucket and somebody's poundin' on the bucket. Well, supposedly you're supposed to gather like a 20-minute red light, stand up, hook up and get all your equipment ready to go and 20 minutes later you should get a green light. Well, all we got was a bell because it meant "Get out of that airplane." So we tossed the bundle out and everybody went. We all got out. I don't know what happened to the airplane except it did go down. And, ah, (Sigh) by this time a big beautiful moon shining. When I got my -- went out of the airplane, I got my opening shot, check your canopy, turned my head, I saw the little double-headed light we had attached to the equipment bundle. And it had a little piece of cardboard under the clip, so when it got that prop blast it would go away and that would come a very dim blue light. And I turned and I saw that bundle hit the ground and I had always been on that bundle first in training, always. But when I got on the ground my parachute went over the top of some trees and feet were kinda up in the air and this ditch and my fanny was swingin' about that far from the ground. And I pulled out my jump knife and cut my way out of this old 25 parachutes, had the harnesses that buckled, you know, and all that weight on -- my weight comin' in, but I never saw that bundle again. Some 16,000 men dropped on that peninsula that night and I found one, my friend Robert Johnson from Oklahoma, from my company. And the way I spotted, ah, Robert, I heard somebody and you ever skylined somebody? This guy, he had a World War I bayonet (Laughs) about that long on the end of his rifle and I spotted it. Of course, you understand we had all kinds of passwords and stuff, you know, like signs like "babe", counter sign "ruth", "ham", "eggs", signs and counter signs. We had one that said "whistle" "thunder" sign and counter sign. It wasn't 'till years later that I discovered that that was sort of fine-tuning things because the Germans don't have a "W". They have double "V" for "vistle". They don't have a "TH" sound. They got "ta". So their version of it would be "vistle tunder", okay? So that was kinda -- I mean you're kinda fine-tunin' things that way. Of course, we had a clicker, too, that (Two Click Sounds) was up here in this along with a, ah -- with a, ah, jump knife. Of course, when I cut my way out of to parachute, I -- you know, people toss the knife away. What you're supposed to do is once you hear somebody, you say, (Two Clicks). One click, "Here I am." (Three Clicks) "I hear you," and that was the sign and counter sign. With all these signs and counter signs and all this, I knew that was Robert Johnson a-comin' across that field, so I said, "Hey, Johnson!" (Laughs) And let him know, you know, we were there. And I joined with him and we wandered around for several days dodgin' German patrols and about ever time we would move, they'd start shootin'. We always swore we're gonna take some with us. And I'll tell you one story that kinda sums it all up for the several days that we were wandering around. About daylight one morning we'd come to this, ah, gate in the hedgerow where the farmer would get in and work his, ah -- his, ah, cattle and stuff. And we heard this German patrol comin'. Well, we got down in the corner of a hedgerow where it formed a 90-degree angle, black (Unintell.) briars goin' (Unintell.) and Johnson got down (Unintell.) and we made kind of a spoon and I had an M1 rifle between my knees. We'd always sworn we were gonna take some with us when we come out of there. Well, this patrol came through the same gate that we had just come through, and they had a dog. And that dog stuck his head in that briar platch (sic) about that far from that rifle. He stuck his head in there, sniffed around, and turned around and walked off. I guess we smelled so bad (Laughs) that he decided not -- not to bark or not to let anyone know we were there. So you can call that God or fate or kismet or whatever, but, ah, we got lucky on that one. Well, by the time these -- we had wandered around for several days, these jumpsuits -- by the way, this is a replica of the 1942 jumpsuit that we had made when we went back in D Plus 50 Years in 1994. We had OD trousers and shirts under, woolens under these jumpsuits and these things were in rags by that time. So about four o'clock one afternoon we heard these French people in this orchard, workin' the orchard, men and women. And Robert said, "Okay. Well, I'll stand up. You cover me. We'll soon see what happens." You understand we were the color of mud and these, ah, ah, jumpsuits were just in rags. Well, when Robert stood up -- French people babble, you know, they babble. Bless 'em. And, ah, this woman looked up and saw Robert and she went, you know, like that. It would have been kinda funny if it hadn't been so serious, and finally this babble kinda went away and, ah, we still didn't know who they were. They knew who we were. So this one gentleman named Laforsdiea (Phonetic), who was the oldest inheritor or whatever of this group in a place called Lasomeblans (Phonetic). You understand the Normans, they're on these farms for generations. He motioned for us to come on and he just carried us a circuitous route and carried us to this old barn. Went up in the hay loft and pulled the ladder behind. Well, he'd come up in the afternoons for two or three days and he'd have eggs -- boiled eggs and potatoes and he'd feed us. And we were so starvin', we'd push our flesh in and it wouldn't -- it wouldn't come back out. Now so we were in pretty bad shape. Well, they came to get us one morning and we figured, you know, we'd had it. But he carried us around a trail and the 508 Regiment from the 82nd had just crossed the (Unintell.) River and we joined with their F company and, ah, took this town of (Unintell.). We ran into quite a bit of resistance, went into this little town, knocked out a 20-millimeter gun, went up through the back of this house and there was a little tank came through this street. And, ah, these streets are not very wide, and we had a thing called a "gamblin' grenade" made out of composition C, plastic explosive. And you could stuff all the C-2 under there you wanted, you know. Well, this tank came by in these little old narrow streets, I got my gamblin' grenade out and I threw that thing. I missed the tank, went on over and hit the wall on the other side and blew it up. And Robert said, "Let me throw mine." By this time the tank is there and he tossed his, hit it on the turret, boomed that turret in and would you believe a German soldier got back and came -- you know, the back hatch came down and I took a coupla shots at him, but he ran into a garden. Of course, somebody -- somebody shot him. We, in turn, moved across the street and we had a mouse trap behind the railroad track and the water was real high and they couldn't get out. And we shot 'em up pretty good and they -- they decided to -- to surrender. And, ah, that pretty well in-- well, of course, we had to go back to our outfit and they had just finished takin' Karantand (Phonetic). And I think it's interesting that, ah, when we go back in, ah, 2004, this year June, we're invited to the ceremony of the liberation of Karantand, which is the biggest town nearby. And I just found out by letter from the mayor of this town of Volpt (Phonetic) that, ah, we want me to come back for their liberation day, which happened to be on the 13th. You see, we didn't even know what day it was, you know? (Laughs) Much less the date! Ah, so we'll go back in 199-- this year and, ah, get a jump in. We're gonna do D Plus 60 Years and, ah, get that -- get that -- renew old acquaintances. I've got about 60 people comin' for dinner. I'm gonna cater for 'em at, ah -- I've gotta tell you this. Right at currently there's (SOUND PROBLEM) a great deal of strain between us and the French, but I've always looked at the Normans as -- as we look at the southeastern United States. We're loyal Americans. They're loyal French, but, you know, we're just a little bit different, okay? Because, Carl, I gotta tell you there were dozens of people in this little town that knew we were in that barn and never told. And, ah, I've been forever grateful. So just to make a long story short, I look at them as my friends and, you know, at one time we had an alliance with -- but alliances kinda come and go, but friendship's forever. Well, we rejoined our unit then at Hill 30 near Karantand, did some scouting and patrolling with tanks and combats patrols goin' out and shootin' up the countryside, (Unintell.) and, ah, went back to England and got ready to go to Holland and, ah, in the meantime you may have heard of "Private Ryan" who was a guy named Rich Nyland, NCO in our company who'd -- while we were at Karantand, heard his brother'd got killed in 505 Regiment in the 82nd and, ah, Father Sampson got -- back in those days they interred people in their mattress cover pretty much wherever they fell. You'd get people together, very (Unintell.) people. I can't say enough for these people, ah, because if you're not identified when you're KIA, killed in action, then you're missing in action. I mean unless you're positively identified. Well, Father Sampson had this roster and had Robert Nyland's name on it and Father Sampson wrote, "You know, I find Robert. I don't find Olan." And (Unintell.) says, "Well, that's my other brother." So to make a long story short, Father Sampson says, "You're goin' home." Fritz says, "I'm not gonna go home." By this time we're back in England gettin' staged to go to Holland. And, ah, Fritz heard that his third brother had been shot down in, ah, Burma. And it happened he'd been captured by the Japanese and escaped and he wandered around with those tribes people for two years because, you know, he couldn't get the word out. And, of course, by this time the War Department says, "Okay, Fritz, you're -- you're gonna go home." And Fritz went on home. He practiced dentistry in Alaska and passed away not long ago. His daughter still comes to our regimental reunions and, ah, so that's the kind of NCOs that we had, too, I might add. It's the quality of people that we had like Fritz Nyland, Father Sampson. Well, to continue the story, we took some further training replacement in England. So it was in September we jumped in a place called Hell's Highway, goin' north, taking this supply route going north from Holland across Belgium, Holland. The idea was to cross the Rhine River where the Rhine turns in Holland, it splits and becomes the Deuterine (Phonetic) and the Wahl (Phonetic). And that's where the story of "The Bridge Too Far" comes in. You may have heard of that. Well, we jumped near Eeinhoven (Phonetic) and took Hell's Highway. And our part of it, we were the southernmost division. The 82nd was up around Nimay (Phonetic) and Arnam (Phonetic) was the sixth -- sixth, ah, British -- First British Parachute Division and, ah, they got all shot up pretty badly and, ah, we ended up around Thanksgiving of 1944 goin' across the Rhine getting those people. Or we patrolled across the Rhine, contacted the Dutch underground and, ah, but in the meantime we were cut off up there. And, ah, although we were the southernmost division near Eeinhoven, ah, one night we made a night attack on this town called Shindell (Phonetic). Now then if you ev-- when you were a kid you ever hold your hand in front of your face and you can't see it, it's so dark? That's how dark it was. Well, we got lined up. We were gonna knock out these two 40-gauge guns that were coast artillery cannon that we were gonna turn around on 'em. So our company led off and, ah, ah, we -- the thing probably that impressed me as much as anything about that battle, it was so dark. For the first time in my life I saw tracers meet. You know, I mean tracers look like streetcars comin', you know. They're bad news. And, ah, that was one of the things that impressed me and my good friend Roy Morgan got shot through the ear and my buddy Bones (Unintell.) set a barn on fire and got things lighted up and Roy was bleedin', you know. He said, oh, he's bleedin' like a stuck hog, you know, and to get him back to the aid station. So we went on, took this town. Two other companies went out and knocked out those guns, put thermite (Phonetic) grenades in the breach and that day we went back to, ah, (Unintell.), which was a little town near Eeinhoven. Well, would you believe Roy Morgan shows up in a day or two and, you know, at night you can never tell how bad somebody's hit. Well, Roy'd been shot through the earlobe and it came out his helmet. And, ah, his ears were ringin' two-three days later. So, ah, he thought -- you know, the guys would say, "Well, yeah, Roy, I hear your ear's ringin'." So he thought I'd set him straight, you know. So he come up and he said, "Beck, you hear my ear's ringin'?" I'd say, "Yeah, yeah, Roy. I can hear your ears ringin'," (Laughs) you know. So -- but good old Roy got hit in the butt in Bastone and got evacuated, but, anyway, those was the kinda things that stick in your mind. I do -- I don't know why. You know, one German tank was way up this railroad track about 2,000 yards away. The thing curved around and we couldn't find that sucker. I mean he'ad shoot us up and we just couldn't find him. And we told this, ah, British tank commander, he had an M-4 tank and it was the first one I've seen. It was an American tank, British crew, 76 millimeter stuck out with the fla-- the, ah, (Unintell.) evacuater, first one of those I'd ever seen. And, ah, told him, you know, about goin' across this railroad track this tank up there with their speed gun we don't know where he's at. And he said, "Well, I'll tank a look, Yank." He buttoned up in that tank and he hadn't anymore that got across his first railroad track and that guy put three rounds in him and one of the rounds went through that turret, 88 millimeter, hit the breach block on that 74 and split it all the way out to the outside and that thing just sat there and smoked for a little while. Well, a couple of days later that guy decided to come out. What he had done -- we couldn't find him with our air power or anything. He'd dug out the back side of a house and that tank was firin' out the door right up that railroad track. And he had a great field of fire. When he decided to come out of there, and he did, house and all, he came on out a-shootin' us up pretty good and everybody you're in a hole 'cause that sucker was a royal tiger. I mean he had treads about that wide and, ah, we just let him go where he wanted to go. (Laughs) Now, again, those are the kinda things that stick in your mind. Ahm, ah, I will say that Holland was -- -- well, you've heard, like I say, of "A Bridge Too Far" and, ah, it was, ahm, I guess a failure as far as military goes, but we held the ground where we were supposed to and, ah, got your underground contacted the British Arnam across the Bridge Too Far and about Thanksgiving of 1944 the, ah, Canadian engineers went across the Rhine with, ah, these big boats and picked up these, ah, ah, survivors of the British First Division. We had one guy, a lieutenant, one we called Bear Tracks and the other one Rabbit Tracks. (Laughs) Bear Tracks was a kayak guy. He told people he went across the Rhine in a kayak one night to get these British things and he picked up this British sergeant major and put him on the kayak and they rolled back. He lost the paddle and we were in this old brick factory in an outpost lookin' over the Rhine at the time the engineers were goin' across to get these guys. We heard him hollerin' for help as they went down -- of course, he ended up in the Ziederzee (Phonetic). Both of 'em were dead, but, ah, that was the kinda -- kinda people we had and they were real risk takers. And, you know, when you cross in a rubber when you're goin' across a river, everybody had a Tommy gun and an oar. And somebody one of the nights we went across -- somebody says, "There's a power boat comin' up the river." You could barely make out a wake that looked like the wake of a boat comin' down. Everybody dropped the paddle and grabbed the squirt gun and as we went by this thing, a Lancaster bomber had been shot tail and it's tail was stuck -- it was head-down in the -- in the, ah, Rhine and its tail was stuck up and the current goin' by made it look like the wake of a boat. But, see, you're not movin'. The bank is movin', you know, and that's the fun-- you know, the whole part about it. But, ah, we ran patrols across the Rhine for several days with the Dutch underground tryin' to get those -- those people out. (Laughs) We were only supposed to stay about 38 days in Holland. Of course, we stayed 72 days on the line! (Laughs) And we returned -- well, we went to France then and started gettin' our replacements and so forth and by this time I was 19 years old and, ah, I remember I got a pass to go to Paris and, ah, it's been so long ago, I've forgotten what a 19 year-old does in Paris. Ah, I do recall that when we got back to this place called Mormalong (Phonetic), about daylight one morning here come these big ol' trucks. They're like, ah, 18-wheelers with no top on them. You know, okay, they haul (Unintell.) or lumber or somethin' in 'em. You know, "Get out and get on those trucks! Krauts are just up the road!" And so, you know, I don't need this! (Laughs) You know, so -- well, anyway, we got on these trucks, had a tarp over the top of it and executive officer came by in this Jeep and says, "Mount the machine guns on the side! The Krauts, you know, are just up the road!" Okay. You know, we didn't know from zilch what's happenin'. And, ah, we road about two days on those trucks and ended up south of a town called Bastone (Phonetic) and, ah, got off the trucks and double-timed to the town. The only orders that we had was "Move out and develop the situation." So we took off kinda to the east of the town and, ah, one of our companies, I Company, took this town of Warden and got mousetrapped in there and they lost 96 people on that first day. And it was pretty (Unintell.) for a little while 'till we got inside the perimeter and if you were lookin' at a clock and, you know, the center would be Bastone, we were at about, ah, from one o'clock to three o'clock with the 501 Regiment and, you know, 327 and the 502 and 506 laid the perimeter. And just one fairly typical battle. Again, the thing that sticks in your mind, our platoon was back in reserve and we got hit. It was 22nd of December. It was a cold and miserable night, fog. You'd put up an 81 mortar flare and all it would do's just kinda glow. It wouldn't light. You just couldn't see. And, ah, they hit us pretty hard. Machine gun section got knocked out, but around a haystack and my company commander said, "You'd better get your machine gun and get out there, you know, and fire that final protective line," and, you know, you're lookin' at those tracers goin' by, you say, "Up there?" "Yeah." (Laughs) "Okay, sir." (Unintell.) through this barbed wire, you know, had an 86 machine gun on a bipod. And as I set it down, a .31 caliber bullet went bouncin' off the bipod. And, ah, you know, I almost came home with a soprano voice, you know, and I kept that old bipod laid for so long 'cause it made an indent, you know, and it changed the color of the thing and, ah, I stayed out there and fire that final protective fire and (Unintell.) left me a hand grenade off the end of my machine gun muzzle and kinda bloodied me up and went back to the aid station. There's no hospital. Krauts had overrun our hospital and, ah, laid there all night. And there had been a tank destroyer that some of these armored outfits were mousetrapped in there with us. And this thing was situated to where he could swing that turret around with that 76-millimeter gun and keep his hull on what we called "turret deathilade (Phonetic)". His hull is down in this cup like. And he'd been firin' a .50 caliber machine gun out of the ring mount on that, ah, turret. Well, when I got hit and went back to the aid station layin' there on a stretcher and here come this gunner out of that tank destroyer had a .31 caliber bullet up in his nose! (Laughs) You know, "What in the world happened to you?" Well, he says he saw that burst comin' and when he ducked and saw those tracers comin', one of the rounds hit the ring mount and bounced down and hit him in the nose! But, ah, he got lucky and so did I, I guess, but the next day I went back to the line. It wasn't any place to go and, you know, 72 dead out there. So we stopped it pretty -- pretty close and as far as our group goes, we ... we didn't take too many casualties inside while we were in the perimeter. We used to say, "They had us surrounded, the poor bastards." That was kind of our attitude, but, ah, when we moved out into a little hell hole called the Debeaujac (Phonetic) Woods, ah, I had three friends who went back, brothers went back about a year ago in March of one year, and I'd told them Debeaujac is creepy. It's part of the Arden (Phonetic). In the snow, particularly in the snow everything's real quiet. Have you ever read Grimm's Fairy Tales or old-timey tales like that, you know, that they kind -- that's, I think, where they started. I mean it's creepy even without fighting. Well, we moved up into the Beaujac Woods and I started to tell you about my friends that had gone there in March of one year and it snowed. And they came back and said, "You're right, brother. It's creepy even -- I mean, man, you just feel chills up and down your back." I mean all the time. I mean it's cold, sure, but you're -- you're -- you know, you feel creepy, all right? "Eery" I guess is the word. Well, we took this hill in the Beaujac and one thing kinda sticks in your mind. You know, when ... you can't dig holes in this hard ground. One of our trips was, you know, you find -- get a dead Kraut and toss him out of the hole and get in that hole, you know, 'cause -- they dug good holes, too, by the way. Well, we run up on this -- one of these, ah, machine gun crew that'd been knocked out and there were two or three dead there and there was a German medic there, and they wore a thing like a apron, you know, around, you know, like it had a red cross on it, you know? And this German looked up and saw me and shrugged, turned around and walked off, you know. And your whole adrenalin's runnin', you know, but you see these dead Krauts layin' there, so, you know, and you need that hole. And so you're not gonna shoot a medic anyway. We were very lucky that, ah, we were then told our platoon, and this time we were pretty much full strength. And go down this trail and get some tanks that'd been mousetrapped in these thicker woods. And as we were goin' down this trail, here come a tanker and he was wearin' that typical old big long hat that had the gold, funny-looking thing and a jacket and he was shakin', you know. And I says, "Where you gonna go? Where are you goin'?" He says, "I want to go back and get me another tank. I mean those guys loved that tank." That's where he was headed. Anyway, we had just barely had swung around into these real thick woods when here came a little German tank and a big German tank. And my friend -- it went by us just as we were turnin' around. And I mounted my machine gun up on a -- ah, the roots of a tree that had been blown over and I set that up there and these German infantry were behind the two tanks. And they were sayin', "Cease fire, cease fire." And, you know, there was a lot of surrendering goin' on. So finally somebody says, "Let 'em have it." Well, you can't hardly see in these woods. It's -- it's -- it's eery, like I say. Well, the only reason I could see my first target -- you very seldom -- maybe twice in my life I've seen -- seen the enemy, okay? But it's usually smoke and hollerin' and screamin' and all that. When I saw this Kraut kid had an MG-42 and when he turned his head, very light flickered off of his helmet and I started firing. That first tracer went through him and I could see there's a whole squad behind him get just killed 'em. In the meantime up where the two tanks were, ah, one of my friends had bounced a bazooka round off of it and, ah, the tank commander looked down at him, went back to firin' and the two tanks got on out of there, but we shot up the infantry pretty bad and we lost some good people there. And, ah, Cussless Guss Hill was a guy that ... he went AWOL in church. That was the only time he was ever late and, ah, he shot a whole bunch of guys with a M-1. John (Unintell.) Bay was killed there. (Unintell.), a medic was waving a broussard (Phonetic), his medical broussard at this tank and went out and got John Ofie's, you know. So it was pretty -- pretty hairy there for a while, but we fell in back across the railroad track and by this time it's like early January, cold, miserable. This is where, ah, we supposedly got Christmas dinner, a frozen turkey leg, you know. But, Carl, I gotta tell you our information was that, ah, there were gettin' -- the Germans were gettin' the SS units out and they were hittin' us with (Unintell.), old men and kids, okay? You know, they came at us again and we decided to give 'em that hill and I remember havin' a old frozen turkey leg and a piece of (Unintell.) and a machine gun and goin' down this trail tryin' to eat that turkey leg (Laughs) and that was -- that was Christmas dinner! So we, ah, got reorganized and started drivin' towards the Luxembourg border and, ah, ah, probably happiest sight in my life was the 502, the regiment, was attacking on the right. We were on the left and the ground area had kinda opened up. You know, you could see big open areas and, ah, I remembered gettin' out on a patrol and saw the marker for the Luxembourg border and it was deep snow. And got back kinda to this reserve area and my friend Roy Morgan had showed up and, like I say, he got -- he'd got hit in the butt (Laughs) and he jumped on a Jeep and they evacuated him, but, ah, that pretty well ended up our killin' time in ... the Ardan (Phonetic). We reformed, got on a train and went to the (Unintell.) pocket down in Alsace Lorraine (Phonetic), ran some patrol activities and crossed this little river, the Moulder (Phonetic), I think it was, and, ah, we lost a right good many people down there, some of our -- our first sergeant got killed, for example. He didn't have to go on this patrol, but he -- he went and so (Sigh) we ended up then goin' to, ah, Burchesgarten (Phonetic), and by this time it's May of 19-- April, I guess, of '45 and, ah, we went up to the Eagle's Nest and formed up in the -- well, the regiment then de-activated from the -SS barracks there in Burchesgarten in, ah, it had to have been about in May, I guess, of '45 because in the meantime prior to, you know, between the (Unintell.) pocket and Burchesgarten, we had gone back to France and our people were on standby to jump on the prison camps and try to hold 'em 'till these -- 'till the armor got there. But Patton was always on -- on our drop showin' us. So, ah, we rejoined the division in Burchesgarten and, ah, that's where we de-activated and 501 came home. By this time, November of '45. And, by the way, you know, when we got back (Unintell.) you know, to rejoin the division, had a big medic named Hamricks -- Heimlich -- Luke, you know? And about this time the, ah, point system came out. It's about as fair as you could get it, okay? Purple Heart was worth five points. And I give a damned if I had a Purple Heart or not, but I -- I found out, you know, that (Unintell.) (Laughs) worth five points, so I grabbed old Luke and said, "Hey, you remember that (Unintell.) I evacuated (Unintell.)." "Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. I'll get you your five points." (Laughs) So I ended up with about 85 points and, ah, I briefly had to go with the, ah, 502 Regiment (Unintell.) before I came home with the second group of high point men. You know, (Unintell.), you know, like yourself, you'd have 12 points, you know, automatically just for having a kid, you know. So, ah -- but, again, the system was about as fair as it -- it could get and in March -- excuse me, in November of '45 I, ah, returned to the States and got discharged and I couldn't settle down. I guess, you know, people say the war does things to you. Yes, but, you know, I think I had this wild streak before I -- you know, I had a good bit of money. I was 19 years old in this little town and, ah, have bartender in this bar tell me, you know, "Just quit buyin' booze for these guys. You know, their wives are callin' me," and they still talk about that adventure I had for the six months or so I was out. I didn't -- you know, I didn't steal or hurt anybody, but, you know, I was just an embarrassment to my family and all. And somebody mentioned that Eleanor Roosevelt had tried to get up a retraining thing returnees that, ah, you know, our way of goin' into a house was tossin' in a grenade, kick in the door, follow up with a Tommy gun, you know, and it's sort of the way you do things. And I guess I was a poster boy for that. I mean I guess I had that wild streak before I went in the service and it was kinda exacerbated, I suppose, and the here today, done tomorrow attitude, which was kind of exacerbated by war experiences. I still have that, by the way, shortness of patience and so forth. So that was kinda the effect that it had on me, but, again, I just -- I just couldn't settle down in civilian life and ... ah, just an embarrassment to my family. That was reasons (Laughs) to -- to, ah, kind re-enlist. Of course, like I say, my father had died, my mother was livin' with relatives and my brothers was in China. You know, it was a sort of mixed-up situation, but that pretty well ended my World War II experience. And so I went back to jumpin' out of airplanes. (Laughs) DIRECTIONAL INT: Got a few high plane kind of questions. CARL BECK: Say again? INT: Got a few kind of higher plane kind of questions. CARL BECK: Oh, okay! Hey. Go ahead. DIRECTIONAL INT: Tell me why you think it was necessary that this country get involved with World War II? CARL BECK: Well, Carl, if we hadn't, we'd have been speakin' German or Japanese. And I mean that. Ah, by the same token also, there's some thought that had it not been for World War II this nation would have gone socialist. Okay. You understand we had people like Henry Wallace and, ah, all of the alphabet soup of, ah, social org-- ahm, organizations established durin' the Depression was leading us down the road to socialism. (Unintell.) there was a lot of -- a lot of talk about going socialist, even, well, of course, it goes back to Eugene Debbs and the many times he ran for President around World War I. But there was that strong current of socialism which may well have, ah, contributed to, ah, our glide toward socialism had, ah -- had it not been for World War II. And there's a -- there's a lotta truth in that. Ah, as for getting into the war, if we hadn't had a gentleman named Franklin Roosevelt, ah, who had to do things like, ah, give the British a bunch of old four-stack destroyers we had stashed down in Cuba and the lend-lease and started this lend-lease business, ah, we wouldn't have been as well prepared as we were. Ah, and I think I mentioned prepared we were not, because of the knock-out blow they gave us in Pearl Harbor. At that time, of course, the battleship was the queen of the seas, and, ah, that as the Japanese -- I understand their purpose was to knock out the battleships. Fortunately, the carriers escaped and, ah, were out on maneuvers or something. So, you know, yeah, I have to say it was necessary. I mean, you know, Carl, you can look at it and probably you asked me and I'll tell you. I think it was the prime minister of Great Britain called Chamberlain went down in Munich and signed an agreement with Hitler and come out of the airplane in London when he landed and was waving that thing, sayin', "Peace in our time. We can do business with this guy Hitler." And that's just not true because it wasn't too long after that that we had an old battery radio and my brother had to get up, you know, like four in the morning to listen to Hitler's speech so he could tell about it in school, okay? And that was the speech that he made about, "We're gonna have peace in our time. We gonna have a piece of (Unintell.) land. We're gonna have a piece of Czechoslovakia. We gonna have a piece of Austria," okay, you know? So he carried on like that. So those mad men that are in the world have to be stopped and, yes, the war was necessary. I mean if they'd have had things like an atomic bomb, we wouldn't be here. INT: Ahm ... this exhibit and these videos will be seen by literally thousands and thousands of school kids. What do you want to tell them and what do you want them to know? CARL BECK: Oh ... (Sigh) I guess that ... this is not necessarily based on -- on my wartime experiences, but it's a lifetime of experiences and it probably over-simplifies things. But I often tell the tale of a sainted coach here in the State of Georgia called Irk Russell. He was gettin' a little bit old to be head coach, ah, at the university, so they kept him in system and moved him, I believe it was to Aldoster (Phonetic), Georgia, one of the southern universities as head coach. He put out a magnificent team within just a couple of years, phenomenal. And the TV guys were interviewin' the students, these football players, and they asked this student, "What does the coach tell you guys that motivates you to get in there and fight like the dickens for -- for victory?" The kid thought about it for a little while and he says, "Well, coach said, 'Just do right.'" And I can't put it any plainer than that. You know the difference between right and wrong. Just do right. And ... that's what my lifetime of experiences have taught me, is to just do right. Pretty power message. I -- I wish I had a better answer for you, but I don't. INT: Ahm ... of course, World War II had a vast influence on the United States. What are a couple or the one or two of the largest most significant, most far-reaching changes that it had on the nation, in your point of view? CARL BECK: On the nation? INT: Mm-hm. CARL BECK: Pretty hard question to answer, except that I just hope that we realize that it's time to stop these madmen before they get started. And in that sense, that a capable civilian-controlled armed forces is the only way to go. Ah, hopefully we've learned to do things like, ah, okay, ahm, when I was a kid, a boy my age would get in a little bit of trouble and they'd go to court from some misdemeanor. The judge would say, you know, "He can go in the Army or he can go to jail." Well, I think we've learned a little somethin' about educating, ah, young people and not just for to let them go in the Army. I mean to let them go into the service. Some of these jobs these guys do are just -- just phenomenal. It takes a lot of brain power. Ah, just this afternoon a friend of mine called me, wants me to go down the end of this month to do the -- help with the Best Ranger competition. These guys set up radios. They're not gonna jump out of airplanes in helicopters and swim and go and do push-ups and march and all the physical thing. It's the brain work that they have. And I think what we've learned is to have not just an available armed service, but to have a -- an armed service that's mentally capable of dealing with these problems in the world. So if there's ever any one thing that cam-- in other words, you can't go into combat and win with a bunch of trash. You've got to come in with thinkin' people. I mean if I got in a tank today and tried to operate a gun site, I wouldn't know how to do it. So the fact -- speaking for the Army, that they require at least a high school education and it's all-volunteer army. So if we've ever learned anything, it's to have a ready armed service and to have an educated armed service, because I don't want to get like we were back in 1939 and 1940. We had a wise man names Will Rogers. Now he was tellin' you about, you know, "Let's go kill all these guys that are attackin' Pearl Harbor and all that stuff." Now Will Rogers made the comment, says, "Well, you know, (Laughs) we had to go to the French to borrow a machine gun 'cause we didn't have one." You know, he'd get a little facetious, of course, but you've probably seen films yourself of Louisiana maneuvers back in 1941 where the Jeep would have a sign on it say, "Tank" and it shows you a couple of guys down with a fake wooden machine gun firing and all this stuff. We just (Unintell.) -- we just can't afford to get in that position again. And, of course, the civilian control is an absolute necessity with this -- with this. INT: Ahm ... why do you think your generation should be remembered? CARL BECK: (Laughs) Well, I hope we're -- I hope we will. I hope we set an example that you can win, that, ah, we have spread the word that you can -- you can win and, ah, I hope that I've been able to get across that the background from which we came and pretty much -- well, "we", all my friends and relatives, were all poor, ah, agricultural oriented, that if -- if we could teach these kids that this thing, you know, can happen, that, ah, things like the economy and the forces in the world, that that we just need to be, ah, educated enough to deal with these kind of problems, particularly -- particularly the economy. As you're probably well aware, my own opinion that, ah, the economy was the root of World War II. So that if we had an educated citizenry that can look at things like the economy and -- and, ah, just don't repeat the same mistakes that we -- that my generation made. Ah, as for the example of courage and persistence and strength, I think we've already pretty well passed that along to these young men in this Ranger competitive. Like the young man that invited me to go help him out the end of this month, and he came within 39 points of winnin' that thing. I mean they had the -- at the end. I mean there's always a couple of Rangers that win it and this one Ranger that won had a Marine gunnery sergeant his buddy, and that gunnery sergeant said, "You know, there's guys from the 82nd show up outta nowhere and they wouldn't go away," and that's the kind of tradition I think we've passed along at least to the armed services, that, ah, that what we have done they've built on. I -- I go out there drop zone out here in, ah, Cedar Town and these guys come up from Fort Benning. You know, they won't tell you where they've been or, you know, anything, but, you know, I try to tell 'em, "Well, you know, you need an ammo bearer. Take me with you. I'll be your ammo bearer," (Laughs) because they're so ... (SOUND PROBLEM STARTS) of what these young men and women can ... it is -- it's surprising. (Unintell.) part of the thought process and, ah, ah, nation-building. And, ah, that's what I'd like to pass along to these ... and I hope it's not ... in vain. (Laughs) I hope that they develop a love ... and be able to criticize it, ah, when it needs it and serve when they need it. And that's pretty well what ... INT: Okay. Anything we haven't covered that you wanted to (Unintell.) or say? CARL BECK: Well, not -- not really. I go to these ... and so forth and, you know, we're ... we're in kind of part of our know myself included. I'm ... eight now and, ah, I plan to go back to Normandy and take another at least one more jump ... and my French ... and make one more of ... and, ah ... home and, ah, sort of become retired! (Laughs) But, ah, I ... have peace in our time (Unintell.). But you can't ... as long as these madmen are around ... INT: All right. CARL BECK: Okay. INT: That's more than ... CARL BECK: (Laughs) Yeah. Thanks a lot! I hope you guys ... don't you know it's quittin' time, huh? IRRELEVANT (END OF INTERVIEW)
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Extent:: 1:01:26
Original Collection:: Veterans History Project oral history recordings
Veterans History Project collection, MSS 1010, Kenan Research Center, Atlanta History Center
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