Operation Overlord: The Invasion That Shaped

History

Interviewer: Louis Poirot

Interviewee: Donald McKee

Instructor: Amanda Freeman

February 10, 2016 Poirot 2

Table of Contents

Statement of Purpose 3

Interviewee Release Form 4

Interviewer Release Form 5

Biography 6

“D-Day: The Battle That Turned the Tide” 8

Interview Transcription 22

Interview Analysis 69

Appendix 73

Works Consulted 81

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Statement of Purpose

The purpose of this oral history project and interview with Donald McKee is to create a primary source document on D-Day. By reading this oral history project, an individual will learn the story of an American medic risking his life to protect the country he loves, his experiences, and his reflections on his time in the battle and after.

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Biography of Mr. Donald McKee

Mr. Donald McKee was born on November 4, 1923 in Detroit, Michigan.

Throughout his life he lived in many places, moving to Kalamazoo, Michigan until he started college in 1941; Ann Arbor, Michigan until he was drafted in 1943; Pelham

Manor, Rhode Island (1947-1948); St. Louis, Missouri in 1948; Chicago, Illinois (1949-

1950); Kansas City, Missouri (1951-1958), and finally Silver Spring, Maryland, where he has lived ever since.

After serving in the war, he went back to college and earned his degree in June of

1947. His career started early, because he had a job interview at his college, which was where the interviewer had also graduated. Mr. McKee was accepted within 30 minutes and started working at his new job as a marketer for the Permutit Company 2 weeks later.

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He worked in the sales office and explained the system to engineers who designed water plants to sell their equipment. He covered West Missouri, South West Iowa, Nebraska,

Kansas, and Oklahoma and had to drive a lot between the states, finally he got tired, and became the supervisor of sales for the North-East of the U.S.. He worked at that job from

1959 to 1995, when he retired.

He became interested again in WWII and joined the 29th Division Association. He was the National Commander in 1994 and, along with 500-600 people, went back to

Normandy to revisit where they had been during the war, and introduced Bill Clinton when he came up to speak before the group. He has been active in the group ever since, and this past year was the first where he skipped a meeting (which occur about 3 times a year).

Mr. McKee’s late wife lived in New York until 1947, when she met him, and they got married in mid 1948. She did not like New York very much and enjoyed living in

Kansas much more. She stopped working after marriage and became active in the

Panhellenic Society because she liked her experience in sororities in college. She passed in January of 2007.

Mr. McKee says that the war definitely changed him, but because it happened such a long time ago, that he doesn’t remember how exactly. All he knows is that he felt happy when the war was over and that he missed his country during the two years he was gone.

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D-Day: The Battle That Turned the Tide

“We cannot afford to fail,” said General Dwight D. Eisenhower on one of the most important battles in all of human history: D-Day: "The D-Day operation of June 6,

1944 brought together the land, air and sea forces of the allied armies in what became known as the largest invasion force in human history.” (“Eisenhower Presidential

Library.”) Properly known as Operation Overlord, this battle took place at the climax of

World War II, a war that changed the pace of history completely for the entire world: “’It was unknowable then, but so much of the progress that would define the 20th century, on both sides of the Atlantic, came down to the battle for a slice of beach only six miles long and two miles wide.’ Barack Obama, remarks on 65th anniversary of D-Day, June 6,

2009” ("Remarks by the President at D-Day 65th Anniversary Ceremony." The White

House) To understand D-Day one must examine Germany’s unification under Bismarck, the consequences for Germany of World War I, Hitler’s rise to power, and the events that led both Germany and the U.S. into World War II as well as gain a first-hand perspective of the history of what led up to the event.

Before its creation, Germany was divided into many independent German states.

Otto Eduard Leopold, Prince of Bismarck, also known as Otto von Bismarck, created a unified German country, today’s Germany. The Franco-Prussian War (July 19, 1870 –

May 10, 1871) was the main war in Bismarck's unification of Germany, and went just as planned for the Germans, if not better: “The rapid and overwhelming victory of the

German states under the leadership of Prussia in this conflict made possible the creation of a unified German Empire” (FrancoPrussianWar.com) Germany’s unification also

Poirot 9 played a part in many events that followed, such as World War I and World War II (D-

Day): “More recent historians do not deny that Bismarck had a profound effect on the later development of Germany and even the rise of Hitler.” (Kitson, Alison, Germany,

1858-1990: Hope, Terror and Revival)

“The rise of Germany was a primary factor which produced tension among the major European powers.” (McDonough, Frank, The Origins of the First and Second

World Wars) World War I, the first World War, was the first important introduction for the new Germany to the world, and when it became involved, it worried the most powerful European countries. Because of this and its siding with the Central Powers and

Austria-Hungary, Germany was blamed in the Treaty of Versailles (28 June, 1919) for starting the war and for all the damage that was done: “The view of Germany as the story-book villain is enshrined in Article 231 of the Treaty of Versailles, which held

Germany and its allies ‘guilty’ for starting the First World War.” (McDonough, Frank,

The Origins of the First and Second World Wars) The Central Powers were condemned, but Germany suffered the worst fate, not only losing many territories, but also many riches; a huge blow to the economy. Firstly, the Allied Powers (U.S., U.K., France,

Russia, Italy) were afraid of an uprising or attack from Germany and limited its army and military forces to prevent this: “The German army was limited to 100,000 men, conscription was abolished, and tanks and aircraft were prohibited. The navy was slimmed down to a coastal force of 36 vessels, and the building of battleships and submarines was outlawed.” (McDonough, Frank, The Origins of the First and Second

World Wars) Secondly, “Germany lost 13 per cent of its territory,” (McDonough, Frank,

The Origins of the First and Second World Wars) leaving it much weaker and vulnerable

Poirot 10 to attacks, since it did not just lose the territory, but had to give it to the Allied Powers to ensure that there would be no counterstrike. Germany also had some territory outside of

Europe, especially in Africa, which was also an important loss: “Germany lost 13 per cent of its territory, including Alsace-Lorraine, Eupen, Marlmédy, North Schleswig, West

Prussia and Posen. The loss of territory in Eastern Europe was particularly bitterly criticized by the German government. […] In addition, all German colonies became mandates (territories under the trusteeship of the League of Nations), and the Allies insisted that the German government agree to uphold a democratic constitution and allow free elections in its own country.” (McDonough, Frank, The Origins of the First and

Second World Wars) The most important punishment given to Germany in the Treaty of

Versailles, however, was the enormous payment that was to be made to the Allied Powers to pay for all the damages caused in the war: “The Germans were also required to pay substantial financial compensation. The final figure, decided by the Reparations

Committee in 1921, was set at £6,600 million, and all the foreign currency and assets of

Germany abroad were seized.” (McDonough, Frank, The Origins of the First and Second

World Wars) Germany was a very rich European power, but even a country so wealthy could not pay such a mass of money without severe repercussions: “Unemployment, severe inflation, strikes, and the rising tide of communism alarmed many middle-class

Germans, who began to see the anticommunist National Socialist Party (Nazis) […] in a different light.” (Hullar, Link, and Scott A. Nelson, A Brief Narrative History) All of these terms were forced upon the Germans, and they had no choice but to sign the treaty:

“Every German greeted the terms of the Treaty of Versailles with varying degrees of anger, horror and disgust.” (McDonough, Frank, The Origins of the First and Second

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World Wars) The effort was in vain, however, since these restrictions and punishments not only angered and irritated the Germans into wanting to revolt more than ever, but it also led to the rising of the Nazi party, and Adolf Hitler: “In July 1919, when Hitler heard the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, he decided to enter politics. His dream was to build a ‘new Germany’ under his own leadership, to overturn the Treaty of Versailles, and to establish Germany as the major European power.” (McDonough, Frank, The Origins of the First and Second World Wars)

During the time between World War I and World War II, Adolf Hitler rose to power. “In retrospect, the year 1924 can be seen as the time when, like a phoenix arising from the ashes, Hitler could begin his emergence from the ruins of the broken and fragmented völkisch movement to become eventually the absolute leader with total mastery over a reformed, organizationally far stronger, and internally more cohesive Nazi

Party.” (Kershaw, Ian, Hitler, 1889-1936: Hubris) His rise to power started easily because of his standing up during the Great Depression, in which Germany suffered a great deal of financial deficits and political problems: “It is generally agreed that the most acute effects of the Great Depression were felt in Germany. From 1925 to 1929, Germany paid £5,000 million in reparations, but received £9,000 million in US loans. As soon as these loans dried up, the German economy collapsed. Unemployment stood at 1.4 million in 1928, but had soared to 6 million by 1932. Industrial production fell by 42%, and agricultural prices collapsed. […] From March 1930 until January 1933, when Hitler came to power, Germany was in effect under a veiled dictatorship.” (Hullar, Link, and

Scott A. Nelson, A Brief Narrative History) The German people were desperate and wanted to believe Hitler and his Nazi Party could help them: “In the election of 31 July,

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1932, the Nazis enjoyed another sharp surge of support. They won 230 seats and 37.4 per cent of the popular vote. This made the Nazi Party the largest parliamentary group ever to sit in the Reichstag.” (McDonough, Frank, The Origins of the First and Second World

Wars) “Needing support, and thinking he could control Hitler, President Hindenburg made the mistake in January 1933 of giving Hitler the post of Chancellor.” (Kershaw,

Ian, Hitler, 1889-1936: Hubris) This was the start of Hitler’s climb to the top. With his new role in the government, he now had substantial enough power to bring his Nazi Party into shape: “The day of Hitler's appointment to the Chancellorship became immediately stylized in Nazi mythology as the 'day of national uprising'. Hitler even changing the calendar to mark the beginning of a 'new world order'. At the same time he avoided the term 'seizure to power', with its putschist connotations, and preferred the more descriptive

'takeover of power' to underline the formal legality of his accession to the highest office of government. Power had indeed not been 'seized'. It had been handed to Hitler, who had been appointed Chancellor by the Reich President in this same manner as had his immediate predecessors. And almost overnight, those who had misunderstood or misinterpreted the momentous nature of the day's events would realize how wrong they had been. After 30 January 1933, Germany would never be the same again.” (Kershaw,

Ian, Hitler, 1889-1936: Hubris) Germany now under Hitler’s hand, the government was immediately replaced by a dictatorship and Germans were faced with the worst mistake they had ever made, as Hitler’s plans began to come to life: "Under Hitler's influence

Germany had reinvigorated its military in violation of the Treaty of Versailles. With

Hitler firmly in control of a newly rearmed Germany, a chain of events began that was to have tragic consequences. In 1936, Germany reoccupied the Rhineland, a German-

Poirot 13 speaking region taken away from it by the Treaty of Versailles. As the world watched closely, England and France took no action against Germany in the hope that Hitler would now be satisfied. In 1938, Germany forced Austria into the Anschluss (union) with it, and moved into the Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia. (...) The last straw was

Hitler's invasion of Poland in September 1939, after which England and France at last

(and as promised) declared war on Germany. World War II had officially begun in

Europe." (Hullar, Link, and Scott A. Nelson, A Brief Narrative History) The Americans had gone to war during World War I, but this time, they were adamant on staying out:

"The American public remained determined this time not to get involved in Europe's conflict" (Hullar, Link, and Scott A. Nelson, A Brief Narrative History) However, no matter how much the American people wanted to stay out of Europe, there was tension rising in other areas as well: "Roosevelt was increasingly concerned as well about

Japanese aggression in Asia". (Hullar, Link, and Scott A. Nelson, A Brief Narrative

History) As a preemptive strike in fear of an attack, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor: "

On Sunday morning, Dec 7, 1941, Japanese airplanes attacked Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, destroying much of the American Pacific fleet and killing over 2,000 armed personnel and civilians." (Hullar, Link, and Scott A. Nelson, A Brief Narrative History) This attack left Roosevelt and the U.S. no choice but to enter the war: “The President's Message to the Congress of the United States: ‘On the morning of Dec. 11 the Government of

Germany, pursuing its course of world conquest, declared war against the United States.

The long-known and the long-expected has thus taken place. The forces endeavoring to enslave the entire world now are moving toward this hemisphere. Never before has there been a greater challenge to life, liberty and civilization. Delay invites great danger. Rapid

Poirot 14 and united effort by all of the peoples of the world who are determined to remain free will insure a world victory of the forces of justice and of righteousness over the forces of savagery and of barbarism. Italy also has declared war against the United States. I therefore request the Congress to recognize a state of war between the United States and

Germany, and between the United States and Italy.’ -Franklin D. Roosevelt” ("US

Declaration of War against Germany.") This was the introduction to war for the U.S., which eventually led to D-Day, and ultimately the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

“Among the great military clashes of history, D-Day is one of the few that is not formally designated by a geographic name, nor is it generally referred to as a

“battle.” Suitably cryptic and concise, D-Day was very much an expression of modern warfare, and as such, the term attracted people’s attention and stimulated their imagination. Few, however, had any idea what it actually meant.” (Balkoski,

Joseph, Omaha Beach: D-Day, June 6, 1944) D-Day is a term in military vernacular that literally means “Day”-Day. It is generally used to signify an important event, date, or battle. It was used for June 6, 1944, the day of Operation Overlord, and is now more easily recognized by the term D-Day. “The British had seriously contemplated only two regions of France as potential invasion sites: Pas-de-Calais and Normandy. The most logical invasion site was the Pas-de-Calais. If the invasion would be made at Pas-de-

Calais, the Allied invasion fleet would have only a short journey, thereby reducing its exposure to enemy attack. Moreover, Allied air cover would be at its strongest. One needed only to glance at a map of western Europe to see that Normandy hardly made sense as an Allied invasion site compared to Pas-de-Calais. Normandy was not only much more distant from England, but also farther away from the Allies’ ultimate

Poirot 15 objective, Germany. Its only decent port, Cherbourg, was hardly adequate to support the

Allies’ considerable logistical needs.” (Balkoski, Joseph, Omaha Beach: D-Day, June 6,

1944)

As the leaders of the Allied Nations met together to design a strategy, they needed to decide whether or not to even go on with the mission, since it was clearly perilous and they would lose many soldiers, if not the entire battle. “At the Quebec

Conference in August 1943, Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt reaffirmed the plan, which was code-named Overlord. Although Churchill acceded begrudgingly to the operation, historians note that the British still harbored persistent doubts about whether

Overlord would succeed. The crucial impetus that transformed Overlord from an imprecise framework into an explicit and focused war plan was triggered by the ‘Big

Three’—Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin—at the summit in Tehran from November 28 to

December 1, 1943, codenamed ‘Eureka.’” (Schamel, Wynell and Blondo, Richard, "D- day Message from General Eisenhower to General Marshall”) Ready to start the real work on the battle strategies between leaders, General Dwight D. Eisenhower said: “I have now had an opportunity of discussing the Overlord plan with my Commanders-in-

Chief. We are convinced that in all discussions full weight must be given to the fact that this operation marks the crisis of the European war. Every obstacle must be overcome, every inconvenience suffered, every priority granted, and every risk taken to ensure that our blow is decisive. We cannot afford to fail.” (Balkoski, Joseph, Omaha Beach: D-Day,

June 6, 1944)

The Germans knew Operation Overlord was coming. What they hadn’t known was where. They were sure that the invasion would land in Pas-de-Calais, and so set up

Poirot 16 many defenses there. When the Americans arrived at Normandy, "German surprise was complete. The Fortitude operation had fixed German attention on the Pas-de-Calais. They were certain it would be the site of the battle, and they had placed the bulk of their panzer divisions north and east of the Seine River, where they were unavailable for counterattack in Normandy." (Ambrose, Stephen E., D-Day, June 6, 1944: The Climactic Battle of

World War II)

“Now, the battle is starting, and the dawn is coming over the French waters as the boats near the Normandy Beaches. Captain Ralph Goranson wrote: ‘I was fortunate to have, in my humble pride, the best damn group of Rangers in the 2nd Battalion. I also felt that the Royal Navy and its landing craft were the very best. They beached us on time in the best place—exactly per our instructions. And they paid dearly for it.’ The LCA carrying Goranson was the westernmost of the fifty first-wave landing craft.

Consequently, it drew attention from the German beach defenders, who indeed had survived the Allied bombardment. As the Rangers neared Omaha Beach, they stopped singing.” (Balkoski, Joseph, Omaha Beach: D-Day, June 6, 1944) The first wave was transported to its destination in 50 small boats, about 15 British. Each one contained at least 31 soldiers, unloading over 1,550 soldiers into the Normandy waters at 6:31 A.M.

“On the beach, the men of Company A flopped into prone positions in a scraggly line just short of the obstacles, while Fellers, at the far right of the line, conferred with some of his noncommissioned officers. Meanwhile, the tide surged forward, so rapidly that it seemed to exhort the Americans to push ahead. And then all hell broke loose. No one could tell where the enemy machine gun fire came from; only its distinctive rrrrrrrp, like a rag being torn, was audible. But no one could fail to notice its obvious effects, as thousands

Poirot 17 of bullets kicked up spouts of sand around the startled GIs, many of whom were promptly hit. A German machine gun spewed out 1,200 bullets per minute, and at that rate, it could kill a lot of Americans in a hurry—especially on a beach with no cover and no craters.”

(Balkoski, Joseph, Omaha Beach: D-Day, June 6, 1944) The Americans came in to find that the beach was completely covered with defenses and that the enemy had the entire situation under control: “The Rangers’ worst fears had been immediately realized: the enemy was decidedly active and seemingly had every foot of the beach zeroed in.”

(Balkoski, Joseph, Omaha Beach: D-Day, June 6, 1944) The Allied planes that were going to clear the way for the soldiers going ashore missed the beach by miles: "Because( of(the(weather(and(the(airmen(not(wanting(to(hit(their(own(troops, most of the blockbusters came down in Norman meadows (or were carried back to England), not on the Atlantic Wall." (Ambrose, Stephen E., D-Day, June 6, 1944: The Climactic Battle of

World War II) Not a single German soldier died before the battle started: “Many of the rockets fell harmlessly into the surf. A few hit at the lower edge of the bluff and in the level areas between the bluff and the beach. The rockets set off grass fires, which provided some smoke, and caused land mines to explode – but they killed few if any

German defenders.” (Ambrose, Stephen E., D-Day, June 6, 1944: The Climactic Battle of

World War II) The advantage was completely in the Germans’ favor, shooting at the

American soldiers as they struggled to move up the beach: “Lt. Edward Tidrick went on to the sands and flopped down fifteen feet from PFC Leo J. Nash. He raised up to give

Nash an order. Nash saw him bleeding from the throat and heard his words: “Advance with the wire cutters!” It was futile. Nash had no wire cutters, and in giving the order,

Tidrick had made himself a target for just an instant, and Nash saw machine gun bullets

Poirot 18 cleave him from head to pelvis. German machine gunners along the cliff directly ahead were now firing straight down into the party.” (Balkoski, Joseph, Omaha Beach: D-Day,

June 6, 1944) Eventually, some soldiers managed to get behind the Germans by cutting through the wire, climbing up the bluff, and attacking the Germans from behind, where they were extremely vulnerable. This was the turning point of the battle. "The situation was by no mean under control. A victory had not yet been won. But there was now a sizable American force on top of the bluff […] ‘The(situation(everywhere(on(the(beach( was(still(grave,’(Bradley(later(wrote,(‘but(our(troops...were(inching(inland...I(gave(up( any(thought(of(abandoning(Omaha(Beach.’”((Ambrose, Stephen E., D-Day, June 6,

1944: The Climactic Battle of World War II) The battle of the beach had been won! The

German defenses on the beach were defeated, but the Americans had to continue on inland to liberate France, and found that their problems had only just begun: "The

Atlantic Wall had been cracked at Omaha Beach, and there was nothing behind it in the way of fixed fortifications - except those awful hedgerows. […] In France, the hedgerow was a mound of dirt from six to ten or twelve feet high with heavy hedges on top and roots that worked down into the mounds, and the mound themselves were very effective barriers. You simply could not pass through a hedgerow." (Ambrose, Stephen E., D-Day,

June 6, 1944: The Climactic Battle of World War II)

Populations in the Allied world were on the beach with all the troops, in spirit and in prayer: "Across the United States and Canada, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, from the Arctic to the Gulf Coast, the church bells rang. Not in triumph or celebration but as a solemn reminder of national unity and a call to formal prayer.” (Ambrose, Stephen E., D-

Day, June 6, 1944: The Climactic Battle of World War II) French citizens were warned

Poirot 19 by their German occupiers: "In Paris, the military Governor, General Stuplnagel, issued a proclamation that was broadcast by French Radio: "German troops have been given orders to shoot any person who is seen to be cooperating with the Allied invasion forces, or who gives shelter to Allied soldiers, sailors, or airmen. Such Frenchmen will be treated as bandits. [...] Parisians listened and kept their own counsel. The country as a whole was quiet. Resisters went into action, of course, but most French people were not in the

Resistance. In Normandy, and everywhere between Normandy and the German border, people were apprehensive about their village or farm or city becoming a battlefield. They could hardly be sure who was going to win; the Germans were there, among them, occupying their country, while the Allies were only a hope. They did the sensible thing, kept quiet and kept their thoughts to themselves." (Ambrose, Stephen E., D-Day, June 6,

1944: The Climactic Battle of World War II)

After the fight, the military generals arrived on Omaha Beach, the site of the D-

Day, and it was decided then and there that the invasion was a success: "On June 12

Eisenhower, Marshall, King, Arnold, and members of their staffs crossed the Channel in a destroyer and went ashore on Omaha Beach. (...) The trip to Omaha symbolized the success of Overlord. If that much brass could safely go ashore in France, the beachhead was clearly secure. More than ten divisions were now engaged on the Allied side, with more coming every day. The artificial harbors were in place and functioning. There were still problems, but the great invasion had worked." (Ambrose, Stephen E., Eisenhower)

Operation Overlord, the beginning of the invasion to regain France and free Europe from

Hitler, had succeeded.

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Mr. Donald McKee was drafted for the 29th Infantry Division and the 175th

Infantry Regiment on D-Day. He was hoping to become a military engineer, but he was instead assigned as a medic. On D-Day, his infantry came after two others, the 115th

(from Virginia), and the 116th (from Maryland), but its landing was delayed because

Omaha beach was chaotic. They got on shore the next morning, on D+1-Day, June 7,

1944, and caught up with the other two infantries. He received a minor injury, but was later hurt and nearly killed by a mortar shell in the Battle for Brest with wounds that kept him in the hospital for 3 months. He received two Purple Hearts and a Bronze Star for his bravery and acts during war. "German snipers would shoot at the Army medics

(universally praised by the veterans of D-Day as the bravest of the brave) as they tried to tend wounded men on the beach who could not be moved.” (Ambrose, Stephen E., D-

Day, June 6, 1944: The Climactic Battle of World War II) The war was won thanks to young men like Mr. McKee who joined the war to protect their country and the world:

“But for all that American industrial brawn and organizational ability could do, for all that the British and Canadians and other allies could contribute, for all the plans and preparations, for all the brilliance of the deception scheme, for all the inspired leadership, in the end success or failure in Operation Overlord came down to a relatively small number of junior offiers, noncoms, and privates or seamens in the American, British and

Canadian armies, navies, air forces and coast guards." (Ambrose, Stephen E., D-Day,

June 6, 1944: The Climactic Battle of World War II)

Historians look at D-Day with awe and admiration. As everyone knows, it was the entrance for the Allies to invade Normandy and free France and Europe from the German and Nazi oppression. Historian Stephen Ambrose interviewed many D-Day and World

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War II veterans on their experience in the war and on D-Day, and they said that it was the most important day of their lives: “Marshall insists that to do the job right, the combat historian must conduct the interviews immediately after the battle. That was obviously impossible, and in any case I felt that for the participants, D-Day was the great day of their lives, stamped forever in their memories. I knew that was the case with Ike

[Eisenhower], who went on to two full terms as President of the United States, but who always looked back on D-Day as his greatest day, and could remember the most surprising details.” (Ambrose, Stephen E., Preface of Pegasus Bridge)

Many events, from German unification to the rise of its most infamous leader, Adolf Hitler, led to World War II and D-Day, shaping the world we live in today.

"In 1964, on D-Day plus twenty years, General Eisenhower was interviewed on Omaha

Beach by Walter Cronkite. He said: ‘It's a wonderful thing to remember what those fellows twenty years ago were fighting for and sacrificing for, what they did to preserve our way of life. Not to conquer any territory, not for any ambitions of our own. But to make sure that Hitler could not destroy freedom in the world.’" (Ambrose, Stephen E., D-

Day, June 6, 1944: The Climactic Battle of World War II) More recently, the words of

Barack Obama commemorating the 65th anniversary of D-Day tell us about the significance of D-Day in our history: “’Had the Allies failed here, Hitler's occupation of this continent might have continued indefinitely. Instead, victory here secured a foothold in France. It opened a path to Berlin. It made possible the achievements that followed the liberation of Europe: the Marshall Plan, the NATO alliance, the shared prosperity and security that flowed from each.’” ("Remarks by the President at D-Day 65th Anniversary

Ceremony." The White House)

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Interview Transcription

Interviewee/Narrator: Donald McKee

Interviewer: Louis Poirot

Location: Mr. McKee's home, Silver Spring, MD

Date: December 21, 2015

This interview was reviewed and edited by Louis Poirot

(Before the interview began, Mr. McKee had phoned his neighbor, who takes care of him, to come and sit in on the interview because she was interested and wanted to watch.)

Louis Poirot: This is Louis Poirot and I am interviewing Donald McKee on the topic of

D-Day/Operation Overlord as part of the American Century Oral History Project. The interview took place on the 21 of December 2015 at his house located in Silver Spring,

Maryland. This interview was recorded using an iPhone and Audacity.

LP: So, let’s start with background questions. What was it like growing up in the U.S. during the 30’s and 40’s?

Donald McKee: Well it was hard because none of us had any money and my father had a rather insignificant job, and I was working my way through school, graduated from high school in 1940, and doing the best I could. So, everybody was in the same way, so it was not a case of feeling sorry for yourself.

Poirot 23

LP: How would you describe the United States at that time?

DM: Everybody had trouble maintaining their job. I grew up in the state of Michigan and in Michigan, the people that were hired by various industrial plants and auto plants in

Michigan, their numbers were down. So, people had a tough time and they had to take whatever jobs they could find.

LP: Yeah. So, what kind of lifestyle did your family have?

DM: Well, we just lived in a house that we rented and I had a brother who was four or five years younger than me and my two parents and my father was in a job that sold stuff to people’s homes, and sometimes I helped him install it because he had no other employee other than me part-time after school.

LP: And what did your mother do?

DM: My mother was a house-wife. She stayed at home, took care of us two boys, myself and my brother.

LP: So, before we start with the questions about D-Day, what do these two pictures mean to you?

Poirot 24

Poirot 25

DM: Well, they recall back scenes that we had in 1944. And I still enjoy looking at them and trying to see something there that I’d be familiar with. Both of these, I remember the scenes, so, there’s something that I would try to recall.

LP: Were you in either of these pictures?

DM: Well, I can’t say I was in either one of the pictures because there were a lot of people over there on that beach, so I can’t say I was in those, but I know I can see from the surroundings that it was some area that I walked through.

LP: So you went to these places?

DM: Yes, I did.

LP: Alright. Now we’re gonna start the questions. Studs Terkel, a historian, called it the

“Good War”. What is your reaction to that?

DM: The “Good War”.

LP: Yeah.

DM: Well, I don’t think I have any reaction particularly. The “Good War” was a war we knew we had to fight and not a lot of us have any comparison to any other war, so we

Poirot 26 couldn’t really say, “well, this is a good war, and the other one 10 years ago was a bad war.” So this is the first time we had been in a war in over 20 years.

LP: But do you think that it was beneficial towards the country?

DM: No question it was beneficial, I mean we did a great job! And it was an important war and it had to be done.

LP: Historians Howard Zinn and Paul Johnson had opposing ideas as to why the United

States entered World War Two. Zinn said that the U.S. entered in order to protect foreign investments and international trade between the United States and Europe while Johnson says that the U.S. only went to protect the Nation as well as its allies. What do you believe? [Question taken from previous St. Andrew’s Oral History Project. (Cromwell,

Stephen. "D-Day Invasion of Normandy: An Interview with Dr. Stephen Cromwell”)]

DM: Well, obviously we were in the war based on Pearl Harbor, that’s what started us

______, and the enemy attacked us in both the Atlantic and the Pacific areas, and we had to go there and help defend our country, but of course their greatest threat was overseas in these parts that we eventually all went to. So it had to be fought, there was no getting out of it, and we were all expecting to go to war and we had very few people that got out of it.

Poirot 27

LP: Do you think there are any other reasons why [0:05:00] the U.S. went into WWII other than Pearl Harbor?

DM: No. We weren’t after any overseas territory. That’s what people go to war for a lot times. It’s “hey you got some land and I want it”. We didn’t have that idea at all.

LP: How did you feel when you were drafted for Operation Overlord?

DM: I felt that I was making moves to get started. That was in 1943, in early ’43, and I was prepared to go, even though I was two and half years through college at that time.

LP: Were you scared or afraid?

DM: No, no, I wasn’t scared. People weren’t scared, they were eager to go. Now there were a few of them that probably were, but you’re talking about the majority of the people, and we did not have people that were trying to get out of it by hiding away and so forth the way that happened in later years.

LP: So how did the drafting process work?

DM: Well, when you got to a certain age, I think it was 18, you signed up for the draft merely indicating which branch of service, if you were drafted, you would like to be in, and they took all that data down and then when they started needing people to fill the

Poirot 28 training camps, they started calling from that list they had. So it was above board, nobody fussed about it.

LP: And, at first, I assume that you wanted to be a military engineer, but you weren’t because...

DM: … Well, I’d had two and half years of engineering school in university and I thought that would be a good place to be in. But they were full and they never called everybody out, so after being called up for possible service in the Air Force in the first quarter of 1943 and then when I got ready to go, they said, “no we’re putting it off, we’ve got enough people right now”, they said, “what’s your second choice?”, and I said, “I’ll take whatever you come up with”, so it turned out then that I was picked and sent to medical basic training, and I had no knowledge of medical at all, and the only reason I was picked is because that’s what they needed that particular week that somebody was doing the picking.

LP: And did you like the medical training?

DM: Yeah, the medical training was OK, but we thought we were sort of second-class guys because we weren’t taught to go out and seek the enemy and get rid of ‘em, but, hey, after we had basic training in the medics, we knew we had a job to do, and we knew we could be assigned, belong to an infantry unit, just two or three men attached to the unit, and be in the same heavy fire that the guys were that had been schooled in infantry.

Poirot 29

LP: How did your family feel when you had to leave?

DM: Oh, they were disappointed, of course, but they didn’t object, they didn’t stand at the door and say, “you can’t go”, they just said, “well, keep in touch with us!”, and they did.

LP: So how did you feel towards that? Because you said that you were enthusiastic but that your family was disappointed.

DM: Well, they were – How did I feel about it? Well, I was eager to go, because everybody was going. I mean, the classes, the last class I was in at the University of

Michigan, would probably be in January 1943, when the fall semester was ending, and all the men were being called up, so it was a case where, hey, you had to go because otherwise you felt pretty strange.

LP: What about your siblings? You mentioned you had brothers…

DM: Well, I had one brother, but he was quite a bit younger than me, he was seven years younger, so, …

[phone rings: 0:09:23]

He didn’t enter into it at all. Let me go see who it is. It may be my neighbor.

Poirot 30

[phone call cut out: 0:09:42]

LP: [0:09:44] So your brother never had anything to do with the war?

DM: No, he was too young.

LP: And how did he feel that you were going to…

DM: Well, he’s dead now, he’s been dead for a long time.

LP: I’m sorry…

DM: So, how does he feel?

LP: [0:10:00] How did he feel? How did he feel about your leaving to war?

DM: Oh, he was okay. About 1950, after the war was over, he became interested and did join the local Michigan National Guard, but he didn’t go overseas or anything, so he didn’t have much of a role at all in WWII because he was too young.

LP: So what was it like being in London when you left?

Poirot 31

DM: Well, I wasn’t in London very often. I guess we got to England in January of 1944 and we went over on the Queen Mary and landed in one of the ports in England and was immediately shipped out to the area where the 29th Division was located, which was 100 miles away from London, down in South West England. So I guess I was only in London twice in those six months before the invasion. So I didn’t get the chance to see it too much but I appreciated it and thought it was an interesting town but the guys that I met with and joined up with in England didn’t get into the areas where there were guys walking up and down the street. We were in the country area.

LP: And so how was England in general apart from the training?

DM: Well, people were generally serious and they were very dedicated to what they had to do, because the Germans were bombing the hell out of them every night! And they had to send out American Air Force people to try and counter it and we even had to be very careful at our army base where we were which was 100 miles south-west of London. We had to be careful to not have any visibility at night-time, lights and things like that, and cause them to drop bombs on us.

LP: Did they drop any bombs on your…?

DM: No, not on our thing, we were well over in the South West of England, so 100 miles away, we never got it down there, so we were fortunate.

Poirot 32

LP: How much did you know about the overall operation?

DM: When I got there?

LP: Uh-huh.

DM: Very little. They had so many people in uniform that they didn’t have time to bring every single body up to knowledge of what was going on. You had to read the newspapers and of course you had sessions where you would talk about what was going on. But as far as learning every minute of what was happening, you didn’t know that.

You just went where told to go.

LP: And when you were in London and getting ready for the actual D-Day, did you learn anything…

DM: Now, wait a minute, I was only in London a matter of couple days over the course of the six months or five months between the time I got to England and D-Day.

LP: Sorry, I meant England.

DM: Right, okay.

LP: Sorry.

Poirot 33

DM: And what was the question?

LP: When you were in England, getting ready for D-Day, did you learn any information that others didn’t or…

DM: No, because the Germans hadn’t landed in England, therefore they didn’t know us and we didn’t know them. So it was a matter of just being prepared to do what we were supposed to do, to follow the route once we landed in France, to get to the point where the high command us to go to.

LP: And how was your training when you were in England?

DM: Well, it was basically just taking hikes getting to know the units you were in. It was nothing special, and we had passes on weekends and we had to be careful that we didn’t congregate in big areas where a lot of Americans were so the Germans wouldn’t drop bombs, because they had control of the air most of the time in 1944.

LP: When you were about to be sent to the beaches of Normandy, how did you feel, and, emotions?

DM: We didn’t have really a chance to think about how were feeling, and so forth. We were a part of a group, and you didn’t know any more or any less than anybody else in

Poirot 34 the group. [0:15:00] So it was just a matter of sitting there, and on the way over, it took us three or four nights, because we were out on the water, waiting to get in, and all you do is just have people on the ship that would stand guard at night and in the daytime and fight off any German planes that came over, or ships. So it was just waiting until we got in.

LP: Was there a lot of fighting on the water?

DM: Between us and the Germans?

LP: Uh-huh.

DM: There was no fighting because the Germans didn’t come out.

LP: And the whole operation was supposed to be a surprise, right?

DM: Yes, but, and the Germans thought we were coming at another location. They knew we were coming, they just didn’t know exactly where. So we surprised them coming in where we did at Omaha Beach.

LP: What kind of day was it, what was the weather like, on those days?

Poirot 35

DM: Oh, well… This was June, the weather was not bad, except it was stormy, and we were supposed to come in on the 5th, which was a Monday, and the weather was so bad that we couldn’t even get the ships out in an area we wanted. So we postponed it,

Eisenhower did, postponed it for 24 hours, and part of our unit, our division, went in at

6:30 in the morning on Tuesday, June 6th, and that was our first look at the French coast.

LP: And what were the emotions like when you were on the boats?

DM: Well, we were – we didn’t know what we were getting into, we’d never been in combat before, so therefore, we were anxious and wanted to know what the guys ahead of us were doing. But you see, it took 24 hours to get everybody in that was supposed to be in in the first 8 or 10 hours because of the dangers the Germans put up on the beach defending it, and the fact that the bad weather, the bad weather really cost us more time because of the storm and everything that it had. And nobody is in control of the weather, so by the time that the 7th came, when my unit came in, the weather was slightly better, but the seas were violent. So we lost boats going in through the weather.

LP: Was anyone nervous to go onto the beach?

DM: Oh, yeah, everybody was nervous. There was no smart alecks there saying, “oh, let’s get going, I’m ready to go!”, no! Everybody didn’t know what they were getting into and because none of the people there had ever landed on a foreign beach before. Oh, I take that back. The first division, which came in beside of us, they were in Italy for a

Poirot 36 while, before they were brought up in England, they were in Italy in the fall of ’42, but it was nowhere near as massive as the one that we were all preparing for in June ’44.

LP: And, how did your division feel about the weapons and, what you had to carry?

DM: We didn’t think about that, we just knew what had to be done, and obviously it was a lot of things to carry. But I didn’t have to carry a weapon because I was a medic and medics were not allowed, under the Geneva Convention, which the Germans sort of abided by, we were not allowed to carry weapons. We carried our medical cases on our belts, and we were right with the infantry, but we were still shot at as medics because we were right alongside the infantry.

LP: And did you have a lighter load than the infantry?

DM: Well, I had a couple medical pouches. They probably weighed ten pounds each, and the military guys, the army infantry, they… What am I trying to say? Well, they had their rifle, and they had their packs and so forth and carried things. So everybody had

[0:20:00] stuff to carry, no question about that. Whether ours were less than what theirs were, I can’t make that judgment.

LP: Okay. So, when you were waiting on the boats, what could you see?

Poirot 37

DM: Well, we were supposed- the 29th Division, which was one of the four major divisions on D-Day, was like the other three, they were similar organizations, but the

29th, which was the one I was in, had 15,000 people in it, and there were several different kinds of units that were part of the division. And these units came in and took 24 hours to get them all in. So it was a matter of where you were at what time and how much you saw of the other guys because our landing area was spread over an area that was probably a mile long. And a lot of the times, we didn’t know what was going on in other places, we just had to go straight in, which is what we did. Sometimes the weather was bad that morning of June 6th, and it caused our landing crafts to be blown sideways, so they wouldn’t come in where we were supposed to but maybe a half a mile down the beach.

So, the landing was not one without problems, and the problems were basically due 1) to the weather, that was the worst problem, and 2) to the fact that the Germans had a lot of people there even though they didn’t think we were coming. They still had a lot of people there and were able to keep up a pretty good firing. But within two days, we were three or four miles inland. So, we were able to overcome the manpower situation.

LP: What kinds of smells, sounds on the boat were there?

DM: You say “boat”, it’s landing craft.

LP: On the landing craft, sorry.

Poirot 38

DM: Smells or sounds? Well, I don’t remember any particular smells or sounds except that the sound was all around us: shells bursting overhead from the Germans on the shore and landing crafts, some of them turned and hit one another because of the high seas, so it was just a matter of everybody doing their best to get us to shore.

LP: Could you hear the shooting from the beach like the Germans firing?

DM: Oh yes, very much, yeah. You could hear the gun noises two or three miles out on the landing craft.

LP: What kind of people did you meet on the landing craft?

DM: Just regular guys, just like you, just like me. There was nothing special about them.

LP: And were there any, did you have any games played on the landing crafts?

DM: Games?

LP: Games like past-times on the crafts?

DM: No.

LP: No?

Poirot 39

DM: Now, there were on the ships coming over to the area. See, the ships brought us from Southern England across 100 miles to where there were about 3 or 4 miles from the shoreline. These transport ships dumped us all into landing crafts at that time. By

“dumping us” I mean we crawled down the ladders on the side of these vessels, large ones, and got into landing crafts. And once we were loaded and had enough people in the landing crafts, like 30, I think it was, we took off for shore and we never saw the ships again.

LP: So how was the wait on the landing craft?

DM: How was the wait?

LP: Yeah, like waiting.

DM: I don’t guess I follow what you mean “how was the wait”?

LP: Like, what conditions were there?

DM: Well, the seas were rough, and the landing craft would go up and down like this.

There was only thirty men on the small landing craft. So it wasn’t crowded, but it was an area maybe [gestures with hands and shows sides of room], oh, the area probably was, the boat was maybe as long as from that side of the house to that side of the house and

Poirot 40 probably as wide as this room and there were 30 people on it, so we had space, but nevertheless we [0:25:00] were ducked down because the Germans were firing at us as they saw us coming in.

LP: What did you feel when you were on the beach and what were your thoughts and what was going on?

DM: The first thing we thought was to get down so they couldn’t see you and fire at you, and of course we didn’t come in until the next morning, so we were not the first ones of our division in, we were the last ones of our division in. So the firing at the beach was still strong, but not as strong as it was on the Tuesday morning when the other two regiments came in. We had the regiment from Virginia came in at 6:30 in the morning on

Tuesday, and the regiment, the second one to come in was a regiment from Maryland, the

115th , and that came in around 10:00 on Tuesday and then our regiment, which was the second from Maryland, there was one—it was probably my ear thing. Did you hear that?

LP: What?

DM: Just now, I just heard a signal in my ear thing. It probably just means that the batteries are wearing down. So, of the 3 regiments, which were around 3500 men each, one from Virginia, two from Maryland, the Maryland unit, the first one, came in around

10:00 on Tuesday morning the 6th, and our unit, the 2nd of Maryland was supposed to come in at 2:00 in the afternoon, because it took time to get the guys that landed on the

Poirot 41 beach out of there and inland, so there’d be more space for the succeeding guys to come in. The beach was only 30 feet wide. I mean, it had cliffs here, and water coming in here, and that low tide was at certain times of the day, like when we came in it was low tide and then you had to walk a half a mile on the ocean floor to get in.

LP: You said that you landed on the 7th, that you got to the beach on the 7th…

DM: Now, we came in on the 7th, but we got there on the 6th. We were still out, a mile out on the water, when the first wave went in on the 6th. And we were scheduled to come in the 3rd regiment of the division and that was scheduled to be at 2:00 in the afternoon of the first day. Well, guys had so much trouble getting in the first and second units that there was no space on the beach to bring more boats in, so they had to hold us, and we stayed on that landing craft all night long, a mile offshore, waiting to get in when we had space on the beach.

LP: So what was going on when you got onto the beach?

DM: Less than when the other two regiments came in because they drove the Germans off the beach and inland. So we were able to land, except that water was high, high waves and winds. That was one of the big problems that we had. It was not the firing at us, by the time we got there, but the high waves, and by the time we got there, the Germans had been pushed back about the length of three or four football fields, or something like that.

Poirot 42

LP: And what kind of resistance was there from the Germans?

DM: Well, heavy resistance, because they had dug in places in the side of the cliff and up on top. They were on higher ground, and we were down 80 or 90 feet below them coming in where the water was. So they had the advantage over us because they had the higher ground, and they had guys, even though the Germans didn’t expect us to come in at that spot, they still had people there watching. They just didn’t have as many as they did where they had the command where they thought we were going come in.

LP: And they had cannons and weapons, like… Did they have weapons or cannons?

DM: Oh, yeah they had a lot of heavy guns up on the cliff, and they were firing down on us as we came in.

LP: And how was the beach like? What kind of traps were there?

DM: Well, there were no [0:30:00], the beach was relatively level but it had a lot of stuff that had floated in, like cartridge shells and broken-up boats and so forth, and it floated in with the tide so the beach was full of all kinds of junk that was normally not there before the invasion started. So that’s what took our unit so long to get in, and the first units that went in had a relatively clear beach, but then when these guys when came in with tanks and things like that, and those things were shot up, no one could move them! They were just stuck there on the beach and this contributed to a clutter and made it hard for us that

Poirot 43 followed them to find spots to land and get up to where the high ground was where the rest of the—you’re coming in like this [motions with hands] and this cliff is right here, and it’s about 90 feet or something. There were areas through the cliff that were cut through for people to come down to the water level where there was a small road. So there were ways up through it, but you didn’t necessarily come in exactly where those openings were, you had to sometimes go sideways on the beach to get up through.

LP: You mentioned that tank. Did it provide shelter from enemy fire?

DM: Did the tank that was knocked out, you mean?

LP: Yeah.

DM: Yeah, sure, because you could get behind it, and they couldn’t hit you. But then you had no business staying on the beach. You had to move forward because, as you’re standing there trying to figure out where to go or where the safest way to go up this cliff and go up these cuts, guys were coming in behind you all the time. Even though we came in on Tuesday morning, by Tuesday noon there were other divisions coming in behind us.

So you had to get off the beach, otherwise it’d be complete chaos.

LP: And how was that escape from the beach?

Poirot 44

DM: Hm? Well, we had to go sideways on the shore until we came to one of these causeways that was cut through to go up to the higher ground where the rest of the country was. So, it varied up and down the beach, what kind of resistance you had. The

Germans were up on the high side, here [shows with hands] firing down at you. So you had to stay close to the walls so they couldn’t hit you and then keep walking either way to find a way to go on up.

LP: Was there any barbed wire or landmines or anything on the beach?

DM: There were mines, yes, there were mines. There were very little barbed wire, that was probably some other places. I don’t remember seeing much barbed wire. But, nevertheless, the area had been mined pretty well.

LP: Was that a threat to you?

DM: Well, since we didn’t come in the very first ones, then somehow a path had been marked where the guys ahead of us came in, saw, felt on these mines on the beach, they got hit. But then, as people kept coming in, they had to move sideways to get to an area where they didn’t have the beach to climb up. I mean, not the beach, but the cliff. They can’t do that, there was no way to get up that. You had to go through one of the areas where you had relative access cut through.

LP: Did you see a mine explode or not?

Poirot 45

DM: Oh, yeah, I saw a lot of them. You just had to be lucky. Guys where hit, being hit all the time. So of the—in our regiment, let’s see, battalion. First you have a regiment, about 3,500, and then further in it’s broken down into battalions and these battalions were around 900 or 1,000 each, and then you had the companies and the companies were around 200. So [0:35:00] it just depended on very different spots how bad it was getting in.

LP: So you said you didn’t have a gun during the…

DM: No, because the medics were not allowed to take weapons.

LP: So you had no defense?

DM: No weapons at all.

LP: So you were helpless if you ran into a German soldier?

DM: Well, you were with other infantry guys and they protected you because they know you were there to help them. So they protect us but we didn’t have to worry about supplies, ammunition to carry, or guns.

LP: Did you ever stop on the beach to help someone out?

Poirot 46

DM: Oh, yes. Guys that would be wounded, crying for help, and so forth, and we had to stop there, and by the time we got them dressed up with bandages and gave them medicine, then the unit we were with was well on ahead of us, so we had to hurry to catch up with them.

LP: Did you get wounded at all on the beach?

DM: No, not then. I got wounded twice in Normandy. Once was in the latter part of June, and the second time, and I was evacuated back to one of the aid stations and was treated, kept there all night, and sent right back again to the unit the next morning, because we needed all the help we could get, and now I had a bandage or something around part of my body [that was the 1st time]. But the time I really got wounded was in the end of

August, and there I was knocked unconscious and ended up being taken back to the beach in an ambulance or truck and then put on an aircraft and send by aircraft back to Wales in

England where the hospital was. I was there for three months.

LP: What kinds of injuries, or wounds, were those?

DM: I had bullets wounds and shrapnel wounds inside my body. I’ve got scars on my body where pieces of metal showed they were there.

LP: And the first injury, how was it?

Poirot 47

DM: First injury was, I don’t know, I’ve got that scar on my wrist or my arm here. As soon as you were bleeding and you’re in the front line, you can put a compress under it or something like that, but if it gets too bad, you gotta be evacuated back to where you can see a doctor and get some medicine. We didn’t have any medicine except packets of sulfa drugs and so forth, because it you had to be stitched up or something like that you had to go back to the battalion aid station, which was like a mile back from where you had been.

LP: Wow. So you had to walk all the way back?

DM: Yeah, sometimes they had a vehicle, but most of the time we had to walk, yeah. But after the first month we were there, then they got more vehicles, Jeeps and so forth and they turned them into medical ?carrying?—vehicles to… [Noise at the door, door opens]

There’s my neighbor coming. Okay. Okay, come in and sit down or go in the kitchen.

This is my neighbor right here and she sort of watches over me. I live by myself and I’m

92 years old so I need her around.

LP: Yeah.

Karen: Thank you so much for letting me do this. He’s 92! Isn’t that phenomenal!

Poirot 48

DM: Alright, okay. You know what, just be quiet and just sit down or do what you have to do. He’s been talking to me. I don’t know how I got the time mixed up but I thought it was at 4:00[P.M.].

K: I was trying to be here at 3:30 and wow, okay.

LP: So when the Operation was over, how did you feel?

DM: Well, the Operation was over basically after 1 day, 24 hours, and by that time we had enough people on the beach that had pushed the Germans back from the waterfront, from the cliffside that we were able then to have certain areas that we were responsible

[0:40:00] for, like 2 or 3 house lots or something like that. Well, our company would be in there and would dig foxholes around to protect ourselves overnight. And that took about a day or two days before we got off the beach and away from the worrying about getting in. So once we were in from the beach onto the shore and up on the high ground, then we had to keep going forward southward and it varied. Some days we’d go ?a little way?, some days we’d go a quarter of a mile, depending on what shape the Germans were, because as we moved forward, they had to drop back, and they still had a lot people there and a lot of ability to stop us. So we took a lot of losses, as did all the four

American divisions that came in on D-Day.

LP: And how did you feel when it was over?

Poirot 49

DM: How did I feel when it was over?

LP: Yeah, the actual Operation Overlord.

DM: Well, it was never really over, I mean, you never sat down and said, “oh, gee, we’ve been fighting for three days and now we’re free!” That never happened because, as we moved forward, the Germans would drop back. And some days they may drop back only one field, because these farmlands, as you went inland, were level farmlands with hedgerows around them. A hedgerow is a mound of dirt that the ancient people had put up there to keep the cattle in certain areas. So we had to go and try to get one or two hedgerow advances a day. And finally, it took us 20 to 30 days to get 4 or 5 miles inland.

So we had to fight for everything. Some days we didn’t make anything. We’d get into one of these areas where we decide to stay the night, and we’d dig in against the hedgerow. Each guy would team up with another guy, or maybe a third, and dig a foxhole down in the ground. Here’s the ground, you’re coming in this way, here is something ahead of you, a fence line or hedgerow or something, a hedgerow was a mound of dirt that separated one field from another guy’s field where the cattle would have a path to get into these enclosed fields. So when we saw this as farmland, it wasn’t farmland in any sense like we’re accustomed to over here. These were small areas that would be the size of a football field and it would have a hedge, a 15/20 feet-high hedge with plants growing out of it, these had been surrounding, each of these fields. And from the road, the road that went here, you’d go in through a gate, where the farmer would let his cattle in and he’d bring them back out at the end of the day or leave them there and that’s a hedgerow

Poirot 50 country, or you had a road trough the meadow, just a one-lane dirt track, and that’s where the farmer had access to each plot. Hedgerow plots. And as you came down this road, you’d have a plot here, maybe you’d have a wall here, and you’d have an opening there, and another plot beyond that, and on the other side of the road you had something similar.

So the whole area, which we didn’t know much about, and which, apparently, our guys never really thought about, that area—I tell you, I keep losing my mind every now and then.

K: Tell him, it’s that hedgerow terrain that really made advancing difficult, because tanks couldn’t get through there, right? Those hedges, they had a really hard time getting through them.

DM: Yeah, right. Yeah, we didn’t have much in the way of tanks, or help, until two or three weeks into the fighting. So everything had to be advanced forward. [0:45:00] So, we’d come into the Germans we pushed back and sometimes they’d be just on the other side of the hedgerow from us. And other times, they would drop back to another hedgerow. So we had to—we couldn’t go down the roads, because the roads went straight through, and all they’d do was put a weapon, a cannon, at one end and just fire down that road. So you had to stay off the roads and you had to either go over top of the hedgerows, climb over and then do it when nobody’s firing at you. It’s hard to explain and you really almost have to see a movie in order to understand what I’m saying. I don’t know if you ever seen one.

Poirot 51

LP: Not of this, but I did see a few documentaries on D-Day. But did the fighting take place on the farms?

DM: The fighting took place on the roads, on the fields, yeah, the farms consisted of these enclosures, these hedgerows enclosures about the size of a football field. And a farmer might have 8 or 10 of those. But he had—they were put in there a thousand years ago as an attempt to separate one farm from another farm, and they were added to over the years.

LP: Did you see any farmers while you were fighting?

DM: No, the farmers had sense enough not to be around and pulled out.

LP: So what do you think the historical significance of D-Day is overall?

DM: What do I think the historical…

LP: Yeah, how do you think it’s significant in history?

DM: Well, the Germans were strong and powerful. We didn’t know anything about the

Japanese. We had no contact with them at all and didn’t know what they were up to or not. All we know is Pearl Harbor came, and that was a Japanese thing, but that happened out in the Pacific and we were in Europe. We didn’t have any of that knowledge, so... We

Poirot 52 knew the Germans were interested in coming across the English Channel and taking over

England, which was a 60- or 80- mile trip across the channel to do that, and the Germans were well fortified, and when we landed in the heart of where they were on the continent, it took us a long time to push them back and when we were told, I guess in preparing for it, we said we would be to the town of St. Lo. That’s S-T-period-L-O. You’ve heard of that. And that was the capital of Normandy, and that was 25 miles inland from the beach.

And we were told we should be there in 7 days. But it didn’t take us 7 days, it took us 7 weeks because of the defensive posture that the Germans had on their side as they backed up.

LP: What do you think about the motives of the Germans?

DM: What do I think about what?

LP: Their motives. The Germans’.

DM: Oh, their motives were terrible. They were out to take over Europe and run it. And take all the Jews out in the process.

LP: So you…

DM: Well, nobody here in the States in World War II thought that these guys, the

Japanese after Pearl Harbor and the Germans, and what they did, and Hitler, and what

Poirot 53 they did preparing for D-Day and the fight they put up during it in Italy and so forth, everybody knew that, hey, they were just impossible. They were going to take a great, great measure to get it done.

LP: And compared to the American military force, how do you think the Germans were?

In strength.

DM: Well, they had different types of weapons than we did. They had artillery that was better than ours. They had a lot of people, and they were falling back as we came in going this [0:50:00] way, and as we’d get over this hedgerow, they would have already pushed back to a previous hedgerow, maybe 100 yards away, where they had dug in structures because they were falling back in their own territory. We were coming in on new territory and there was nobody to help us. So we knew that’s what we had to do. So the Germans were strong because they were there and they had been pushed, had been occupying that area for several years.

LP: What do you think the significance of D-Day is in our history today? So what affect did it have, did it leave?

DM: Well, it caused the world to turn around because in 1943, the Germans were all over

Europe, they hadn’t got to England, but they were all over Europe, they were in Africa, and in the Pacific, the Japanese were in many of the areas. They never got to Hawaii, but they got into the Philippines and almost to Australia. So it was a matter of the world was

Poirot 54 being taken over. It was a very serious thing, far more than anything that’s ever happened since then. So we had no qualms at all about our being there.

LP: You said it was a turning point. How do you…?

DM: Turning point.

LP: Yeah, like a flip in…

DM: Well, the Germans had all of Europe. And in 1942 in the fall, we had a small

American force down in North Africa and they were supposed to come up to the southern part of Europe and that wasn’t very convenient access either but we knew very well that in order to beat Germany and take over the land and free all those Europeans that we had to go in up at the northern end of the continent. And that’s what we were picked, our division, was picked to do. And that’s where the bulk of the American fighting took place, was in Northern Europe and not in Italy. Italy had some strong stuff, and so did

Sicily, but nowhere near as what had to take place up further north. Do you want to see a map or do you remember a map of Europe?

LP: No, I remember. So, what do you think would have happened if D-Day hadn’t occurred or had failed?

DM: Say that again?

Poirot 55

LP: What do you think would’ve happened if D-Day had failed or if it hadn’t taken place?

DM: Well, the Germans would have stayed there and they would’ve gone to Great

Britain. They were getting ready to bomb the hell out of Great Britain because they had a great Air Force and the British were really struggling and they needed help or they would have had Germans invading across the 50 or 60 miles across to the British continent, the

British whatever you call it. So everybody knew it was important that it be done. You had none of these questions the way, all these wars we’ve had since then, you always have people over here “well, we shouldn’t do this, that’s not important,” which country over here, and some other group says elsewhere. Back then in 1942 and 1943, this whole country was solid behind whatever our military decided had to be done, and there was no great resistance by people my age that were called in to serve to say, “oh, I’m not gonna do that, let the Germans go!” because we knew the Germans were up to—you know, the

Germans almost landed here in this county! I’m sure, had they taken England, in another year, they would have started sending, because they had a tremendous Navy and Air

Force, and they would’ve maybe come onto Newfoundland and Canada and come down to us, so we had to protect our own continent as well as Europe.

LP: Did you meet any troops from Canada or New Zealand or Australia?

DM: No, we were all Americans.

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LP: So there were no British troops with you either?

DM: No, they were north of where [0:55:00] we were.

LP: Okay so it was just Americans. Okay. In retrospect, how do you feel about having been in D-Day?

DM: I don’t worry about it. I figured that I was the right age and that a whole bunch of our young guys in my age group had to perform. They asked it, too, and we did, with the help of the American military factories and so forth that could produce all the weapons we needed, that’s the other big thing that helped us. Was not the bravery or the manpower of the American people, but it was what we also were able to furnish in the way of war materials. Because Britain couldn’t keep up with what was needed.

LP: D-Day and World War II was a major part in modern history…

DM: World War II was a major, major event, THE major event of the entire 20th century.

LP: And how do you feel about having been in it? Are you proud to have served?

DM: Yeah, I guess so.

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K: Yes, yes, yes.

DM: It’s not something I think about. I mean, I don’t worry about it, this is 70 years ago.

But for several years, I came back, finished up college, got married, had a job, and didn’t think that much about it. But then as all of us guys go older, we started forming organizations to remember what we did, so that’s how I got interested in that and why I was able to go back, I guess 3 times, in the 60’s, 70’s, or 80’s, or whenever it was, just to visit those places again.

LP: How where those visits for you?

DM: Well, they were taken as tours to go back to the areas and with families. Our trip back in, for the 50th anniversary in 1994, our 29th Division organization had the largest crew ever to go back to England, back to Europe, which was over 500 people in one travel group. That was something.

K: He was there as recently as 2007.

DM: I’ve been back 3 times, and I’m not going back any more, I don’t need to. There’s not too many World War II guys left, because they’re all—I’m 92, and in 1943, when I was called into service, I was 20 that year. So I was just at the age where they wanted people. By the time I got out in 1946, I was 3 years more than then. It was all handled

Poirot 58 during my young years when, you know, when you have the vitality and so forth to go back.

LP: When you came back from the war, because after the three months in the hospital, you…

DM: Well, I was sent back to France the second time as limited duty. In other words, I was not reassigned to the 29th again. Now, many people that were wounded could go back to the hospital, get fixed up and so forth, and then come back in a month or two and go right back in the unit again. I was deemed, when I got out of the hospital in the end of

1944, came back to France to be assigned again and I was deemed I wasn’t fit enough because of the injuries that I had and I still was bothered with. So they sent me then to an army post office and that’s where I spent the rest of my time in service, which is almost another year, in the army postal service.

LP: Did you like the army postal system?

DM: Well, it was safe. I didn’t want any more combat. You know, [1:00:00] other people had different ideas of it, but in my head it was that I’d had my fill of it and I was not able to—I walked with a limp, and I was not able to take combat ever again. But I guess I would’ve had the situation gotten worse, but by the beginning of 1945, we had so many people in uniform, like a total of 15 million or something like that, and we had enough

Poirot 59 people so that the guys that had been there once, gotten their purple hearts, didn’t have to go back a second time.

LP: When did you get your awards? Because you have…

DM: Well, they were a long time after they happened, probably in the hospital. That’s what it was. The division said, “Okay, McKee is getting the bronze star and the purple heart.” And it comes into my unit where I was in combat and they looked it up and say,

“Oh, he’s not with us anymore, he’s back in the hospital! Where the hell is he?” So they’d find out, and eventually these awards would find me back 50 miles behind where the rest of the division was and completely out of their function. So I was awarded— whatever awards I got was when I was back several months after they happened. They didn’t try to give it while we were in combat.

LP: How would you say your overall experience of combat was?

DM: Oh, it was June, July and August, those three months of the 30, 36 months of service or something like that. It was only a tenth of my service time, so what was the question?

LP: Well, it was substantial enough to—you mentioned you didn’t want to go back.

Poirot 60

DM: Well, I would’ve. And had it come another five months, had they wanted me back five months later, not at the end of December, when I got out of the hospital, but if they wanted me back in April or May of ‘45, I was a little better by then and probably could have served. But they had guys being constantly drafted here in this country and they really did not have a shortage of people. So I was with this unit and it was—what did I say it was? It was the- post office! The army post office. And come April ’45, yeah. They said, okay, we’re in the army post office near Paris shuffling mail and they say, “okay, you guys, we’re going to need you in the Pacific.” So they bundled us up along with other units, shipped us to Marseilles, which was a port in the Mediterranean, put us on an army French boat there, sent us back westward, we got off—we knew we weren’t going back to the States. We knew we were going to the Pacific because that hadn’t been settled yet. We got off one night in Panama, got on the ship the next day, and finally got out to the Philippines—it was a… from Marseilles to the Philippines was a long trip, like

12,000 miles. By that time, those of us that were back in the post office recovering from some problems knew very well that when we were well enough, we probably could have been called back out again to help with the invasion of Japan. So when the invasion didn’t occur because of the fact that our guys that were out there beat them, then we were very happy. So that could have been I had combat twice. But it didn’t because the war ended then in July ’45.

LP: How did you feel when you went back home after the war?

Poirot 61

DM: How did I feel? Happy to be back. Wanted to get back and finish school, get a degree, go on to work, and that’s what I did. Started my [1:05:00] life.

LP: How did your family feel when you came home?

DM: Well, they liked to see me come back, and they knew I had been wounded and knew that I was in the hospital, and they were quite interested to know what shape I was in. So they were surprised that I was in pretty good shape.

LP: How did you feel about having been sort of out of you brother’s life, or not having seen him grown up really?

DM: Oh, it didn’t bother me really.

LP: Okay. And he was happy to see you back home?

DM: Yeah, but I was never close—I was seven years difference between myself and my brother, so there was never a close attachment there. Well, he joined in 1950, which was

5 years after I was home. He joined the National Guard and stayed in Michigan. I guess because he wanted to show the family that he could serve, too. Well, in 1950 the only thing going on was Korea, and he was not picked to go to Korea, so he did not have to serve outside the United States.

Poirot 62

LP: Is there anything you regret having done or not done?

DM: No, I don’t have any regrets.

LP: No?

DM: None. If I told you I had any regrets, I’d be lying to you. No, I’m glad about what I did, and even though I got banged up and I’m glad it’s past me, and when I got back out of service, graduated, it was from 1946—no, ’47 is when I graduated from college, to about 1985, when I got interested again in meeting with these guys that I was part of the group in World War II. That was the 29th Division Association. That was the group of us that got together and we’d have conventions every year, and that’s what made me think about it again. But from 1946, when the war ended, and until I got interested again in the eighties, I just went about my normal life just trying to make a living, which I was pretty successful at. So I’ve got no qualms at all about what I did or didn’t do.

LP: Do you ever wish that you hadn’t been injured?

DM: No, I never thought about that. It happened—it was so calm when it happened in the unit I was in. Now there were others guys in World War II that were never even close to combat. But the ones that had it—oh, maybe there’s a few out there that felt bad about it but all of us that served that I was aware of, we were all glad we were there, and glad we were never harmed any more than we were. I’ve had good attention from the Veterans’

Poirot 63

Association ever since World War II, all my injuries and any of my results that I’ve had that I need attention were all documented from the World War II service and I’ve been able, in my later years, to use the Veterans’ Administration facilities here in the

Washington area, and they’ve helped me tremendously.

LP: Do you still have those yearly meetings with the…

DM: Still have what?

LP: The yearly meetings with the 29th division?

DM: Yeah. Well, I don’t anymore because I’m 92 and I don’t travel as well as I did, but I was the head hotshot, when the Division Association had 4 or 5 thousand members, and I was National Commander. The head guy of the whole group. But now it’s dropped because the World War II guys are dropping off and people that are younger than we, that were never in combat, they probably don’t have the attachment together to want to get together and talk over stuff.

K: The publication of the 29th Division, he was the editor for that publication that came out three times a year? Or four times a year?

DM: Yeah, three.

Poirot 64

K: He was the editor of that for many years and this last year’s convention was the first convention he did not attend. They do—in May they go down and lay a wreath at the tomb of the unknown soldier, and we did that with the 29th Division group that came. So he’s still associated with the Association, it’s just this was the first year [1:10:00] he did not attend the National Convention.

DM: How are you coming? Are you near the end?

LP: Hm? Yeah, yeah. Very near the end, yeah.

DM: Do you consider it worthwhile?

LP: Yeah, definitely. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. [DM: Did I say what you thought I was going to say?] Actually, I have two more question, and then…

DM: Okay, all right, fire.

LP: Is there anything you miss about this time period?

DM: Is there anything?

LP: You miss, like you wish you could still have now, about the forties.

Poirot 65

DM: Oh, I don’t think so.

K: The music! The music of that era.

DM: Oh! Yeah, right, okay. [All chuckle] I like World War II [K: Music.] popular music

[band name], and so forth. I don’t like the present-day ones at all. So, yeah that’s a good point.

LP: Did you listen to music when you were in France and in England.

DM: Well, no but the whole country was bathed in Glenn Miller, or Artie Shaw or Frank

Sinatra. Those guys were big performers and I can remember being in France after I was—when I was in the hospital and Bob Hope came to the hospital.

K: Oh, you got to see him! Wow.

DM: Yeah, I remember sitting in an audience, you’ve seen movies of these, you know, and listened to these guys crack jokes back and forth, so…

LP: That’s great!

DM: Okay, what else?

Poirot 66

LP: Is there anything else that I missed that would help me better understand the subject of D-Day, or World War II?

DM: I don’t quite know what your final conclusion is supposed to be. You’re supposed to make a report on this at your school?

LP: It’s a transcription and then a final draft.

DM: And this transcription, hopefully it recorded. Did it?

LP: Yeah, definitely. Definitely. [Both laugh nervously] Between the phone and the computer.

DM: Okay, well, I don’t see any lights on, so I don’t know.

LP: That’s because it’s in sleep mode, but yeah.

DM: And what is it—it’s recording it as a disc or something, is that it?

[misclick and plays interview from beginning]

LP: Whoops. So it’s recorded as an mp3.

Poirot 67

DM: You’re going to play that back to your class?

LP: No, I’m going to type it down.

K: And he’s gonna get a copy of it, right?

LP: Yeah.

K: I read all about it. It’s very involved. I mean, it’s very…

DM: Are those papers something you need back?

LP: Not that.

DM: Hand him those papers.

LP: Well, it’s not that.

[skip to more content]

DM: It was the turning point of World War II! I mean, in Europe it was the thing that started the Germans downhill. Up to that time, the Germans were beating the Allies. I mean, it was meant to be that way and it was one hell of a lot of lives were lost on D-

Poirot 68

Day. Over 100,000, from what I understand, were there coming in through four or five divisions of American, plus the British and the free French and so forth. So it was a major event.

LP: Right. So, is there anything else, or?

DM: No, I’ve run out of things to say.

LP: Well, thanks so much for sharing your reflections with me.

DM: Okay.

[1:13:58.2]

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Interview Analysis

History’s definition varies on the opinion of the historian. Historian Barbara

Tuchman says that history happens whether there is anyone to chronicle it or not.

Historian Edward Hallett Carr says that historians are integral to history, and that without anyone to recount an event, it is not considered a history. I agree with Tuchman, that

“The fall [of the tree in the primeval forest] made history whether anyone heard it or not.” Throughout time, there have been many times of history passed down to the younger generations, from written history to image history. However, the oldest kind of history, the kind that existed even in the age of the caveman, is oral history.

Oral history has been practiced ever since the dawn of human existence, since the only way of communicating stories was by speaking. “Memory is the core of oral history, from which meaning can be extracted and preserved. Simply put, oral history collects memories and personal commentaries of historical significance through recorded interviews.” (Ritchie Donald, An Oral History of Our Time pg. 3) Oral history is overall a very useful tool in obtaining and recording information. Its main strength is that it is information from a primary source: someone who has witnessed or taken part of and affected the event. A weakness, however, is that the person that is being interviewed or who is speaking could have a specific point of view or bias towards the event and could be selective in what to tell.

Poirot 70

In my interview with Mr. Donald McKee, I asked him many questions about D-

Day and his experience, one of which being what he thought the U.S.’s motive was for entering the war. He said that the major historical point of the event was that the U.S. had only one goal. They did not go to Europe to achieve anything more than that goal. They did not pillage, they did not steal, they did not act superior to the French. They just fought because that was what they needed to do to save Europe from Germany, to prevent an invasion on British shores, and to obtain justice for the attack on Pearl Harbor: “We weren’t after any overseas territory. That’s what people go to war for a lot times. It’s

‘hey you got some land and I want it.’ We didn’t have that idea at all. We were in the war based on Pearl Harbor.” This point is very important because this was one of the first times that a war was fought and the winners did not conquer or steal any land. Mr.

McKee believes that this is the most important point, and I do, too.

I learned a lot during my oral history project, but I was surprised at a few things he said. The biggest one was that, above all else, the most difficult part of getting on the beach was the weather. The waves were so violent and the winds were so strong that landing crafts were pushed down the beach and away from the desired landing area.

Some landing crafts would run into each other, and others would hit obstacles in the water and sink. I had no idea that this was the case. I thought that the landing crafts had a smooth time coming in and that there was clear weather, but instead it was one of the hardest parts of the entire invasion. Another shocking part of what Mr. McKee said was that, even with all of the preparation, the hedgerows that were inland prevented the

Poirot 71 advancement of troops, and a trip that was scheduled to take about 7 days took 7 weeks to complete. The topography, preparation of the enemy, and weather gave the Allies and

Mr. McKee a huge disadvantage.

In a comparison between our history textbook, A Brief Narrative History, and my interview, I think the textbook did a good job at showing the details and not just stating facts (which it does in other parts). The textbook describes both the American side and the European side of the conflict, the attack on Pearl Harbor, the preparations to counterattack, and the invasion plan for Europe. I think it did a good job going through important parts and even showed a map of how the invasion happened. My interviewee talked about his experience in World War II: how he went in, his preparation, the fight, and after.

Finally, in comparison with “D-Day Invasion of Normandy: An Interview with

Dr. Stephen Cromwell”, an oral history created by a St. Andrew’s alumni in 2010, from which I took a few questions for my interview and found a little information for my context paper, the two are similar in the way that they both explained their life before the military, how they entered, their training, and Operation Overlord. Dr. Stephen

Cromwell, however, was very talkative, and explained a lot of things in detail without the interviewer having to ask the question. Mr. McKee explained in greater detail his experience after the invasion while moving inland.

The historical value of my interview is a primary source, because I interviewed someone who affected and took part in the event. My sources in my context paper were mainly about what happened that led to WWII from a top-down view, since it was

Poirot 72 focused on the generals meeting and deciding what was going to happen, and what happened during the operation.

I have learned so many new things about WWII because I did not know much at all before, and because my interviewee, Mr. Donald McKee, had experienced first-hand what happened on those days and how difficult it was. I have also learned that oral history is a great way to record information and stories because the experiences are recorded into a viable primary source that others can use to understand what it was like at the time of the event. I am very happy with the turnout of my oral history and thankful that I was given this opportunity.

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Appendix

Newspapers of the day:

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INVASION New York Times (1923-Current file); Jun 6, 1944; ProQuest Historical Newspapers The New York Times (1851 - 2011) pg. 16

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

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Mr. McKee in his college years

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A medal awarded to Mr. McKee for his service

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Mr. McKee with the 29th Division Association leaders revisiting Normandy for the 50th

anniversary of D-Day

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An award Mr. McKee was given by the 29th Division Association on the 50th anniversary

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Mr. McKee with his jacket, ornate with his bronze star and purple heart.

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Ambrose, Stephen E. "The Secrets of Overlord." MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of

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"Eisenhower Presidential Library." Eisenhower Presidential Library. N.p., n.d.

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Kershaw, Ian. Hitler, 1889-1936: Hubris. New York: W.W. Norton, 1999. N. pag.

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Poirot 84 http://hn.bigchalk.com/hnweb/hn/do/document?set=topic&subtopicid=87139&rendition= x-article- image&start=1&inmylist=false&urn=urn:proquest:US;PQDOC;HNP;PQD;HNP;PROD; x-article- image;87451301&mylisturn=urn:proquest:US;PQDOC;HNP;PQD;HNP;PROD;x- citation;87451301

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