Preserving The Oral HistorIES of Combat Veterans
2:47 | Grady Shumate's Assault Transport ship returned to the United States after two big invasions in Europe. He was so affected by his experiences that he returned early to the ship from a family furlough. Sailing out under sealed orders, they turned toward the Caribbean when the seal was broken, headed for the Pacific.
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The Naval Reserve program offered Grady Shumate a chance to leave his unhappy home situation and he was soon assigned to an Assault Transport and on the way to England. Under the threat of air raids, they trained in the English Channel for the coming invasion.
To Grady Shumate, England looked like a disaster. The seventeen year old had just arrived as part of the gathering Allied invasion force and was part of a landing craft crew. The Navy needed young crewmen because they were fearless.
The line of ships stretched all the way back to England as the USS Anne Arundel approached the Normandy coast just before dawn. Grady Shumate was on that ship which carried 32 landing craft. As a crewman, his job was to get one of those boats to the beach and when he did, he saw the cliffs at Pointe Du Hoc. All around was carnage.
After delivering troops to Omaha Beach, Grady Shumate's landing craft returned to a circular holding pattern in the Channel. His mind was numb from what he'd seen, destroyers all the way into the surf, Rangers scaling the cliffs, the huge battleships still shelling the shore. Eventually his ship was ordered back to England to load up tanks for the next operation.
After the drama of Normandy, Grady Shumate's ship sailed to the Mediterranean with a load of Sherman tanks. Stopping first in Oran, they had to contend with locals swimming out with bombs strapped to their bodies. After unloading the tanks in Naples, the ship was visited by General George Patton who had some unusual Allies with him.
He was becoming an invasion specialist. As a crewman on a landing craft, Grady Shumate survived the horrors of D-Day and then did the same job in Southern France, which was thankfully a little easier. He even ran into some friends from his home town. And what was that buzzing noise in the air?
He had crewed a landing craft at Normandy and now Grady Shumate's ship was off the coast of Iwo Jima, assisting in another momentous invasion. Then it was off to Okinawa and a new threat, kamikazes. Assembling for the ultimate invasion of Japan, the wonderful news came. It was over.
