Interview of John E. Winecoff, Jr.
Transcript Number 037

JUNE 21, 2000

INTERVIEWER: John, would you give us your name and your present address.

WINECOFF: Johnny Winecoff, Jr., 3906 E. Oak Island Drive.

INTERVIEWER: Where were you on December 7, 1941?

WINECOFF: I was in Fort Jackson, South Carolina. Well I was home exactly to tell you the truth about it. I was on leave that weekend and I was at home. I was standing by the side of a post outside of drug store in the little town where I lived at and a man came out of the drug store and said "You better get back to camp. The Japs have invaded Hawaii". Well I was going anyway so I didn't pay attention.

INTERVIEWER: How old were you then?

WINECOFF: I was 22. 

INTERVIEWER: And you were already in the military?

WINECOFF: I'd been there for about 11 months.

INTERVIEWER: What branch of the military were you in?

WINECOFF: In the infantry, 120th infantry.

INTERVIEWER: Okay John, tell us, what happened after you went back?

WINECOFF: Well I got down there, just packed up getting ready to leave. Got all excited. Of course I was tired, hadn't slept none that night, getting back to camp and I laid down and went to bed. Some time that day, they said go back where you were at. I didn't unpack or anything, I just laid down and went to sleep. They came around and said unpack and stay where you're at.

INTERVIEWER: Where was that?

WINECOFF: That was Fort Jackson.

INTERVIEWER: And then what happened?

WINECOFF: Well at that time we was carrying World War I rifles and some of them had sticks and imitation guns. Of course the biggest gun I'd seen at that time was a 37 mm with a shell about like your thumb. Of course after that happened, then the stuff began to roll in there. You saw the big guns coming, your trucks and jeeps and all that. Stuff began to come in. They drafted more men then. We get training troops. We took our training at Fort Jackson. We trained a bunch of other troops. I don't know why they kept me there, but they did and I helped train the troops and shipped them out. I don't know whether they were going to other companies or where they shipped them somewhere to fight.

INTERVIEWER: Okay, how long were you training troops at Fort Jackson?

WINECOFF: We left there sometime in '42. We went to Camp Blandon, Florida and we trained down there, you know, took exercise and trained and left there in '43.

INTERVIEWER: Where did you go from there?

WINECOFF: We went up to Tennessee on Tennessee maneuvers up in Murphysboro, Tennessee. Left there and went to Camp Atterbury, Indiana. We went on the rifle range up there and of course trained otherwise too, marched and one thing or the other. We went home at Christmas, got the call to go home for Christmas and we went back February 22, I believe it is, left to overseas, went to Boston, got on a boat and went overseas. Went to England.

INTERVIEWER: I know your equipment was much improved I assume.

WINECOFF: Well yeah, they kept improving on it all the time. They kept, the big guns started to come in, 155 Howitzer shot the big shells. Of course all the jeeps and the tanks and all that stuff.

INTERVIEWER: When did you get to Britain?

WINECOFF: It was 10 days later, left the 12th of February and it took us 10 days to go across and set over there in the harbor for two days before they moved us off the ship.

INTERVIEWER: What date was that about?

WINECOFF: Well 10 days after the...

INTERVIEWER: I'm talking month and year?

WINECOFF: It would have been February of '43.

INTERVIEWER: Now you're in England and now what happens?

WINECOFF: Well we went down on the English Channel and stayed there a couple of weeks and went back up to Salisbury in England, did maneuvers, mess around and put us in Quonset huts. Well on the 5th of June, you never heard such a roar. Airplanes are going over and we didn't know what was going on. They never told you anything. You just do what they say you do. On the night of June 6, that's when you couldn't sleep there was so much airplane and stuff going on, just a continuous roar. Well on the 6th, that morning sometime, they told us that they had invaded France.

INTERVIEWER: This is now 1944?

WINECOFF: Yeah, yeah, June of '44.

INTERVIEWER: And when did you head out?

WINECOFF: We headed out, we landed over there 12 days later. Of course the division shows on my discharge was 15th, but you're moving the whole unit in and I reckon that's when they finished moving it in, but we went in on the 12th.

INTERVIEWER: Okay, tell us what happened when you went across the Channel?

WINECOFF: Well we went across on the LCI, landing craft infantry and we hit Omaha Beach and we had to wade in the water about waist deep. Of course you never knew where you were at. They never tell you anything. They set us up, they said we were on the ______ Canal, now I don't know if that's right or not. We stayed there and about two or three days later, they pulled us back and we went in the hedgerows then in France. That's when an artillery shell hit an apple tree and exploded and a little piece hit me in the back of my neck and I was bleeding.

I told my corporal to take charge, I was a squad sergeant and I told him to take care of the squad until I got back. I was going to go back and get this bleeding stopped, it was running down my neck. So I went back to the aide station back there. When I got back there, they took my stuff away. I thought they'd just put a band-aid on or something and I'd go back up to the front, but they put me down and wrapped my head up and put me to bed (laughter). 

I got up the next day and they flew me back to England. So I looked at my sidearms when I got back there and a piece of shrapnel hit right through my cup, canteen and the pouch. Of course I was wet where the water run out on me too. I didn't know that, I didn't feel that.

INTERVIEWER: How many days after you landed were you hit?

WINECOFF: It was probably a week, a week and a half, something.

INTERVIEWER: Okay, you're back in England. Then what happened?

WINECOFF: Well they kept checking on my head there for about a week and then sent me back up to the front. 

INTERVIEWER: Same outfit?

WINECOFF: Same outfit, but they had already went through St. Lo, and Patton had invaded southern France and drove a wedge through the German lines and got cut off and that's where our outfit took a beating. When I got back to the front, there wasn't but one boy there that was in my platoon when we went overseas. The rest of them had gotten wounded or killed. I asked him what happened to this boy, and he'd say "I don't know". I'd say what happened to another boy and he'd say, "I don't know" and I thought that's kind of odd. They don't know what happened to them, but after I got to fighting, I found out.

INTERVIEWER: Whereabouts in France are you right at this point in time?

WINECOFF: We were somewhere driving up towards Paris. Like I say, you'd never know, you couldn't read French and you never knew where you was at and they didn't tell you. They'd just say we're going to do this and we're going to do that and that's what you done. So we went on up through France at that time. The sergeant we had at the platoon, I never had saw him before. 

A day or two later, he disappeared and that's when the captain called me back and said why don't you take over the 3rd platoon and of course that's what I done and I stayed up there then until near the end of the war as a platoon sergeant, led a platoon through all that fighting up through France, the rest of France and went into Germany.

INTERVIEWER: Just keep telling us, John, day by day, what happened.

WINECOFF: Well you don't know one day from the next. You don't know whether it's Sunday or Monday or Tuesday, it make no difference. You were fighting. One trip, I remember when we got up to Germany, I went 19 days and didn't have a chance to pull my shoes off. We kept fighting.

Of course you stop at night, but you dare not pull your shoes off. We fought in the snow. You dig a foxhole and get the pine brush laying there cause the snow is melting down your hole and you lay on that pine brush and tried to stay out of the water. But after you got down there on the ground, it was a whole lot warmer than it was out in the open. Of course it was kind of rough. 

When we fought in the snow, they issued us sheets one time to camouflage us while we were fighting in the snow. A lot of that stuff you forget you know. You don't know where you're at. You know you're fighting and that's it.

INTERVIEWER: I guess this is the winter of the Battle of the Bulge?

WINECOFF: Yeah, when the Battle of the Bulge come, it was Christmas when we found out. We were back fixing a Christmas dinner and we went in the building there and they told us to stay in there and that was where we were going to stay at. Before we got unpacked, they said pack up, we're going to leave. The Germans is dropping paratroopers so that's when we got on trucks and rode all night. The German planes were up there dropping flares. 

Of course the trucks would stop when they'd drop a flare. They just stopped and stayed where they was at and we rode all night and went down to the Battle of the Bulge and had to close that off, but there was snow on the ground then. And we went past the place there where we was on foot then. We wasn't on trucks and we went past the place where they lined up I think it was 21 of our men and shot them, the Germans had, up there on the side of the hill.

One of them lived and told what happened and they told us not to take no prisoners and I thought well now that's not the right thing to do really cause that would make them fight that much harder, but that's what they said. A couple of weeks after that, two come in, I didn't dare shoot them. They weren't armed or anything. I took them back to the captain. Captain said "You're not supposed to bring prisoners back, you're supposed to kill them". I said "There they are Captain, you kill them". I don't mean to kill them. Somebody said they took them out there and shot them. I don't know whether they did or not. I didn't know about that.

INTERVIEWER: What month are we into right now at this point in time? This is the new year.

WINECOFF: Like I say, you didn't know what date it was.

INTERVIEWER: January, February of '45 roughly.

WINECOFF: Well somewhere after Christmas when this was taking place or around Christmas. Of course we fought on then on up through Germany until it ended. We ended up there on some river. We crossed the first river when we went into when we got into Germany. We were going to cross it one night and this amphibious ducks come along. They run on water or land either one. We got up that night about 1:00 and was going down to cross the river and we got out of town and they told us to go back where we was at.

Well we didn't know what was taking place and finally they did tell us that the Germans had blowed up a dam up the river and flooded the thing so we stayed in that place there about two nights and one morning about 1:00, they got us out and we went down on those ducks and crossed the river. I don't know what river. When we got on the other side, we lost a bunch of men there because they had minefields. It was in the woods and it was full of mines. 

I hit two trip wires and it didn't go off, but I reckon it flooded the river, defected them mines really what happened. But then we went up to the Rhine River and the old colonel called us back to the field and he was up on a stand with a loud speaker saying, "You boys done such a good job crossing this other river, we're going to give you the privilege of crossing the Rhine." I thought to myself, that ain't no privilege to me. (Laughter) I'd just as soon not cross it.

Of course we went ahead and crossed it, crossed it on boats, on small boats of some kind. It was dark when we were doing all this. You couldn't see nothing. You just knew where you was at and that was about it. We got through that then and went on up to Germany a good ways. We never did get turned back. There was one time we were going to take a town right out ______ and that's where I likely got killed there cause the shell went by me and I felt the wind from it.

I ducked and threw my helmet off. My runners were coming on behind me. I never did see him no more. I don't know whether he got killed or whether he got wounded or what happened to him and I reckon a lot of people think why didn't he stop to help him, but we wasn't trained to help nobody if they were wounded. In fact, he was better off if we'd gone and drive the Germans on back. Then the medics could get up there and take care of him.

So that's when I had this piece of a mine. I'd been up there about nine months at that time, eight months anyway.

INTERVIEWER: So now you're wounded again.

WINECOFF: I had this mine, but I didn't even know, there's a little piece under there yet, about just a little bitty piece. I didn't even go to the medics. I didn't know it happened until I happened to get in a house where there was a mirror and seen I had a black eye. But the captain called me back there then and he said, "Winecoff, if you keep up the good work, I'll make you a lieutenant". I said, "Captain, you ain't gonna make me nothing. You can give that platoon to somebody else, I'll give it up". See, I'd been up there so long. It's rough up there.

Your heart is up in your mouth most of the time. You're scared to death, under strain. You never did get out from under that strain because you never knew what was going to happen. So I give it up and I told him I was going to look out for Winecoff from here on out and of course that's what I done, but I stayed on the front with the outfit. Fought right along with them the rest of the way, but I thought I was going to take care of myself instead of trying to take care of these other men.

That's when the war ended. But I saw this picture of "Saving Private Ryan". Now a lot of that looks natural, but this foul language that happened, I never heard any of that where I was at. It didn't happen. In fact, you didn't talk to anybody much. You didn't ask your neighbor over there if he was going to church on Sunday or what he was going to do. You're just up there scared to death and trying to take care of yourself.

INTERVIEWER: Did you come home right after the war?

WINECOFF: Well we stayed over there on exercise. They took us back in the building and told us you had so many points. Well I figured it up and I had 105 points so I could get out. So they wanted to know if I wanted to stay or not and I said no, I want to get out. The war was still going on in Japan yet. In fact, they sent our outfit back. They were going to send it to Japan. 

The boys that come back with the outfit got out of the service before I did because they sent them back and gave them furlough and the war ended over there and they turned them loose. I was still over in Germany yet. Of course I got back in September I believe it was. Discharged and then went back to Fort Bragg and that's where I got my discharge at. 

INTERVIEWER: Tell me, what did you do after the war was over, John?

WINECOFF: Well I went back down on the farm where I was raised at and stayed down there while I went to work for a tractor company selling tractors and backhoes come in. Well I got interested in that and I had a little money from being in the service cause you couldn't spend none, so I bought me one of them and went into the backhoe business. And that's where I made my living until I retired.

INTERVIEWER: How long ago did you retire?

WINECOFF: (Laughter) Oh, it must be about 18 years now.

INTERVIEWER: Wonderful, that's wonderful. What about family?

WINECOFF: Well my daddy lived, he was still there with my mother, but my daddy got Alzheimer's disease and he died in '69. My mother died in '74 I think it was, she died. Of course the rest of the family, there were six of us all together, four boys and two girls. Of course, they're all dead now, but me. I'm the only one left. Didn't have any children so I'm the only Winecoff in the family that's left. I have some nieces.

INTERVIEWER: Let's get on to something else here. Having been there and done all these things, John, what would you suggest for the future youth of America from what you learned in World War II? Your own opinion.

WINECOFF: Well my opinion now is if they have another war, I mean really get into it, you know what they done over the Sudan. They run through them. That's what will happen now. With all this new equipment that come out. See they come out with a lot of new equipment. While I was over there, we had leggings to put on to start with and then you come out with the combat boots and we had blankets. They finally came out then with the sleeping bag and of course they came out with shells that would explode before they hit the ground.

All that stuff was, you know, a shell hitting a tree was a lot more dangerous than one hit on the ground cause all the shrapnel just spread and go everywhere. When it hit on the ground, it kind of went the way it was going. So things have improved on equipment and of course they come out with the jet airplanes. First plane I saw jet airplane, one of our P51 was chasing it and the jet was loaded with bombs and that 51 was just flying up there about long together.

Well that German turned his bombs loose and of course he just went off and left that 51 like it was parked. Airplanes, them boys had it rough too, especially the bombers. They'd be up there flying and that aircraft hitting all around and you'd see the explosion. I saw some of these two motor bombers going over and hit one of them and it was just little dribbles of flame come down and hit another one. It turned and went back and I never did see anybody get out of it. It went down behind the woods. It was on fire looked like.

Of course all that stuff is improved. You had the P47's which was a blessing to us because when they was up there, the Germans didn't dare move much. We'd go up the road and there were vehicles and tanks and jeeps and everything, it strafed them and set them on fire and they'd have to take bulldozers and push them off the road to get through or they'd be burned on the road. That was a good thing when those P57's come out, you'd see them up there and you were pretty much safe from artillery because they wouldn't throw none of that because they'd see the gun fire.

The planes was really a lifesaver to us, really. You know when they broke through up there, it was fog and they couldn't do nothing. After the sun come out, they said they'd slow the Germans, hundreds up there.

INTERVIEWER: Do you think America is ready to fight a war like this again, like we did in the desert?

WINECOFF: Oh, I'm sure they are. There's a lot of stuff they probably got, we don't even know nothing about yet. I imagine they are. Like I say, they keep improving on your planes and see they got guns now that you can shoot at night, see people at night. We didn't have all that stuff. 

INTERVIEWER: Well I think that I don't have any other questions that I can think of. Is there anything you want...that I haven't asked you or you haven't said that you want to say?

WINECOFF: No, not really. You forget a whole lot of that stuff as time, what is it 56 years since this happened. I don't dwell on it because I didn't do nothing while I was over there that I'm ashamed of. See I didn't kill him, I turned him over to somebody else, stuff like that. I know I helped kill some, but it was in the line of duty. It wasn't...I couldn't help that they were shooting at us so naturally...

At one time we were in a field over there and the Germans had machine guns shooting at us and this captain, I don't know, it was a new captain in the company. He was an old feller, and I thought I wonder what he was even doing up there. Me and my platoon runner and the captain were in this field and the Germans were shooting at us with machine guns and the captain looked over at me, "What are we going to do". I said call them on the radio and tell them send artillery and shoot over there and draw them back. Well that's what they did and a few managed to shell one over, told them to keep drawing it down and they drawed it back and quit.

Well at that time it was dark. The next morning we got up. We went up through there, but during the night you could hear somebody hollering "Help, Help". Went up through there where that machine gun was at next morning, had two set up there and there's one boy laying there. He said, "Is ____ still alive" and I don't know yet today how he stayed alive cause he had his whole leg and whole right hip was gone. I think the only thing that saved him, he fell with his head laying downhill. His ______ and things laying out on the ground and he was still alive and conscious cause he said, "Me Polack, shoot me in the head". 

He wanted us to kill him and that boy with me, he was going to shoot him and I told him to leave him alone. Of course I'm sure he died later because you know that whole side was gone, everything. Another man out there, he laid there, but he never did nothing. He was alive. I don't know if he was paralyzed. He must have been paralyzed because he didn't move. Of course we walked on off and left them. That was the awfulest tore up man that was still alive I'd ever seen really.

INTERVIEWER: Well John, it's quite a story and we thank you very much for allowing us the time to do this.