The 321st Glider Field Artillery Prepares to Invade France

Jay Stone

formerly Sergeant

321st Glider Field Artillery Battalion

101st Airborne Division
 

 

Four soldiers now lived in
these former horse stables.

In November 22, 1943 I arrived at Whatcombe Farms, Berkshire, England, home of the 321st Glider Field Artillery Battalion of the 101st Airborne Division. The battalion was to be my home for the next two years.

I had been serving with the 10th Replacement Depot at Lichfield Barracks for five and one-half months sending newly arrived replacements from the United States to units in the ETO. This is not what I had come into the Army for and was happy to be with a combat support unit preparing for the invasion of France. The creature comforts with the 321st were not what they were at Lichfield Barracks where I had lived in a permanent barracks with running water and indoor toilet facilities. There were no indoor toilet facilities at Whatcombe Farms and so we used an outdoor latrine. In addition there was no NAFFI with its warm apple pie and tea nor was there a Post Exchange (PX). I would miss these things but was happy to be where I was.

Whatcombe Farms had been a horse farm which was taken over from its owners by the British for the use of the United States Army for the duration of the war. It was located on the road to Wantage, a village six miles north. There was a driveway of 50 yards which led to a house. One could think of this as a gatehouse although it was larger than the usual gatehouse. The area that housed the battalion was 100 yards beyond that. The horse stables were there and after a thorough cleaning housed four soldiers. There were other buildings: of the two houses, one was used for first three grade non-commissioned officers (staff sergeant and up), while the other was used for battalion headquarters. Smaller buildings were used for battery headquarters and supply rooms. The barn had been converted into a battalion kitchen and mess hall in which we ate our meals. There was a Nissen hut built on a concrete slab to which sheets of semi-circular corrugated metal were attached. A front and rear, sometimes of brick, sometimes of wood completed the hut.

By the time we arrived at Whatombe Farms I had made friends with two other replacements: Private Wendell Byrnes of Chicago, Illinois and Private Earl Patchin of Joplin, Missouri. Wendell and I were assigned to the Detail Section of Battery B and Earl to a liaison section of Headquarters Battery. Wendell was wounded during the landing on Utah Beach in Normandy but returned to the battery in time for the operation in Holland. Earl was wounded in Holland and never returned to the battalion. After he recuperated he was assigned to the cadre of the replacement battalion in Namur, Belgium On our way home after VE Day many of us would see Earl. The battalion had set up a two week orientation program run by Sergeant Nelson Kopaka, chief of the Machine Gun Section of Battery B. During this time we were quartered in horse stables with that section.

Sergeant Kopaka was a fine leader and instructor who was proud to be a sergeant in the 321^st and this showed in his attitude and the manner in which he carried himself. His subjects included the history and organization of the 321^st and of the 101^st Airborne Division. We learned a lot more but at this remove I don’t recall just what it was. I recall little about the two weeks. We were quartered in the machine gun section stables. There was a young soldier of the machine gun section with whom I was quartered. One day he showed me a letter and asked if I would read it to him. While I was there I also wrote a couple of letters for him which he dictated to me. The boy could neither read nor write, I have no idea how he was accepted into the Army.

After two weeks with Sergeant Kopaka we moved into the buildings which housed our assigned sections. For Wendell and me it was the Detail Section and the Nissen hut. Inside the hut there was a wood-burning stove which kept an area within a radius of six feet warm.  Beyond that area, the

I lived in a Nissen hut along
with 39 other soldiers during
my time at Whatcombe Farms.

Nissen hut was cold and as junior members of the section were at the end of the building and slept a cold sleep. It had a capacity of 40 soldiers who slept in double bunks. These bunks were designed for women soldiers of the British Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS) and were short for most American soldiers. Mattresses were made of a long cloth bag filled with hay. Each of us had two woolen blankets which were not sufficient for warmth during the winter.  Some slept with their clothes on. The Nissen hut did not have running water hence no toilet facilities. Our toilet was a latrine pit with a wooden box in which round holes had been cut and on which soldiers could sit. Because of the odor generated by the latrine it had to be located a significant distance from the hut. This made for a cold trip to the latrine during the winter.

My comrades in the hut were a diverse group as one might 
expect in the Army. Corporal Paul Galant and I became close friends. He was in the instrument section and conducted

This is the inside of a Nissen
Hut in which the soldiers sleep on
folding cots, not small bunk beds.
Note the stove in the middle.

reconnaissance as a member of a Forward Observer (FO) Team. He and I, along with Lieutenant Johnny Jordan, were the only members of B Battery who were to go to parachute school. After we returned from it in February of 1944 we trained as an FO team on exercises with the 506^th Parachute Infantry. Paul been in the battalion for a year before I joined it in November of 1943. He was very intelligent and that was coupled with street smarts honed on the wrong side of Pittsburgh. He had attended a parochial elementary school in which Polish was spoken in the morning and English in the afternoon. His ability in Polish enabled him to speak with many of the displaced persons from Eastern Europe whom we met after the war was over. When on pass Paul was inclined to go off on his own: usually when he met a woman. He had a boyish charm and women came easy to him. He would not devote much time to meeting one but when  one came along, he was off. One evening he met a woman in Oxford, spent some time with her, during which he missed the battalion's trucks for the return ride to Whatcombe Farms. Now he had to get from Oxford to  Whatcome Farms, 20 miles away. The Air Force trucks left Oxford for Wantage after the trucks of the 321st had left. He was able to get a ride on one of them into Wantage where he jumped off and walked the six miles to Whatcombe Farms where he arrived just as the roll was being called at the first formation of the day. Paul knew and did his job well but he was not a conformist. We all had our own minds but most of us were willing to humor the Army and its ways. So was Paul - most of the time. He stayed just this side of major trouble.

The chief of the detail section was Staff Sergeant Leslie B. Sellers who had been a member of the battalion since its formation in March 1942 and was the epitome of the citizen-soldier-leader who had a thorough knowledge of his duties and of how to carry them out. He was respected and liked by members of the section, I never saw anyone challenge his authority. In combat he was a member, or the leader of, a FO team.

The detail section had a wire section, a radio section and an instrument – or reconnaissance – section. I was assigned to the wire section where I helped lay wire between various elements of the battalion and to battalion headquarters.

Battery B and the battalion trained hard and often. A favorite for the battery was Reconnaissance, Selection and Occupation of Position better known as RSOP. In this the battery commander conducted a Reconnaissance, Selected a location which the battery would Occupy as its Position.  After the position was occupied we would perform all the tasks necessary for the battery to fire when in combat. It was absolutely necessary for all members of the battery to know their duties in this exercise. We did it so often that I was ready to scream, “Not one more time.”  Of course, I refrained from that. The training paid off in combat. When we occupied our first firing position in Normandy everybody knew exactly what to do. I just thought RSOP.

For most of our radios, the operator spoke into a microphone in order to transmit. However, there were radios in the battalion on which the operator used Morse Code. Because of this the Division Artillery Headquarters (DivArty) set up schools to train all radio operators and wiremen in Morse Code. I hated this. We began to train several times but some other training became more important and so we dropped the Morse Code. This starting and stopping went on for a few times during which I leaned precious little code. It was all a waste of time.

Life was not all about training at Whatcombe Farms. After dinner on Tuesday and Thursday we could have a pass to Oxford about 20 miles to the north. We went there in trucks

Dark bitters
 

 which left Oxford for the return at 11:00 PM. On Saturday we left the Whatcombe Farms at 1:00 PM for Oxford. For many a pass to Oxford was all about hitting
 our pub, White’s, and drinking beer or bitters. Bitter belongs to the pale ale and can have a great variety of strength and appearance, from dark amber to a golden summer ale. It can go under 3% alcohol by volume known as Boys Bitter - and as high as 7% with premium or strong bitters. The color may be controlled by the addition of caramel color. My recollection is that it was

Pale bitters

dark. Initially it was not a favorite among Americans but gradually gained some adherents among us. Not me though, I drank neither bitters nor beer but a foul concoction, gin and orange. Originally made with gin and orange juice now, because there were few, if any, oranges In the UK it was made with an artificially flavored orange liquid. The most I had on any pass was two drinks.

Great Shefford was a small village with a pub, The Swan Inn, just two miles south of Whatcombe Farms. There was  also a

The Swan Inn c.2008

train station there with service to Newbury about 15 mile southeast. Two miles east of the village there was a naval station for women in the Royal Navy (WAVES). I don't recall how I met Alice but I did. One day we met at the Great Shefford train station and went into Newbury to a movie theatre. After the show we visited the theatre café and had beans on toast and a pot of tea. Her father was the master of a British merchant ship. This made an interesting conversation even more interesting. On the way back to Great Shefford we exchanged ages and when she told me that she was 26 (I was 20). I was shocked, a woman six years older than I! I began to think that this was not for me. That was my first and last date with Alice, even though we did have a good time. 

Other than The Swan Inn, the pub in Great Shefford, with its beer, there was nothing worth going to Great Shefford for. I never visited the place but it was popular with the drinkers in our section.  They would take a five gallon water can when they visited it and after an evening of drinking, would have some beer placed in the water can. On the next morning, with their hangovers, they had some beer to get them started. These soldiers were serious drinkers.

Women were often associated with soldiers on pass but not with the men of the detail section with whom I went into Oxford. The time spent trying to get to know a young woman was time that had to be spent away from drinking and I suppose that the drinking was more important. Not for me it wasn’t. Drinking was something I did because I didn’t want to stand around in a pub without a glass in my hand. My emphasis was on getting to know a young woman. I got lucky

This young woman
is wearing the uniform
of the ATS

and met Kay Wells at a dance sponsored by our battalion in Oxford on the evening after Christmas, 1943. She was a member of the ATS,  akin to the American WAC, which was the branch for women in the British Army. We danced with each other exclusively that night and when the time came for departures I asked if I could see her again. She said yes and we arranged for a time and place to meet on the following Saturday. Kay made the next few months pleasant for me. Now, when in Oxford, I didn’t have to hang around with men with whom I had spent almost 24/7 at Whatcombe Farms. As much as I loved my comrades and knew that we were going to war together, they didn’t stand a chance when Kay was around. She, as well as I, was a Catholic and our relationship remained platonic. We did show affection for one another but that was as far as it went. Gentlemen called for a lady at her home or in this case Army quarters (a lady did not stand around on a street corner waiting for her date). So, as soon as the trucks stopped in Oxford I would be off and moving out for Kay’s quarters. Dates were movies, dances and on occasion a drink in a pub. While we enjoyed going to a pub, (perhaps it was each other’s company that we wanted) we were not pub people and so that was rare.

The 321^st was a glider battalion but could be in Direct Support (DS) of one of the three parachute regiments of the division (there was only one glider infantry regiment).

I had this portrait
 taken in a studio in
London just after I
graduated from
parachute school.

Because of this there was a need for parachute qualified Forward Observers (FO). Along with 10 others in the battalion, I volunteered and was sent to the division parachute school in February 1944. We all qualified and were hot to trot. Five jumps were needed in order to qualify as a paratrooper. On the second Tuesday at the school we made three jumps, On the third jump I was oscillating too much, in addition I landed backwards making for a hard, jolting landing. I lay on the ground and began to think that this jumping stuff was not for me. I got over it, gathered my chute and went to the assembly area. Because of my new qualification I was reassigned to the duties of radio operator in a FO team. Once again I had to learn the duties for a new position without any formal training. For me it was on the Job Training (OJT).  After graduating from parachute school we received a 48 hour pass. I took mine to London. The city was under a blackout and that, along with the soot from the wood burning stoves, made the night black. I could not see my hand in front of my face.

The Covent Garden Opera House had been converted for dancing for the duration of the war and on one of my nights in London I visited it. My lazer eyes saw a lovely young woman

After the Coven Garden Opera House was
converted to a dance hall during
World War II  it was a mecca for those
who enjoyed dancing.

dancing with three Australians, one after the other, and not seeming to like it. One after the other they would cut in on their comrade  This was going on for a while and the lovely Jennifer didn't seem happy with the arrangement. I cut in on one of the Aussies, danced for a while after which one of them made an attempt at a cut but the lady refused him. That solved the Aussie problem and placed me in a position to ask Jennifer if I could walk home with her. Of course, she said yes, probably having no better offer. We walked to the lobby of her apartment  building where we made arrangements to meet on the following night. She failed to keep that appointment and so I had been stood up for the only time in my life. But I had been of some value to Jennifer. I got rid of the Aussies for her

Note: Many years ago I wrote a piece, “To Normandy and War.” In it I describe various elements of my life at Whatcombe Farm, at other training sites in the UK, the trip to Normandy and my arrival in Normandy. I use it below:
 

We had trained not only at Whatcombe Farm but fired our howitzers on Salisbury Plain and participated in Exercise Tiger in the vicinity of Slapton Sands which closely resembled the Normandy coast line on which the United States First Army was to land. The airborne activity was simulated. Parachute elements were formed into sticks just as we would be if we were loaded into C-47s. In the exercise the 321^st was DS of the 506^th and so the parachute FO teams went out with that regiment. At about 0300 the sticks began walking across the simulated drop zones. Every 50 feet the last man in the stick would drop off. This continued until all sticks had “jumped.” Upon a signal we assembled and moved out on our missions. Glider elements, including the 321st, simulated landing beginning at 0630 and went into position. The 321st fired its howitzers while there but not in support of the 506^th.  The firing was just straight service practice.

 After we finished training down there we had an afternoon off. A few of us went into Tourquay and found a delightful

On the top of the hill are hotels
It was in one like these  - perhaps
the second from the left - that we
spent a pleasant afternoon.

hotel bar which had a large curved window which gave a splendid view of the English Channel. Inasmuch as no civilians were allowed to visit the area we had the bar to ourselves. The usual boisterous drinking was absent. It’s hard to believe but we were in a contemplative mood and so the conversation was subdued. Some of us talked about our upcoming journey across that channel and others just looked out lost in their own thoughts. Let’s face it, we all knew that some of us were not to return from that crossing.

While we were on land for Exercise Tiger, American and 

This is a painting of a German
S  Boot, similar to those that
attacked Convoy T-4. The hatches
of the torpedo tubes are open,
ready to fire.

British naval units participated in the English Channel. Exercise Tiger became real war for some at sea. German S Boote (Motor Torpedo Boats) out of Cherbourg spotted Convoy T-4 and attacked sinking two LSTs and damaging two. More than 700 seamen and soldiers lost their lives as a result.

We returned to Whatcome Farm and in a couple of weeks were alerted for movement to a marshaling area in Cardiff,Wales from which we would board a ship. In the marshaling area we lived in tents which, in the late English spring of 1944, were comfortable. There was, of course, the incessant checking of equipment. No one wanted to be checking out their equipment when we arrived in France.

I was less than happy to be going to France by ship. After all,

An M7, 105mm howitzer similar to
those of the 65th Armored Field.

I had gone to jump school and felt that I should be part of a parachute FO team. The 321^st did have one such team with the 506^th Parachute Infantry. Its mission was to adjust the fires of the 65^th Armored Field Artillery Battalion which was to land on Utah at H+2. There were two parachute FO teams in the battalion and only one was to jump. The leaders of each team tossed a coin to determine which jumped. My man, First Lieutenant John Jordan, lost and so we went by ship. Never mind, my day would come.

Major General William Lee, one of the founders of the United States Army airborne, was the commander of the 101^st when in February of 1943 he suffered a heart attack. He was returned to the United States and Brigadier General Maxwell Taylor took command of the division. He visited every unit of the division while we were in the marshaling areas or at the departure airfields. General Taylor had taken command in April and this was the first time I had seen him. His remarks were inspiring and he impressed me as a smart - and I hoped, lucky - officer who might just have something to do with me making it through whatever awaited. He concluded his remarks with the request that we call out the name Bill Lee as each of us jumped or landed on the beach. General Taylor had a touch of the theater about him which I was to see again but no one held that against him. I don’t know what I said or thought when I landed on Utah Beach but it had nothing to do with Bill Lee. There were other things with which to be concerned.

Brigadier General Anthony McAuliffe, who would one day gain more fame than he had then as the commander of the 101st Airborne Division Artillery, visited us one day. As he moved down the line of soldiers, he spoke with each of us and asked how things were going. Corporal Leo Weaver, the wire corporal in our section, responded that things were not going so well; that in fact, there was no hot water for showers. For the remainder of the time in the marshaling area we had hot water for showers and General McAuliffe’s stock rose with us; as did the Weaver's stock.

One other event from those days stands out in my memory. Like many soldiers, we in the Detail Section played a lot of cards. So much so that we had worn out all but one deck which belonged to me. As smart as he was, Walter Mitchell could not resist drawing to an inside straight. The odds being what they were, I never saw Walter make his straight. In the last poker game before we left the marshaling area he threw away one card and said, “I’ll take one.” I knew that Walter was once again living on the edge. Sure enough, he drew a deuce to that inside straight and got so mad that he tore it up. There went my deck and our chance to while away any idle hours with a game of cards. I was angry. “Walter,” I said, “that’s the last time you play with a deck of my cards.” Today that sounds like the precursor to the well-known Hollywood saying, “You’ll never eat lunch in this town again” Our battalion had been divided into three elements for the trip to France. A rear echelon remained behind at Whatcombe 

The SS John Morsby, a
Liberty ship, was similar
to this Liberty ship.

Farm and would join us in Normandy after D-Day. Howitzers, vehicles and all other equipment, along with skeleton crews, had been sent to another marshaling area in order to board the SS John Morseby, The remainder of us went as passengers on the transport, USS Susan B. Anthony.

When we boarded the USS Susan B. Anthony, it was, as expected, crowded. Soldiers of the 101st were on board as well as troops of the 90th Infantry Division. It was so crowded that we could be fed only two meals a day. That was all right by me. I had had that experience on the Queen Mary when I came to the U.K. just one year ago. The number of meals may have been the same but the food was vastly different. Instead of eating food prepared by British Merchant Navy cooks, we were eating food prepared by cooks on a ship of the United States Navy. It was excellent

One other aspect of life on the Susan B. Anthony appealed to

This is the USS Susan B. Anthony
which carried most of the
personnel of the 321st to France.

me. At Whatcombe Farm we had had a post exchange which opened once a week in order to sell to us our weekly allotment of seven packs of cigarettes and five candy bars. I didn’t smoke and so was able to trade my cigarettes for candy. None of this was necessary aboard the Susan B. Anthony. The ship’s store, or whatever they called their version of the PX, was loaded with, what I, by now, considered, luxuries from the United States. There seemed to be no end to it. We could buy whatever we wanted: Milky Way, Baby Ruth, Butterfingers, you name it. Of course, we knew that we would soon be going ashore and that our purchases would have to be carried and so there were limits.

The good life on the Susan B. Anthony ended on the morning of June 7, D+1, when she struck two mines. They packed a fearsome punch. The ship rolled and shook from the force of the explosion and she was soon dead in the water. Several minutes after we hit the mine, I saw a few seamen with their heads bandaged come up on deck from below. They were the only casualties I saw.

Shortly after the explosion a United States Navy tug boat, with a salvage officer on board, pulled alongside.

The USS Susan B. Anthony burns
after she truck a mine off
Omaha Beach on June 7, 1944
 .

Using loud hailers he and the captain conversed. The captain wanted to attempt to save his ship by having it towed and pushed toward land and beached. The salvage officer said that he would get back to him and the tug pulled away. He returned soon with the news that the task force commander would not beach the stricken ship and that it would have to be abandoned. The captain didn’t seem happy with the decision but then the United States Navy didn’t require its ship’s captains to be happy.The area around us was crowded with ships of the United States Navy and the Royal Navy and so I wasn’t at all concerned about being rescued. Cargo nets were lowered over the side and we began disembarking into a Royal Navy

HMS Mendip a destroyer escort
similar to the one that took off
troops from the USS Susan B.
Anthony after she struck a mine.

DE.  Waves were two to three feet high and the DE was pitching and rolling, making it difficult to jump from the cargo nets onto it. The last time I had climbed down a cargo net was on the firm land of Fort Eustis, Virginia during basic training. That exercise was quite different from the real thing which we were attempting now. However, as far as I could see, everyone made it down safely thanks in large part to the help of the Royal Navy seamen who held the cargo nets and shouted advice to us.

Another Royal Navy DE was rafted alongside the first and some of us were ordered onto it. Once there we began enjoying His Majesty’s hospitality courtesy of some crew members. They broke out some oxtail stew, tea and biscuits for us. The stew was reminiscent of the food I had been served on the Queen Mary and it was the precursor of some of the rations we were to receive during Operation MARKET-GARDEN when we were attached to the British Second Army. But that was in the decidedly unknown future. (Three times the British had tried to interest me in oxtail stew and they had failed. Just hearing that name, even without seeing the stuff turned me off.)

As our DE pulled away from the Susan B. Anthony I looked back and was surprised at how low in the water she was. While on the ship I had no sensation that she was sinking but there was a reason for which we were abandoning her. I hoped that all would be successfully disembarked.

His Majesty’s hospitality soon came to an end when a United States Navy landing craft pulled alongside. We went over the side into her. There were many soldiers in that craft; so many

This is the type of vessel from
which I landed on Utah Beach.
The ledge on which I sat is
clearly shown just below
the gunwale.

that it was impossible to move around or to sit. It was so crowded that I climbed over the side onto a ledge about 18 inches wide and sat there with nothing between me and the water. After about 30 minutes a German fighter aircraft came screaming across the beach on a strafing run. Before I could think about it, she was jumped by two American fighters which had been loitering in the sun waiting for just such an occasion. When last seen, the German was headed inland trailing much black smoke. This convinced me that my position outside of the landing craft was insecure and so I climbed back into the crowd.

Soon after the attack we landed on the shore at Utah Beach. I realize that the 4th Infantry Division which made the assault on Utah Beach did not have as much difficulty as did the 1st

Troops going ashore on Tare Green
of Utah Beach.

Infantry Division and the 29^th Infantry Division at Omaha Beach but Utah Beach was a mess. Boats were damaged and lay beached. Army equipment and weapons were all over. There was even the abandoned desk and files of a company clerk. Next to them was a tennis racquet. That must have been carried by one optimistic soldier. I hoped that no Frenchman in Normandy was waiting for him to keep a tennis date.  I knew that I was at war and this was impressed on me  mines that the Germans had laid over so much of the area. “Achtung Minen” in black paint on red background was everywhere. I couldn’t understand why the Germans had been kind enough to warn us of their mines. I suppose that the signs were for the safety of their own personnel and that they didn’t have time to remove their warnings.

We assembled just over the dunes and dug in. This was the first time I had dug in. We had never done this in training and no non-commissioned officers or officers came around to see that we had dug in correctly. (Soon I would decide that I had not dug in deeply enough.)

We were ashore but we were Field Artillerymen without howitzers and so had nothing to do. Some of us felt like fifth wheels. Battalion officers were attempting to locate the John Morseby and our howitzers. On July 8th an Infantry colonel was in our area and it seemed to me that he was looking for possible reinforcements and that perhaps we were likely candidates. I had not been in combat but I knew that as dangerous as the job of forward observer was, it was not as dangerous as the job of a rifleman. In any case we were not deemed worthy enough for the colonel’s outfit or perhaps he was just passing through and he left.