The World War II Experience recently completed an in-depth story on Jack Port. It
chronicles his life from childhood through the war years. It will be available in book form later
this year. The following excerpt focuses on Jack’s military service in the Normandy campaign.
Chapter 3
Eleven Weeks in Normandy
The Allies began the liberation of northern Europe in France on June 6, 1944. Three critical
achievements marked the initial stage--the D-Day landings, the eleven-week Normandy
campaign, and lastly, the triumphant appearance of Allied troops in Paris on August 25th. Jack
Port participated in every one of those historic events. He landed at Utah Beach on June 6th.
Almost two months of continuous combat in Normandy followed. During that time, Jack’s unit
engaged the Germans in three major confrontations--Montebourg, Cherbourg, and Mortain. His
participation in the Battle for Normandy, much more than in the beach landing, introduced Jack
to war. One prominent historian concludes that the Normandy campaign “became by far the most
costly of the western war…Though D-Day had huge symbolic significance and commands the
fascination of posterity, the fighting that followed was much bloodier.”1 Finally, at the end of
August, Jack’s regiment became one of the few American units that entered Paris on the day of
its liberation. Back home in Escondido that summer, his parents continued to support the war on
the Home Front. Daily, the headlines in their newspaper offered accounts of the fighting in
Normandy. The mail service in those months delivered a few brief letters from Jack. Charlie and
Rena had no understanding, however, of what their youngest son was experiencing. Perhaps that
was for the best.
The April 19th train ride that had begun in the Firth of Clyde ended in southwest England.
Jack calls the area he debarked in “the Moors.” By the spring of 1944, the United States Army
had some twelve hundred camps and over one hundred airfields in various parts of the British
Isles. They had increased in number and population as the date for the D-Day landings neared.
The first troop ship that had carried American infantrymen landed in Belfast, Ireland on January
26, 1942. Only a few thousand soldiers lived in United States Army camps in the British Isles
during the early part of that year. Twenty-four months later, in January 1944, the GIs numbered
some seven hundred and fifty thousand. As the date for the liberation of northwestern Europe
neared, more and more soldiers arrived from the States. Jack joined them in April. By early June,
about one and a half million “doughboys” awaited orders from the Allied Command. Two years
of amassing equipment and personnel ended. The Allied invasion of northern France was ready
to begin.2
1
Starting in 1942, GIs were given a small
book entitled Instructions For American
Servicemen In Britain 1942. They usually
received it en route across the Atlantic. The
thirty-one pages introduced them to the
English people and their customs. The hope
was to avoid any embarrassing incidents due
to cultural misunderstandings. As it turned
out, Jack had limited use for such lessons
since in his free time he did not travel outside
of the Moors. On weekends, he could walk to
a nearby coastal town, Minehead, where the
American Red Cross operated a canteen.
There he enjoyed donuts and cookies. He
never had the opportunity to travel further
than that. Even those brief visits, though,
introduced Jack to a much-repeated question
posed to American soldiers by English
children, “Any gum, chum?” While in camp,
Jack and the other GIs lived in pup tents.
They underwent little training. Instead, the
men marched, as he recalls it, to keep in
shape. He did have to practice firing the
carbine, which was much lighter than the M1. Even though, as Jack explains, he had
“trouble qualifying with the carbine,” he
eventually received the score needed.3
It was after Jack arrived in the Moors
that the Command assigned him to a
division. The United States Army organized
its forces in an operational structure that
reflected combat formations. Divisions were
subdivided into regiments. Jack served in the
4th Infantry Division, in its 12th Infantry Regiment. A regiment was further divided into
battalions. Jack was in the 2nd Battalion throughout his time in the ETO. A battalion was divided
into companies.4 From when he joined the 2nd Battalion until the time of the Hurtgen Forest,
Jack was in Company E. At one point while he was in the Hurtgen, however, he became a
Sergeant Major. Superiors then transferred him to the Battalion HQ Company. Jack remained
there for the rest of the war.
The 4th Division predated World War II. Created by the Army during World War I, the unit
became known as the “Ivy Leaf Division.” The nickname derives from its insignia, four green
ivy leaves on a khaki background. (The Arabic numeral “4” in Roman numerals is “IV,” so the
“Ivy Division” is also a play on words.) Even today, seven decades after his service, Jack still
2
proudly wears a jacket with the division’s insignia prominently displayed on the back of the
garment. The 4th Division adopted its motto “Steadfast and Loyal” during the Great War. Some
twenty years later, the division proved again how unyielding it would be when confronting
German troops.5
Because of its campaign record, the 4th Division has been
called the Famous Fourth. Not only did it spearhead the D-Day
landings, it took Cherbourg, a critical port on the Cotentin
Peninsula. In the Normandy campaign, the 4th Division
repulsed the Germans in their counteroffensive at Mortain.
With a French division, it liberated Paris. Later in the fall and
early winter months, the Famous Fourth distinguished itself
through campaigns in first the Hurtgen Forest and then in
Luxembourg during the Battle of the Bulge. Because of his
assignment to the 4th Division while in the Moors, Jack became
a
participant in all of that history. His further assignment to the 12th Infantry Regiment put him in a
unit that had a history older than the 4th Division’s. The Army created the regiment in 1798. It
saw service in the War of 1812, the Mexican American War, the Civil War, and the Spanish
American War. The unit remained within the States, however, during World War I. As the
Command planned D-Day operations in World War II, it attached the 12th Infantry Regiment to
the 4th Division.6
The shield is blue for infantry, the 12th having fought on the Union side in the American
Civil War. In that conflict, during its first battle at Gaines’ Mills, Virginia, over a two-day
period in June 1862 the regiment‘s losses approached fifty percent. The two moline crosses
symbolize the iron fastening of a mill stone, and the pair is meant to represent the heavy
casualties at Gaines’ Mills. The wigwam with its five poles represents the five Indian
Campaigns in which the 12th participated. The sea lion, which is on the Coat of Arms for the
Philippine Islands, is for the Spanish American War (yellow and red are the colors of Spain).
When that war began in 1898, the Philippines was a Spanish territory. As such, American
naval ships and ground troops fought enemy forces in the Philippines as well as in Cuba (the
partition relates to the capture by the 12th Infantry Regiment of a blockhouse at El Caney,
Cuba).
The troop ship carrying the 12th Infantry Regiment docked in Liverpool on January 28th.
Jack did not join the unit until four months later. While in the Moors, he still had no idea he
would be part of D-Day. As Jack remembers it, he had the impression that the Command was
“just building up troops.” Based in the southwest county of Devon, the 12th had been training for
the Normandy landings months before Jack became attached to the unit. On April 22, just three
days after Jack had disembarked from his troop ship, the 12th Regiment left for Plymouth. It
sailed out of that harbor for the English Channel to participate in Exercise Beaver. This was the
code name for a series of practice landings. The 12th Regiment used an area on the south coast of
Devon that resembled the Normandy beach it would be going ashore on. Jack dates his
assignment to the 12th Infantry sometime before April 27th since he remembers all too well the
tragedy that occurred on that day’s exercise at a place called Slapton Sands. It went down in
history as “the most costly training incident involving U.S. forces during World War II.”7
3
Located within Lyme Bay, Slapton Sands was the name of a stretch of beach in the cove.
Jack explains that when he was informed of his unit’s destination for the staged landings, “I had
no idea where Slapton Sands was or what it was. We had been told that its beaches resembled
ones we would be landing on.” It
was this exercise that made it clear to
Jack he would be part of D-Day. He
characterizes his unit’s practice as
having gone “very, very well.” The
12th Infantry Regiment had safely
landed during a daylight operation,
made it across a flooded area, and
commanded high ground. Several
hours later, after midnight, though, a
tragedy hit other units. In the early
morning of the 28th, Nazi forces at Cherbourg heard heavy radio traffic in Lyme Bay. Nine
German torpedo boats were sent out to investigate. Around two o’clock, they spotted eight
American LSTs (landing ship, tanks). The vessels were loaded with trucks, jeeps, and heavy
engineering equipment. Engineers, chemical, and quartermaster troops were also on board.
Enemy torpedoes hit three of the LSTs. One made it to port, another burst into flames, and a
third sank within six minutes. Seven hundred and forty-nine men died. For weeks, bodies washed
ashore on the beaches.8
Early in May, the 12th Infantry continued
to prepare for its role in D-Day. Soldiers test
fired all of the regiment’s weapons. GIs loaded
and unloaded vehicles. Additional supplies
were brought in. Units waterproofed
transportation and communication equipment.
On May 16th, the regiment left Exeter for its
marshalling area in Plymouth. The 1st and 2nd
Battalion (Jack’s unit) were assigned to a
former British Army barracks. There the entire
regiment was “put on restriction,” as Jack
recalls. “No one was allowed to leave the
area,” he explains. To guarantee that, security guards from an armored division took up positions
around the unit. It was in Plymouth that the Command told all regimental officers the details of
the role the 4th Division would play on D-Day. Wall maps and aerial photography prepared them
visually. The division’s immediate orders were twofold. First, it was to secure a beachhead at a
section of the coast code named Utah Beach. For the landing itself, air and naval task forces
would furnish support to the infantrymen. Once inland, the division would make its way up the
Cotentin Peninsula to capture the port of Cherbourg.9 For now, officers and enlisted men were to
continue their preparations and just wait. Jack does not recall any training in that time. “We just
hung out.” More than two weeks passed until orders were received to move out.
D-Day training in England (above & below)
Back in Escondido, community leaders prepared for another event. Memorial Day was
approaching. Residents would observe the solemn occasion on Tuesday, May 30th. The town
4
held a ceremony at 10 A.M. in the Oakhill Memorial Park, a local cemetery. Volunteers
decorated the graves of veterans with flags and flowers. Hundreds of people met over the final
resting place of a “typical soldier.” Gold Star Mothers who had lost a son in the war sat in a
special section. On that day, at least five local women could have been recognized in that way;
the number would unquestionably grow more as the war progressed. Some fathers represented
the American War Dads, Charlie perhaps being one of them due to the prominent role he had
assumed in the organization. Reverend Harry Lee spoke for the War Dads. As it turned out,
exactly seven days after this ceremony, the community opened its newspaper and read about the
D-Day landings. There would be more local servicemen to remember on the next Memorial Day,
some who died in the Normandy campaign.10
Utah Beach
Five days after his hometown’s Memorial Day ceremony, Jack’s unit finally moved out of
Plymouth. It was June 4, 1944. The Allied Command planned to land the liberation forces on the
French coast very early the next day. Jack remembers the 12th Infantry leaving the barracks on
trucks that took them to the harbor. He vividly recalls the additional equipment issued to each
infantryman that morning. Collectively, it all “terrified” him. Besides the M-1 he already carried,
Jack received impregnated clothing that was meant to protect him in case of a gas attack. (It had
a strong smell, as he recalls.) This outfit was in addition to the gas mask he carried in a case. (In
World War I both sides, equipped with more than twenty types of gases, used chemical warfare.
Over a million casualties resulted from this, making World War II policy planners sensitive to
the possibility it could be used again.11) Weighed down with invasion gear, Jack especially
remembers two items. Along with his cartridge belt, he was given two bandoliers. When Jack
had four grenades put into his hands, he remembers wondering, “What am I going to do with
these?”
Once the equipment was done being issued to Jack’s unit, the men embarked. He
characterizes as “unbelievable” all of the activity he witnessed as equipment and soldiers kept on
piling into landing crafts within the harbor. The small vessels proceeded into the English
Channel. Barrage balloons floated overhead to
protect the crafts against low flying enemy
planes, if any should appear. The 4th
Division spent the day at sea. Landing crafts
and transport vessels circled the Isle of
Wight. Rain started to come down. As the
water became rougher, men took out their
seasickness pills and vomit bags. Icy rain
and strong winds lasted throughout the day.
The storm forced a postponement of the
landings until the 6th when reports predicted
better weather conditions. For Jack and the
other infantrymen, that meant another day at
sea.12
5
History had never seen such a combination of military power as the Allies forces brought
together for Operation Overlord, the code name given to the landings. For that one momentous
day of June 6, 1944, American, British, and Canadian forces injected forty-five divisions (about
one hundred and fifty-six thousand troops) into a sixty-mile stretch of the Normandy coast
between Le Havre and Cherbourg. Over eleven thousand aircraft supported the landings. Some
six thousand ships and landing crafts carried the ground forces across the English Channel and
deposited them as close as possible to the coast. The official history of Jack’s regiment judged
the fleet that carried men and equipment to Normandy “the greatest invasion armada in
history.”13
Before dawn on June 6th, the Allied forces finally began their movement toward the coast
of northern France. Jack shares what that was like. “Going across the Channel was very, very
quiet. We were seated on a bench, with a rifle between our legs. Not much conversation.” As
with any situation, the unknown caused the infantrymen to pause. Jack points out that they had
“no idea what we were going to run into.” His conclusion is especially poignant when one
realizes that less than fifteen percent of the Allied D-Day troops had been in combat. As they
neared the French coast, Jack saw cliffs that rose above the beaches. He could not help but think
of how much they resembled cliffs on the coast in Carlsbad, California, not far from his
hometown of Escondido.
6
Military strategists charged with the planning for
D-Day divided the sixty-mile stretch of coastline into
five beaches, each with its own code name. The
Command assigned the 4th Infantry Division
responsibility for securing the beachhead at the
extreme western end of the landing zones. That beach
was named Utah. In crossing the English Channel,
Jack’s regiment had been in LCIs (landing craft,
Crossing the English Channel on D-Day
infantrymen). As they got closer to land, the United
States Coast Guard brought some LCVPs (landing craft, personnel) and LCMs (landing craft,
mechanized) alongside the LCIs. Jack and others transferred into them. The landings began
around 6:30 A.M., but because of the tide flow, the soldiers went ashore at different times. The
12th Infantry was one of three regimental combat teams that landed at staggered hours. The 8th
and 22nd Regiments went in before the 12th Regiment. The 8th first secured the left flank at Utah
Beach and the 22nd the right one. About 10:30 A.M. the 12th came in. Jack uses a sports
metaphor to explain how the three regiments landed that morning. If one thought of a football
play, the 8th and the 22nd acted as “blockers.” The 12th carried the ball; it was to move down the
center of Utah Beach. When the time came for the 2nd Battalion (Jack’s unit) to enter the play,
the infantrymen debarked from the LCVP that had brought them close to the shore. “The tide
was low,” Jack recalls. As the ramps of their landing crafts splashed down, many men came
ashore in waist-deep water. When Jack got out of his small landing craft, he felt the “water up to
my knees. My feet got real wet.”14
Like all infantrymen in World War II, Jack was just one small part of a very large picture. In
fifteen hours at Utah Beach, the 4th Infantry Division landed over twenty thousand troops and
some seventeen hundred motorized vehicles. In the words of a prominent historian of Operation
Overlord, “D-Day was a smashing success for the 4th
Division and its attached units.” Several factors explain
the good luck Jack and other members of the Famous
Fourth benefited from on June 6th. As one scholar
explains, first, the Nazis had not positioned any top-rate
troops in that sector of the coast. Instead, Germany relied
on mines, flooded areas, and fixed fortifications to stop
any landings. Second, Allied air and naval bombardment
proved effective. Third, when the first units from the 4th
troops going ashore on Utah Beach
Division came on shore, they found themselves two
thousand yards south of where they were to land. Where they ended up turned out to be the
“most lightly defended sector of the entire Normandy coast.” The Germans had positioned little
in respect to artillery guns there. Additionally, there were fewer fortifications and beach
obstacles in this “mistaken” landing zone. Another factor that helped the 4th Infantry Division
was the drop by airborne troops behind enemy lines hours before the beach landings. They
stopped any strong counterattacks by the Nazis in the sector assigned to the 4th. Paratroopers also
took care of the enemy artillery units which were in place that could have brought heavy fire
down on the landing forces at Utah Beach.15
7
All of these considerations explain the light casualties the 4th Infantry Division sustained on
June 6th. American losses at Utah Beach have been characterized as “small,” only one hundred
and ninety-seven on that first day. Sixty-nine of those men came from Jack’s 12th Regiment; sea
or land mines caused most of those casualties. One historian has pointed out that in comparison
to the total number of casualties the 4th suffered at Slapton Sands (dead and injured), the division
lost twenty times the number of men in that training tragedy as it lost on D-Day. Jack
summarizes his good luck by noting that the division
was “fortunate since it landed in the wrong spot, with
little resistance.” He understood later how much worse
it was that day for American soldiers at Omaha Beach,
east of Utah. Two-thirds of the United States landing
forces, represented by the 1st and 29th Infantry
Divisions, had been assigned to that one sector of the
Normandy coast. Two thousand five hundred
Americans died at Omaha on June 6th. This represents
ten times the losses of the 4th Infantry Division.
casualties at Utah Beach
Altogether, three thousand British, American, and
Canadian men perished on D-Day. One English military historian judges that number to be “a
negligible price for a decisive strategic achievement.”16
The Drive to Cherbourg
Jack lost his M-1 rifle on his first day in Normandy. As he remembers it, his unit was
strafed by German planes twice after the infantrymen landed. In taking evasive action, Jack
broke into a sprint on the beach. BT had taught recruits that if they had to run during combat,
they should land on their elbows, with their rifle upright. Jack, however, admits that he was “so
scared that I threw my rifle and it landed in the sand.” By this time, equipment for the move
inland had been piled on Utah Beach. Jack saw what he characterizes as a “plentiful” supply of
weaponry. He replaced his rifle with another M-1. Before night fell, the 12th Regiment left the
beach and moved inland. The soldiers went over tall sand dunes. Once on the downside of them,
they next encountered vast fields that the Germans had purposely flooded to slow down any
Allied advancement. Jack and the others had to make their way through muddy waters that went
on for almost a mile. Unable to see the ground that they were walking on, those who were not
lucky fell into irrigation ditches French farmers had dug for their crops. Some were seven feet
deep. Once through the flooded fields, the 4th Division focused on its next objective, the port of
Cherbourg on the tip of the Cotentin Peninsula west of Utah Beach. As the division made its way
up the peninsula, other American units stayed at its base to stop German troops from attacking
the 4th from the rear. The movement to get to Cherbourg, which took more than two weeks, was
described by one historian of the Normandy campaign as “agonizingly slow.”17
Jack spent his first night in France in a foxhole. His unit had made its way to a village, St.
Martin de Varreville.18 The town had been hit hard by Allied firepower. Without buildings to
house the soldiers, the men received orders to dig in. Jack teamed up with a New Yorker, Jim
Rogers. The two had not met before that evening. Because he had difficulty pronouncing “Port,”
Jim came to call Jack “Pert.” The infantrymen had very different backgrounds. Jim’s Irish
ancestry, his New York roots, and his devout Catholicism contrasted sharply with Jack’s Judaic
8
heritage, California lifestyle, and more secular outlook. In spite of this, the men became lifelong
friends. They bonded through their war experiences that began on the night of June 6th. The two
became “like family,” as Jack describes their relationship, one that began in a Normandy
foxhole. Jack explains that such a hole “only needed to be twelve inches deep.” As testimony to
how unnerving he found his situation, Jack dug it to such a depth that he and Jim “could barely
get out of it in the morning.”
Note the location of the 12th Infantry Regiment, outside of Montebourg, on the upper left
The 12th Regiment moved out early the next day. Crossroads, hills, and towns now became
the objectives of the unit. Early on June 7th, its mission was to seize a junction in a road about
three thousand yards inland from St. Martin de Varreville. Once the unit did so, it was then to
make its way north to Montebourg behind which stood high ground that the 12th had orders to
secure. After the Americans controlled the town, Cherbourg was within reach. It would take
several days to reach Montebourg. Colonel Gerden F. Johnson, who commanded Jack’s
9
battalion, dramatically described the regiment’s progress from St. Martin de Varreville to the
road junction--“Painfully, bloodily, the 1st and 2nd Battalions pushed relentlessly to the crossroad,
steadily forcing the enemy to give ground before them.” The units seized four hundred yards in
the first sixty minutes. Once at the spot where the roads converged, the 12th Regiment captured
its first group of enemy POWs. More junctions, hills, and towns followed as the 12th Regiment
moved up the peninsula toward Cherbourg.19
Jack remembers in particular one evening a few days later. He believes it was the fourth or
fifth night after the beach landings. The sergeant came by Jack and Jim’s foxhole. He told them
to be ready to move out, but before they did so, they were to take the ammunition out of their
rifle and attach the bayonet to the end of the barrel, “fixed bayonet.” Jack explains what
happened next. “As soon as the sergeant walked away from the foxhole, Rogers said, ‘Screw it’
and put the ammo back in the rifle.” Jim refused to do as ordered. To him, the directive did not
make any sense. “I’m not getting out of this hole without ammo [in my rifle],” Jim protested.
Luckily, the 12th Infantry met no resistance that night. The official unit history summarizes the
days from June 13th to the 19th as ones “marked by a series of small engagements.” The regiment
reached the outskirts of Montebourg around the 15th. On that date, a German artillery attack in
the 2nd Battalion’s sector resulted in forty-one casualties. By this time, Jack’s unit had already
lost the lieutenant colonel who had brought the 2nd Battalion ashore; he had been killed on the
sixth day in Normandy. Major Richard O’Malley, his replacement, became a much admired
officer by Jack and the others who served under him. Two weeks into the Normandy campaign,
the 12th Regiment had been “depleted by two-thirds of their original strength.”20
By June 19th, Jack and his fellow infantrymen had spent four days and nights in foxholes
outside of Montebourg as Allied artillery and planes struck the town. It was around this time in
the Normandy campaign that Jack was first exposed to the “screaming meemies.” That is the
name American soldiers gave to a type of German rocket. In Jack’s mind, “it seemed like they
were firing them all of the time.” Infantrymen could hear the rockets coming. The anticipation of
their impact made them become, in Jack’s estimation, a “terrific psychological weapon.” In spite
of the combat conditions, for the first time since the landings the men received some warm food
and clean socks. Soap and water allowed them to refresh themselves. After air power pummeled
Montebourg, the Command ordered the 12th to seize Hill 119, a spot of high ground near the
town. (The military used the height of various hills, measured in meters, to designate their
names.) Hill 119’s elevated location and enemy artillery guns made it a German stronghold that
had to be taken if Allied forces were to continue northward to Cherbourg. From the top of the
hill, the Germans could locate every American unit on the field. The 3rd Battalion received the
primary responsibility for the attack. Jack’s 2nd Battalion supported it on the right flank, moving
out at 6:00 P.M. In less than one hour, his unit passed Hill 119, taken by the 3rd Battalion. Jack
sustained his first war injury at Montebourg when a sniper hit him right after he went through an
opening in the hedgerow. The enemy rifleman had fired, in Jack’s estimation, “five or six shots.”
One hit Jack. Jim Rogers, behind his friend, called for a medic. But Jack was reluctant to go back
through the hedgerow for treatment. Since his injury was not serious, Jack remained with his
unit. A lieutenant did, however, write him up for a Purple Heart. The regiment now moved
towards another town as its next objective.21
10
Jack emphasizes that the enemy engagements “all the way up to Cherbourg was hedgerow
fighting.” He further describes it as “terrific,” and he means that in a negative sense. The
infantrymen “could fight all day and just get through one or two hedgerows.” It was, Jack
stresses, “very, very difficult fighting.” Colonel Johnson defines the hedgerows as “mounds of
earth with stone and twisted roots imbedded in them, packed tight by the centuries into tough,
steep-sided walls.” Put another way, the hedgerows were raised banks of dirt with a flat ridge at
the very top. They could be anywhere between three and
twelve feet tall. A ditch might separate two rows of the
intermingled rock and dirt, acting almost like a moat around
a castle. Trees and thickets grew on top. The Germans used
the hedgerows to their benefit. Planes could not easily see
through the natural canopies the foliage provided. The
Nazis positioned tanks, with their firepower aimed at the
Allied troops, under tree branches that acted as camouflage.
A few Germans could hide behind the hedgerows with just
a small number of machine guns. In such a situation,
Colonel Johnson concluded that the enemy could “hold off
an aerial view of the hedgerows
a regiment of infantry.” A single gap usually existed in a
hedgerow through which a farmer moved his cows or equipment. One noted British military
historian points out that the hedgerows “enabled [the Germans] to inflict heavy losses for every
small gain.”22 This centuries-old natural growth contributed to the high casualty rate as the 4th
Division moved up the Cotentin Peninsula toward Cherbourg.
Strategically, Allied control of Cherbourg was crucial for the drive towards Germany. Once
it was secured, supplies and troops could enter the ETO through this port. The 12th Regiment
assumed positions in the hills above the city. At one point in Tourlaville, a town that overlooked
Cherbourg, Jack and Jim almost became a part of the casualty count. They found themselves, as
Jack puts it, “on the wrong side of the hedgerows.” With the Germans on the other side, the
enemy fired their machine guns as Jack and Jim ran across a field. According to Jack, the enemy
soldiers fired at least “eight to twelve rounds” from a 20 mm antiaircraft gun. “We were,” Jack
emphasizes, “very, very lucky that we were not hit. The 20 mm is very big in comparison to
small arms fire.” As the 12th Regiment, in Jack’s
fighting in the hedgerows
words, “moved down from the hills to
Cherbourg,” he remembers the Germans
responding with artillery fire and shelling. Three
United States infantry divisions participated in
the attack upon Cherbourg. The 9th came in from
the west, the 79th from the south, and the 4th
from the east. Eventually, on June 25th, the 12th
Regiment--Jack’s unit-- liberated the city. The
regiment’s official history explains that
Commanders of the 4th Division “assigned the
honor of taking Cherbourg” to the 12th Infantry Regiment “for its gallant struggle from the
beaches.” It still took five more days, however, before the American forces were in complete
control of the area.23
11
The attack upon Cherbourg; note positions of the 12th Infantry Regiment (number to left of line shows unit,
number to right of line shows parent unit to which it belongs)
12
Jack participated in one enemy engagement that occurred in Cherbourg after June 25th.
Several forts stood on a stretch of seawall about one mile from the port itself. They dated from
the time of Napoleon Bonaparte.24 Germans occupied them, so even after Americans took the
city, the forts still had to be secured. Jack recalls being sent out to one of them that housed a
German hospital unit. He and two other GIs rode in a jeep with a white flag affixed to its hood.
The doors opened for them when they reached the fort, and enemy forces inside of the hospital
surrendered. No firing occurred on the part of the Americans or the Germans.
While in Cherbourg, Jack received his first promotion. Officers informed his squad of
thirteen or fourteen men, as he recollects it, that “there were openings for six promotions” to
Private First Class (PFC). The infantrymen drew straws, Jack explains. “I
drew a lucky straw.” More promotions awaited him in the next months, but
so did enemy engagements. Some proved more intensive than what he had
experienced during the Normandy campaign. The fight to secure just
Cherbourg took twenty-four days from when the 4th Division left Utah
Beach until it gained complete control of the port city on June 30th. In that
time, the 12th Regiment saw the death of its commanding officer. The 1st
Battalion lost two commanders. The 2nd and 3rd Battalions experienced the
death of “only” one of their commanders.25
Jack in Cherbourg,
June 25, 1944
On the Home Front
Back in Escondido, Charlie and Rena Port had been following the movement of Allied
forces from the beach landings up to Cherbourg, not understanding that their son was a part of it
all. Like everyone in the United States with a radio or a newspaper, Jack’s parents knew about
D-Day on June 6th. While the Allied Command in Europe
used the word “liberation” to describe its actions in
northwestern France, the Escondido newspaper used a
different word--“invasion.” As the headline for the T-A’s
June 6th edition read, “Allied Forces Pour Into France As
World’s Greatest Invasion Proceeds.” Even the June 6,
1944 ETO edition of Stars and Stripes, the daily newspaper
of the United States Armed Forces, had just a one-word
headline to explain its major story that day--“Invasion!”
Throughout the country, news of the D-Day landings and the Allied movement up the
Cotentin Peninsula coincided with the Home Front’s Fifth War Loan drive. The major headline
in the T-A’s June 8th edition brought news of a secure Normandy beachhead--“Invasion’s First
Phase Ended As European Foothold Gained.” The same June 8th issue ran another front-page
story that tied the landings just two days earlier to the Home Front’s bond drive that was to
officially begin on June 12th. It reported that the Secretary of the Treasury had designated June
12th as Civilian D-Day. Escondido’s mayor, E. E. Clover, echoed the declaration when he
proclaimed the 12th as Civilian D-Day in Escondido. Clover urged the town’s “citizens” to be
13
part of the success of the Normandy campaign by buying bonds. Whether or not he meant it this
way, the mayor’s thoughtful use of the word “citizens” instead of “residents” implied a national
responsibility.26
Escondido used a dramatic event to kick off the war loan campaign. The local bond
committee adopted the slogan “Chute the Works--Buy More Than Before.” To illustrate this
theme, on June 12th a Navy airplane dropped miniature parachutes over the downtown area.
“Citizens” had been alerted to the time of the drop, at 11:15 in the morning. About one hundred
and fifty children gathered in a one-block neighborhood bordered by Grand, Ohio, Broadway,
and Kalmia streets. They gathered the boxes the parachutes had carried to earth. Inside of them
were letters to thirty Escondido businesses along with announcements on the beginning of the
Fifth War Loan. Whichever boy or girl found the chute was to take it and the attached box to the
address on the letter. Both items were then to be used in a window display. Perhaps Charlie’s
store was one of the businesses. On June 24th, Port’s Store again joined eight other
establishments to sponsor a full-page ad in the T-A urging community members to buy bonds. It
carried just a two-word headline--“Your Invasion!” It was not long after the ad ran that Jack’s
parents found out he was part of the Normandy campaign, so the newspaper’s “liberation”
stories must have become their focus of interest in the weeks to come.27
During the months that Jack saw combat in northern France, Charlie continued in his
leadership role with the Escondido chapter of the American War Dads. He sold one-dollar tickets
in his store for a War Dads’ dinner on Friday night, July 14th. Women from the Congregational
Church served the meal to the members and their wives. Over sixty people attended. Each “head
of the family,” as a T-A article explained, introduced himself and his guests. Charlie would have
presented Rena, who probably accompanied him, to the group as well as two young women who
were staying with the Ports. Both were from Los Angeles; one, Virginia Gibbons, was a cousin
of Jack’s. After such introductions, each War Dad announced the name of his son or daughter
who was in the military, including where he or she was presently stationed. By the time of this
dinner, Charlie could be fairly specific on Jack’s location. In the T-A’s July 8th column “News Of
Our Men and Women In Uniform,” the Ports had shared with their small community a piece of
correspondence they had recently received. It may have been the first communication from Jack
since he left the States. A paragraph in the July 8th column read that “Word has been received by
Mr. and Mrs. Charles Port from their son, Pvt. Jack Port, that he is safe and well with a
‘Cherbourg’ dateline.” At the War Dads’ dinner a week later, Charlie probably identified
Normandy as Jack’s location.28
In July while Jack was in the thick of the Normandy campaign, both of his parents actively
supported the activities of the Navy Mothers. The Escondido American War Dads had a
regularly scheduled meeting on Friday, June 9th, just three days after the D-Day landings. Talk of
Normandy had to have taken place at the Trinity Guild Hall where the War Dads met at 8 P.M.
that evening. The chapter discussed how it could assist the Navy Mothers. An officer announced
to the members that Port’s Store was still accepting donations of oranges, jams, jellies, and
athletic equipment for the Navy Mothers. Rena herself regularly baked homemade cinnamon
rolls for the Sunday morning breakfasts served by the Navy Mothers to visiting servicemen. The
Escondido War Dads hosted some of those early morning meals, taking “the place of the
serviceman’s own fathers,” as the T-A described one such Sunday in mid-July. At least on that
14
one day, Charlie and four other War Dads helped serve the breakfast. Those meals were
bountiful ones, with eggs, bacon, and hash brown potatoes. Toast topped with homemade jam or
jelly added to the meal, as did orange juice and coffee. On one weekend alone in June, fifty-four
“boys” slept over at the Hostess House.29
The building the women used to house visiting
servicemen became very crowded on the weekends.
The American War Dads thus talked about the
possibly of repairing the town’s Veterans’
Memorial Hall as another site to house military
the Escondido Navy Mothers & visiting servicemen;
guests. (Showing some foresight, a few members
courtesy of Escondido History Center, photo collection
thought that a refurbished Veterans’ Memorial Hall
could be used after the war as a rehabilitation
center for returning servicemen.) The American
War Dads also discussed the possibility of two more North County chapters, one in Vista and
one in Oceanside. About five hundred chapters already existed in the country. The National
Director of the organization, Guy A. Lamphear, stopped by San Diego for a few weeks in June.
San Diego resident L.R. Green, who had been instrumental in founding the Escondido chapter,
brought Lamphear to Escondido. A special meeting of the American War Dads was held on June
29th to hear the National Director speak about the goals of the organization. Wives attended as
well as their husbands. Lamphear echoed an idea hinted at when the local group had discussed
the postwar use of the Veterans’ Memorial Hall. He urged a program after the war to offer
hospitalization for “all who are sick in body and mind.” The need to support returning veterans
psychologically showed insight by the American War Dads as to what their sons might face once
they came home.30
After Cherbourg
The day before Lamphear spoke to the Escondido War Dads, the T-A’s June 28th front page
headline read “With Fierce Hand-to-Hand Fighting, Americans Push Into Heart of Cherbourg.”
After the Americans took the port city, Jack remembers a few days of rest. The men had their
first shower since arriving in France. The Army set up overhead pipes in an open field to furnish
the water, although it was “damned hot” as Jack recalls. The shower, a shave, and clean clothing
refreshed the soldiers as much as could be expected in a war zone. Replacements, to compensate
for the casualties, arrived as well. After this brief respite, it was time to move back down the
Cotentin Peninsula.
One day after Americans seized the last fort in Cherbourg’s harbor, the 12th Infantry piled
into trucks to join other units that were pursuing enemy troops. At one point, Jack remembers
witnessing “two-and-a-half-ton trucks picking up the dead Germans and Americans. It was a
terrible sight to see.” On the 30th, Jack’s regiment arrived in a hidden bivouac area south of the
village of Orglandes. The men spent four days integrating reinforcements into their ranks and
cleaning equipment. They sorely needed the rest after weeks in combat. On July 4th, the regiment
received orders to move out. The hills, towns, and crossroads the 12th Infantry met going up the
peninsula were encountered again going down, although the names were not the same. The type
of combat the regiment met heading south differed from what it had encountered going north.
15
Colonel Johnson pointed out that in its movement to Cherbourg, the 12th Infantry was “out front
all the way.” It had ample ground across which the regiment could maneuver its battalions. But
after the Allies seized Cherbourg, their forces ran into an enemy that had close to a month to
prepare defenses.31
In the official history of the 12th Infantry Regiment, Colonel Johnson clearly summarized
the general nature of the Normandy campaign after the landings on the beaches. In June and even
more so in July after the loss of Cherbourg, the Germans “built an armed ring along the high
ground from Avranches to Caen...” (The town of Avranches is located in the lower area of
Normandy and Caen in the upper part of the Cotentin Peninsula, only about nine miles from the
English Channel.) The Nazi planned, as Johnson explained, to contain the Allies and then “cut
them to pieces with powerful armored attacks.” The Allies needed to break out of that “armed
ring.”32
Major O’Malley led Jack’s 2nd Battalion in a morning assault on July 6th against a Nazi-held
area near La Moisentrie. By eight o’clock that night, the 12th Regiment had advanced only three
hundred yards since the middle of the afternoon. The Americans were not only outnumbered by
the Germans, but they found themselves fighting against an elite Nazi tank division.
Additionally, hedgerow fighting again worked to the advantage of the Germans, as it had in the
American movement up the peninsula some weeks
earlier. It was, as Colonel Johnson concluded,
“hedgerow fighting at its worst. A hundred yard
gain…often meant a whole day’s work for a battalion.
Enemy lurked behind every hedgerow. German
gunners were dug in every few yards. Forward
movement brought certain fire.” Nazi mortar and
small arms fire pinned the 2nd Battalion down for ten
days. During that time, Jack’s unit, again in the words
of Johnson, was “constantly engaged in bitter
fighting in the hedgerows of Normandy
combat.”33
The 2nd Battalion later received a commendation along with the 1st Battalion for actions it
participated in on July 7th- July 9th. It was the 2nd Battalion, though, in the words of the 4th
Infantry Division’s HQ, that had “forced a break-through in the enemy lines near Le Varimesnil
and drove approximately 500 yards deep into the enemy positions.” As the commendation
observed, the 12th Infantry had been “on the line” for thirty-two days, with “relatively little rest.”
Less than a week later, on the 15th, Jack’s battalion joined with the 3rd Battalion to cut through
what the regiment called the “sunken road.” It was a string of connecting tunnels and various
underground defenses. The action by the 2nd and 3rd Battalions divided the enemy forces that
controlled the main line of German resistance. It was Jack’s unit alone, however, that forced its
way four hundred yards south of the sunken road. From that point, the 2nd Battalion maintained
its position for twenty hours in the face of enemy counterattacks. By mid-July, the 12th Infantry
Regiment had helped to establish a beachhead at Normandy, taken Cherbourg, and liberated
parts of the Cotentin Peninsula. But the cost to the unit had been great--2,884 casualties. Jack
especially felt the loss of one of those men.34
16
On July 16th the 12th Infantry heard that a battalion from another regiment would soon be
taking its place. The relief the men felt upon being told such news did not last long. A German
rifleman killed Major O’Malley, the commanding officer of the 2nd Battalion. His death hit Jack
and others in the unit hard. Jack calls O’Malley “an inspiration.” He points out that while other
officers of O’Malley’s rank could have stayed at regimental HQ without anyone questioning it,
O’Malley “was always on the front line with us.” His men knew that the major’s wife had just
given birth to their daughter a month earlier. Jack reminisces today about how he often thought
of that little girl growing up without a father. “I had more respect for Major O’Malley,” Jack
explains, than “for any other officer I have known.” The 4th Division’s command shared that
feeling. As a tribute to O’Malley, one of the generals ordered three volleys fired into the enemy
lines by the 4th Division’s artillery and mortars. Today, Jack and others who visit Normandy in
observation of the D-Day landings hold a ceremony in Sainteny in memory of Major O’Malley.35
The Breakout
It was around this same time in July that the Escondido post office delivered to the Ports
what was probably the second piece of correspondence Jack’s parents received from him once he
was in the ETO. The T-A’s July 20th “News Of Our Men and Women In Uniform” section noted
that Charlie and Rena had received “a re-assuring [sic] letter” from Jack. He told his parents only
his general location, “somewhere in France.” The envelope clearly had been mailed after
Cherbourg since Jack announced that he was now a PFC. When the T-A ran that column, Jack’s
unit was poised to participate in another historic action that followed the June 6th landings and
the taking of Cherbourg. Veterans of the Normandy campaign simply call it “the breakout.”
What was broken through was the main German line that had stopped the Allies from moving
past the beachhead established on D-Day. The breakout occurred on July 25th, exactly one month
after the fall of Cherbourg to the Allies.
Towards the end of July, some in the Allied Command worried that the liberation could
evolve into “the static warfare of World War I.” In spite of the successful June 6th landings,
Allied forces appeared to be bogged down. Cherbourg had been taken, but the Germans had
destroyed so many harbor installations that “many months” would go by before the port “could
contribute much to the Allied effort.” Not far from the city of Caen on the eastern side of the
Cotentin Peninsula, British and Canadian troops had made little progress in the face of
entrenched enemy forces. Hedgerow fighting in the western part slowed the American advance.
Torrential downpours aggravated the situation throughout the peninsula, turning what had been
roadways into muddy lanes. The German defensive line following D-Day ran from the western
shores of Normandy to the English Channel close to the city of Caen. Breaking through that
enemy line was crucial. General George S. Patton’s 3rd Armored Division was to enter the
Normandy campaign once infantry forces blasted a hole in the German line.36
The 4th Infantry Division participated in this “breakout” along with the 83rd and 9th Infantry
Divisions. The breakthrough consisted of two phases. The first centered on an attack against the
German line west of St. Lo, a town located on the eastern side of the Cotentin Peninsula. (The
29th Infantry Division forces had entered this town on July 18th.) The second phase took place on
the western side of the peninsula, at Coutances, about ten days after the breakout near St. Lo.
The 4th Infantry Division participated in the first phase near St. Lo. On July 21st, a day of
17
constant rain, the men of the 12th Infantry Regiment made their way towards St. Lo through
ankle-deep mud. Jack recalls “a lot of small arms firing.” The infantrymen set up a concealed
bivouac about six miles south of Periers. Jack’s unit was to attack the German line, but two days
of constant rain postponed the assault. When the skies cleared on the 24th, the 12th Regiment
moved out.37
American B-17s and B-24s had attempted to
soften the German line by, in Jack’s words,
“bombing to our immediate front.” More than one
friendly fire incident, however, occurred. As Jack
explains, “We were bombed by our own pilots.” On
July 24th, over three hundred planes dropped some
seven hundred tons of bombs. Some landed on the
30th Infantry Division, resulting in one hundred and
American forces move through the ruins of St. Lo
fifty casualties. The very next day, over twenty-four
hundred bombers dropped their loads. “We all dug in
deep for the bombing,” Jack notes. “One bomb hit
twenty yards from my right,” he continues. “It shook the ground so bad and the blast was so
loud.” One of the infantrymen near Jack “was blown half way out of his hole.” On this second
bombing run, one hundred and eleven Americans were killed as a result of friendly fire. One of
them was the chief of Army Ground Forces, Lieutenant General Lesley J. McNair, who was
visiting the area.38
The famous war correspondent Ernie Pyle summarized the events of the next day. “The
great Allied breakthrough on July 25, spearheaded by three infantry divisions with the Fourth
Division in the center of the thrust, will go down as one of the great historical dates of World
War II.”39 Jack almost became part of the casualty count twice that day. At one point in the
fighting, enemy shrapnel from a mortar shell went through his mess gear. He had not even
noticed it until Jim Rogers told him he “was on fire.” Later, as the fighting continued, Jack was
on the ground when a piece of an enemy mortar shell hit his rifle. It put a hole in the stock. Due
to those two close calls, Jack characterizes the 25th as “a bad day” for him personally. He also
remembers something he did that proved much less dangerous but nevertheless troublesome-Jack jumped into a hole that was full of water and got wet.
With the breakthrough at St. Lo, American infantrymen were now fighting in what Jack
describes as “open country.” He remembers how easy it was for the 12th Regiment to take the
town of Villedieu from the Germans. It was a highway hub with roads emanating from it. The
enemy garrison there had suffered a major communications problem that benefited the
Americans. But the “battles at Tessy and Percy,” Jack adds, “were tough going.” He thinks the
12th Regiment moved as much as fifteen or eighteen miles a day after the breakout. “We were
marching, rode trucks, and rode on the outside of tanks.” He recalls “no [enemy] resistance,”
although Jack does remember some strafing by German planes. Mopping up operations for the
12th Regiment ended on August 6th. On that day, the unit bivouacked east of Brecey, a small
town located in the lower part of Normandy. As the official history of Jack’s regiment explains,
this was the first time since the landing at Utah Beach that the men could really relax. They had
18
endured exactly two months of combat. But now they could enjoy showers, new clothing,
movies, USO shows, and even visits from the Red Cross “donut girls.”40
Bloody Mortain
The 12th Regiment was not done yet, however, with heavy combat in the Normandy
campaign. Its last major engagement with the Germans occurred in August at a place called
Mortain. It was, in Jack’s estimation, “One of the worst battles” he was in during the war. Some
of the firefights at Mortain hold powerful memories for him. While those interested in the history
of World War II are familiar with the D-Day landings and the drive to Cherbourg, few have
heard of Mortain. Yet it came to hold particular meaning for not only Jack, but also for a famous
general. After the German surrender in May 1945, a reporter asked General Omar Bradley what
he judged to be the most “critical decision” he had made during the war in Europe. Bradley
replied, “Mortain.”41
An engagement between American and German troops took place over a four-day period,
from August 9th through the 12th, near the village of Mortain in the lower part of Normandy. The
small community was located about twenty miles
hedgerow fighting near Mortain
east of a larger town, Avranches. It sat on top of a
bluff above the Bay of Mont St. Michel. American
forces had seized Avranches on July 30th. Six days
before the battle with the Germans began near
Mortain, the United States 1st Division had taken that
area. The 30th Division assumed positions around
Mortain. The 4th and 35th Divisions would eventually
join the 1st and 30th to repel a major German
offensive in the vicinity. Dubbed “Bloody Mortain,”
Colonel Johnson judged the battle to be “probably
the fiercest, bloodiest contest in the entire history of the 12th Infantry.” In four days of constant
engagements with the enemy, the 12th Regiment suffered 1,150 casualties.42
Hitler himself had planned the massive counterattack at Mortain. It was the last opportunity
his forces had to divide the Allied armies in northwestern France. Four Nazi tank divisions were
to move from Mortain to Avranches, attacking first the 30th Infantry Division. The goal was to
divide the American forces in Normandy from those in Brittany. If successful, the Germans
would also have a foothold on the coast. Once there, the Nazis could cut off the supply line for
twelve American divisions. Additionally, another effect of a successful German assault would be
a return to “the static war” that had marked the weeks after D-Day. When the attack began,
General Bradley had two options. Six American divisions had gone through the breakout zone
and were moving south at a fast speed. Bradley could have called them back to use them to
thwart Hitler’s plan. His second choice of action was to “take a calculated risk that the units
guarding the Avranches corridor could stem the attack and keep the route open.” Bradley chose
the latter option. The 4th Division, and within it Jack’s regiment, thus again played a critical role
in the Normandy campaign.43
19
At one point, the Germans penetrated six miles into the American front. The 12th Infantry
Regiment fought hard to push them back. The 2nd Battalion (Jack’s unit) took control of the west
fork of the Mortain-St. Barthelmy highway, an important crossroad. What happened next
supports Jack’s belief on the ferocity of the firefights that marked “Bloody Mortain.” It appeared
that United States troops were approaching the 2nd Battalion from the direction of St. Barthelmy.
Once the troops got closer, however, they turned out to be Germans who were wearing American
helmets and field jackets. A firefight ensued between the 2nd Battalion and the enemy imposters.
Only two hundred yards of open field separated Jack’s unit from the Germans. The firefight
proved so intense that the enemy raised a Red Cross flag to signal its desire for a cease fire to
remove its wounded. The 2nd Battalion agreed. For ten minutes casualties on both sides were
carried off of the field. Soon after, the support of another American unit blunted the German
attack upon the 2nd Battalion at the highway.44
Jack’s battalion fought the enemy at another crossroad, the Mortain-Vire junction.
Whoever controlled it commanded a ridge area. If the 12th Regiment secured the road, the
Americans could cut off the last escape route Germans could use to get out of the Mortain area.
Colonel Johnson put Company E (Jack’s unit within the 2nd Battalion) one hundred and fifty
yards out from the main body to protect the flank. By the time this
engagement ended, the 12th Regiment had taken the Mortain-Vire road
and the accompanying ridge. By nightfall, however, the 2nd Battalion
had suffered heavy casualties. It had begun its attack that day with
eighteen officers and two hundred and eighty-eight enlisted infantrymen.
When it dug in that evening, the 2nd Battalion numbered only fourteen
officers and one hundred and ninety-six enlisted. Four and a half hours
of fighting had cost the 2nd Battalion ninety-six men. The burden of the
12th Infantry’s attack at Mortain had been borne by Jack’s 2nd Battalion.
When the regiment had departed England on June 6th, it numbered three
Mortain
thousand and eight-four men. During the Normandy campaign,
replacements attempted to offset the casualties incurred. After the Battle of Mortain, the total
number of missing, wounded, and killed added up to four thousand and thirty-four.45
Escondido Feels the Cost of War
Throughout the summer months, subscribers to the T-A regularly saw the cost of war
brought home to their small community. When an Escondido son or husband in the United States
military became a casualty, the paper usually featured that news in a prominent way. Editors
often placed the story at the very center of the front page, above the fold. Major United Press
stories on the progress of the war dominated the columns to the left and to the right of the
casualty story. Sergeant Arthur E. Reed, a graduate of Escondido High School, had joined the
Army Air Corps (AAC) the day after commencement. He flew bombing runs in the ETO as a
gunner. On July 10th, the T-A announced that Art had been declared “Missing in Action,” or
MIA, after one of his missions. His name was now “added” to the list of other Escondido men
who had been classified as MIA. Art did not hold that status for long, however. One day later,
the paper printed an update. The United States military now declared Art to be “Killed in
Action,” or KIA. He was only nineteen years old.46
20
Two weeks later, the T-A announced the death of George Estrada, a 1934 graduate of
Escondido High School. He reportedly had been killed serving in the AAC somewhere in the
Pacific, although details were not yet available to the newspaper. All that the editors knew was
that a government telegram had been received by George’s parents informing them of his death.
The day after this story appeared on the front page, the T-A announced new information it had
received on William H. McDonnal. William had been MIA since February 1943, but in July his
family received word that the Navy now declared him KIA. These are just some examples of
what Charlie and Rena saw in their local paper on a regular basis. One can imagine what went
through their minds if they had looked only at the headlines of such stories and they did not even
read the paragraph or two that followed. The Ports would undoubtedly have read the August 11th
article on the founding of a Lions Club in Escondido since Charlie was one of the charter
members. It could be, however, that the newspaper accounts that caught their attention were
reports on the local cost of the war.47
Paris
Those costs would increase even more in the months ahead as the war continued in Europe
and in the Pacific. With the Germans retreating eastward, it appeared that it would not be long
before the war in the ETO would be over. Before that happened, many more engagements with
the enemy would take place. Not every military campaign enters the general history books. But
as of August 1944, Jack Port had been part of two critical events that would forever be referred
to in high school and college textbooks--the D-Day landings and the Normandy campaign.
Before the month of August ended, he would be part of a third major moment in World War II-the liberation of Paris. It enters the history books not because it proved to be a major battle with
the Germans, but because of the symbolic importance of returning the cosmopolitan city to the
French people. Few Allied units witnessed that transfer. The 12th Infantry Regiment, however,
was one that did.
Four years earlier, in June 1940, German troops had entered Paris. They occupied it until
August 1944. American General Dwight D. Eisenhower, commander of the Allied forces in
Europe, had planned for his troops to bypass the city completely. The original idea was to allow
the French Resistance to take control of the capital as the Germans fled, yet chaos broke out
within Paris early in August. Resistance leaders feared an insurrection as the unrest that had
begun on the 11th with some labor strikes spread. It was as if Parisians in mid-August were
witnessing four years of pent-up frustrations erupting all at once. German troops became isolated
as rebellions broke out throughout Paris. French General Charles de Gaulle, one of the free
French military commanders, especially feared the actions of French communists. Pressure built
on Eisenhower to assist the Resistance in taking Paris back. De Gaulle assured the American
general that he had been told that the Germans intended to surrender to Allied troops if they
entered the capital. One of the reasons Eisenhower had intended to go around Paris was to avoid
getting bogged down in house-to-house fighting. He accepted Resistance assurances that this
would not be the case. In consultation with forces in the free French military, the Allied
Command ordered a French tank unit to move into Paris from the west. For political reasons, it
would “liberate” Paris. The 4th Infantry Division would descend upon the city from the south to
accept the German surrender. As it turned out, however, the liberation of Paris became identified
more with the arrivals of American soldiers than with the French.48
21
Out of the various regiments that comprised the American 4th Infantry Division, the
Command designated the 12th Regimental Combat Team as the one that would accept, in
conjunction with the French armored unit, the surrender of Paris. The Combat Team was madeup of Jack’s 12th Infantry Regiment, a reconnaissance squadron, a field artillery battalion, and
two tank battalions. On August 22nd the Team received orders to move out. Its immediate
mission was to hold the bridges south of Paris. The next day, a one-hundred-and-sixty-five-mile
“motor march” began in the afternoon. Weather-wise, the 23rd was not the best of days. It rained
continuously, even during the night as the vehicles made their way down dark roads. Around
noon on the 24th, the units arrived at their assembly area, Orphin, a town in north central France.
That same night, the units left for Nozay, another assembly area only about fifteen miles south of
Paris. The original plan had been for the Combat Team to secure bridges over the Seine River
around Corbeil, about twenty-five miles southeast of the city. But the orders changed. Instead of
the bridges outside of Paris, the Combat Team was to move into the capital itself.49
By midnight on August 24th, in spite of some enemy resistance, the French tank unit had
made it into the center of Paris. The next day, the 25th, the German commander surrendered to
his French counterpart. At dawn on that same morning, the 12th Regimental Combat Team
arrived in the capital. Its orders sent the Combat Team to an administrative office in the heart of
the city. The unit arrived there before noon to confront a German garrison that defended the
building. After some negotiations, the enemy commander surrendered about three hours later. At
that point, the various units that comprised the Combat Team moved throughout Paris to clear
out other German forces. Yet as Jack points out, the mass of the German troops had left the city
without any attempt to engage the Allies.50
Jack remembers the 12th Infantry Regiment proceeding to the Turkish Embassy. As his unit
did so, it encountered, in Jack’s words, “quite a bit of sniper and small arms fire.” The 12th
Regiment spent two nights, as he recalls, in the embassy. On the third night, his unit moved to
22
the Bois de Vincennes, a park in the southeastern part of Paris. The surroundings reminded Jack
of Balboa Park in the heart of San Diego. During that night, Jack’s unit, as he describes it, “got
the hell bombed out of us.” German aircraft attacked the area, but Jack and the soldiers around
him suffered no casualties that he knows of. One much more pleasant memory of those days
centers on the reception the American soldiers received from the French residents of Paris.
“Words and movies cannot describe it” Jack concludes. The official history of the 12th Regiment
tried to convey the gratitude Parisians felt after four years of Nazi rule. Its author, Colonel
Johnson, explained how Frenchmen cried “Merci! Vive la Amerique!” Crowds covered
American military vehicles with flowers as they drove through the streets. The various jeeps,
trucks, and tanks were forced to move slowly because of the large numbers who poured out to
thank the liberators. The people handed fruit and wine to the soldiers. Kisses from the women
and handshakes from the men greeted the liberators. Some mothers even held up their small
children for Americans to kiss, a scene reminiscent of people in crowds who get close to the
pope.51
On the same three dates in the months of June, July, and August, Jack and the 12th Infantry
Regiment had been part of significant moments in the history of World War II. On June 25th, the
unit had helped to secure Cherbourg for the Allies. On July 25th, it played a critical role in the
breakout. And on August 25th, it was one of the few American units that liberated Paris. German
forces were clearly in retreat. With northern France secure, the Allies went after enemy troops
who fled into eastern Belgium. It appeared that the Nazis could not hold out much longer now
that the Second Front could infuse the Allied cause with a steady stream of reinforcements and
supplies. No doubt influenced by the symbolism represented in the liberation of Paris, Escondido
in September adopted some “rules” once “V Day” [Victory Day] occurred. As the mayor
proclaimed, the city siren would announce the news. It would blow for “about three whole
minutes, in quick-sounding toots…” The sounding of the alarm would mean that the war “with
Germany or the one with Japan, or with both” had ended. Businesses would close in celebration
of the day. Even some strategists shared the belief that the war in Europe would end soon,
perhaps by the end of 1944.52 It didn’t. As it turned out, however horrific the Normandy
campaign had been for Jack, another more deadly enemy engagement awaited him in the
darkness of a forest located between the Belgian and German borders.
1
Max Hastings, Inferno, The World At War, 1939-1945 (New York, 2011), p. 519.
Atkinson, The Guns at Last Light, pp. 18, 21. Colonel Gerden F. Johnson, History of the Twelfth Infantry Regiment
in World War II (Boston, 1947), p. 44. Johnson’s book is critical to Jack’s story since it chronicles in detail the
campaigns his unit participated in during the war. The author used field orders, battle maps, official journals, and
diaries as his sources. Johnson commanded the 2nd Battalion (Jack’s unit) beginning July 18, 1944 when the
Command transferred him to the 2nd from the 1st Battalion. General histories of D-Day, the Hurtgen Forest, and the
Battle of the Bulge seldom mention Jack’s regiment or company. Rather, the role played by the 4th Infantry
Division, which the 12th Regiment was a part of, is mentioned. In World War I, American soldiers who fought in
Europe became known as “doughboys.” While more limited in usage, the word was still part of the vocabulary in
World War II. Johnson refers to members of the 12th Infantry as “doughs,” “doughboys,” and even “doughfoots.”
See, for example, pp. 43, 45, 50, 53, 124, 125, 133, 135. The T-A in Escondido ran a front-page headline in its July
17, 1944 issue that used the World War I word--“Doughboys Hold Japs Attempting Breakthrough.”
3
Johnson, History of the Twelfth Infantry Regiment, pp. 43, 46. In 2004 the University Press in Cambridge, England
reprinted the booklet given to American servicemen, with its original size, title, and text.
2
23
4
John C. McManus, The Deadly Brotherhood, The American Combat Soldier In World War II (New York, 1998;
2003 edition), p. 7 explains the Army’s organizational structure. Companies are divided into platoons, but Jack does
not recall which platoon he was in.
5
The history, insignia, and motto of the 4th Division is taken from www.4thinfantry.org/content/division-history
(accessed October 26, 2013). Jack has in his possession a copy of part of a page from a WW II newspaper, perhaps
Stars and Stripes. The page is undated. An article on the 4th Infantry Division on that page identifies it as the “Ivy
Leaf Division” (emphasis added). Over time, the use of the word “leaf” seems to have disappeared. Jack distinctly
remembers the 4th as the “Ivy Leaf Division,” which is what it will be referred to in this story of his wartime service.
6
Atkinson, The Guns at Last Light, p. 293 summarizes the historic role played by the 4th Division in the liberation of
northwestern Europe. See Johnson, History of the Twelfth Infantry Regiment, Chapter I for the early history of the
regiment; he uses the phrase “Famous Fourth” on p. 135.
7
Johnson, History of the Twelfth Infantry Regiment, pp. 43, 51. The quote is taken from Charles B. MacDonald who
served in World War II as the commander of a rifle company. Years later, when he retired from the Army, he held
the title of Deputy Chief Historian. The Naval History and Heritage Command made a copy of MacDonald’s 1988
account of Slapton Sands available on its web site, www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq20-2.htm (accessed October 13,
2013).
8
Ibid. for both of the above sources. A condensed account of the Slapton Sands training incident is in Atkinson, The
Guns at Last Light, pp. 16-17 and in David M. Kennedy (editor), The Library of Congress, World War II
Companion (New York, 2007), p. 578..
9
Johnson, History of the Twelfth Infantry Regiment, p. 52.
10
“Memorial Day Ceremonies Will Be Observed Tomorrow At Oak Hill Park,” T-A, May 29, 1944, p. 1; “Memorial
Day Honors Are Paid To Country’s Heroes,” T-A, May 31, 1944, p. 1.
11
Atkinson, The Guns at Last Light, p. 14.
12
Ibid., p. 27. Johnson, History of the Twelfth Infantry Regiment, pp. 54-55; Stephen E. Ambrose, D-Day, June 6,
1944: The Climactic Battle Of World War II (New York, 1994; 1995 edition), p. 184.
13
Hastings, Inferno, p. 516; Kennedy, Library of Congress, World War II Companion, pp. 579-580; Atkinson, The
Guns at Last Light, p. 59; Johnson, History of the Twelfth Infantry Regiment, p. 55.
14
Johnson, History of the Twelfth Infantry Regiment, pp. 56-58. Johnson uses the same football metaphor.
15
Ambrose, D-Day, p. 292 explains the good fortune Jack and others in the 4th Infantry Division met with on the 6th.
See also, Hastings, Overlord, p. 87 and Atkinson, The Guns at Last Light, p. 61.
16
Both quotes are from Hastings, Inferno, pp. 88, 516, 518; Ambrose, D-Day, p. 292, compares the Slapton Sand
casualties for the 4th Division with its D-Day casualties; Williamson Murray and Alan R. Millett, A War To Be Won,
Fighting the Second World War (Cambridge, 2000; 2001 edition), p. 422.
17
For what the 12th Regiment confronted once it left the beach, see Hastings, Overlord, p. 87 and Johnson, History
of the Twelfth Infantry Regiment, pp. 58, 120. (Hastings is the historian quoted.)
18
Johnson, History of the Twelfth Infantry Regiment, p. 60.
19
Ibid., p. 62.
20
Ibid., pp. 75, 78, 83, 85.
21
Ibid., pp. 86, 89.
22
Ibid., p. 120. The British historian is Max Hastings, Inferno, p. 520. Stephen Ambrose describes the hedgerows in
two of his books, D-Day (p. 452) and Citizen Soldiers, The U.S. Army From The Normandy Beaches To The Bulge
To The Surrender Of Germany (New York, 1977; 1998 edition), pp. 18-19.
23
Johnson, History of the Twelfth Infantry Regiment, pp. 102, 104, 105.
24
Ibid., p.113.
25
Ibid., p.119.
26
“Proclamation by Mayor, “ T-A, June 8, 1944, p. 1
27
“Fifth War Loan Is Opened As Chutes Fall,” T-A, June 12, 1944, p. 1; full-page ad for Fifth War Loan, T-A, June
24, 1944, p. 3.
28
“War Dads’ Dinner For Wives, Guests, At Plymouth Hall,” T-A, July 10, 1944, p. 1; “War Dads Are Good Hosts;
Enjoy Their Own Party,” T-A, July 15, 1944, p. 1.
29
“War Dads Foster Projects Related to War Effort,” T-A, June 10, 1944, p. 1. On Rena’s donations of cinnamon
rolls, see “War Dads Thanks Donors of Food To Navy Mothers,” T-A, June 17, 1944, p.1 and “Navy Mothers Thank
Local Food Donors,” T-A, June 28, 1944, p. 4; “War Dads’ Serving is Praised by Servicemen,” T-A, July 11, 1944,
p. 4.
24
30
“War Dads Foster Projects Related to War Effort,” T-A, June 10, 1944, p. 1; “L.R. Green Tells War Dads of Trip
to H’D Quarters,” T-A, August 19, 1944, p. 4; “War Dads Hold Conference With National Leader, “ T-A, June 19,
1944, p. 1; “Lamphear Tells War Dads’ Aims,” T-A, June 30, 1944, p. 1.
31
Johnson, History of the Twelfth Infantry Regiment, pp. 120-122.
32
Ibid., p. 174.
33
Ibid., pp. 122-123.
34
Commendation for Meritorious Service, 1st & 2nd Battalions, 12th Infantry, July 22, 1944. Copy in the possession
of Jack Port. Johnson, History of the Twelfth Infantry Regiment, pp. 129, 133.
35
Johnson, History of the Twelfth Infantry Regiment, p. 131.
36
www.history.army.mil/brochures/norfran/norfran.htm (accessed November 12, 2013); the reference to a possible
WW II stalemate comes from this United States Army historical account of the Normandy campaign. Murray and
Millett, A War To Be Won, p. 430. Johnson, History of the Twelfth Infantry Regiment, p. 135.
37
Johnson, History of the Twelfth Infantry Regiment, pp. 133, 136.
38
www.history.army.mil/brochures/norfran/norfran/htm (accessed November 12, 2013).
39
Quoted in Johnson, History of the Twelfth Infantry Regiment, p. 150.
40
Ibid., p. 150.
41
Ibid., p. 151.
42
Ibid., pp. 151, 157, 168. Hastings, Overlord, pp. 283, 287; Murray and Millett, A War To Be Won, p. 429;
Atkinson, The Guns at Last Light, p. 153.
43
Atkinson, The Guns at Last Light, p. 154; Johnson, History of the Twelfth Infantry Regiment, pp. 151, 158;
Hastings, Overlord, p. 283.
44
Johnson, History of the Twelfth Infantry Regiment, pp. 158-159;
www.history.army.mil/brochures/norfran/norfran.htm (accessed November 11, 2013).
45
Johnson, History of the Twelfth Infantry Regiment, pp. 158-161, 168.
46
“Sgt. Arthur E. Reed Noted As Missing In European Area,” T-A, July 10, 1944, p. 1; “Arthur Reed is Killed in
Action,” T-A, July 11, 1944, p. 1.
47
“George Estrada Meets Death in Action in West,” T-A, July 24, 1944, p. 1; “Posthumous Award Of Purple Heart
For Local Youth,” T-A, July 25, 1944, p. 1. See also, “Tragic News of Sgt. Elmer Kuhn Missing in Action,” T-A,
August 16, 1944, p. 4. “Lions Club Chartered To Give Community Service; Parsons Named President,” T-A, August
11, 1944, p.1; this article pointed out that the founding of the Lions Club brought to four the number of service
organizations in Escondido since the Lions Club joined the Rotary, Kiwanis, and 20-30 clubs.
48
Atkinson, The Guns at Last Light, p. 173; www.history.army.mil/brochures/norfran/norfran/htm (accessed
November 12, 2013).
49
Johnson, History of the Twelfth Infantry Regiment, pp. 168-169, 365.
50
Ibid., pp. 172, 174. Hastings, Inferno, pp. 538-539.
51
Johnson, History of the Twelfth Infantry Regiment, p. 171.
52
Ibid., p. 169 points out the significance of the 25th for each of those three months. “Closing Rules Adopted For VDay in Escondido,” T-A, September 15, 1944, p. 1; “Stores to Close on V-Day; Decorate for Christmas,” T-A,
September 14, 1944, p. 1. The mayor’s proclamation is on page 1 of the September 22, 1944 edition of the T-A,
headlined simply “proclamation.” On the fact that the Allies anticipated victory by the end of 1944, see Hastings,
Inferno, pp. 538-539.
25