Interview of William Stanley Thornton (Sergeant, U.S. Army, retired), 50th Signal Battalion, by the editor of the Mebane (North Carolina) Enterprise

WORLD WAR II (WWII)

Episode 1
Editor:  World War II veterans are notably close-mouthed about their experiences during the war.  Why, in your opinion, are these veterans so reluctant to speak of their experiences and why do you now come forward to share your memories with the readers of the Mebane Enterprise?
Thornton:  I believe WWII veterans have been hesitant to share their memories for two reasons:  (1) The majority, including myself, feel that they were not unique in their roles – everyone performed the duties for which they were trained, and (2) they were hesitant to toot their own horns for fear of being seen as more deserving of recognition than their comrades.
  
I have agreed to share my memories because of the increased interest among the general public of today, and the encouragement from personal contacts, to hear individual stories as adjuncts to scholarly treatments of the history of WWII.  I may offer historical facts of which I am aware that directly relate to my personal experiences.

For anyone who may wish to pursue a broader history of WWII, I recommend the single volume “A World At Arms”, by Gerhard Weinberg.

Episode 2
Editor:  Why did you enlist in the Army at the tender age of sixteen?
Thornton:  It’s a long story:  I needed a job.

When I lost my father as a toddler we came to live with my grandparents, Sam and Dora Thornton, on their farm in the Hawfields community.  When my mother elected to go on her own a year or so later, I was given and accepted the option of remaining with my grandparents.   I had developed a close relationship with my “Granddad”, following in his foot-steps wherever he went and becoming his happy helper when I grew old enough.

As my grandparents aged and themselves becoming dependent upon other family members, I found myself in need of gainful employment. I worked several short-term jobs; including a few weeks during the summer for the Riggs’ at their “Daisy Dairy” farm in Mebane.  

 I was driven by a need to do something of more permanence and responsibility.  In late 1936 I was turned-down by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) that had the minimum age requirement of 21.  Finally, after turning sixteen, I approached the Army Recruiting Sergeant in Raleigh:  After telling him that I was eighteen, and securing my mothers written consent, I became “Private William Stanley Thornton” in April 1937.

Episode 3:
Editor:  Tell us about your transition from that of a farm boy to that of a new soldier:  Did you experience any misgivings of your decision to enlist?
Thornton:  No, no misgivings.  Maybe a little reserved being in association with older, more experienced, soldiers.

Editor:  What was your branch of service?
Thornton:  Initially I was assigned to a Field Artillery unit where I received basic individual training and then advanced military training, including field exercises.  Upon completion of this training, I was reassigned to the Medical Service Corps where I remained until retirement in 1959.  (It is important to note there were no recruit training centers, as later came into being, and the Medical units were not organized to conduct such training.  It was therefore the practice for new recruits to be assigned to combat arms units for their individual and advanced military training).

Episode 4
Editor:  Did you find that the lack of a high School education restrained your progress?
Thornton:  I can’t say for certain, but I don’t believe so.  After being assigned to the Station Hospital at Madison Barracks, I enrolled in night classes at the nearby Watertown (NY) High School, but it was after the war that I graduated from the Waukegan (IL) High School while still in the service.  Perhaps the best answer to your question is that I passed the examinations and was appointed to the grade of Sergeant in February 1940.  The highest potential for which I was considered came in December 1944:  A Board Officers, convened for the purpose at Headquarters, VII corps, found me qualified for direct appointment as a commissioned officer.

Episode 5
Editor:  Before the attack on Pearl Harbor did you foresee the United States becoming actively engaged in the hostilities?
Thornton:  Yes!  I remember news articles and people talking about the build-up of German and Japanese forces before I enlisted in April 1937.

My appointment as Sergeant in 1940 was a direct result of the beginning build-up of our military forces.  Upon appointment, I was immediately reassigned to a vacancy in a recently formed medical battalion then preparing for the first BIG maneuvers that were to range from Georgia through Louisiana.  We were issued newly designed military M-series vehicles, including the legendary “Jeep”.  There was little doubt that we were preparing for a war of worldwide consequences.

After almost a year in which our battalion participated in large landmass training, I was acutely aware of the Army as a total force that was preparing for its intended mission, lethal combat.

Episode 6
Editor:  Did you remain with the Fifth Medical Battalion throughout the war?
Thornton:  No.   Following the BIG maneuvers of 1940 and temporary respite at  Fort Knox, Kentucky, I was ordered to lead a cadre to organize and train a medical detachment in support for the newly activated Fiftieth Signal Battalion then being formed at Camp McCoy Wisconsin.

We arrived at Camp McCoy in the dead of a Wisconsin winter where we found the only available fixed-structure shelters were horse stables.  We renovated the stables, installed coal burning heaters (the new “Sibley” stoves) and rode (no pun intended) out the winter.   In April I was promoted to the senior enlisted grade authorized our detachment: Staff Sergeant.  I served with the Fiftieth Signal Battalion until the end of the war.

Episode 7
Editor:  WOW!  What came next?
Thornton:  As spring began to break, the battalion conducted limited field exercises, received new equipment and personnel, and prepared for the second BIG maneuvers of 1941.  During the maneuvers, about mid-August, a rumor began circulating that the battalion had been selected for an overseas assignment.

In late November 1941 we moved to the New York Port of Embarkation.  It was there on December 7, 1941 that we heard the news of the Japanese attack upon the United States at Pearl Harbor.  About December 14 we boarded ship for our still classified destination, but a week later we found ourselves limping into the port of Boston where we remained until returning to New York (by train) before the end of the year. Christmas in Boston and New Year’s Eve in New York City in 1941 was not real bad duty for a soldier.  But that good duty was not to last – we soon departed again for our undisclosed destination.

Episode 8
Editor:  Come-on, Bill!  Tell us about the undisclosed destination.
Thornton:  In January 1942 we arrived in Iceland where we would sojourn for a long twenty-three months.
Editor:  Twenty- three months!  Tell us about Iceland, what was it like, what did you do there?
Thornton:  Though Iceland is a highly literate nation, claiming to be the world’s oldest democracy, it was the pits from the perspective of young American soldiers. Icelanders were very reserved in personal contacts with Americans; there was little fraternization between American males and Icelandic females.  The only public recreational facility that attracted both Icelanders and Americans together was an indoor swimming pool located in Reykjavik some distance from our camp.
    
The only training facility was our dispensary building that we used after morning sick call to reemphasize lessons already learned.  Maintaining morale as individuals and as a group required a great deal of American ingenuity.
    
Reading (books and magazines received from home) was the predominate pastime.  There were some small ventures by individual soldiers:  for example, one soldier constructed small picture frames, another fashioned (finger) rings from scrap aluminum, one built a loom with which he wove fabric from readily available sheep’s wool yarn, one fabricated a coat from baby seal skins (also readily available), and, for my part, I established a lending library in a spare room of our dispensary building.
    
No physical training programs were imposed by higher command, but my men were encouraged to participate in organized exercises such as hiking, that most disliked of army training, was resorted to almost on a daily basis, weather permitting.  We often did impromptu things as came to mind, such as cross-country skiing, also as weather permitted.  
    
I am proud of the way my men made the best of an otherwise adverse situation, for such a long time

Episode 9
Carter:  Oh, my!  So what came next?
Thornton:  ENGLAND!!

In December we moved to England where, after the aloofness of the Icelanders, it was a pleasure to associate with people who spoke our language (with a foreign accent, of course) and who were genuinely happy to make us welcome.

Upon our arrival in England, the 50th Signal Battalion was assigned to the VII Corps of the First Field Army.  The mission of the battalion was to provide for communications between the Corps headquarters and the headquarters of its attached divisions, and to provide integrating links joining all elements of the Corps.  The mission of the Medical Detachment was to provide first echelon medical support by establishing a central dispensary and assigning  individual medical soldiers in direct support of  companies of the battalion, and to evacuate the severely disabled to supporting medical facilities.  (Note:  The Field Army “Corps” is a flexible organization to which combat divisions are attached and detached as determined by the Field Army Commander to be appropriate to the tactical situation.  Support units such as Signal, Medical, Engineer, and Supply and Service battalions, are assigned).

Along with the reality that we were destined to participate in a gigantic undertaking, every man knew that he had to rise to his best potential, and they did.  We worked hard getting our equipment and ourselves ready for the big event; physical training, receiving and processing new equipment, waterproofing vehicle ignition, exhaust, and carburetion systems; loading of landing ships and practicing invasion of simulated enemy beaches.

We practiced invasion exercises so often that we never knew when the real thing was imminent.  For us the real thing came before the planned invasion:  Before dawn on the morning of April 28, 1944, while engaged in a training exercise code named Tiger, nine German E-boats attacked our convoy of LSTs (Landing Ship Tank), sinking one LST and severely damaging another.  (Your readers can learn more about this unique naval battle by going to “Exercise Tiger” on the internet).

But, it wasn’t all work and no play.

There were invitations to dances in the village of Cranbourne and there were the female soldiers, from the nearby ATS (Auxiliary Territorial Services) camp, who honored us by their presence at our social functions in Camp Nine Ewes (on an English gentleman’s estate).  There was enough free time to visit other parts of England.  I visited London twice, making friends, and I visited friends at their home in the village of Garforth, Near Leeds.  It really was gratifying to know people who had already experienced, with honor, the ravages of war.  You can’t pooh-pooh the British.

Episode 10
Editor:   I sense that the big dance was approaching:  Knowing that you were headed into combat, were you afraid?  Did you fear that you might be killed?
Thornton:  No.  The possibility of being killed or wounded may have been somewhere in one’s subconscious mind,  you didn’t think of that – you just did the things for which you were trained without dwelling on thoughts of what might happen.

Let me emphasize that I will not dwell upon the gory details of war.  Though soldiers of the 50th Signal Battalion frequently worked close behind the front lines, I never became aware that any of them came face-to-face with an enemy soldier.  We were, however, constantly within enemy artillery range and we sustained casualties.  The Medical Detachment suffered two combat losses.
Editor:  Tell us about the invasion.
Thornton:  Early in June we again boarded an LST.  We, the lower grades, were unaware that this was the beginning of the long awaited invasion until the early hours of June 6 when the roar of hundreds of heavy aircraft passing overhead, flying west to east: This was it!  D-Day!

All day and all night on the 6th and 7th we were close enough to hear and see the action going forth on shore.  Then on the 8th, we reloaded from the LST to LCTs (Landing Craft Tank) for the final hundred yards or so to the Utah beach.  From then until May 8, 1945 (Victory in Europe, VE, Day) our detachment participated with distinction in five campaigns:  Normandy, Northern France, Rhineland, Ardennes and Central Europe.

(Note: The five beachheads were not joined into an effective front until June 12, the date Supreme Headquarters Allied Forces, Europe declared the invasion successful.)

Episode 11
Editor:  Tell us about your experiences during your eleven months in the combat zone?
Thornton:  This may be the question that no one wants to answer:  Talking about the drudgery, the day-after-day of doing the same thing, maybe thinking “will it never end”; some days when little happens, some days when all hell breaks loose like German artillery barrages and counter attacks.

Beginning June 6 (actually the night of June 5 with the airborne landings), the VII Corps (commanded by Lieutenant General J. Lawton Collins) with four infantry divisions and two airborne divisions attached, was to secure the right flank of Utah Beach  and then isolate and capture the deep-water Port of Cherbourg.  Beginning about June 10, with the 4th Infantry Division in the lead and the other divisions following through as they arrived, the Corps attacked from east to west across the base of the Cotentin peninsula, isolating the German forces defending the peninsula and the port.  About June 18 the VII Corps attack turned northward, securing the surrender of the German Commander on June 26.  The Allies now controlled a major deep-water port (ironically, the same port from which E-Boats had attacked us earlier).  This mission accomplished, the VII Corps turned southward where some of the most intense land battles were yet to come: Carentan, Periers. St. Gilles, and Marigny through July 24.  Breakthrough and exploitation came July 25 to August 6, but then on August 7 the Germans mounted major counter attacks at two points upon the VII Corps’ left/eastern flank northwest of Mortain.  The Germans forces came close to being surrounded by Allied forces racing-in from the north, but withdrew on August 18 after sustaining some 250,000 casualties.  This would be the Germans last major effort to defeat or delay the Allies until they mounted the Ardennes Offensive (The Battle of the Bulge) in December.

Episode 12
Editor:  What next?
Thornton:  The race was on.  
    
We headed east encountering little resistance until reaching the upper Seine River, between Melun and Paris, where the Germans resisted our crossing until withdrawing toward the northeast and again resisting our crossing of the Aisne River at Soissons.  Heading northward, we crossed the border into Belgium on September 2. Then, turning eastward and meeting persistent resistance from the Meuse River near Namur through the western obstacles of the Siegfried line, we crossed into Germany on September 15.

We settled-in for an extended stay southeast of Aachen because our combat forces had outrun our logistics support.  For the soldier on the ground, it was a welcome relief from the constant movement since the invasion in June.  We were in need of a break – a chance to rest in relative comfort and catch up on personal needs.  This isn’t to say there was no war going on.  On the contrary, American combat units on the line were probing and being probed.  We came under German artillery fire sporadically, night and day – more perhaps than when we sere on the move.

As logistics support improved, so did combat activities increase.  During November, elements of our First Army and the American Ninth Army (on our northern flank) were attacking toward the German industrial Ruhr.  Further south, the American Third Army had pushed to the Saar River, and the American Seventh Army had reached the upper tributaries of the Rhine River.

And then the impossible happened!

Episode 13
Editor:  WHAT HAPPENED!!?
Thornton:  The Battle of the Bulge!  
                  
"The battle would be the bloodiest since the Meuse-Argonne Battle of World War I.”  (S. L. A. Marshall)

In the early morning hours of December 16, the Germans mounted a massive attack into the VIII Corps sector to our south and we were ordered to prepare for a major move.  The VII Corps’ new mission was to pull back into defensive blocking positions in Belgium.  It was to be a long move; retracing our route back to Liege and then southward to positions still being assessed.  Though senior commanders were kept abreast of the situation, people such as me had little knowledge of what had happened or was happening.  We learned quickly that the immediate situation was very fluid.  Everyone was on heightened alert.  Many were unaware of locations of friendly or enemy dispositions.  Mostly, for awhile, it was a matter of establishing a position and holding for whatever came next.

As American men and units held against the enemy, organization and reorganization took the place of confusion.  Reorganization placed VII Corps, along with its newly assigned mission, its combat divisions, and support units along a line extending east from Hotton and west from Marche, Belgium, some twenty to thirty-five miles south, southeast, and southwest of Liege.

The main battle of the VII Corps came on December 24 with the Germans waging determined advances toward the Meuse River.  On Christmas day, under heavily overcast skies, General Collins ordered the 2nd Armored Division to advance and conduct limited offensive attacks.  As the skies cleared, close air support turned the battles being fought around the bulge to the advantage of the Americans.  By January 3, 1945, the Bulge was gone and the Allies were poised for advances to the Rhine River and beyond.

Weather is always a tactical factor to be considered in ground combat operations, but it is also a personal consideration for the soldiers.  I remember the weather: severe, excruciating cold.  Some of the time we were able to find shelter from the blowing snow, but most days, in sub-zero temperatures, it was impossible to escape the cold; ground so frozen you couldn’t drive a tent stake; miserable, miserable cold – unbearable cold; and more so at night when you dared not move about for fear of being shot, by a friend or an enemy.  One had to forego even the most human needs for several days at a time.  Of course, war is not a humane adventure.

Episode 14
Editor:  What was it like as you advanced into the German Homeland?
Thornton:  What was left of the German forces tried desperately to hold the Western Allies at the Rhine River, but their efforts were hopeless.  The VII Corps came by a bit of good fortune when an alert Engineer dashed across the railway bridge near the Rhine River town of Remagen and disabled explosives the Germans had set to destroy the bridge.   In short-order, the engineers “planked” the bridge enabling our troops and vehicles to cross without getting our feet wet.  Meanwhile pontoon bridges were being laid up and down the river.  By mid-March, German defense at the Rhine River was over.

Thereafter, there was little organized resistance until the final “unconditional surrender” of Germany on May 8, 1945.  The names of places along our route now jog few memories of my mind:  Aachen, Duren, Hannover, Kassel, Nordhausen (where we liberated the emasculated inmates of the most inhumane political prison), and Eisleben (where I visited the first church Martin Luther established after his split with the mother church), Halle, and Leipzig (ending our journey).

Aside from the mission to defeat the enemy, a most important inherent mission was to stabilize and oversee the governments of jurisdictions coming under our control. Civil Affairs/Military Government teams had been trained in the United States for assignment to predetermined jurisdictions.  That is, for example, the team assigned to Eisleben had been trained for and knew the political landscape of that jurisdiction.

By the time we arrived in Leipzig, in mid-April, the war was over except for the official surrender formalities.  The city had escaped major war damage:  The government was operational, most buildings were habitable (two units of an apartment complex were assigned to the Medical Detachment for a dispensary and living quarters), and utilities were functional.  

A point system was established to determine individual priorities by which battalion members would be selected for rotation to the United States.  Points were amassed based upon such considerations as total length of service, time in combat, awards, etc.  It was determined that I was the high-point man in the Battalion and entitled to be among the first group to be rotated.

I was demobilized from service June 23, 1945.

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