INTERVIEWER:   Mr. Williams, I appreciate your being here today for this interview.  Please give us an introduction to yourself and tell us a little bit about where you’re from, and what led up to you going into the service during World War II.

WILLIAMS:   I’m Henry Williams of course.  As most people, I’ve been in Brunswick since 1948, but I was born in the Great Smoky Mountains of East Tennessee in what was better known as the Greenbriar Cove.  Of course the park service bought my father out, and we began to move eastward and I finally wound up down in Brunswick County close to the coast and looks like the anchor is still holding.  I’m still here (laughter).

In the service, I had been growing up on a farm.  I was pretty tough, and the service, when our country got in trouble with the Japanese and with the European people, why they needed my help I guess because I knew how to farm and knew how to survive probably like a little different from a lot of the boys from the city, and how wonderful it was when they mixed us together.  Things I didn't know, the city boys could tell me, and what they didn't know, why I could tell them so it worked out real good.

I was inducted in April 14, 1942 and I spent from there until November 14, 1945, when I finally did my job overseas and returned home. 

INTERVIEWER:   And what branch of the service in your unit were you in?

WILLIAMS:   I was in the infantry in a heavy weapons company.  It was better known as the old water cooled machine guns.  Of course, I was a rank of private, PFC, and after we got into combat, why it wasn’t long until I was promoted to sergeant and a couple of weeks later, I went to staff sergeant and that’s where I stayed for the duration. 

INTERVIEWER:   As a staff sergeant?

WILLIAMS:   As a staff sergeant.

INTERVIEWER:   And could you tell us a little bit about what your basic training was like and where you took that at?  What did you do during a typical day?

WILLIAMS:   Well they broke me in pretty good at Fort Bragg where I went through the reception center.  From there, they transferred me to a basic training camp in Texas at Camp Walters, which of course later became Fort Walters, a helicopter training area.  That’s where I took my basic training and from there I was transferred over to the 90th infantry division at Abilene, Texas.  Of course, we went through maneuvers in Louisiana, Texas, and then went to southern California and Arizona in the desert for several months before going overseas.

The basic training, that was pretty easy.  That was right down my alley ‘cause I was tough.  I was used to following an old mule looking at the north end and him heading south.  I could stand a 15 or 20 mile hike.  That was just an ever’day thing.  The most enjoyable was watching some of the boys from the city, well they were getting out and doing the side straddle hop and pushups and all that.  They had a whole lot of problems and it was funny to me.  I just took it all in stride.  It didn't bother me.

While I was trying to learn as much as I could because I figured they had a job, a special job for us to do, I kind of acted up just a little.  One day we were out on the parade ground and the lieutenant showed us how to stand and how to be just relaxed.  I just stiffened up as stiff as a board.  The lieutenant was talking to the others and walked over right in front of me and here I’m standing like a fence post. 

He just took his finger and gave me a little push on the chest.  I just hit the ground backwards (laughter).  Everybody got a big laugh and I got a few extra details to do for being that way, but I took it all in stride. 

INTERVIEWER:   Did you go somewhere after your basic training for specialized infantry training or was that kind of all together?

WILLIAMS:   That was all together; however, while we were at Abilene, not doing anything too much, and there were some classes that were being given that we were not required to take, but it was optional.  If we wanted to, we could.  So I went to a mine detection class and I learned how to plant mines.  I learned how to locate them if they were planted and it was very important because it probably saved a lot of my buddies from the minefields in Europe because I could pick them out pretty good.

INTERVIEWER:   It’s pretty dangerous working with that.

WILLIAMS:   Oh yes, you had to know what to do and how to do it.  That was the important part.

INTERVIEWER:   What was it like when you were in the desert in southern California and your maneuvers in Louisiana? 

WILLIAMS:   Well Louisiana, I enjoyed that.  That was in the country just like I was used to, the long leaf pines and mosquitoes and of course free range there.  That was one of the funny parts of all that.  We had to run the cattle and hogs out of the bivouac area about every night, but it was enjoyable.  It was a different story over in west Texas and more so in the desert of California and Arizona cause the sidewinders and the scorpions, they wanted to take over our beds and our boots and so on.  We had to be careful not to put our foot in a boot with a scorpion or a sidewinder.  We had to be very careful there.  It was good training.

INTERVIEWER:   Do you feel that the training that you got in the States before you went, did that really help you out?

WILLIAMS:   Oh yes, definitely.  Yeah, all of our training was very important.  We didn't realize it at the time, how important it was, but once we were in Normandy in combat, it was worth every bit.  It was good training.

INTERVIEWER:   Did you enlist or were you drafted?

WILLIAMS:   I was drafted.

INTERVIEWER:   And how did you feel about the draft at that time?  How did you feel about the whole situation?  How much did you know about the war in general?  What was going on before you went in?

WILLIAMS:   Well naturally everybody was very concerned after they attacked Pearl Harbor.  I figured that it was nothing but just my duty to go and do what I could do for the benefit of America.  It was the land I was born in.  It was land I wanted to defend.  I’m not saying that I did a very good job of it, but I did the best I knew how.

INTERVIEWER:   Well we’ll mention at this time that you’ve also written a book called Combat Boots.  Could you tell us a little about how that came about and just tell us a little bit about what’s covered?

WILLIAMS:   I was sort of a strange way.  I don’t know why I ever thought about that.  One of the positions we were in in Normandy, the enemy knew every inch of that territory and they were shelling us.  It was terrible.  My squad leader, which was a corporal, got a big piece of shrapnel in his leg and I was over trying to cool it.  I took his water canteen and was pouring water on it to keep it from just burning him up. 

Here comes another volley of artillery and mortar shells and I just pushed the corporal right in his foxhole and jumped in one myself.  While I was in there, here’s something coming in that foxhole right with me.  I just balled up in a little knot and I figured it was going to explode and just blow me away.  I happened to open my eyes and there was a combat boot right by the side of me in that foxhole and I followed it up.  There was a leg attached.

When I got up, there was my commanding officer and it got funny because he hadn’t spoken to me for a long time.  He and I had had a little disagreement, but it was funny then.  I went to laughing.  He said, “Williams, ain’t you scared?”  I said, “Yes sir, but at a time like this, there’s always room for one more.”  The next day, I was a sergeant (laughter).  More responsibility.

INTERVIEWER:   How did you feel about that, when you became a sergeant?

WILLIAMS:   Well I didn't think there was too much to it.  When my commanding officer got to liking me a good bit different and saw that I was trying to do the best I knew how, he wanted to know if I was doing so and so, I would say, “Yes, somebody has to do it”.  He said, “Well you are doing a good job.  I just wanted to tell you.  If there’s anyway I can help you, just let me know”.  Well I thanked him and I was a platoon sergeant then and I just did the very best I knew how.

We had men, new men, that had only a few weeks military training.  They didn't hardly know which end of a rifle to point at the enemy.  We had to teach them in combat.  So I think they learned pretty fast as well as we did to start with.  That D-Day invasion, going across the English Channel, that was really a challenge and we had to stay below deck until we got to Normandy. 

Once we got there, why it was just so much noise and so much activity going on until you didn't have time to think about how serious it was.  You were trying to think about saving yourself and saving the other men, saving your buddies.  After we were in Normandy for a couple of weeks, we had just gotten out of high school and was into college then because we were learning every day.  It didn't take us long to learn about what the enemy would do and how they did.  It was a good education for all of us that were still there.

We had lost a lot of men, a lot of good men.

INTERVIEWER:   So your first involvement in combat was during the invasion of Normandy, right?

WILLIAMS:   Oh yes.  I was very fortunate.  I was attached to the 4th infantry division and we went in on Utah Beach instead of Omaha.  The ones that were on Omaha were the ones that suffered the more severe losses.  We gained about seven miles the first day when we went on Utah Beach.  Believe it or not, that was one of the things that we didn't understand until later.

Things always seem like they happen for the best even in some of the tougher situations.  Where we landed was not the zone that we were supposed to land in.  We had drifted probably a mile or so during the rough seas and as it turned out, we were in the thinnest defended area along the French coast.  It was to our advantage.  We went in and that seven miles, it wasn’t too bad.  It was tough enough.  I think the enemy was about as afraid of us as we were of the enemy.

INTERVIEWER:   Did your unit experience heavy losses?

WILLIAMS:   Oh yes, definitely.  We were getting replacements every few days.  We had to have replacements.  General Eisenhower had decided with all the losses that we had that he would just take those of us who had survived and put us with other divisions, other units, but General George Patton hollered big and loud and he said, “Oh no, give me the replacements”.  These men that had been there, he wanted them to train them, to teach them how to do and what to expect so that’s what they did.

We did, we had to train them, but after we got them trained, they knew what to do and how to do and they knew what to expect.  Kind of made you feel bad though when you got a bunch of what we called rookies that had gotten in the combat zone.  We could feel for them because we had been in their shoes before and we had to teach them.  They were good listeners and they took what we told them.  It was all serious.

INTERVIEWER:   And what was your primary weapon?

WILLIAMS:   Mine was a water cool machine gun.  I had trained on the machine gun.  I had used the machine gun and I thought I was pretty good at it.  At one time, we had contests to see who could put up the gun the fastest and it took three to carry it and three to put it together and we could do it in about 16 seconds.

INTERVIEWER:   Wow, that’s very fast.

WILLIAMS:   It was fast.  We were one of the top teams in putting that gun together.

INTERVIEWER:   Now that’s a three-man crew?

WILLIAMS:   That’s right, a three man crew.

INTERVIEWER:   Is there a gunner, an assistant gunner and like the ammo person?

WILLIAMS:   An ammo, water carrier, ‘cause it was water cooled and we had to have water to keep putting in to cool it.

INTERVIEWER:   Was that a Browning 30-caliber?

WILLIAMS:   It was 30 caliber.  I don’t know whether Browning built that machine gun or whether it was another company.

INTERVIEWER:   Well we’d like to find more information on those types of machine guns.

WILLIAMS:   It was a good one.

INTERVIEWER:   Did you carry any other kind of weapon as like a backup?

WILLIAMS:   Oh we always, I had a .45 that I carried all the time.  I found one of the rifles that was used, the M-1 rifle, and I thought so much of that, I carried it all the time too cause that M-1, it could get wet or get dirty and it would still work, where most of the others, if they got in that shape, they wouldn’t work.  I depended on that M-1.

INTERVIEWER:   What type of uniforms did you wear when you were stateside and then overseas and just what did you like or dislike about them?  Did you think were you well equipped?  I think we had talked earlier about how the Germans were equipped and how you were equipped, did you think you were adequately prepared for like the cold or the heat?

WILLIAMS:   Well the heat didn't bother us too much.  There were a few days that were a little warm, but after we got on over into the winter, why we didn't have sufficient clothing to keep us warm then.  We’d get wet in the rain and then it would start to freezing.  Of course there was no way you could stay warm in that kind of weather.  In combat, when we first went in, we were wearing our OD’s which was our class A uniform and we wore that until the end of the war.

In our training, why we only wore our OD’s when we were on leave or some special event that we wore our dress uniforms.  Our fatigues were the ones that we did the dirty work in.  We had to do our own washing, our own cleaning, ironing or whatever.  We had to do our own.  I thought I’d make a pretty good wife to somebody later on (laughter). 

INTERVIEWER:   This is a good one, what was your opinion of chow that you were served and those that prepared it and did you think it was adequate?  What kinds of things did you eat?  You had K-rations?

WILLIAMS:   Oh yes, we had K-rations and not too often, why if a mess tent could be brought up, and only a few times did that occasion happen, why they would cook a hot meal.  That’s when we overate because it was something special to get anything that was hot or freshly cooked.  That K-ration, oh when you got hungry, it tasted good too, but sometimes it was in winter especially, it was so cold until your canteen had frozen. 

You didn't have the water.  Your food in that package had frozen ‘til you couldn’t chew it.  You couldn’t hardly get it out of the can.  It was miserable then.  Our clothes were wet and those froze pretty stiff too.  Then you were muddy.  It was miserable.

INTERVIEWER:   Did you get affected any way by the cold or the climate?

WILLIAMS:   Oh yeah, it took its toll.  I know one of the times, the first snow that fell, I was close to a big haystack and I was riding home in that haystack.  I had pulled the hay out.  It was about 4’ above the ground and I had made me a tunnel back in that hay to where I could see up and down the road.  While I was in there in that haystack, we got a message that there was an armored unit that was headed our way.  We had to back up.

Well that irritated me so bad, I was set for the night.  It didn't work that way.  You had to leave it.  But then later we’d carry hay and put it in our trench.  We’d dig a foxhole, I had a lady ask me what the difference was in a foxhole or in a trench.  The foxhole we dug was a round hole, just big enough so you could get in it and get your weapon in with you.  The slit trench, you dug that early in the evening or night and long enough where you could lay down and be below the ground level in case of an enemy attack.  They could run over you with a tank and it wouldn’t bother you.  You were safe.

See mother earth was our best friend.  Then when the rains came and the weather got cold, that trench would fill up with water.  We’d carry hay or we would carry anything we could get to keep from having to lay in the water all night.  It was very uncomfortable. 

INTERVIEWER:   How were your officers and noncommissioned officers?  Anything particularly good or bad you remember about these folks?

WILLIAMS:   Well most of them were very good.  Once in a while, you’d have one that got a little angry or something and you’d have to set him straight.  Most of them were very good.  We realized that we were there all for the same purpose and we had a job to do and it was up to us to do it.  We did have a few that just couldn’t stand the noise and they’d disappear for a day or two and then they’d come back.  I don’t know what happened.  They got lost anyway. 

I know once the company commander came up.  We hadn’t had any food or water for a couple of days.  I went up to a rifle company and asked them if they had any extra and the lieutenant told me that yes and I should get a couple of men to come pick them up.  So I did and while I was going back to get a couple of men, I met my company commander coming up a rolling hill.  He said, “Williams, come over to the foxhole.  I want to talk to you”.

I said, “Captain, I’ve got to go get some men.  We haven’t had food or water for a couple of days.  Let me get them”.  He said, “Alright, go get the men and then come back”.  I said alright.  So when we sat down there, he said, “Where’s your platoon sergeant?”  I told him I didn't know, that we hadn’t seen him in quite a while.  He said, “Well the next time that you do see him, tell him that I want to see him, for him to come look me up.  In the meantime, you’re the platoon sergeant.  You’re going to be from now on”.  So that was an extra job for me.

INTERVIEWER:   How many men were you in charge of as a platoon sergeant?

WILLIAMS:   Mostly about 16, no that was a section.  There were about 30-35 in a platoon.

INTERVIEWER:   This kind of covers everything, what was the discipline like in your unit as far as what were the most common infractions somebody might get in trouble for and what would happen to them?

WILLIAMS:   Well in most cases, we all got along good.  I can remember one incident when I had a corporal and a private that I don’t know what they found to drink, but it was something that just run both of them crazy and they were going to fight right in the front lines.  As soon as I found out what was going on, I went to them and I just grabbed him and pulled him right out through the window out of the building on the ground.  This was near Metz, a little town of Gravilot.  After I got them separated and cooled them off a little, I don’t know who told my commanding officer about it, but he come to me and said, “Williams, what are you going to do with those men?”

I said, “Well captain, I don’t really know what I’m going to do”.  He said I couldn’t let them stay as is.  They were going to have to be punished.  I said, “Well let me study about it and think it over”.  He said that was alright, that he’d give me a couple of days.  So I studied about it quite a bit and I finally decided if I was like that, what would I want done to me.  So I told him when he come back to me and said, “What have you decided?”

I said, “Captain, the best thing that I know to do is to take the corporal’s rank from him; we called it bust him, and the private, just transfer him.  Transfer both of them.  Put them somewhere where they could be out of the front lines because what would you do if something like that had happened to you?”  Well he said he was going to take my advice and that’s what he did.  He just transferred them, busted them.

It was very seldom that we had any trouble with the men at all.  However, I’ll tell you a little funny that happened up in the Battle of the Bulge.  We had gotten some replacements and most of those guys wanted to be called reinforcements.  I got them and one man and I hope he gets to see this sometime or other, his last name was Beasley.  They came and went so fast ‘til you never got to know one. 

But this one, I had told him, when we get into battle, somebody gets hurt and sometimes somebody gets killed.  I said, “It might be me, it might be you, it may be one or the other.  But if you get wounded, if it’s a minor wound, you bandage yourself up.  If it’s a serious wound and you can’t do it yourself, ask your buddy to help you.  But if you get wounded, and you start hollering for a medic, I’m going to finish you off myself”.  I told him I would have nobody hollering for a medic.  I said, “Is that clear?” and he said yes.

So in the little village that we were having the battle over, this fellow got wounded.  I mean an artillery shell hit just above him and broke him up pretty bad.  He was bleeding.  We got him inside of the building, started bandaging him up.  It took all of our bandages, what we had and what he had, to just get him partly bandaged up.  We gave him a shot of morphine.  He was laying back in the room.  His pain was eased.  That morphine had taken effect.

He called me.  I said, “What do you want, Beasley?”  He said, “Come back here.  I want to talk to you”.  I walked back and I asked him what he wanted.  He said, “I want a cigarette”.  I said alright and I lit a cigarette and handed it to him and went back to the front where I could see outside.  He called me again and I turned and walked back and asked what he wanted this time.  He said, “Well I got broke up and I didn't holler either, did I?” I said, “No, you didn't, you knew better”.  He said, “Well I just want to tell you, if I’m lucky enough to get back to the States and you get back and I ever run in to you, I’m going to beat the hell out of you” (laughter).  I guess I got one coming.

INTERVIEWER:   Did you guys get any off time once you got overseas?  Did you get any breaks in the action and how would you spend that time?  Were you provided with recreation and things like that?

WILLIAMS:   Well let me say this, there was not much time off.  However, there were a very few times that we were out of contact with the enemy.  During that time, we either were trying to clean our equipment or clean our clothes as best we could or just simply relax.  If there was any way of entertainment, those of us that were in the front lines, we didn't get it. 

Once during my time in combat, the company commander came to me and said, “Williams, we got transportation and we want you to go back to Paris for a couple of days”.  I told him I couldn’t go.  He wanted to know why.  I told him I didn't have any clothes to wear.  He said he had taken care of that and gotten me a new uniform.  I said I still couldn’t go and he asked why.  I said I didn't have money to go with.  He said he took care of that too, he got me some money. 

I couldn’t think of any other things that I couldn’t get out of the front lines for.  But I felt safer once I was there than I did back in the rear echelon because I knew where the enemy was and I knew what to expect in the front line.  If I went back and then had to come back to the front line, I didn't know what changes had been made.  I would have to start all over again.  So I did go to Paris and spent a couple of nights and come back and took over where I left off.  That was the only time that I was out of the front lines for any type of recreation.

INTERVIEWER:   Henry, could you tell us from the point where you started going on shore and going into combat at Normandy and your operations all the way up through it, what you did, where you were stationed at and any special things that stick out in your memory, particular things that might have happened?

WILLIAMS:   Well there are a lot of things that happened and undoubtedly I’m going to leave a lot out that probably a lot of people would like to know.  Just the first couple of days that we were in Normandy, I was behind a hedgerow and one of my buddies was right by the side of me.  Being scared to death you might say, everything was new and we knew that the enemy was there.  He knew we were there.  So we had to outsmart them if there was any possible way.

But this buddy just raised up and when he raised up, I heard a real fast snap of something and down went my buddy.  He had raised up and a bullet had hit him right in the head.  Well that made me nervous even more than what I was.  Well we had things like that to contend with.

A little ways over there was one of the enemy behind a tree.  His job was to call artillery.  He was more of an observer than anything else.  We tried our best to get rid of him as soon as we could.  Unfortunately we didn't do it quick enough because they shelled us quite a bit and quite often cause they knew every foot of that territory and of us being in a strange country, why we didn't know.

We had everything to learn.  After we began to move just a little bit, we got some armor protection.  Some of the tanks were coming ashore, coming in and that helped us out tremendously.  The weather didn't cooperate too well.  It was still cool and raining, just miserable.  In the first town that we liberated, why that made us feel so good until we thought we were learning real good then.

A little farther over, the Germans made a counterattack and would you believe the first thing that I knew, and it were only two other fellows that were with me at that point, here was the enemy behind us and I said to these two fellows, Wood and Zimmerman, I said, “Put up the gun, put up the gun”.  So we just got down, we had the gun put together in a matter of seconds.  Just as we got it loaded ready to fire, a German stepped out from behind the hedgerow with what we called the Burke gun and he fired on us.

I fell just like I was dead.  The other two did the same thing.  The German didn't come to see about us.  So I said to them, “Bob, are you hurt?”  He said, “Yeah, I’ve got a bullet in the leg”.  I said, “Zimmerman, what about you?”  He said he was shot in the shoulder.  Then they asked me, “What about you, are you hurt?”  I told them I didn't think so.  I didn't feel anything.

Well slowly I turned over to look and the enemy was gone.  I don’t know what had happened and we were three Americans; I was not hurt.  The two others were.  I could hear the battle going on some distance from us.  I told these two that I was going to get some help and I would come back and pick them up.

A little ways down, there was a fellow that was laying with just his head sticking out of the hedgerow.  He began to wave at me to come on, come on because the enemy was all over that area.  Well I got down and crawled through the hole where he was in that hedgerow and asked what outfit he was with.  He said he was with the 357 and I told him I was the 359 over here.  He said, “They were over there.  I don’t know where they are now”.

Come to find out the enemy had surrounded us and kept us there for five days without food, without water, without anything.  We were running out of ammunition.  Lucky there was an officer that had a battery operated radio and the battery was so weak, we didn't know whether it was going to work or not.  He called and gave the information to the artillery and every so many minutes, they would fire rounds of artillery around us to keep the enemy from taking us prisoner.

For that five days, we stayed there without food and almost without water.  I built up enough nerve that I called and slid on my stomach for what seemed like a mile, but it wasn’t quite that far, maybe half a mile, took some extra canteens and filled them with water out of a livestock pond where the cattle was getting water.  Of course, we had purifying tablets.

We had to put them in the water, let it stay for 30 minutes and then we could pour the top off and the water was safe to drink.  It didn't look too good, but it was water.  That’s the way we fared for five days in Normandy. 

Then later after we began to move slowly and we got in some of the smaller towns, the Frenchmen were so friendly.  The girls would be on one side of the street or the ladies pinning flowers on us as we walked through the town.  On the other side of the street, the men would be over there with the wine barrels and they were pouring us wine.  They were giving us something to drink.

Things like that you just can’t forget, you know.  Finally when we reached Ste. Lo, General Patton called one NCO and one officer from each rifle company and I happened to be the NCO that was chosen.  Well when he came in, the first thing was he told us what the plans were, what was to be done and he said when we started, we should shoot the so and so.  He said if we couldn’t see him, we should shoot where we thought he was and eventually we’d get one.

So the bombers were supposed to come 50 in a group.  The fighter planes were going to lay a smokescreen right over the front line and the bombers were supposed to drop their bombs behind that line of smoke.  The weatherman didn't know that and the wind breezed up and it brought that smokescreen right back over us.  The bombers were following that.  Now if you don’t think 50 of those B-17 bombers don’t shake your jaw teeth, just try it sometime. 

We lost some men there, good men, men that had done their job I guess to that point.  But we made the breakthrough.  As General Patton told us, we would go places, we would show them what a blitzkrieg was and that we would give them a dose of their own medicine.  So we did.  We started and we traveled.  You don’t know how good a feeling that can be after being pinned up in hedgerows and places that you couldn’t see the enemy – get out in open country to where you could see where you were going, it was a relief.

The bad part was they still had a few plans.  They would come in and strafe us occasionally.  Of course we kept moving.  Finally we got orders to change directions.  They wanted us to head north so we did.  We were attached to a French 2nd armored division.  I’ll tell you them boys hated the enemy worse that we did.  When they started, they didn't care for nothing.  They would shoot anything that was in front of them. 

We followed them until we got almost in what we called Death Valley and there we cut the German 7th army off, most of it.  There’s a picture in the book there if you can find it that shows a little bit about the, they called it the Valley of Death or Death Valley.

INTERVIEWER:   You were talking about the P-47.  We had another veteran that flew P-47’s.

WILLIAMS:   Well that P-47, that was one that took care of convoys.  They would strafe enemy convoys or enemy artillery and so forth.  By flying four in a group, why if one got in trouble, then another one was there and could help him out.  We had the P-47’s; we had the P-51’s.  That was a high altitude.  That’s the one that escorted the bombers. 

We had another one, the P-61, it was a twin fuselage sort of like the P-38, but it had some sort of a radar system on it and he could fly over an enemy convoy and it would register it and he could call in and let them know where it was and they could work on them at night.  He flew the night flights and that was worth a lot to us too.  The enemy always tried to move at night and that plane, boy, it was worth its weight in gold.

Yeah, when we got into that Death Valley, why we really captured thousands of the enemy there.  We captured a lot of their equipment, what we didn't destroy.  They weren’t gong to give up, but after a couple of days, they decided there weren’t going to be any of them left if they didn't.  Those that were still alive, well they did surrender.

Believe it or not, we didn't get in contact with the enemy from then until we were way over near Metz in France before we ran into any stiff opposition.  We’d run into little delaying pockets, you know, just shoot at us and then give up or either we’d wipe them out, one of the other. 

Once we got over to the Mosel River, we ran into trouble.  We had to wait.  We ran out of fuel.  The tanks couldn’t go and the weapons carriers couldn’t go and we just had to hold the ground that we had. 

INTERVIEWER:   Was that because your supply chain couldn’t keep up as fast as you were moving?

WILLIAMS:   Well it was not that; it was because there was a shortage.  We couldn’t get enough to keep us going.  When we finally got enough up to the front to where we could, we started to cross the Mosel River.  In the book you’ll find that that’s where it was one of the toughest battles that we had.  We were across it and there again I wanted to shoot down about four P-47 fighters.  There was a fort built underground and we couldn’t do much with it.

Finally some of the riflemen found how to get in an entrance.  They went in and captured the fort, but in so doing, one of the enemy trucks loaded with artillery shells was coming out by the machine gun and when I heard it coming, I thought it was a tank and I got the bazooka team and I said, “Look, when that tank gets in that crossroad, you knock him out.  I don’t want you to wait until he gets gone.  Don’t miss”. 

Okay, they were right behind a big bank of dirt at that crossroad.  Here comes the truck and they fired one bazooka, hit a wheel, but it done enough that the truck stopped.  There were about 12 Germans on that.  Well they surrendered.  I told them to get two or three guys to help them and unload that truck and take some of the wounded back to the river.  We didn't have any support armor or anything like that where we were.  We just couldn’t get across the river.  It was flooded and was a mile wide.

By the time that we got it partly unloaded, here comes four of the P-47’s.  Well they circled and one of the sergeants who was helping them unload, I looked up and here came the first P-47 coming down.  I hollered at them and said they should get away from that truck.  One foxhole that the enemy had dug on the other side of the road from where we were, water had a little skim of ice froze over it. 

This sergeant dove right in that hole; it was ice water.  Well the plane set the truck afire.  We had to get away because the artillery was exploding.  Well here came the second P-47 and he did the same thing, then the third one and then the fourth one.  Every one had to take a shot at that truck so it wasn’t any good to us then (laughter).  But about four times that sergeant took a bath in that ice water (laughter).  It was cold.

Yeah, we took that fort after a few days.  After that, why we traveled pretty good for a while until we got to Metz.  There they said that at Metz, the fortress city of Metz had never been captured until the Americans did it then.  They took the city.  It was Thanksgiving Day when we closed the gap around it.  They brought us hot chow. 

They had turkey, the dressing, some hot coffee.  Man you talk about a feast.  That was a treat if you ever had one.  Then we went from there on in to Germany.  We captured the city of Dillagen.  At night, we went in across the river.  The engineers took us.  It was cold.  The river was freezing over.  Before we got to the river, we had to stop and wait on account of the engineers having trouble getting the boats across.

We got orders to go inside the buildings and just wait until our time came.  As we went in the door, I said to one of the fellows, I believe he was from Kentucky, a fellow by the name of Sloan, I told him to grab one of the mattresses that was on the bed and I got one.  We drug them down in the cellar and we lay on one and pulled the other one up over us.  It wasn’t too long until we were warm, just like a bug in a rug.

Here comes the officer telling us it was time to go and we had to leave that warm place.  We headed back down in the ice and the snow.  It had snowed all night.  We got to the river.  The engineer had the boat there waiting.  We got in.  They paddled us across and we got into where the ice was so thick and the water was shallow so they couldn’t go any further.  Water 3 feet deep and was frozen over.  We had to take our boots and come up high enough to break that ice before we could even walk to get through it to get on the hill.

One of the enemy soldiers was in the railroad trestle with a Burke gun and he fired on us with that thing.  We rolled in that ice water just like a bunch of hogs, you know.  Boy that was cold water now.  We got through the water.  The machine gun jammed.  He could only fire one shot and it would jamb again.  We just got up and walked on over.  We couldn’t do no more than that.  We just made it on out and got into the city of Dillagen.

It took us about 14 days to take that one because it was ’45. While we were there though, the Battle of the Bulge broke out and we had to leave.  We didn't know where we were going.  We had to come back across to the Saar River.  They loaded us on trucks and we headed north through Luxembourg city, got into the Battle of the Bulge.  Snow and ice and temperature down to 0.

Believe it or not, we went as far by vehicle as they thought it was safe.  We got off and had to start walking.  We walked until it got dark.  The officers told us, said, “well, just get out here and bed down and we’ll go on up when it gets daylight”.  Well we got over, the ground was froze so hard, you couldn’t dig a hole.  We laid down in the snow and we went to sleep.

Early the next morning, there were two of us together with two shelter halves and a blanket, I heard strange noises and I punched the fellow this side of me and said, “Get up Joe, there’s something funny going on here”.  Got up and would you believe, we slept with the Germans that night, right in their area. They had gotten there and bedded down before we did.  They thought there were more Germans coming and we’d slept right in the same area with them.

The battle was on.  We fought all day long in that one spot.  Later in the evening, we got the upper hand.  The next morning, why we found out what was happening.  We had got right in to one of the worst.  This was near Bastogne.  We overcame all of the disaster that we had. 

We went on in and we were heading to, I can’t think of the name now of the town, when early one morning one of the machine gunners came to me and I was just about froze to death.  He said, “Sergeant, the woods out here is full of Germans”.  I said alright, he should just keep a watch on them and wait, don’t shoot until they were close enough that he couldn’t miss.  I said I was going around the headquarters, to battalion headquarters, to try to get the artillery to take over.

So I went.  They were in a building.  Everybody in there I think was asleep with a guard at the door.  The guard told me I couldn’t go in there.  He stepped right in front of me.  I said a bad word and elbowed him in the stomach (laughter).  I went in and my commanding officer heard me.  He said, “What’s wrong, Williams?”  I said well that whole area had turned to Germans.  The tanks, artillery, they got everything moving right in here on us.

I asked where was the artillery observer.  He said he was upstairs.  I went upstairs in a hurry.  The observer was just getting up, getting his pants on.  He had heard all the commotion.  Got up and he said, “Where are they?”  I said he should look out the window.  He got over to the window and he looked out.  Well he said, “Don’t get excited.  I’ve been waiting for this a long time.  I want you to see the show”.

I told him I had to go back to the men.  He said that I wouldn’t need to.  We had just gotten some new artillery shells, the type that would come about six feet of the earth and explode.  He said we were going to try them out.  He called the artillery guns, gave the directions, the location and told them when to start firing.  Well I watched the show.  I mean in that white snow, it turned red in just a matter of minutes.  It was slaughter, but it was something we all enjoyed watching at that time because the weather was miserable, the enemy was miserable and we had just gotten the advantage of them when they came out in the open.

It wasn’t just a few days after that until I had to go to the medic.  The old doctor looked at my feet and he said, “Well, Williams, you’ve got frostbite.  You can’t go back, throw your boots in the pile.  We’ll have an ambulance here in a matter of minutes”.  They put me in an ambulance and took me back to a railroad station, put me in a car.  Whenever I got off there, I was in Paris somewhere, I don’t know just where it was.

When I got in the hospital, I could look out the window at the Eiffel Tower.  We were just a little ways from it.  I was only there for a week.  They took me out to the airport and flew me to England where I spent two and a half months.  They were going to amputate both feet and I kept begging and pleading, wait until tomorrow.  The next day, wait until tomorrow.  They finally started looking a little better.  They were black when I got there, but they had started to lighten up and just getting down to purple.

I still got them two feet.  Of course, in cold weather, they give me a fit, but I still have them.  Then they sent me to Camp Tidworth in England, a training camp.  I stayed there until the war had ended.  Then they turned the camp into a port of embarkation.  One division after another went through the camp.  I still had to stay there until November 5 when I finally got the chance to come home.

They took us down to Southampton.  The Queen Mary was docked.  Boy that was the biggest ship and I couldn’t wait to get on it hardly.  Once we got on and got out in the ocean, they wound up the propellers and in five days, we were in New York.  I’ve had quite an experience in World War II and I don’t regret it, but I wouldn’t want to do it again under any circumstances.  It was tough.

INTERVIEWER:   You know that I appreciate what you’ve done.  It was before my time, but I know I wouldn’t have the opportunities that I have today if it weren’t for you and your fellow veterans.

WILLIAMS:   That’s probably right.  I believe Tom Brokaw wrote and said in his book the greatest generation or something to that effect. 

INTERVIEWER:   If there’s one thing that you could say to the youth today that may see this video or someone else that’s watching it trying to learn about war, what would you say to them?

WILLIAMS:   Well first of all, I hope they never have to have that to contend with.  I hope there’s never another war.  But if it comes to that we have to fight for our country, I would urge each and everyone to do his part to keep it free because there’s so many people that didn't have freedom and it took the lives of many people to keep our freedom in America.  We more or less paid the debt in blood.

All of America, the folks at home, the children, the grownups, the ladies, all of them did their part.  They were asked to plant a victory garden to help to feed themselves while we were fighting and while we were needing food and supplies and our people in America did that.  They didn't let us go hungry many times and they kept us something to fight with.  Otherwise we would have lost the war.  I don’t think anyone can appreciate America any more than the veterans that defended it.

INTERVIEWER:   I think that’s true.  I think personally that folks should thank veterans more often of all wars, the more recent wars as well.  Veterans probably don’t get enough thanks.

WILLIAMS:   Well that’s true, I don’t think they get enough.

INTERVIEWER:   I think, is there any other particular stories that you want to share with us?

WILLIAMS:   Well if anyone would be interested, any of the young folks that are listening or looking at this, if they’d like to have a more complete detail, I’ve written a book called The Combat Boots and if they would like to see that, here would be the front cover by Henry C. Williams.  On the back, I’ll show the young ladies a good looking man (laughter) when I was about 23 years old that I was a proud soldier of because I was ready to do whatever I could for the country.

INTERVIEWER:   Well great.  Could they write you if they wanted to get a copy of your book?

WILLIAMS:   If they would like, yes, I’d be glad to send them a copy or if they could persuade their bookstore to handle them, I’d be glad to ship some to them. 

INTERVIEWER:   Okay, great.