Jumping from an airplane behind enemy lines, or riding a glider into battle, were activities that would never have entered my mind in early 1943. I was 33 years old, happily married to my beautiful wife Margaret, and had a nice job at a local bank in my hometown of Chicago, Illinois. But, there was a war on, and when that draft notice arrived in the mail, I knew my life was going to change forever.
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| Marge & Charlie Laden |
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I reported for duty in mid 1943 as ordered. After being processed, I was sent to the Infantry Replacement Training Center at Fort McClellan, Alabama. Fort McClellan had been established during WWI and was the first Southern military installation to have been named after a northerner from the Civil War - Major General George B. McClellan. The 29th Infantry Division was the first military unit trained there in late August 1917, although back then it was known as Camp McClellan.
Upon my arrival at the fort, I was placed in what I believe was the 15th Regimental Replacement Company. I quickly began my basic training as a soldier in the United States Army. In the early phase of my training, I was instructed in the most basic elements of being a regular infantry soldier. After a few weeks however, I was asked to take an IQ test and was told afterwards that I had qualified as a radio operator. I was then assigned to the communication school at the fort.
In addition to my regular training as a soldier, I was now being taught various communications related traits such as working with different types of radios and sending and deciphering different types of coded messages. One type of communication that I had trouble with however, was the “continuous wave” code, also known as radiotelegraphy. I believe the best I could ever do with this code was to decipher 14 to 15 words per minute. Some of the guys in the outfit got pretty good with this code. They were able to decipher around 30 to 35 words per minute.
I was now officially part of a signal company, and like most infantry companies, it had four platoons. Those platoons were radio, wire, intelligence, and message center. Each platoon also had three squads of 36 men each.
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| During basic training in 1943, Marge pays Charles a visit. Click the picture to enlarge it. |
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I spent about 17 weeks training at Fort McClellan before finally being allowed to take a leave during the Christmas season of 1943. Naturally I went home to spend the Holidays with my wife. Fortunately this was not the only time I had seen Margaret since starting my training, she had been able to visit the fort on previous occasions.
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Not long after arriving back at the fort after my leave, we were notified we would be shipping out and going overseas to England. We left New York City on one of the largest cruise liners in the world – the S.S. Ile de France. After a seven or eight day trip, we arrived in Scotland, not England. But we were then put on trains, which took us to a replacement depot somewhere in England. At that time the 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions were being staffed up in preparation for the looming invasion.
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The guys in my unit and I were told we were being put in the 101st. We were not given the option to volunteer for the airborne like most of the men in the division, but we did have the option to refuse the assignment. I wanted to stay with the guys in my unit however, and they were all going, so I did too. When Margaret found out I was in the airborne, she wrote and asked me “if I was crazy?” Naturally I wasn’t, but I was smart enough to choose glider training over jump training since I was older than most of the other guys.
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Once in the 101st we became part of the Division Signal Company and were billeted on the property at Donnington Castle, in the Newbury area of England. The castle was built in 1386 by Richard Abberbury the Elder, but was demolished by the English Parliament in 1646. When we were there, all that remained was the gatehouse structure with its tall guard towers. The enlisted men of our company were housed in nissen huts at the edge of the woods surrounding the castle ruins. The officers of the company were mostly billeted in private homes in the nearby town of Newbury. General Eisenhower also had a war room at the castle, and as a result we all took our turn on guard duty.
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| Donnington Castle as it looked in April of 2005 (Source Wikipedia) |
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| This isn't much different than how it looked in 1944. (Source Wikipedia) |
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Now that I was part of the 101st Airborne Division, I had to qualify for the gliders. This involved five flights in the larger British Horsa gliders, after which I was awarded my glider wings. In addition to the normal infantry training, our training as a signals company also began to take on more specific tasks. For example, I now had to learn certain code words like “Kangaroo” (representing the division), and “Kilowatt” (representing the signal company) as well as many others. The equipment also became more specialized. I was now trained on the SCR-300, a portable radio that could be worn on my back.
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| The larger British made Horsa glider (Source: Wikipedia) |
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During the months we were in England before the invasion, on occasion we were also given time off in the evenings. During that free time, many of the guys would make their way into the local towns or even all the way to London itself. Being a married man, I stayed locally and went to the theatre in town or the dime store. There was also a dance hall there that many of the guys frequented, but not me. I would however hang out with some of the married guys of the company at a local pub called the Blackbird. It was a great little place where we’d play darts with the locals and listen to T/5 Eddy Neils play the piano for us.
As we continued our daily routine and training with the signals equipment, we also took part in three large training exercises with the rest of the division. One such exercise was called Operation Tiger, and took place near Torquay in southern England, late April of 1944. I remember that I was surprised to find that this part of England had palm trees. The regular airborne infantry units jumped from planes, but our division signal company went in by truck. Unfortunately there were a lot of problems during this week long maneuver. The airborne infantry units sustained many injuries, and the navy (who was authorized to use live ammunition for this exercise) even fired on us by mistake.
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Eventually in late May of 1944 it was time to move to our marshalling areas for the invasion. A list was posted on the company bulletin board and my name was on it as one of the men of the company who would participate in the invasion. About 25% of the company would stay behind, for what purpose, I do not know. I was actually surprised to see my name on the list since I was one of the replacements, and the oldest man of the company.
We were piled on trucks and driven to Aldermaston Airfield where a secured marshalling area had been created for us. We waited there for several days while we were briefed on the mission. It was there that we found out we would be dropping in, or landing at, the Normandy region of France. The job of our division would be to clear the way for the troops coming in by boat with the main invasion force from the beaches.
I would be riding in a British Horsa glider from the 434th Troop Carrier Group. We would be part of “Mission Keokuk”, the second wave of gliders after the initial parachute invasion. We were scheduled to land at LZ-E (Landing Zone E) near the town of Hiesville at approximately 21:00, the evening of June 6, 1944. There would be 32 Horsa gliders in our group. Most of these gliders would be carrying elements of the 326th Airborne Medical Company and a few others. However two gliders would contain men and equipment of the division signals company, including me.
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| Map showing the planned American Airborne D-Day drop zones and landing zone "E" |
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Since the Horsa gliders were much larger than the American WACO gliders, we would be carrying a lot more than just men. In my glider, we had two motorcycles, a trailer full of radio equipment, five enlisted men, a pilot (Lt. Cohen), and a co-pilot. I sat on a bench on the left side of the plane towards the front where the motorcycles were strapped to the floor standing up. A couple other guys sat in front of me and our staff sergeant William Harrison sat in the back near the trailer full of radio equipment.
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We left Aldermaston around 18:30 in the evening. Our glider was towed over the English channel towards Normandy by a C-47 Skytrain. This was the same type of plane that our parachuting troopers had jumped from early that morning. The flight was fairly uneventful. Unlike the planes of the initial invasion, we were not shot at by anti-aircraft fire.
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| A British Horsa glider taking off in tow. |
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Finally the pilot announced that our tow plane would be cutting us loose in a few minutes. I held on even tighter than I had been, but when the release was made, it was very smooth. We did not have windows to see out, but evidently the ground below did not offer a lot of great places for us to land. The pilot had to circle a few times before finally making his final decent.
When we did finally touch the ground, we continued to skid at a very high rate of speed. Evidently the smooth Norman grass in the fields was too slick to slow us down. We crashed through a hedgerow at the edge of one field and the wings of the glider were torn off. We continued to slide until finally crashing into another hedgerow that stopped us. Unfortunately due to the impact, we were torn up pretty bad. The pilot and co-pilot were both ejected, killing one of them. Also killed were a few guys from my company, Pfc. Raymond Demonge, T/5 Robert McCullum, and T/5 William Weber. Both the motorcycles ended up hanging in the trees, and the trailer and other equipment was tossed everywhere. Staff Sergeant Harrison who had been sitting in the tail section was alive, but wounded badly. I was also thrown from the wreckage, but miraculously I was fine, except for bumps and bruises on my right leg. I brushed myself off and then helped Harrison out of the wreckage and into a ditch at the side of the field for cover.
A few minutes later a jeep from our signals company drove up and the driver told me to get in. I was then driven to General Taylor’s command post that he had established at a farmhouse in Hiesville. We left Staff Sergeant Harrison in the ditch to wait for the medics. I found out later that Harrison was picked up by the medics, but was wounded again when the jeep ambulance was hit by German machine gun fire. Fortunately he was rescued, survived his wounds, and also survived the war.
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The next few days our division was involved in many battles and other action. However, since I was working at the generals CP, I was not really near any of it. Although the Germans did get close to us a couple of times, and a sniper would occasionally fire into the CP at us. During that time I manned the radio and delivered incoming messages to the General and his staff. My radio was set up just outside the farmhouse, but in the courtyard of the property.
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| General Taylor sits in his jeep outside the division CP at Hiesville |
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After a day or two, our CP had a visit from a British convoy carrying General Dempsey. While the two generals met inside the CP, some of the British soldiers came over to my area to take a look at our radio equipment. They excitedly admired our American technology, but they were really amazed when a call came in from a guy who was about ten miles away. Evidently their radios would only work over a distance of about a mile or so. On June 12th, after a fierce battle, the town of Carentan was finally captured. The division CP was then moved into a building in Carentan, and naturally I went with it.
We spent about five weeks in Normandy, and our division had many casualties. Finally we were officially taken off the line and prepared to head back to England. We worked our way north on the Cherbourg peninsula to the town of Tollavast, south of Cherbourg itself. However we were only there a short time before being moved to Utah beach and put on transport ships to travel back across the channel. For safety reasons, once we were out to sea, we were told to throw any remaining live ammunition overboard.
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| Click On The Eagle Patch For Page #2 |
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