Engineer Memoirs
and you were going to be with the 30th Infantry Division. How much did you know
about what you were preparing to do?
Very little, really, other than we would be a part of any invasion when it took place.
Certainly, even as battalion commander, I didn't at that time have any idea when the
invasion would be. I knew that we were part of the buildup in England, that we would
complete our training in England, and that somewhere along the line we would be a
part of the invasion force.
Looking back, I was assigned at a relatively early age as a battalion commander, in
November 1942 with just over four years of experience. I had been promoted to major
in June 1942, and I felt a tremendous responsibility in being given a battalion to train.
I felt very strongly what Colonel Styer had told us about our responsibilities. I felt that
I'd had as good a background as anybody could have. Having served in the 8th
Engineer Squadron with very active training and much field work, I felt this served me
in good stead. It was with a sense of great responsibility and anticipation, yet of
necessity, that I joined the battalion. I felt that having a
unit with a year to
train it gave me an opportunity to do the job. Also, I had a good group of officers who
worked with me to do it. In my mind, when we sailed for England, we were ready for
combat.
When we got to England, we emphasized more than anything else in our training what
we knew from the North African campaign- t h e importance of mine warfare. Of all the
preparation we did in England between our arrival at the end of February and the time
we went to the continent about the 10th of June, mine warfare training was most
important.
feeling was that since we were about to go into combat, we had to do
something besides train with dummy mines.
Q ..
You had experience with that?
A ..
Some.
Q ..
In Texas.
A ..
Yes, in the early days I had used my own ideas on how you could make mines since we
didn't have any available for issue. So devised a training
Q ..
Now when was this?
A
In England-to train people to handle mines. We started out with dummy, or inert,
mines, and had a record kept of each trainee as he progressed through increasingly
difficult mine training. As we found people who psychologically or emotionally simply
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