The battalion landed at Omaha Beach in July, 1944, by troop ship, climbing down the shipboard ladders to an LCT below. The trucks carrying our radio transmitters, receivers, and antennae equipment were driven ashore from the ship onto the beach. The personnel, with packs on backs, climbed the divide separating the walls of the beach into a steep walkway permitting us to climb up to the top where we found a large area in which we pitched our tents and spread out for the night before traveling to an apple orchard near the town of Valognes. Our team was split off from the battalion and was assigned to two fields nearby where we set up the receiver and transmitter stations, and the rhombic antennas. One third of our team was established in COM Z headquarters. Then we strung land lines from the two stations to the Communication Offices.

After the breakthrough at St. Lo, our team was trucked to Paris and billeted in a school building built by the French for use by children but used by the Germans for their billets during the occupation. This served as our temporary base along with other members of Company C. We were assigned to a nearby warehouse in Pigalle to oversee African personnel unload the equipment being taken from the heavy mud at the beaches where it was initially unloaded from ships shortly after the invasion. The equipment was transported from the beaches by rail to the warehouses in Paris.

After about three or four weeks we were transferred to the village of Livrey Gargon where we were billeted in school dormitory buildings. There we awaited further orders for assignment. This was a great period of rest for us. We were able to travel into Paris at leisure, go to country dances at our pleasure, and fraternize with the local French People.

The battle of the Bulge was beginning about the end of October. There were lots of American losses. We were told we were to be used in the battle to reinforce the infantry, so we packed up and prepared to travel by truck to Belgium. We were on our way to Belgium when the Germans ran out of steam and lost the Battle of the Bulge. Nonetheless we carried on to Belgium and were billeted outside of Namur for several weeks pulling guard duty for various American sites.

Company C was then to be transferred to Germany. We went to Fulda and were billeted in the city in residential apartments; then we went to Bonn, Germany. I'm not sure what we did in these towns, but we lived in residence apartments that we took over from the German civilians for our convenience. This period lasted from January, 1945, until May/June, 1945.

The war with Germany was over in June, 1945.

Company C, and possibly others, were then assembled at an old German airfield, possibly near Villa Coublay, France. During this time a number of men (including LAR) were given a leave of absence and sent to Nice, France, on the Cote d'Azur. This was also a great surprise for us.

Then about June 18, 1945, we entrained on 40/8 boxcars destined for southern France in a large encampment at Arles. There we were to be outfitted with proper clothes, gear, guns, etc., for a trip to the Pacific Theater. We were preparing to leave France in August, 1945, for our trip to the Southwest Pacific. On the day we were to leave, the first Atomic Bomb was dropped in Japan. We were put on hold for a few days until the second bomb was dropped. Then we proceeded to board the ship for the SW Pacific.

As we were passing through the Straits of Gibraltar, it was announced over the ship's intercom that we were going home to the USA via Boston. We were on the Henry Gibbins for 9 days, arriving at Boston on August 27, 1945, after fifteen months and six days on foreign soil.

Within several days we were bussed to an Introduction Center at Camp Atterbury, Indiana, near Indianapolis. From there we were given temporary leave of absence to return home.

I arrived at my home in the afternoon of September 2, 1945, and interrupted my parents who were listening to the President of the USA announce the Surrender of Japan on the radio. I was the first of the six men in our family to come home from the war. Five of us had been on foreign soil and only two injured, not seriously.