Preserving The Oral HistorIES of Combat Veterans
5:30 | Bill Johnson tried to volunteer at seventeen and again at eighteen. Finally, the draft took him and he was on his way to the war in Europe. But first, he had rough seas and submarines to deal with.
Keywords : Bill Johnson Avery City NC Fort Bragg artillery communications Camp Butner Camp Myles Standish Liberty Ship convoy Atlantic German submarine (sub) Le Havre France snow England
The first thing Bill Johnson saw at the bottom of the gangplank in Le Havre was a Red Cross girl with coffee and donuts. That would be the last pleasant sight for a while. Soon the communications specialist was running field telephone wire under fire and dodging Screaming Mimis.
As his unit advanced through Germany, Bill Johnson encountered a group of Hitler Youth who had been armed by the SS and left to harass the Americans. They promptly surrendered. The war was winding down and the Nazi's secrets were being laid bare, like the concentration camp at Ohrdruf, which he helped liberate.
When Bill Johnson's unit moved into a German town, the first thing they did was pick out the nicest homes for their accommodations. Despite being asked to leave, the civilians gave the Americans no trouble. At the end of the war, he lacked enough points for a discharge, so he settled into occupation duty, which was tempered by his post in the beautiful Austrian Alps.
