Posted 4:35 pm Sunday, June 06, 2010
66 Years Later, Local Veterans Look Back On Time At Normandy
By DAYNA WORCHEL
Staff Writer
Acting as a replacement for some of the men who had been killed on D-Day, Leslie Pruitt was a private in the U.S. Army when he arrived in France a week after the June 6, 1944, invasion.
Staff Writer
Acting as a replacement for some of the men who had been killed on D-Day, Leslie Pruitt was a private in the U.S. Army when he arrived in France a week after the June 6, 1944, invasion.
Pruitt, now 89 and a Tyler resident, said he and others in his unit had to jump on top of a landing barge in order to be transported across the channel and onto the beach of Normandy.
"The barge would go up and down, and you had to catch and land on top of it - a lot of the men fell off it," he said.
Once they did land, Pruitt said, he remembers walking through a wooded area where enemy snipers shot at him and his fellow soldiers. He said he continued walking as his commanding officer fired at the snipers, while a man next to him fell to the ground after being shot.
"I was scared to death, but I had to do it," Pruitt said about his first day in combat. He said he remembers men lying dead on the side of the road, which choked him up.
ABOVE, left, this photo provided by Dr. Russell shows a gun firing at night into Suren, Germany. At right, an up-close look at a 155-mm gun Dr. Russell worked with, about a year before he made the trip to France. Today is the 66th anniversary of the D-Day invasion, when 1,465 American soldiers were killed.
And Pruitt was honest to say that the experience was not one he would want to repeat. "I wouldn't want to go through it again," he said.
He married his high-school sweetheart, Gladys, in 1941, and they had two sons together. After her death in 1998, he married Helga, who hails from South Africa, 11 years ago. Pruitt speaks lovingly of Helga, and he said he is glad they are together.
YEARS AGO: Members of the gun crew pose for a photograph next to their 155-mm gun, which is in “teaching position,” in California. This photograph was taken in July 1943, just less than a year before United States soldiers stormed the beaches in Normandy, France, during the D-Day invasion.
— Photo Courtesy Dr. Jim Russell
There were 156,000 Allied troops from the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, France and Norway who landed and fought on that June day 66 years ago, according to information received from The National World War II Museum in New Orleans.
The D in D-Day stands for "day," because the final invasion date was unknown and the weather dependent, according to the museum. By June 11, with the beachheads firmly secure, more than 326,000 troops had crossed into France with more than 100,000 tons of military equipment. Paris was liberated on Aug. 25, and Germany surrendered on May 8, 1945.
The U.S. suffered the most casualties - 6,603 were wounded, missing, or captured, and 1,465 of that number were killed in action, according to the World War II Museum.
The attack long had been long coming. From the moment British forces had been forced to withdraw from France in 1940 in the face of an overwhelming German onslaught, allied planners had plotted a return to the continent, according to the U.S. Army Center of Military History website at www.history.army.mil. Only in that way would the Allies have been able to confront the enemy's power on the ground, liberate northwestern Europe, and put an end to the Nazi regime.
In 2000, there were slightly more than 5 million surviving American World War II veterans nationwide. Currently, there are slightly less than 2 million still living in the U.S., Kacey Hill, of the World War II Museum, said. She said there are 118,218 World War II veterans still living in Texas. These veterans are dying at the rate of 900 a day nationwide, Ms. Hill said.
The D in D-Day stands for "day," because the final invasion date was unknown and the weather dependent, according to the museum. By June 11, with the beachheads firmly secure, more than 326,000 troops had crossed into France with more than 100,000 tons of military equipment. Paris was liberated on Aug. 25, and Germany surrendered on May 8, 1945.
The U.S. suffered the most casualties - 6,603 were wounded, missing, or captured, and 1,465 of that number were killed in action, according to the World War II Museum.
The attack long had been long coming. From the moment British forces had been forced to withdraw from France in 1940 in the face of an overwhelming German onslaught, allied planners had plotted a return to the continent, according to the U.S. Army Center of Military History website at www.history.army.mil. Only in that way would the Allies have been able to confront the enemy's power on the ground, liberate northwestern Europe, and put an end to the Nazi regime.
In 2000, there were slightly more than 5 million surviving American World War II veterans nationwide. Currently, there are slightly less than 2 million still living in the U.S., Kacey Hill, of the World War II Museum, said. She said there are 118,218 World War II veterans still living in Texas. These veterans are dying at the rate of 900 a day nationwide, Ms. Hill said.
AMERICAN HEROES: Dr. Jim Russell, above, and Leslie Pruitt, both of Tyler, experienced time in Normandy during the United States’ invasion of France in June of 1944.
--Staff Photo By Jaime R. Carrero
DR. JAMES RUSSELL
Dr. James Russell participated in a mission as a part of the 981st army field battalion from New Jersey. The unit arrived at Normandy four days after the invasion, on June 10, 1944. "We were heavy artillery, and our mission was to capture Cherbourg, which we did," he said.
Dr. James Russell participated in a mission as a part of the 981st army field battalion from New Jersey. The unit arrived at Normandy four days after the invasion, on June 10, 1944. "We were heavy artillery, and our mission was to capture Cherbourg, which we did," he said.
Russell said he and his men had the job to fire 3 or 4 miles into German territory at targets such as ammunition dumps, highway intersections and places where gasoline was stored.
But he described the Battle of the Bulge, which took place in Belgium from December 1944 to January 1945, as one of his worst experiences ever. "It was miserably cold and drizzly," Russell said.
On Dec. 16, 1944, a strong German force broke the thinly held American front in the Belgian Ardennes sector. Taking advantage of the foggy weather and of the total surprise of the Allies, the Germans penetrated deep into Belgium, creating a dent, or "bulge," in the Allied lines and threatening to break through to the North Belgian plain and seize Antwerp.
When Russell, now 86, left the service, he was honorably discharged and became a chiropractor in Freeport in South Texas. Russell also served as the mayor of both Freeport and Velasco in the 1950s. He and his wife, Cynthia, now live in Lindale.
For anyone who thinks the young people of today do not recognize or appreciate the sacrifices the soldiers of World War II made, some Velma Penny Elementary School students in Lindale wrote letters to Dr. Russell in early May to thank him for his service after he visited the school. The notes are simple and sincere and thank Dr. Russell for his bravery.
"Thank you for the safety," one of the letters read. "Did you ever think about quitting?" Because if you did, I wouldn't have gotten to write this letter."
