Oral history interview of Thomas J. Pendergrast, Sr.

Collection:: Veterans History Project: Oral History Interviews
Title:: Oral history interview of Thomas J. Pendergrast, Sr.
Creator:: Eberhard, Sarah
Pendergrast, Thomas J., Sr., 1920-
Date of Original:: 2004-11-03
Subject:: World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American
Operation Overlord
Slapton Sands, Battle of, England, 1944
Douglas DC-3 (Transport plane)
Tutwiler, Temple Wilson, 1923-1982
Columbia University
National Naval Medical Center (U.S.)
LST-777 (Ship)
United States. Navy. Bureau of Ships
University of Georgia
United States. Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps
Germany. Luftwaffe
Utah Beach
Operation Tiger
United States. Navy. Landing Craft, Tank. #777
Location:: United Kingdom, England, Falmouth, 50.1552197, -5.0688262
United Kingdom, England, Southampton, 50.9025349, -1.404189
United Kingdom, Scotland, 56.0, -4.0
United Kingdom, Wales, 52.5, -3.5
United States, Georgia, 32.75042, -83.50018
United States, Georgia, Atlanta Metropolitan Area, 33.8498, 84.4383
United States, Maryland, Calvert County, Solomons Island, 38.32151, -76.45829
United States, New York, New York County, New York, 40.7142691, -74.0059729
United States, Virginia, City of Norfolk, 36.89126, -76.26188
United States, Virginia, Virginia Beach, Little Creek Naval Amphibious Base, 36.91847, -76.16469
Medium:: video recordings (physical artifacts)
mini-dv
Type:: Moving Image
Format:: video/quicktime
Description:: In this interview, Tom Pendergrast recalls his history in the U.S. Navy during World War II. He had been attending college at the time of the U.S. entry into the war. He became an officer through the Navy's V-7 program. He describes his training and the convoy voyage to Europe. He details the preparations leading up to the invasion of Normandy. He describes the LCT and its role in the invasion. He describes how his LCT was hit by a German mine, the injuries he received, his rescue, recuperation and return to the United States. He details his post-war career and family and his thoughts about war.
Tom Pendergrast was in the U.S. Navy during World War II.
THOMAS PENDERGRAST ATLANTA HISTORY CENTER VETERAN'S HISTORY PROJECT Date: November 3, 2004 Interviewer: Sarah Eberhard Transcriptionist: Stephanie McKinnell SARAH EBERHARD: Today is Wednesday, November 3, 2004. My name is Sarah Eberhard. Today I'm interviewing Thomas Pendergrast, Sr., for the Veteran's History Project. Can I please have you state your name and date of birth? THOMAS PENDERGRAST: Yes, ma'am. My name is Thomas J. Pendergrast, Sr. I was born August 17, 1920. I joined the Navy in August of 1943. I went to Columbia University to get my commission, which I did, and graduated from Columbia University as an ensign in November of 1943. At which time I went to Shelton, Maryland, and trained at Little Creek in the Chesapeake Bay. From there we went to New York City to ship out, which we did in January of 1944. We arrived in Scotland on a transport ship. We then got on a railroad car and went to Falmouth, England, which is in the southwest part of England. We trained there for approximately three months. We were basically a replacement for a LCT, which hopefully was coming back to the United States. But because of the possibility of going into Normandy, they stayed over, and so we took over one of the LCTs, which number was LCT777. We loaded up to go across the Channel on about June 3rd, and proceeded to Southampton. On June 5th, we set out to cross the Channel, but due to weather conditions, we were turned back and decided to go in on June 6th. A great number of the crew obviously were seasick. We took in a complement of army soldiers in addition to a couple of Jeeps and amphibious vehicles. We went into Utah Beach on the 6th about 10 o'clock in the morning. Shortly before hitting the beach, we were blown up by a German mine which was on the bottom of the ocean at the time. The bombs, these mines, are tripped from the bottom by the propeller of the ship. Which when it's tripped, it's a magnetic mine, so it is brought to the ship and to the propellers. When it makes contact, it explodes. It's about 500 pounds of TNT, and several people, several soldiers, our men, were killed. Fortunately for me, I wound up on the deck, and at the time, the Coast Guard had small boats patrolling the area to pick up people like myself or anybody else who had been . . . . I was put on a hospital ship and sent back to England, put in a hospital, and because of a fractured back I was put in a cast from your shoulders down to your buttocks. After staying there for about a month, I was shipped back to the United States. As well as I remember, we were the first casualty group from D-Day to arrive back in the United States. We landed in Norfolk, Virginia. The very same day we were put on a train and sent to Bethesda, Maryland, which at the time was a naval hospital, and I assume it still is. After about a month of rehabilitation, I was sent to the Bureau of Ships and worked in the ______ division, which made life jackets. That's about the extent. I stayed there for about a year and then in October 1945, I was released from the Navy. SE: Now when you, originally you had mentioned you were in school prior to going into the Navy. You were in the University of Georgia? TP: Went to the University of Georgia in 1938. We found something in the New Yorker where they would let you finish school if you were a junior, which I did, and then I went to the Naval ROTC in, they call it the V5 program. No, V7 program, excuse me, where I got my commission. SE: So you were able to graduate? TP: Able to graduate from the university. This program allowed me to graduate. So finally, I was a junior and finished in a year, which I did. SE: And did you have, were there a large group of people, did you have a group of friends that did this together? TP: No, we didn't. There were several that I knew that were there. It was rather a difficult school. Really I'm surprised I got through it. Anyway, you had to have a 2.5 average, and it was too much for me. We did get through. They sent us to Shelton, Maryland, to train. That training consisting of practice, landing on the beach and then pulling off. That lasted about six weeks, and we traveled all through the Chesapeake Bay doing this. LCTs will not go across an ocean. So what they had to do, they had to put them, I guess you call it marrying, marrying them to the LSTs, heavier ship, and sent them across. Several of them, when they were dropped off into the water, they did not have, what they call their shuttlecocks, closed, and the result, water filled up into there, and it took some time to clean it all up because some of them sunk. But each one of those LCTs had I believe it was three Packard engines, and at their top speed, you made maybe 15 miles an hour. Nobody liked them, none of the Navy ships liked to convoy us different places because [we were] too slow. We had to fight our own way. The only interesting thing, I think is interesting, when we left the United States going to England, we were in a convoy, and after a day on high seas, something went wrong, and the system broke down and we had to drop out of the convoy. It kind of worried us because of the fact that that's where the E-boats, the submarines and so forth were in the vicinity of the Atlantic, but fortunately, we got back into the convoy about four days later. The only other thing that was pretty funny, some of the men that I was in charge of, when we got off in Scotland, they took off. And so it took us some time to find them, but they were put in the jail. They didn't want to go. SE: Were they a pretty scattered group geographically or were most of you from the same area? TP: No, they were from all over. They were just regular seamen, and they may have been in Norfolk, I don't know where they were from. But they were nice young people that did their jobs, but they weren't interesting in fighting. SE: It's interesting, even from the time you were in your training in the States, it was specifically on this particular type? TP: When you graduated from Columbia, they assigned you to different things. Some people went to LCIs, some went to LCTs, some went to LSTs, some of ‘em even went into other types of service. They, had the, some of them went to submarines, some of ‘em went to destroyers or cruisers. At the time that I graduated, they needed people to go in with amphibious boats. Actually it was relatively new, but we survived, and I wish I had been able to last longer. SE: You were certainly involved in a pretty intense situation. At what point did you realize what was taking shape in terms of what you were becoming a part of? TP: What you, when you go across, you're in columns, and then as you approach the beach, you go into what they call a flank position, in other words, you just spread out. And as we were going in the flank position, that's when the mine, but you're within, probably, within 700 yards of the shore. That's when it took place. It was sunk. We did have a little mascot, a dog on board, and I read in the Army newspaper that he survived it. SE: Are you serious? TP: Yeah. That's what they said anyway. Those things, you know, you like to remember that they survived. I don't know how many were killed on this boat. I do know there was several in the hospital. SE: How many were on the vehicle? TP: In our, in the Navy, it probably was somewhere around 25. We were kind of the lead ship in our flotilla, and thinking back, we were put in the safest position you can be put in to make it, because I don't know, the captain of the flotilla was on board, and he had his wine mess and everything else. So that went down the drain. Those were about the main things I remember. I love England. I think it is wonderful. SE: Have you been back? TP: We went back. My wife and daughter went back and traveled the same route we went, basically like Torbay and Southampton. Land's End is where we traveled. I think Land's End is where Vivian Leigh and—who did she marry? SE: Lawrence Olivier. TP: That's where they honeymooned. SE: OK. TP: We went over there. The story goes that the Germans, a submarine captain, took his ship in there and surrendered. Whether that's true or not, I don't know. It's a great spot, it's just Land's End. It's the furthest point west in England. We traveled. What really people have not said too much about was there was some trial runs before D-Day in which you would go out and practice landings. This particular night, the E-boats were, German ships, they got inside of the protective area and probably shot down or sunk probably a dozen. So the next day you were sent out to recapture, not recapture, but to try to save it as many of the sailors you could. Some of them were in life jackets . . . . But they lost a lot of people. I don't know what they call the operation. But anyway, I do know that they lost a lot of people. And this was probably a couple of weeks, a week or so, before we invaded. We were practicing doing the invasion. But the E-boats, which were German boats, they got in through the, somehow, they got in, and they sank quite a bit of . . . . And I think they took some regular destroyers, they played hell. SE: I think that's something that's just starting now to really, because it was classified for a while, a lot of people were hesitant to talk, and really only about the last year or so, there has been more coming out. I was going to ask you about that because there were about 700 men lost, or was it even more than that? It was a communication error? TP: I know that it was done by German E-boats. We were sent out the next day to pick up who we could. A lot of people don't realize this happened, and it did. Quite tragic. SE: And then as D-Day itself approached, did you have any idea of the magnitude? When did that even, you know in the days out, did it begin to kind of take shape? TP: What happened was, it was, LCTs didn't stay out in the ocean. They had to go back into the rivers to stay. And a lot of times you had to come out of the rivers because the tide sometimes was 15-20 feet between low and high tide, and it would just dry up, if you got back in the river far enough. So a lot of times we had to come out and wait for the tide to change and go back in again. We, I didn't have any idea that it'd be that many LCTs over there. Because see, up along the coast, you've got Southampton, you've got Toray, you've got Falmouth, and you've got Dartmouth. So people were in different towns, but you assemble in Southampton, and you took off from there. And, of course, very frankly, you don't know anything from anything, that's where you go, and that was it. But we were pretty well underway on the 5th, and the weather was so bad that they just had to turn around and come back, which I can understand why. See, LCTs do not have a keel; they're flat bottomed. So every time you hit a wave or something, I mean it would just vibrate. It was pretty hectic. It wasn't too much better on the 6th, but I think you got used to it. But we were lucky in the respect that we didn't go into the toughest beach. The worst beach was Omaha Beach where people really got torn up. And then we went into Utah, and somebody screwed up because they landed about a mile and a half below where they were supposed to land. But I mean, they made it alright, but by the same token, we didn't have the casualties of Utah that you had at Omaha. We went back over, my wife and son, on the 50th anniversary; that was quite an occasion. That's about it. Nothing unusual about it, just go over there, and that's it. SE: Well, tell us about back here on the home front. Your family was back here in Decatur or in Atlanta? TP: At the time I was not married. I was, well, I went in in 1943, so I was 23 years old. Then I got out in '45 and was 25. So I didn't get married until 1947. Naturally built up a little nest egg and I had to spend that before I started to work. So that's what it was. But anyway, after we got back, I went into the security business, and I've been in that ever since. SE: In Atlanta here? TP: In Atlanta. That's correct. And then in 1980, I guess it was, I formed my own firm. That went on for about five years. Then I said, well, that's enough of this, I'm going to quit. So I retired about 1986. Haven't done anything but get in everybody's hair since then. SE: Now during the time, and especially around D-Day, your family members back here in Atlanta, your friends, extended family and so forth, what type of communication was there? How aware were they of where you were and when you were injured? What about things from that perspective?.... TP: They didn't have much. Theoretically, you're not supposed to say where you are. And until we were assigned an LCT, I think I censored some mail. Some of the stories, some of the letters I would read, you'd think those people had been through hell, and they really hadn't been, but they wanted their loved ones, they didn't know if they'd be able to handle it or not. Anything that came out, that looked like it would give the enemy any information, you just kind of scratched that out. It was fascinating to read some of the mail that some of the boys would write, they didn't know whether they'd be able to stand all those, we never had any bombs dropped on us or anything else. One thing that I think, in my opinion, one thing happened on D-Day was that they didn't have any, we didn't see any, we didn't hear of any airplanes. It was pretty well cleaned out when we went over there. They said there were some airplanes running around up there, but we never heard any. We heard our DC-3's or whatever it was bringing the troops over, but we never saw any airplanes. I think one of the prettiest girls I ever saw was, she was a German girl and she was a sniper. She was in the hospital. They shot her. She was a good looking girl, I tell you. They did capture her. She was in the hospital where we were and everything. They had all kinds of help, you know, you think about these things as you go along. I haven't though too much about that, except I do remember that now. SE: So then did your family, how long did it take them to receive notification you'd been injured? TP: It's a funny thing about that. They got my letter, the next day they got a letter from me telling what happened and that I was alright. But the day before they got what they call a “three-star letter” from the Navy. A three-star says you've been wounded or something. A five-star, you've had it. And they had a three-star letter, telegram or whatever it was. It was delivered by the Army or by somebody. My mother wouldn't accept it. She sent the dog after him. But anyway, they didn't know what in the world happened to me. Fortunately the next day they got a letter from me. They were notified. Gosh, it may have been a couple of weeks before, but they did get that. After I wrote, we wrote back and forth. I didn't have anything else to do, laid up in bed. So I did a lot of writing. SE: And then eventually you were able to get back here right before you were discharged? TP: I came back from England on a hospital ship, and we landed on Norfolk, Virginia. SE: How long did it take, how long were you on the ship? TP: Probably about six days, about six days. And you always worried about that because on a hospital ship you get no protection, nobody, don't have any big ships protecting you like a destroyer or a DE or whatever. So you come back by yourself. So you're always worried about Germans sinking you or something. But that didn't happen. Then when we came back in we got on, they put us on railroad cars and sent us up to Bethesda. Being the first group that I know anything about from the war, from the invasion of Normandy, they wanted to make a big to do about it so they had bands down there, all this stuff. But some of the people in that train had broken legs and they lay ‘em down on these stretching machines trying to keep—and that train would jerk, and those people were just all a-kilter. But we did get there and we did have all the festivities that you could probably think of, and that was it. Funny thing, a boy I went to college with, we went on the same ship to England, saw each other, and we both were wounded, and we both came back on the same hospital ship and we stayed in the same hospital there. So that's about the only one I really knew, but I got pretty close to some of them, and we enjoyed being together. SE: Have you been in any reunion groups, or are there any that you get together with on a regular basis? TP: No. You mean as far as the war is concerned? SE: Yes. TP: No, no. It was pretty well . . . the other officer on this particular LCT, he was killed, so I was the only officer. Well, there was another one. He got gangrene and they had to cut off his feet. You know, you put a cast on your feet too tight and you cut off your circulation. They never did anything to him and he never got any blood down there. The other thing that I think is kind of interesting to me, I don't mean it in a derogatory way, but it is kind of. They put us back on a ship to take us back to England, and a lot of these boys were pretty well banged up, including myself. The attendants on that ship, they would take these watches off these wounded people, money, things like that. You see it being done, and it just really turns your . . . I don't think that was done on a big basis, but I did see it done, and it just kind of turns your . . . . But that's about it. We went through a couple of air raids. SE: You were in the hospital in England, it was about a month you were there? TP: Yeah, I'll tell you what they did. They sent us back to England, but then that's when they had buzz bombs, a lot of what they call buzz bombs. They were not piloted by anything. But they would begin to crash, you know, in London. So they moved us from where our hospital was all the way to Wales to get out of the area. But those buzz bombs were a big thing during that period of time. They did, they put us in these Army ambulances and took us further away, which suited me. SE: Because initially they took you into London? And then after that? TP: Well, outside of London. Not far outside. But anyway, in this buzz bomb territory, that was the big thing for Germany, you know, during that period of time. That's about it. I could think of a lot of little things, but that's basically it. Cut it off? SE: No, we do still have several minutes left. What I'd like to say, is there anything that we haven't even, it doesn't have to be in chronological order or anything, that you just happen to think about or you want to add in, regarding even maybe any of your friends or people that are, like you mentioned going back to the 50th anniversary. When you went back to the 50th anniversary, did you— TP: We went back to, to the cemeteries. It was interesting really. And actually one of the men I knew in Atlanta was on the commission, I mean the commission in charge of taking care of the cemeteries. So he got pretty good people to take us through. And as well as I remember, all those graves, the signs on those graves all face America. TAPE 1 SIDE B TP: It was quite touching. Went back to Utah beach, of course, Omaha, and I guess that Omaha was really, I don't know how we missed it, but I'm glad we did. So I may have survived that, so I don't know, it's, it was a quite an experience, and I'm just sorry that I didn't get to get into France more. I would love to do that. We did go back and the people couldn't have been nicer. Just as nice as they could be when we were in France. That's about it. I did have one [friend] who worked in the hospital. He was a corpsman, and he was from Atlanta. And I remember when I came back to Atlanta, I [said], “You're a bedpan commando,” which he was. And he's dead now, but it was amazing that you'd go into the, something like that, with somebody you knew from your hometown. He was a corpsman. Of course, you're laying there on your back with a cast from your shoulder down to your buttocks, you don't get to move around too much. The doctor that I had was the doctor for the New York Giants football team. He said, “We've got to get you some air in here.” So they cut a hole here, used a razorblade or something like that, and then he said, “Let's see if this cast is strong enough.” And he put his hand inside the cast and just picked it straight up. There's things like that. But anyway, it was a quite an experience, as I say. And I came back and they put me in the Bureau of Ships testing ____. It was interesting to hear the rioting on VE Day, but that they sent a bunch of them down to South America [?]. But I had to go back to the hospital for a check-up and I didn't get to go and it really made me mad. I'd have loved to have gone down there. . . . [unclear] But anyway, we got to see it. And they would wine and dine you. [unclear] SE: So then it wasn't too long, let's see, your actual discharge was October 15th? TP: Something like that. I got out and then, of course, then the government would give you, pay for going back to school. And, I did that for about a year. They tell you what you're supposed to, what you're best suited for, which is a bunch of bull. But anyway, I think they gave me something like a hundred dollars a month for training. I still get about 20% disability, because of my back. But anyway, that's about it. Didn't make much money back then. Where I worked, they paid probably a hundred dollars, I'd get a hundred dollars from the government. On the job training. I've got a lot of stuff at the house. Uniforms and all that I've given to the children, they had a good time with them. See, when we got blown up I had all this memorabilia and all this stuff and it's all gone. It was all on the ship. It went straight on down. All I had was a wet suit. SE: Now were you conscious when they picked you up? TP: Yeah. See, the bad thing was, each one of those ships has two .20 mm guns on it. And we said, if we get hit or something, by no means are you to lock yourself . . . lock yourself in those guns. And they did, and it just cut them in half. They told us not to. I think that's about it, really and truly. You could keep going but I'm sure it's not that much of an interest really. SE: Absolutely. And I always like to ask, too, as time has gone on and you look back, did you realize as you participated in that and even in your coming back, I mean, what an enormous part of history was taking place there at the time? TP: You didn't realize all that at the time. You know, it builds up over a period of time, which is kind of involved, and you don't really, I didn't, I really didn't worry about it too much. I guess war is for the young, so I really wasn't too worried about it. The only time I was worried was when they blew us up. But I came out of that alright. Had a lot of shots and stuff like that, kept me going. I was an ensign, which is about the lowest form of humanity as far a commissioned officer is concerned. When we were in high school, they didn't know what an ensign was. It's [like a] private, which is fine with me. But when they find out what, you were an officer, then they'd move [?] you somewhere else. I remember, the only other thing I remember, now I'll tell you one more thing. The fellow I was in the hospital with came from Birmingham, his name was Tutweiler. I don't know if you know the Tutweiler Hotel or not. He was pretty much shot up and burned and so forth on his chest. He was next to me, and they took him in and were doing grafts of skin or something. Anyway, he came back and he said, “Well, I hope this thing works.” And he stayed on, he stayed in there about a week I guess. And they took that bandage off and it hadn't taken. You talk about smelling. Whew. So I saw him in Birmingham a few years later [unclear]. He said, “That was a rough time, wasn't it.” You see a lot of funny things. And so they kind of worked together. Did see a lot of things though. I don't know. SE: I think we're going to go ahead and [turn off the tape].
Metadata URL:: http://album.atlantahistorycenter.com/cdm/ref/collection/VHPohr/id/281
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Extent:: 40:08
Original Collection:: Veterans History Project oral history recordings
Veterans History Project collection, MSS 1010, Kenan Research Center, Atlanta History Center
Holding Institution:: Atlanta History Center
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