James T. Lingg - WWII
Page 7 - England and Some Friends Remembered

We pulled into Glasgow, Scotland on 6 November 1943. We could look up to shore as we came in and see all the green fields and I thought "Oh my golly, what a pretty country". On 7 November, we were loaded on trains and the first thing that happened was they came through, pulled down all the blinds, placed M.P.s at each end of the train and wouldn't allow us to watch the countryside go by.

We left late in the afternoon, rode the rest of the night and half way into the next day. We may have had another day on the train, I can't remember for sure. We arrived at Blandford, England, near Bournemouth, not far from Plymouth, in what they call the West Country, Dorset County.

A few miles out of Blandford, we had what they called Camp Blandford. Our Company was there. This was to be our training camp to start with. From there we would go to the Salisbury Plains to take our tank training.

An Infantryman's tank training consists of digging a hole, getting down in it and letting a tank run over you. It really doesn't take an awful lot of training, but it sure scares the dickens out of you the first time you dig in and let it go over you.

Down in Blandford were probably some of the happiest times of my Military life. We would grab a bus and be there in about 10 minutes. This was a little town with teashops and nice dances every Saturday night. They really put out for the American soldiers. I am not a dancer so I just enjoyed the music and teashops.

Our Platoon was awarded one three-day pass to go to London. We drew cards in the Platoon to see who would go and I won. My biggest problem was that because my records still had not caught up with me, I had been on partial pay all this time and was only drawing $10.00 a month and that was spent buying cigarettes and taking care of my laundry needs or my "keeping myself presentable needs".

I remember our Platoon Leader when I first joined the First Division was Lt. G., our Platoon Sergeant was Jack Clark, our assistant Platoon Sergeant was a soldier by the name of David Higdon; my Squad Leader, who later became the Platoon Sergeant when Jack Clark got shot, was Willie J.

I was First Scout at that time, Second Scout was Ed Seeds, the BAR (Browning Automatic Rifle) man for the Squad was John M. L.; Assistant Squad Leader was Charles Roadman, Charlie R., William H., Rodger K., Richard L., Kermit W., Charles G., Robert R., Allan W. and a guy named Smith were also in our Squad. Other men I remember were Lt. Jack S., 1^st Sgt. M., Lt. Grant F., Lt. T., Fredrick P. and Henry W. Morgan.

Men I knew from the First Squad were Joseph J. B., Assistant Squad Leader, Sgt. George D., Patrick Egan, Louie V. Ivy, Fred Haupman, Thomas G., Robert J. G., Arthur E. S., and Alfred Waltz. There were additional names that I do not remember.

From the Third Squad, I remember Squad Leader, S/Sgt. Kenneth R. B.; Sgt. John "Skip" Farber, Assistant Squad Leader; Bill G., BAR man; Joseph T. T., Clarence L. H., and Lloyd Mort. We had a Third Platoon runner that I knew very well named Paul Lunnie; our weapons Platoon Sgt., who supported us with light machine guns and 60 millimeter mortars was George Eldridge and one of my best friends who was a member of the mortar squad was Sven Peterson.

There were other people in the Company I knew by name and cannot mention because they were killed in the war, have since passed away, or for some other reason I was unable to obtain permission to put their names in my story. There were a lot of others I knew by name at the time, but I no longer remember. This is just a partial listing of a group of men, or young men, that managed to go off together and get into a little fight during the war.

I think I should tell what little stories I remember of these men because I felt they were outstanding people.

Jack Clark was rather young, probably 21 or 22, but very knowledgeable. He was a good Platoon Sergeant and he made us toe the mark. He was also willing to go to bat for us.

Willie J., who was my Squad Leader for a time and later the Platoon Sgt., was an outstanding soldier as far as I was concerned. He was much older; he was maybe in the neighborhood of 28 or 29 years old. When Willie said, "jump", we didn't question it. You just started jumping and if you weren't jumping high enough, he'd tell you. He was the kind of person who didn't demand respect; you gave it to him

I mentioned a boy by the name of Seeds who came in as a replacement in England. He and I were very close friends because he was the Second Scout and I was the First Scout. Seeds came from New Jersey. He was the best young man to go to town with because you stayed out of trouble when you were downtown with Seeds.

Bill G. was Polish, very much Polish. In fact, he had a Polish accent when he talked. I don't think he came from the old country, but his parents apparently did and this affected his speech. Bill was a very strong man and few of us wanted to have anything to do with wrestling with him because he was so strong he could pin you down real quick.

George L. was also a very strong man. He was a big man. Where Bill G. only stood 5'6" or 5'7", I remember George L. was 6' and very strong. He came from somewhere around the Middle West or possibly the New York area. Waltz was another big man. He was a southerner, from down around South Carolina.

Joe T., I remember as being from New York. There's no question about his being a New Yorker. He was the kind of boy we had to be very careful about gambling with. I learned the hard way. When we were riding the ship coming back to England, I happened to be in a dice game on top of a blanket, on one of the bunks. This way you didn't roll the dice and make them bounce off the wall. I didn't know enough about gambling at that point to know that Joe could take those dice and roll 7's or almost any number he wanted by the way he held the dice and how little he let them move in his hands. I let Joe take all my money away from me and had to borrow money to finish the trip out. Only getting $10.00 a month, I didn't have much money to start with.

I don't remember too much about Smith, I believe he was a southern boy. Ivy was a Chicago man. He was a big boy, another one I would definitely want on my side if I got into trouble with anyone.

Haupman was another person from a big city, New York City. He was from the Brooklyn area. Lt. G. was also a New Yorker, he came from the Irish area, in the Bronx, I believe. Here we were all good friends in a Rifle Company, but before the war, these boys who lived in different boroughs couldn't even visit each other in the other boroughs.

Skip Farber came from Pennsylvania. He didn't say an awfully lot. Most of the people in the First Infantry Division were East Coast people because it was a Regular Army Division and our Regiment had been in Plattsburg Barracks, NY.

Charlie R. was an amateur boxer. He was a pretty good boxer. The first thing everybody learned was - don't put the gloves on with Charlie because he could hit you probably 50 times while your eyes were blinking and you didn't even know what happened. He was a good-natured guy and he never threw his weight around. Apparently he felt his hands were kind of like weapons and they were. I don't remember anyone ever getting into a scrap with Charlie.

At different times, due to tempers and different things, people did get into little scraps. They didn't last too long because in a Platoon, you can't afford to fight among yourselves, you have to fight someone else.

Lunnie was a very nice guy. He was probably better educated than most of us. He was a Vermont boy. Sergeant Eldridge was from New York. He was a Captain aboard a tugboat in New York Harbor. Peterson was a very likable person. He was from St. Maries, Idaho. He and I were the only people I knew who were definitely from the West Coast. (As a point of interest, Sven tried to look me up after the war but was told I had gone to Alaska. In 1992, on a trip through Spokane, Washington, we were able to find him and had a good visit with him.)

Fred P., I'm not sure. He might possibly have been another well-educated New Yorker, maybe from Pennsylvania, but I really think he was from New York. Sgt. Paul M. was First Sergeant of Co. I, 26^th Infantry. He was an outstanding First Sergeant and well liked by all the men in the Company. He stood for no nonsense and when punishment was necessary, we either ended up on K.P. or digging holes. I dug my share of holes for Sgt. M. Sgt. Joe B. was 1^st Squad Leader in the 3^rd Platoon. He was very capable at fire fights (exchange of small arms fire).

That gives you a sort of run down on what people were like, what I know about them. The only thing you really know is you depend on them and they don't let you down. When the going gets rough, they're right there with you and that's what wins wars - people backing each other up.

To get back to the original story we were talking about. I went to Jack Clark, told him I didn't have any money to go to London and felt the three-day pass should stay in the Platoon. He went back to the First Sergeant and told him that we wanted to keep it in the Platoon, so I guess they drew cards again and one of the other men in the Platoon got to go to London.

Later, much later, I had a three-day pass given to me by Jack Clark that was really unearned. I was allowed to go to Bournemouth and had a beautiful three-day weekend there. These things were not handed out like hot cakes in the mess hall. It was very hard to come up with the time off to go do things.

While in Blandford we did a lot of hiking and a lot of preparation. The preparation was through hedgerows and things, getting use to moving fast for short distances, then they started loading us down with packs and we started hiking on small roads. Very soon we were getting back into top physical condition. For a short while I was very fortunate, I had a job driving a Jeep. After driving the Lt. around for three or four days, we were on the road to the Salisbury Plains, the tank training area. Tanks were coming down the road and tanks were parked on the other side of the road preparing to move up. I drove our Jeep between these rows of tanks, scaring the devil out of the Lt. When we returned to Blandford that night, the Lt. informed me I was a dangerous driver and removed me from this duty.

For a short time, while we were at Blandford, I was sent down to St. Agnes Gunnery School. This was down at the lower end of England so we were shooting out over the ocean. I trained on a 50 Caliber Machine Gun, shooting at towed sleeves. That's a very difficult thing to do, shooting at an airplane dragging a sleeve behind it because the natural inclination is to shoot at the airplane. We were told the people flying these airplanes were under punishment from their different Air Force Sections. I don't know if that's true or not.

A short time after we finished Gunnery School, we moved to a little town by the name of Swanage. We had some landing practice and basically hiking - day after day - day after day. Finally in the middle of May 1944, we packed everything up and moved across the bay to Plymouth.

From there, we were allowed to travel into town for three or four days before they clamped down on us. The 5^th Infantry Division was assigned the job of taking care of the camp we were living in. The whole Regiment was pulled back together, at least the Battalion, and during this time all they were doing was outfitting us for the final movement towards France.