Oral history interview of Harry C. Brown

Collection:: Veterans History Project: Oral History Interviews
Title:: Oral history interview of Harry C. Brown
Creator:: Johnson, Mary Lynn
Brown, Harry C., 1922-2013
Date of Original:: 2003-10-29
Subject:: V-mail
Artillery--United States
50 Caliber gun
V-E Day, 1945
V-J Day, 1945
V-1 bomb
World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American
Hodges, Courtney H. (Courtney Hicks), 1887-1966
White, George
United States. Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944
United States. Army. Infantry Division, 2nd
United States. Army. Engineer Combat Battalion, 2nd
North Carolina State University
Location:: Belgium, Wallonia, Liège Province, Arrondissement of Liège, Liège, 50.63373, 5.56749
Czech Republic, Rokycany, 49.7429636, 13.5945245
France, Grand Est, Ardennes, 49.63202, 4.65369
France, Île-de-France, Paris, 48.85341, 2.3488
France, Saint-Lô, 49.1157004, -1.0906637
United States, Georgia, 32.75042, -83.50018
United States, Georgia, Atlanta Metropolitan Area, 33.8498, 84.4383
United States, Missouri, Pulaski County, Fort Leonard Wood, 37.70573, -92.15717
United States, North Carolina, Macon County, Franklin, 35.18232, -83.38154
Medium:: video recordings (physical artifacts)
mini-dv
Type:: Moving Image
Format:: video/quicktime
Description:: In this interview, Harry Brown describes his life as a combat engineer in the Army during World War II. He landed at Omaha Beach a few days after D-Day. His job was to "keep the Army moving" by repairing roads and bridges and clearing mines. He describes in detail what that time was like, including drinking Calvados for the first time, making a stretcher out of a door for a wounded buddy, building foxholes with explosives and experiencing "Bed Check Charlie." He describes shooting down a buzz bomb, making unauthorized side trips to Paris, and encounters with Russian soldiers at the end of the war. After the war in Europe was over, he was sent to Texas to train for the invasion of Japan, but that war ended before he was sent there. After the war, he obtained a degree in industrial engineering and then worked in sales.
Harry Brown was a combat engineer in Europe during World War II.
Harry C. Brown Veterans History Project Atlanta History Center With Mary Lynn Johnson October 29, 2003 [Tape 1, Side A] Interviewer: My name is Mary Lynn Johnson. I'm a volunteer interviewer for the Atlanta History Center in Atlanta, Georgia. Today we're interviewing Harry C. Brown who is a veteran of World War Two. Mr. Brown, could you repeat your name and your birth date and your current address and also introduce your wife? Brown: My wife, Mary Jane. And my birthday is December 2, 1922. And what was the other question? Interviewer: Your current address. Brown: My address is 95 Schoolhouse Road, Franklin, North Carolina. Interviewer: And what type of work did you perform when you were in the armed services? Brown: My training was at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, and the Corps of Engineers. My training there was primarily infantry, basic training, rifle, close-order drill and whatever. The only specialized training we got was a very brief introduction to mines, personnel mines, anti-tank mines. And then that was it. And bridge building. Some, very little, but a little bit of bridge building. Interviewer: And this was during World War Two, correct? Brown: This was in basic training. Right. Interviewer: But you served in World War Two. Brown: Oh yes. Yeah. Interviewer: Could you tell me a little bit about your family background and your education? Brown: I'm a poor boy from the hills [laughs], Western North Carolina. I grew up there during the Depression, of course. And I guess most people know what that is. Was not the happiest of times, but we managed. Yeah. Interviewer: Was your family farmers or…? Brown: No. We just did just about anything you could do to make money. No. We had a pretty rough life. My dad was missing early in my life. My momma had it on her shoulders. I had older brothers who managed to help until, of course, they got married. But we managed pretty well. Interviewer: How many siblings did you have? Brown: I had three brothers and one sister, all older than I was. Interviewer: Were your brothers also…did they serve in the military as well? Brown: No, they were too old. Some of them had families, one or two. Interviewer: When and where did you get married? Brown: Wildwood, New Jersey. Interviewer: Was that after the war? Brown: Yes. Considerably. Interviewer: We'll touch on that again later. Did you have…so you didn't have any children during the war? Brown: No. No. No. Nope. Interviewer: Okay. And you said you were in the Corps of Engineers. Brown: Well, they call it…to make it correct, combat engineers, as to differentiate because we were part of an infantry division and, of course, that's combat troops. There are corps engineer battalions who operate independently but they're usually heavy equipment and building larger things, big bridges and big repairs and stuff like that. Interviewer: What was your main…you touched a little bit in the introduction about what boot camp was like for you. Could you describe what you learned in boot camp? Brown: I could, but you wouldn't want to hear it. [laughs] No, it was typical. Interviewer: Did you learn how to cuss in boot camp? Brown: I didn't know there were so many new words. [laughs] No, it was typical army life. Close-order drill, police the area, pick up anything that's not growing that doesn't have roots. That sort of stuff. But it was…it wasn't bad, really. We got fed good and we had good sleeping quarters. So it was not bad. Interviewer: Were you drafted or did you enlist? Brown: I enlisted…well, did both, really. I enlisted first and they rejected me. I was 4-F. Interviewer: What does that mean? Brown: Unfit for service [laughs]. And I was a little disappointed. I don't know why, but I was. But anyway, I said, “Okay, I'll just wait.” Well, my number had not been called yet. So when it did come, I went in and I passed for Army, Navy or Marines, any one. Interviewer: And did you get to choose the service? Brown: Well, yeah, I chose the Army. Yeah. I was trying to get in the Air Corps because the only occupation I had was aircraft mechanic, sheet metal. So I thought I could do good in that area. But Army, be in the Army. Couldn't put two and two together. Interviewer: Do you remember what it was like, your first couple of weeks when you were in the service after you left home? Brown: Lonesome is the only word you could use to describe it. You miss that, momma's cookin'. Yep. Interviewer: Did you serve with any of your friends from Asheville? Brown: No, I ran into them. I never served with them, no. Interviewer: Do you remember any of your instructors at boot camp? Brown: I should. I remember the face. But I don't remember the names too well. Of course, in my book I've got the names. Yeah. Interviewer: What did you do to help get yourself through boot camp? Brown: Write letters. Interviewer: Who did you write to? Brown: My mom. No girlfriend. Sorry. They had their chance and they missed it. [laughs] Interviewer: And how old were you? Brown: Twenty. Yep. Well, writing letters and…well, the Army kept us pretty busy. I mean, by the time we were through in a day we were ready to go to bed. So that was it. Interviewer: And how long does boot camp last? Brown: Seventeen long weeks. Interviewer: And during that time, did you have any weekend passes . . . Brown: It's strange you should ask. [laughs] No, they give you…they try to make it interesting for you in the Army. Give you some incentives, you know. A weekend pass is a big, big incentive. That's saved for special things. In this case, it was…a weekend pass to Jefferson City for the person whose score was the highest on the rifle range, cause they had a special emphasis on rifle range, on rifle, on marksmanship. They even give medals for it. In fact, they got two classes, marksman and expert. And so, I spent a lot of time on that cause I wanted that pass. Interviewer: Did you get it? Brown: Yes. Three hundred and sixty-seven guys and I was one of the ten that got the pass. Interviewer: What did you do? Do you remember that? Brown: I was high score on the rifle range. Interviewer: What did you do on the pass? Brown: Oh. Well. You didn't say [inaudible]. Interviewer: I'm sorry. [laughter] Brown: Well, I got drunk if you want to know it short and sweet. First time in my life I ever drank anything. And I was ready for it. But I didn't get wild or anything. Didn't go getting' in trouble or anything. I just managed to get from one part to the next back to the house where I went to bed. Interviewer: What was a typical day in boot camp like after you'd been there say, five or six weeks? Do you remember? Brown: I remember it was up at five thirty. Thirty minutes of calisthenics. Breakfast. Then you get back to the barracks, you fall out with your pack and usually it was some sort of close-order drill or police the area, whatever, or obstacle course. Some calisthenics. They mix it up just to keep us moving. Just keep us active. And there's nothing in the way of entertainment and stuff like that. No. It was pretty…this was Missouri and the country out there is not exactly the most scenic [laughs] or inviting. Dry, hot. It got hot. This was in the summertime. So that was about it. Interviewer: And you said you left Missouri and went to a temporary camp at Ohio. Brown: Camp Shanks, Ohio, I believe it was. Well, it was near Youngstown, Ohio. I know that. And we were just there long enough to be split up and put onboard ship. You know, that was where you would break off and go with a group. And usually, they put a bunch of engineers on board, a bunch of infantry, a bunch of whatever, you know, and ship ‘em over like that, like cargo, which it was. [laughs] And it was in the middle of…it was in January. Not the best time to take a trip across the North Atlantic. I don't recommend it. Interviewer: Well, tell us a little bit more about that trip. You said you sailed… Brown: I don't remember much. [laughs] You won't… Interviewer: Were you seasick? Brown: [laughs] My diet for the eleven days that it took were Hershey candy bars. That was it. I tried. I'd get in the chow line and I'd get within smelling distance of the kitchen and that's as far as I'd get. Interviewer: The whole time. Brown: The whole time. And you wonder why I kissed the ground when I got over there? [laughs] I swear. Interviewer: Okay. You went from Boston and where did your ship land in Europe. Brown: Liverpool. Interviewer: In England. Brown: In England. Uh-huh. Interviewer: And what did you do in England and how long were you there? Brown: I moved to two locations in England. One was…the first camp we got to was a former English officers training center. And it was really nice. I mean, this was…I had it lucky. We each, four of us to a house. They were actually detached buildings, brick houses with bedrooms, baths and fireplace. They burned coke. They didn't burn coal. They burned coke. To each four guys. And had a nice campus. Of course, it had a big fence around it, but didn't do much good. We had all the training equipment we needed there, obstacle courses. But we were there maybe…I don't remember how long. Oh, three or four months or so. Long enough for me to gain about fifteen pounds and that was something rare, cause I never gained weight before. But they treated us good, fed us good, worked us hard. And I enjoyed it. I really did. Interviewer: How was your training in England different that it was in boot camp and in the temporary camp? Brown: Oh, so much more comfortable. So much nicer. I mean, just…the cadre was nice. Of course, we were over there fighting a war, you know. I mean, it's not the same. You know, they know what's up ahead and they're gonna be nice to us. [laughs] So we enjoyed it. The food was good. They didn't spare anything hardly. Interviewer: Did you get the sense that you were being trained for something very specific. Brown: Not really. Well, specific in…only there was war. And we had no idea what that was like. But no, we got a little touch of anti-personnel mines and booby traps because being engineers, that's what we were gonna be doing. But it was very limited and very outdated. Old equipment, old mines. They didn't have any of the latest stuff that the Germans had. So we didn't know anything about it. But I guess that's why they didn't have too much of it. But that was about it. Can't think of anything else that's outstanding. The food was good. I remember that. Yeah. Interviewer: You had to gain back all that weight you lost on the ship. Brown: [laughs] I didn't lose a lot of weight. I don't…that was the funny thing about me. I never gained weight. I never lost it either. But I couldn't gain a pound if I tried. I tried. When I was growing up, I was ashamed to go swimming I was so damn skinny [laughter]. Interviewer: You said you went in at Normandy. Did you go in on D-Day? Brown: No, no. I didn't get an invitation. I tried. [laughs] No, no. We were there…I was in a kind of an outfit I've never heard of before or since. It's called a replacement depot. Got a bad name during World War Two and it earned it. They were places where you send unassigned troops to be picked out and transferred to an assigned group for whatever they needed, engineers, infantry, medics or whatever. And so, this was a kind of hastily organized replacement depot, cadre group. Supposed to be the nucleus of the organization. And we got onboard ship and got over there and our job was to get the guys from the beach up to their unit, front lines as soon as possible. They anticipated heavy casualties and were gonna need replacements fast. So we were, we had to be there early. And so we got there…I think it's a couple days after D-Day. The mess was still…most…a lot of the mess was still there. The bodies were gone. I don't know what they did with them. I don't know. All the bodies on Normandy Beach were gone and I really don't know what they would…Somebody told me that they got a bulldozer and dug ditches in the sand and cover ‘em over temporarily. Interviewer: So you went in maybe around June eighth or so. Brown: Around seventh, eighth, ninth. Something like that in there. Interviewer: Had you heard anything about what it was like on June the sixth? Brown: No. We hadn't. And not even an inkling. They really kept us from knowing too much. Interviewer: What did they tell you before you went over there? I mean, before you…as you… Brown: “God bless you and good luck.” [laughs] That's it. So no, we didn't know too much, but I guess it's just as well we didn't. All I know is those guys that ran those boats forgot where the stopping point was because when they let us out, we were over our head in water. Interviewer: Were you in a dickens [phonetic] boat? Brown: Yeah, I guess. It dropped the lid in front? Yeah. Yeah. Well, a regular boat…I had a ball coming across the channel. I got onboard and a guy yelled out, “Anybody from North Carolina?” I raised my hand. He called me over. He was the chief mate or something. Anyway, he was the boss man. So I slept in his bunk, in his cabin on the trip over. He brought me breakfast in bed. I mean, he treated me like royalty. [laughs] Yeah, that was nice. Interviewer: And how long was the trip from England? Brown: I remember it being overnight. That's all I remember. It might have been a little longer than that. But I know I spent one night in that bed. But that's all I remember. Yeah. Interviewer: Now as a combat engineer, could you tell me what your job was once you landed on the beach at Normandy? Brown: It's so simple it's hard to tell. [laughs] Your basic responsibility is to keep the army moving. That means if the road's tore up, you fix it. If a bridge is out, you repair it. If there's mines in the road, you get them out of the way. Whatever it takes to get the road and the way open for the troops. That was the main idea. Interviewer: Were you a jack of all trades or did you have something that you were specialized in? Brown: Well, we were supposed to have been specialized in mine detecting and removal because that's the only thing that none of us had experienced in civilian life. So they spent…what time they had they spent on that, which was not a whole lot. I think they seemed to think physical shape was a whole lot more important and I guess maybe it was. But no, it was just most of us knew how to use a pick and a shovel, which were our basic tools. And a cross-cut saw and a…we couldn't use…we had ‘em, but we couldn't use the um…what you call now a chainsaw, because they made too much noise. That's frowned on. They don't like too much noise. So that's…I guess that's just a…keep the roads open and—a lot of mud, lot of gravel, rocks and stuff. We had groups of engineers who ran rock quarries to get gravel. They were bad. Interviewer: Did you have any issues with supplies or problems getting the things you needed to do your job? Brown: [laughs] You were reading my mind. You ever hear of sleeping bags? Interviewer: Well, just the kind that I've slept in. Brown: Well, okay. You know what a sleeping bag is then. I mean, what it's supposed to be. Interviewer: Yes, I know what it's supposed to be. Brown: We had…the Army had good ones, you know. Cause they had troops up in Alaska and places like that. They knew…and they had it. Eiderdown, nice, good for minus thirty degrees, and waterproof. Well, that's what we were looking for. And just a few days after Christmas, we got some sleeping bags. And bags is about it. They were the canvas outer shell with a zipper and inside was an inner bag with an army blanket sewn in it. That's the only…no feathers. Just an army blanket. And that's what we got. Now, back in the rear echelon, back in the back, there's where all the eiderdown bags are. [laughs] Requisitioned them before they got to us. Some of them got ‘em, but very few. I didn't get any. Interviewer: You were attached to an infantry. Brown: Second infantry division. The old Indian Head Division. Our emblem is rather prominent and recognizable. It's an Indian head on a star on a shield. Red, white and black, I think. Interviewer: Who was the general in charge of that? Brown: Hodges, I believe. I can't remember. I think it is. Well, I guess [inaudible]. [inaudible sentence] Interviewer: So as you were attached to an infantry division, your job was to…you would go in front of the division and repair the way or you would… Brown: There's a little joke I tell about that. It's… Interviewer: I think your microphone is slipping off. Brown: There's a little joke…there's a little truth to it. Little bit. We had these mine detectors. You've probably seen them where they wave them over the ground and have earphones on, listening for the click. Well, those were issued to us and we would sweep the road. And then the infantry would see us. And then, once we swept the road they'd go through. They wouldn't go, not until we did. And what we did didn't mean a tinker's darn because those things would sound off on shrapnel, tin cans, cigarette wrappers. I think even iron ore they'll ring. So if we stopped to dig every time that thing rang, we'd still be over there. Interviewer: So how did you know when and where to dig when you were getting such conflicting signals? Brown: The worst way is to step on one to find it. Or run over it. The best way is to see it. And the best way to help that along is to push the Germans as hard as you can, as fast as you can, so they don't have time to dig holes and bury them. And that's what we tried to do. Mother Nature didn't help us any cause we got about a foot or two of snow. And when immediately a mine laying on the ground in full view becomes a hidden mine. So then you've got problems. But we had some pretty good answers for most of it. We had bulldozers that had a blade on the front, bulldozer blades. On tanks, rather. Well, some of the bulldozers but most of the time it was a tank because sometimes they'd blow them up. And a guy on a bulldozer would go with it. They'd plow the road and turn the snow up and then you could see the mines. And once you did that why we'd just go up there and pick the mines up, put them out there somewhere and blow them up. If they were anti-personnel mines which we didn't get a lot of, thank goodness. Cause they're mean. We only got a few of those and most of those were box mines. You couldn't pick them up with a mine detector anyway because they were made out of wood. So we got a few of those just by seeing them and in some cases somebody would step on one and we'd know that it was a mine field. And then we'd mark it off. Interviewer: So anti-personnel mines were designed to kill people. Brown: Well, what they were trying to do…not trying to kill, really. They were trying to injure them. Blow a foot off or a leg off or something. Because it takes…George White, it took four of us to get him out. He stepped on one. Blew his foot off. But that takes five guys out of the line. The Germans know that. Well, if you take five here and five there, after a while you've got nobody to fight. So it was good strategy on their part. But fortunately, like I said, there weren't very many of them. We hit two or three places where we found them, but that was it. Interviewer: You just mentioned Mr. White. He was one of your . . . ? Brown: He was one of my…buddies. Interviewer: He was injured. Brown: George White. Interviewer: Can you talk a little bit about that, about what is was like to see one of your friends get hurt? Brown: Well, he was up ahead. George was a big guy. He weighed about two hundred and twenty, two hundred and forty pounds. Big, tall. Not fat, just tall. Big. And we were up front. Of course, we didn't have any medic with us at the time. We didn't have any stretchers or any stuff like that. We were just up there looking for mines. And George went down this little road and he stepped on one. We called them snuff box mines. And it took his foot off. And we went in there to bring him out. Well, we didn't have a stretcher so we took a door off one of the buildings and made a stretcher out of it. Well, a door doesn't have any handles on it. It's got four corners. So it takes four of us to bring him out of there. We're walking in and it's snow covered. Walking in, you just walk in that guy's tracks up ahead. That's single file. So we made it in all right. George didn't, but we did. Cause we walked in his tracks. Now coming out, we can't walk…we have to go out, one on each corner of that door which means we can't go out the way we came in. We can't all walk in that one track. Somebody's gonna have to give. So we both gave, and we straddled it. Fortunately, we didn't hit anything. But that was some anxious moments there, carrying him out and knowing there were mines there and you can't see ‘em and you can't walk in the tracks that you'd like to walk in. So it was touch and go. Interviewer: Were you able to stay in touch with George after that? Brown: No, that's the one thing I hate and I've thought about it. I even got on the computer one night, trying to see if I could look him up. But I don't know his home address or state. And that book I've got that's got all the names in it, they don't give their home state. Just their name. And George White is not the most uncommon name around. I'd like to know. Interviewer: When you were overseas were able to stay in touch with your family and friends at home? Brown: Oh yeah. Yeah. Interviewer: How did you do that? Brown: V-mail. Interviewer: V stands for victory? Brown: Victory mail, yeah. Kind of like…it's transmitted by wire much like email only it's not…it's small. They don't enlarge it. It's just a picture of a letter. And you're very limited in the amount of writing space. It's enough to say, “I'm all right. I'm here. I'm alive.” You know. “Happy Birthday” or whatever. Interviewer: And did you get mail from home? Brown: Oh yes. It was a little erratic, but we got it. Because the guys were moving so much it's hard to keep up with them. When the mail comes in to a P.O. box, that P.O. box, Lord knows, it might serve half the Army and this—you're scattered all over the world. So it was a bit of a problem. Interviewer: I'm looking at this list that you brought with you. You started at Omaha Beach, then you went to the hedgerow country. Brown: Yeah. Interviewer: What was that? Brown: Hedgerows are ditches, basically, that the farmers dug years and years and years ago to divide pasture land and act as a fence for animals, and people, for that matter. Same as a regular fence would here. And they started digging ‘em many, many years ago and never quit. Every year they dig ‘em out, clean them out, dig them out [inaudible]. Of course, they get deeper, deeper, deeper. And trees grow up in the pile of dirt and trees grow out of it, bushes and trees. So it gets a bunch of roots embedded in there, in that mound. Makes perfect defensive emplacements. The German used them. And they're crisscrossed all across the fields. The Germans really put them to good use and we had a heck of a time with them. We finally managed to get an answer of a sort. We'd take a tank and weld two railroad ties…steel rails that were sharpened on the end and we'd push that into the hedgerow and that'd make two big holes. Then the engineer would come in and bring and put [inaudible] charges in those two holes and set it off and it'd blow a nice gap in the hedgerow so you could go through. So as long as you stay below the level they can't shoot you. So that worked out pretty good. Interviewer: What was the bed-check Charlie bombing? Brown: [laughs] He was a son of a gun. Oh, we hated him. Germans knew we needed rest. So they were, “We're not gonna let you get any rest.” And so they would come over at night and buzz low over the area to keep us awake. I mean, we're not gonna go asleep with that guy buzzing cause he'd drop little bombs every now and then. So it'd keep us awake. And he'd always come over right about bedtime. We called him “bed-check Charlie.” He dropped a load one night and I don't know if he had information that he shouldn't have had or what but we'd just gotten in a whole bunch of replacements and we had put them in those hedgerows as a safe spot for safety and he dropped a load right on top of them. Pitch black dark. And we never could figure out how did he hit them? How'd he know they were there? I really don't think he knew. Somebody said that one of the replacements shot at him. You know, this is war. This is the enemy. Of course, it was at nighttime. An M-1 puts out a pretty good flame out of the barrel. He saw it. It was pitch black dark ‘cause he saw it. Of course, he put two and two together right quick. I think that's what brought him in. I'm not sure. But it was a mess. Interviewer: You talked about bed-check Charlie disrupting your rest and everything, how did you cope with lack of sleep and lack of food and being cold? Brown: It's a word that's commonly used over there. It's called survival. You do it. You just do it. [laughs] You don't even know how you do it. You don't know. You just did it. Yeah. Interviewer: Well, what was your introduction to the Calvados? Brown: [laughs] Now that's…well, back where I grew up in the mountains, we had something called moonshine. Well that's pretty much the same stuff. Only the Frenchmen used cider for their raw material and what it is, is distilled cider. And when they get through with it, it's mostly alcohol. Totally clearless, colorless and clear. But it's not tasteless [laughs]. And you feel it every inch of the way down. But it's extremely potent. I mean, you know. The people would stand out on the road and offer us drinks as we went by. The natives. That's how I got introduced to it. But a little bit goes a long ways. Interviewer: I can imagine. Brown: Oh, oh. It is practical stuff though. It was super in a cigarette lighter. It worked fine. [laughs] No, actually it did. Interviewer: Well, how about that. Well, it sounds like that you and your friends had to improvise and be inventive and creative about getting along over there, helping yourself survive. Brown: We were all pretty much in the same boat. First time we'd been there so, we'd never been in the war before. So it was, everything was brand new. And yes, we did. And that, I think, is really…compared to the German soldiers, that's where we excelled. And a German soldier didn't have that. He had to wait to be told what to do. We didn't. We did it. And that I think is what made the difference in the outcome. Interviewer: Tell me a little bit about your commanding officers, the ones you worked with immediately and directly. Brown: I'd almost forgotten them. [laughs] There wasn't really a whole lot, to tell you the truth, in the way of chain of command. We would get orders from headquarters, headquarters company, that this road needed to be ready for some traffic. We needed this bridge, or they needed something. And they'd tell us. And that was about it. They didn't tell us how to do it, they'd just tell us to do it. And it was up to us on how to do it. I don't remember any specific person, really. We were just all in it. We knew what we had to do and that was it. But they were a good bunch of guys, really. That was the one thing about that group, that you didn't have any slackers. I mean, very few guys tried to slack off, you know, like they did in basic training, stuff like that. There it was business and everybody pulled. So it was really nice in that respect. Some people may not agree with me but that's the way it was with me. Interviewer: So you're living in a foxhole from June on till the end of your tour in the ETO. Brown: No, I was…I can tell you. I know exactly when it happened. I was living underground either in a foxhole or in a ditch or in another guy's foxhole or something from the time we hit until we reached…let's see, where was the place. Oh, just outside of Liege, Belgium. We avoided going into the homes in France, because they were supposed to be our ally. Little did I know. Now it would be a different story. But we did. We avoided that. And Belgium, too. But there things got rough. I got a little tired of sleeping outdoors. And just…well, it was in the Battle of the Bulge was when it happened and I wanted to find a good, warm, dry place to sleep. I went in a house, farmhouse there. And that was after the Battle of the Bulge. After Christmas. So it was wintertime. And then from there, once we got to Germany, which was not too long after that, we were indoors all the time. That was the end of the outdoors sleeping. Interviewer: Now were you in the Ardennes Forest at all? Brown: Yeah. Uh-huh. Yeah. Fact of the matter is, one of the best foxholes I had was right there. It wasn't a foxhole…It was…actually, six of us slept in it. And it had a roof. Dirt, logs and rocks. And it was very nice. Interviewer: Must have been there for a while. Brown: Still there, I guess. [laughs] We didn't tear it down. No, it was a good spot. We were there for a while. You can't build something like that unless you're gonna be there several days, you know. And we were there several days. Interviewer: How long would it take to build just your average one- or two-person foxhole? Brown: Well, it depends a lot on the ground. In the wintertime, forever. It's frozen. And we'd take…the infantry the one's that suffered. We had dynamite, composition C or plastic explosives and we could make a little…dig a little hole in the ground big enough to hold a little ball of that stuff, put it in, put a rock on top of it and set it off. Now we got a nice hole in the ground. Well, that's the start of our foxhole. Don't take long. We didn't do it very often because usually, most of the time we went over to sleep indoors anyway. But that's the way we did it. The G.I.s, I don't know…I know several times we'd give them stuff to blow holes up with to start a foxhole with, but if they didn't have that they had trouble. Interviewer: Well, it seems like there…according to your list here that there was an egg-laying hen in a foxhole. Brown: [laughs] People won't believe that one but it's the truth. The Germans had been there before us and this German had a nice little foxhole and I took it over. He had lined it with straw, nice straw. And it wasn't really below the ground. It was a little bit in the ground. And it looked like a grave outside, just a mound of rocks. But that hen made a nest in the upper end of that foxhole in that straw. And it laid me an egg every day. Interviewer: And did you eat those eggs? Brown: I ate those eggs. [laughs] I ate twelve… Interviewer: Were you able to cook them? Brown: Well now, there's where I show…I looked like…how in the world could you be so stupid. The army issued butter with their rations. Only it's the butter that don't melt, you know. They can't have it melting on ‘em. So I put that in a frying pan. Didn't melt. It charred. Well, too late now. So I had to scramble ‘em anyway. But anyway, I ate ‘em. And I had twelve more just like ‘em, too. I found a nest that the hen was laying in, another hen. Do you live on a farm at all? Interviewer: I do. Brown: Okay, you know when a hen cackles, you know what that means? Interviewer: Uh-huh. Brown: She just laid an egg somewhere and it's close. Well, I knew that, too. So I found it. Had twelve eggs in it. And I forgot that fact that you could soft-boil ‘em. Interviewer: Did you share them or did keep them all to yourself? Brown: No, I shared them. I couldn't eat them all anyway. Interviewer: When you were in France and Belgium did you ever have the opportunity to have a pass or a day off or a weekend off? Brown: Oh, I'm gonna have to confess now. Now see, they could still prosecute me for being AWOL, I guess, couldn't they? Interviewer: I don't know. [laughter] Brown: No, I never had a pass. There was really no place to go, to speak of. Unless you got a pass to go back to the rear somewhere. Usually they were reserved for the infantry guys cause they needed it a lot worse than we did. We'd get a little R and R on our own in between jobs, you know. But the guys up there didn't get it. But I do remember one time when we took off across…this is in that little…we took off across Germany and [inaudible] out of Normandy. Normandy was rough. It was St. Lo. It was D plus four or five. We were supposed to be in St. Lo. It was D plus thirty something before we got there. And, you know, I'm only talking about five or six miles. I'm not talking about a long ways. So we took off across Germany. And we went so fast we…two things happened to us. We ran off of our maps, so we didn't know where we were. But the worse thing that happened is we ran out of gas. No, no, the best thing that happened. For me. Interviewer: How was that the best thing? Brown: We ran out of gas and the thing about it is over there in that part of the country it's real flat. You can see for miles and we could see the Eiffel Tower. Now you got a bunch of G.I.s, can't go nowhere, sitting still, twiddling their thumbs and the Eiffel Tower staring them in the face. And… Interviewer: Nobody knew. Brown: Nobody. Interviewer: I won't tell anybody either. [laughter] Brown: Well, you know who the first guy was that went AWOL? The chaplain. [laughs] The chaplain was the first one to go. He said he was gonna go get some of that Chanel No. 5 and he took off. Interviewer: See the cathedral. Brown: Well, we were right behind him with all the cigarettes we could find. Interviewer: How long were you gone? Brown: Not long. They knew where we were. No, we were gone… [Tape 1, Side B] Brown: No, we were gone just a [little while]. We'd have stayed longer except we were afraid that they'd leave, get some gas and leave us, and there was no way we could find them. So we said, everybody get back. One night, one day…no, no. One night, because we didn't get to Paris the first day. We got hung up in a little town. They wouldn't let us leave. That's a story all by itself. I could write a book about that place. The people would not let us leave town. We went to this place where they were dancing. Because they were celebrating the Germans being out. So we had a party and we tried to leave and they wouldn't let us. They'd grab us. Wanted to dance. And we finally got away. The next morning we took off and got into Paris, oh, sometime in the middle of the day. We rode old trucks that burned charcoal, you know. I don't know how it did it, but it ran. Not very fast. But we finally got there. We stayed there that day and that night and had to leave and left the next day coming back. That's all I'm gonna tell you. [laughs] Well, I tell you, you can believe most everything you hear about Paris. Interviewer: At this particular time? Brown: At any time. Yeah, I think at any time. It's a beautiful town, number one. It really is. I mean, they say it's beautiful. I have no feelings for them as far as Paris goes. But it is undeniably probably the most beautiful town, city anywhere around. I mean, it's just really a sight to see. But we saw all we wanted. Interviewer: When you were…as a combat engineer, did you ever have occasion to have to protect yourself or, you know, pull the trigger or anything like that? Brown: The only [laughs]…the only thing I fired a shot at over there was jackrabbits. We ran across a whole bunch of .22 rifles and .22 ammunition and on the road to Paris in that flat land, you could see those jackrabbits way out in the fields. And we would shoot at those jackrabbits. They were so far away we had to aim up like this to get the bullets to hit closer. All we wanted to do was make ‘em run. [laughs] The was the only time I fired at any living creature. Jackrabbits. No, fortunately for us we didn't have a need for that, which I'm very thankful. Fact of the matter is, we didn't have anything to…well, there's another story. Outside of Liege, they assigned us a 50 caliber machine gun. This is when I with that replacement depot outfit before I went into the engineers. And they picked me and a couple other guys to handle that 50 caliber machine gun. Well, none of us had ever touched one. One of them said, “Well, learn.” “We'll learn it. Who's going to tell us?” “Okay, take it apart. Put it back together again.” Well, we did. We took it apart. Put it back together. We did it twice in a row without making a mistake. “Okay, we got it.” [laughs] Interviewer: You were trained. Brown: Now, we don't know if it will shoot or not. So we figure we have to try it out. So, these buzz bombers are coming over. “What are we going to shoot at?” “How about them things? They're the enemy.” But we didn't think too clearly because when you shoot one and if you hit it, what happens? What happens when you shoot an airplane and you hit it? Interviewer: Well, it falls. Brown: It falls. Where it'd go to? Interviewer: Probably right where it was shot. Brown: Right where you are. [laughter] So we made a mistake and shot one and hit it. But fortunately for us, we hit the gas or hit the fuel…the explosive charge and it didn't blow up, it just started burning. And it took off like a balloon does when you turn loose. And by the time it hit the ground it was dead. No big bang. So we didn't . . . . Interviewer: I want to jump forward just a little bit cause we're running out of time. Brown: I warned you. Interviewer: What was it like on VE Day for you? Brown: Party, party, party. All night. Interviewer: Where were you? Brown: In Radynska[?], Czechoslovakia. That's near Pilsen. Yes, yes, it was a good party. We stayed up all night. Almost all night. And had to carry a couple of Russians. Well, one, only had to carry one. Russians met us there. Had to carry him back to camp because he got unruly. He was dancing with this little gal that a G.I. was dancing with and he wanted the rest of the dance. The G.I. let him dance with her but he wanted her to dance the rest of the dances, you know. So the G.I. understandably wasn't too happy. So he, well, Joe Lewis would have been proud of him. He laid this perfect right-hand uppercut in that guy and he left the floor about six inches and stretched out. That was it. [laughs] But that's the only we trouble we had with them. Just that one time. Interviewer: You said that your last day of service was July the twelfth. So that wasn't too long after VE-Day. Brown: No, uh-uh. Well, that was…that was VE-Day. We were having a party that night when the Russian came over. That's the night I'm talking about. Interviewer: Oh, okay. Brown: When we had the party. We invited the Russian, well, he came over and we said, you know, [inaudible, loud noises]. We weren't supposed to, he was off limits, but we invited him to come. Interviewer: And when you left Europe and you came home to North Carolina, what was it like for you at home when you first got there? Brown: It was beautiful. [laughs] Oh, it was dreamlike. It was great. Things hadn't changed that much. We were still having trouble finding sugar and butter and, strangely enough, cigarettes. But it was not too bad. I was in Texas for a few months before I came home. I had thirty days and in that thirty-day period, VJ-Day came about. So I was…they sent me home early because they were going to reassign us to Japan for the invasion of Japan. But then VJ-Day came and of course, that cancelled all that, which just suited me fine. Interviewer: I bet it did. Did you use the G.I. Bill at all after you got out? Brown: Went to school on it. Yep. Sure did. And a friend of mine in my outfit over in…it happened in Czechoslovakia. He convinced me that I ought to go to school on the G.I. Bill. I'd never heard about it. And he told me one night. I can remember. He said, “Man, you can't beat it. They pay you to go to school. And they give you a hundred dollars more. Now where you gonna beat that?” With ten million guys getting out of the service, where you gonna find a job? They're gonna be covered up with job applicants. So I said, “That's a good idea.” Now, I was a high school dropout. And that makes it kind of difficult. You try to go to college, especially places like North Carolina State, which is not the easiest school. I didn't know what it was all about. Interviewer: That's where you went? Brown: Yep. Yeah, I finished the School of Engineering, NC State in 1950. But I had no idea what college was all about. I got kidded. Told folks, hell, I couldn't even spell the word curriculum. [laughs] Interviewer: Since you…when you got back did you become active in any veterans organizations? Brown: No, and I regret it. I regret it. Interviewer: Did you keep in touch with any of your buddies? Brown: I met one when I was in school. He and I were in NC State together. And I met him. But he's the only one that I really met that was in the outfit with me over there. Interviewer: What was your career after the war? Brown: I took industrial engineering as a freshman and I worked at that for five or six years. Then I got into…my roommate talked me into trying sales. And I always looked down my nose at salesmen, you know. But you know what, I soon found out I was all wrong. All wrong. Because it's a pretty damn good profession. Can be. It's much abused and maligned and not too well known. But when you stop and think of it, when people stop buying this whole world's gonna stop running. So it was…I found it fun. And I stuck with it. And I was lucky. I got into something that I liked and it became more of a job, not [just] selling. I was a trouble shooter. Customers would call me and tell me, “I got a problem.” We'd go in and we'd work on it. And we had so much stuff to pick from—the outfit that I worked for, electrical controls and stuff—that we had an answer for just about anything you had, problem you had. So it was a lot of fun. Interviewer: How do you think that your military service influenced or affected your personal life? Brown: Oh, that's a deep question. I guess…learning to deal with adversity, appreciating what you've got. I hardly know what to tell you. It does help, though. The only thing is I can't tell you what. [laughs] But it is a help. Oh, I can tell you what I was trying to think of. When you…you know when the guy gets up to bat in a baseball game? Now this might sound strange, but there's a parallel to it. What do they do before they get up to the home plate? Interviewer: Well, they scratch and they spit [inaudible] Brown: No, no. They get…that's right. They do all that. But they get up there in a circle, the next guy up. He's out there. He's got a bat in his hand, hadn't he? Anything strange about that bat? Think about it. Interviewer: Well, it's got a weight on it. Brown: That's right. And why is the weight on there? Interviewer: So when they swing it without the weight it's easier. Brown: It'll feel so damn much lighter. Well, that's what the Army did for me. [laughs] Yep. It made adversity seem not so bad. Interviewer: That's a great parallel. Great analogy. Brown: I just thought of it. Interviewer: You'll have to write that one down. Brown: I'll write that one down. Interviewer: Is there anything else that you want to add. We've got about… Brown: There's about ten hours of it left. But we're not gonna do it. Sorry. [laughter] Interviewer: Well, thank you so much for your time. Brown: What is this gonna be…what are they gonna do with all this? Interviewer: Let me turn this off. [tape nosie] You're back on. You've got about two and a half minutes. Brown: Okay. It's not gonna take but about two. This has to do with the decision made by the powers that be in the Army to launch the attack on Omaha Beach at the time they did and with the preparations that they had made for the attack. I can describe the attacks in one word: suicide. Suicide. [tape noise] [end of tape] Notable pages: p. 7—training in England p.10—channel crossing p. 15—George White steps on a mine p.17—hedgerows p. 18—bed check Charlie p. 22—engineer's foxhole p. 25—AWOL in Paris p. 33—D-Day suicide
Metadata URL:: http://album.atlantahistorycenter.com/cdm/ref/collection/VHPohr/id/361
Additional Rights Information:: This material is protected by copyright law. (Title 17, U.S. Code) Permission for use must be cleared through the Kenan Research Center at the Atlanta History Center. Licensing agreement may be required.
Extent:: 58:03
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
Rights: