Glider Infantry on D-Day: 2Lt. Daniel Clark Part I

Ken Harbaugh:

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I’m Ken Harbaugh, host of Warriors In Their Own Words. In partnership with the Honor Project, we’ve brought this podcast back at a time when our nation needs these stories more than ever.

Warriors in Their Own Words is our attempt to present an unvarnished, unsanitized truth of what we have asked of those who defend this nation. Thank you for listening, and by doing so, honoring those who have served.

Today, in honor of the 80th anniversary of the Invasion of Normandy, we’ll hear from 2Lt. Daniel Clark. Clark served in the Army during World War II as a Glider Infantryman. In this first part of his interview, Clark explains how he ended up in the invasion, and provides his recollection of D-Day.

2Lt.Daniel Clyde Clark:

Daniel Clyde Clark. C-L-A-R-K. It was of course the 325th Glider Infantry, and I was with Company F. I was just a rifleman. It was the majority of the men in the regiment it was mostly riflemen and I was one of them.

Well, when it first went in, it was just regular Infantry Division and we went into Camp Claiborne Louisiana. This was in March of 1942, and the first six months was spent in Camp Claiborne and we had several parades and some of the generals and the people that were in command of the unit witnessed our parade from a grandstand or review stand. And for some reason, or rather they decided, or they picked us to become an airborne unit, which my particular 325th that I was in was to be glidermen. So we just automatically became glidermen. But at that time we did move to Fort Bragg, North Carolina and that is really where our Glider experience started.

I didn't have any fear of them because it was something that the army I'm sure had tried out before as far as the flight part is concerned, but it was quite a flimsy-looking deal. I mean, they had the skin of the Glider and that was all there was between you and the outside. There wasn't no second wall or anything, just some fiber or some tubular framing, stretched over that was the whatever, cheese cloth, I'll put it that way.

I had confidence in it and it was, well, kind of a thrill, but we had a lot of training though before we were permitted to actually fly. So I think that took a lot of the fear out of it, is the training. We even would use makeshift or mock-up Gliders, which was no Glider there, but just a mock-up and we'd have to simulate loading and unloading and well, I'm sure that took a lot of the fear out of it because it was just, there was no problem as far as riding it and I don't know of anybody that objected to it.

We were at Fort Bragg for about six months, then we went overseas, I mean, which had been a year from the time I went in and combat was over with as far as Africa was concerned, Africa, the enemy was driven off of the east coast of Africa when we landed at Casablanca. As soon as we hit Casablanca, we was in camp there for a while and issued a new pair of shoes and I wore them shoes out in two weeks time. The the sole was gone. Stony area I should say. So that was my first experience there. But there was no combat going on there in Africa.

Well, we got to Sicily then and really the same thing in Sicily. We didn't see any combat in Sicily, but there were troops that had been ordered to cease fire or not to. We marched, we would go down the street and here would come troops. I suppose they were people or Sicilian soldiers at one time still in uniform, but as far as having combat with them, we'd had none.

We went from Sicily then into Italy and there we got into it, got into on Mount Angelo and we had combat there and well, what will I say to descriptive, would be pretty, really bad skirmish. We had climbed this mountain, which is over 3000 feet high. That's where we were situated, was guarding a pass in that mountain and no trucks or vehicles. The only way we could get food or water was by horseback or muleback and the people would carry or bring it up, a lot of it up to us. There was no way of getting the jeep or anything up there. So we went without shaving for, I mean I was going without shaving for three weeks or more and just made do. But then there was fear there because the enemy was known to walk around, there was a scrub brush around and they could come up on you and you have a skirmish line and first thing you know was the enemy was coming up behind you and it was kind of fearful, but I don't know, you just had to be on the watch. Nighttime was one of the worst, I guess, to be real alert at night when you're on guard.

And from there then we went down to Naples, Naples, Italy. Those people were without electricity, without water, without food. And now I don't know where we got the bakery, but we did take them bread in the army trucks and the people formed bread lines and we had to haul them water, put them in big vats for them to come there and get, and well just kind of had the police or patrol area to make sure that they all had something to eat and no electricity to provide for themselves. It was sort of a guard duty or our responsibility to take care of them for, I don't know, we was there for probably three weeks or a month, something like that. Then we moved on out to Mediterranean Sea out past Rock of Gibraltar, Gibraltar Strait there, out into Atlantic and then on up in the north on the west side of Ireland, then down to the Irish Sea, to Belfast, Ireland. Was there a couple months or three. Then on over to England and there's where we trained and got ready for, of course we didn't know it at the time, what it was all about, but then it was the training for Normandy.

Well, I would say that with the Gliders, we had that training and it was best explained I guess by just saying that we was getting ready for combat, but of course we knew not where, we didn't know and had good officers and we had just care that a soldier would have. I mean in England we felt like we was better off than being out on an island somewhere in the South Pacific, but this was our lot, so we trained for the best we could. And then when it come time, getting close to D-Day, while we was down at Southampton, England and there we were confined and spent a couple of weeks there in confinement before we actually went across the channel.

I mean we were really on the alert, far as we knew we were restricted and we were restricted, so we played volleyball and games like this to pass the time away. As far as our training from there, the surrounding wasn't such that we could go out and train as far as combat was concerned. So I suppose you'd have to look at it and say, we already had our combat training at that time.

12 men would be a squad. This was the way the company was organized to stay the same. It helped in a way because you knew your fellow man or who you were with, and I'd have to say that you know his habits and you talked to him for a long as time went on there and then they knew him quite well, I mean real well. And I felt like that was important because we knew that his, what his command or what he would do, and I think it turned out to be a real good thing to know your fellow man. Well, in reality, when we flew in the Gliders, while we were Gliders were of the same close proximity when we started off, when we left the ground and when we landed, we then landed near one another as possible and we'd get together afterwards.

Early morning, it was light, daylight, and we were told that when we first left the ground, we would have a flight that would be taking us over enemy territory. And of course we went out over the channel and it got a view of the battleships and of the landing of foot troops on the shore. So we flew over that and could watch some of the shells that missed their target, hadn't hit the target or hit the ship that they were intended to. I'd say it was a scene that you just don't forget to fly over. It's something that you might expect to see on television or something like that. A battle going on, the ships, the smoke from the guns shooting in, our ships shooting inland, and it was just a real battle going on. Then we flew over and we didn't get any ground fire from troops, I suppose that they were preoccupied by taking care of the coastline.

And got about five or six, seven miles inland, which was all enemy territory of the shore. And then we had a lot, that was where we planned to land. It was seven or eight, six or seven miles in beyond the coast, and it was around St. Mary's Glac is where we landed. The landing spot that we had was, the enemy had set up posts in it, looked like an orchard where we were supposed to land.

Of course, now we didn't know that at the time that this happened, but we were told afterwards is the reason why they had to pick another spot for us to land in. Found another spot to land in, which was a swamp. I mean, when I got out of the Glider, while I was in water over knee-deep and landed without incident though, it was the landing was in, the plane or Glider we went over in was a Horsa Glider. That's a British Glider.

We were there to do a job and we just didn't worry about how our landing, we knew that when we were cut loose, we was told that the Glider would, now this was a CG-4A Glider, would lower, go down, after it was cut loose, we'd go down at the rate of about 15 feet forward and one foot down or however you want to look at it, 15 to one. But we didn't know what was in the future. We didn't worry about, or at least I didn't worry about it. So when we landed in the water and I hopped out, I landed on the ground, but that wasn't long until here was an enemy machine gun shooting at us, and we was in no place to, in no shape to take enemy fire right at that time, you just hadn't organized to where you could defend yourself.

We had to organize, get together the fellows that had been training together and know who you were with. And like I say, enemy fire was soon to a machine guns, they had the machine guns sitting around and well, we just got on ground so that we could hit the ground and take up positions to defend ourselves. The idea of the whole thing is to get a drop and organize and then just like an ink spot, I mean spread out all the way around. So that's what we attempted to do.

I wouldn't say I knew of anybody that was feared of what might happen. I mean, you was there to defend yourself, defend the situation. So that's what we did. I mean, we, I guess say too busy to worry about fearing because we knew that it was our job to do and we had been trained for that and just forgot about the worry because I mean, just your plight is changes from moment to moment.

A patrol, you send out two or three fellows and to find out where the enemy is, where he is located, and it's an experience in itself. Some of them were daytime patrols and some of them were night and gives the information back to or command post and on further for the regiment. And it's very valuable for them in their planning and well, it just, that's your job. But of course they don't send one man, it'd be different fellows go out on patrol and not one fellow does it all the time, and they might choose somebody, but then it'd be somebody that had been a while since he'd been out on patrol. And I can remember one night going out on patrol, it was a real, let's say, a quiet night. It wasn't windy or anything, but the fields in Normandy of course, we're talking about fields, which is rather hedgerows, they call them. And you go down a hedgerow and then maybe have a field right next to the hedgerow that was grass or kind of tall grass.

So I went out and got out away from the hedgerow because of what I might run into down the hedgerow, you might come up on some enemy patrol or something like this, so you'd be a little leery of that. So I got out and sat, crawled a ways out, and then I got close enough to enemy that was, had a line established there, but they was talking among themselves and that was, I couldn't understand them, but I knew what they were there for. So I went back and gave that information to the company, handed and of course it went on up.

We'd been there for a week, and then when I went back for information from a company commander and he had been on back to the battalion and he passed down the information that we was going to move out. Move ahead. This was on the third of this, yeah, 3rd of July in 1944. But anyway, then the first thing we knew here was an enemy shell from artillery went over head quite high and landed behind us quite a little ways. Then pretty soon there was another shell came and it was a little closer to us, and then another shell came and hit a tree that we were under. And so it knocked me to the ground, the concussion did, but it didn't hit me. But there was, of course, my fellows that were in my squad, which there was 10 of us and five of them were, one of them was killed, five of them were knocked out. I mean, had to go, well, some of them was real serious. But anyway, then I lost half of my squad. But nevertheless, that didn't stop us from going on. I mean, others got hit too. And that was probably one of the worst things that could have happened to a fellow is to have his squad man hurt, not be with you anymore. A what I'd have to say is that you just don't let fear enter in because I mean, we hated to see that. We hated to see that, but there's nothing we could do about it.

And so I go on, and of course, we bumped into the enemy, those I was talking about a while ago that I had heard talking at night there, that morning, and well, first thing I knew, I seen some movement up ahead and like a dummy, I stood there to make sure, just a round hole in the hedge that this guy walked by, and then he backed up and looked out that hole again because he thought he'd seen something. And sure enough, it was me. And so he proceeded to send a bullet my way and I, yet, I can't tell which side of my head it went on. He was close. And so that just one of the things that I thought the good Lord was with me.

I didn't back up, stayed there and we set machine guns or a machine gunner that's always with the platoon, of course, had him set up and fire over. Well back there, they knew what happened. They could tell when we were stopped, why they were stopped too. So we set up this machine gun on a hedgerow off to the side and shot in to that area, and that quieted the machine gun. And they, after a time, I don't know how long, but then after a time where the enemy then retreated and we walked, something like that, generally you'll send somebody around, like the scout, if he gets put down and in place where you can't really move forward, only just crawl, but then that's too slow.

But then this machine gun would quiet the ones out ahead enough that the rest of the company could come along and go around you and then, just take over and the enemy's already gone. But we was pushing them back

It's just my good fortune, I guess, because this one incident I described there is just a part of the whole future. At that time, I didn't realize that, but then there's times after that that was just as bad. So I mean, it was just our duty to stay with it. I've seen some that have a nervous breakdown, that wasn't uncommon, and probably that was why it wasn't hard on me, but they got all personalities and some could take something like that and others couldn't.

I never had any trouble with nervousness or breaking down or anything. Well, like I just said, it just your makeup. I mean, the rank doesn't make, I'd say it wouldn't make any difference, of course, if you're not on the front line, why you wouldn't be bothered with that. But anyway, if you're an officer, I've seen officers go back, nervous breakdown.

But there was no turning back. If you had a nervous breakdown or something like this, you wouldn't be any good up in front anyway, but nobody calls you to come back. I mean, if you went back, you was on your own. And I didn't feel the urge to do that at all. And we could get them on the run, we'd done it before, and that's what we were there for.

Well, in Normandy, I had a fellow in my same company that, I mean, I'm not going to name names here, but he said he'd had some military experience somewhere along the line before he got into this 325th, and he says, I'm smarter than the Germans that I can stand up to them. And so he was sent out on patrol one time, and he walked down the left-hand side of a hedgerow, and he got hit. There was an enemy, seen him coming, but the fellow was right-handed, so he had to shoot back at this enemy. He had to step off to the left or outside and exposed himself. And so he got hit and was bleeding badly before the medics got there. Now, I didn't see this myself, but I was so close to him and others that did see him. And when they got to him, he says, "I won't live because I lost too much blood." And that was the case.

Don't trust your luck. That's the way I look at that. He'd had enough military, and there's a little bit of that that's bred into you when you have this training, that you gain some superiority because you're somewhat briefed on what the enemy does or what the enemy, they're out for combat, and we have to be out for combat too, and so don't underestimate their ability. When he said he was just as smart as the enemy, but he wasn't taking into consideration of some possibility that maybe he wasn't.

I learned a lesson from that. I mean, of course, I know that you can't say that you're going to do everything right. I mean, I don't say that I did either, but nevertheless, you have to kind of take all the angles into consideration.

Ken Harbaugh:

That was 2Lt. Daniel Clark. Next time on Warriors In Their Own Words, we’ll hear the rest of his interview, where he recounts Operation Market Garden, the Battle of the Bulge, and freeing the prisoners of Wöbbelin Concentration Camp.

Thanks for listening to Warriors In Their Own Words. If you have any feedback, please email the team at kharbaugh@evergreenpodcasts.com. We’re always looking to improve the show.

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Warriors In Their Own Words is a production of Evergreen Podcasts, in partnership with The Honor Project.

Our producer is Declan Rohrs. Brigid Coyne is our production director, and Sean Rule-Hoffman is our Audio Engineer.

Special thanks to Evergreen executive producers, Joan Andrews, Michael DeAloia, and David Moss.