Preserving The Oral HistorIES of Combat Veterans

COMBAT STORIES FROM World War II

Kenneth Huls | Army Air Corps, Ball Turret Gunner - Army Air Corps

4:17 | Video donated by the Kenneth Huls family: While stationed in England Ken witnesses two planes near his base, crash after colliding into each other.

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Keywords : formation crash air base

Showing : WWII Videos

Glen Gooch - Army +9 Total Videos

4th Infantry Division

They fought hard to take and keep the top of that hill. Both sides had on white snow gear and you couldn't tell friend from foe. Glen Gooch describes the action which earned him a Bronze Star.
Antonio Mendez - Army +9 Total Videos

47th Infantry Regiment, 9th Infantry Division

As the fighting raged around Aachen, Antonio Mendez watched men fall all around him. The Germans had a tank with an 88 dug in and it was forcing them to withdraw. Antonio Mendez saw a perfect spot for cover and dove in. He yelled for others to join him and they soon had a good fighting position set up. Before it was over, he had earned a Silver Star. Part 1 of 2.
Michael Mirson +8 Total Videos

Russian Army

Michael Mirson was a prisoner of the Germans but that was actually better than being in the Russian Army. He was a trained veterinarian so he was valuable to them as they retreated from the Caucasus. One day, an officer told him that the Americans were fifty kilometers away in that direction and the Russians were close in every other direction. That began a mad dash to the American line.
Glen Gooch - Army +9 Total Videos

4th Infantry Division

Glen Gooch recalls a man in his unit who had a personal vendetta against the Germans. He fought them viciously because of what they did to his brother. It was late enough in the war that they were taking many prisoners, although one in particular still had a little fight in him.
Harold Barber - Marines +14 Total Videos

7th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division

He didn't even notice that he'd been hit. A piece of shrapnel from a Japanese artillery shell found Harold Barber's leg but he kept right on fighting because of the adrenaline. The Corpsman bandaged him and he was right back in the battle for Peleliu. The Navy was able to stay and take part in the fight unlike when he was on Guadalcanal.
Antonio Mendez - Army +9 Total Videos

47th Infantry Regiment, 9th Infantry Division

The officer stumbled upon a group of men hunkered down in a gully during the battle of Aachen. Where's the line? Right here. Where are the Germans? Right over there. Who's in charge here? Silence. Finally, they pointed to Antonio Mendez. He had put the ad hoc group of GIs together and rallied them to fend off the Germans, worthy of a Silver Star. Part 2 of 2.
Glen Gooch - Army +9 Total Videos

4th Infantry Division

The ice at the Sauer River seemed like it would hold him up but, loaded down with gear, Glen Gooch broke through into the freezing water. He was OK but chilled to the bone. The objective was a hill that the Germans were using for observation.
Carl Beck - Army +12 Total Videos

501st Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division

In the middle of the night, thousands of paratroopers loaded into C-47's for the crossing into Normandy. Carl Beck was just a teenager but he was ready. His plane was hit by flak when it neared the drop zone and the jump was rushed, resulting in scattered men and equipment. Part 1 of 2.
Don Scott - Army Air Corps +8 Total Videos

560th Squadron, 388th Bomb Group, 8th Air Force

Two engines were out, a third smoking, and they were were losing airspeed and altitude, but they were flying level and pointed home. Then time ran out for the B-17 and Don Scott had to slip down the hatch into the slipstream. Part 2 of 3.
Glen Gooch - Army +9 Total Videos

4th Infantry Division

Because of illness, Glen Gooch didn't ship out with his friends from basic training. They were put through the wringer at Utah Beach and he would see the same kind of action when he arrived a few weeks later as a replacement.
B.E. Vaughan - Navy +9 Total Videos

USS O'Brien (DD-725)

After a nerve-wracking mission to bomb Tokyo and a typhoon, B.E. Vaughan and the destroyer O'Brien suffered a second kamikaze attack which killed all three of his hometown pals who served with him on board. Then, began the grim task of collecting the personal belongings of the dead and preparing them for burial at sea.
Frank Pomroy - Marines +35 Total Videos

2nd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division

Frank Pomroy prepared his last stand. He had a bayonet wound and three machine gun bullets in his leg but he was still ready to fight. He lined up his hand grenades on the coral ridge in front of him and waited. At daybreak he heard Japanese voices coming. Part 4 of 4. (Second interview)
Clyde Burnette - Army Air Corps +13 Total Videos

713th Squadron, 448th Bomb Group, 8th Air Force

It was their third mission over Berlin and they were heading home. Four German fighters pounced on the B-24 and it was engulfed in flame and going down. Clyde Burnette fought for consciousness as the other crew in the back of the plane bailed out. He woke in free fall with no idea how he had made it out, and soon he was in German custody. Everyone made it out of the plane except George "Danny" Daneau, the nose turret gunner, who went down with the aircraft.
LtGen Lawrence Snowden - Marines +16 Total Videos

23rd Marine Regiment, 4th Marine Division

The first operation for the 4th Division was the landing on Roi-Namur. Lawrence Snowden remembers that, though it was an easy victory, valuable combat experience and important lessons were imparted on the Marines.
Glen Gooch - Army +9 Total Videos

4th Infantry Division

As soon as Glen Gooch left the chaos and destruction of the Hurtgen Forest, he ran right into the desperate German attack at the Battle of the Bulge. It was a running battle and his unit was nearly surrounded at times while playing cat and mouse with Tiger tanks.
Phillip Gamache - Marines +6 Total Videos

1st Battalion, 26th Marine Regiment, 5th Marine Division

After occupation duty in Japan, Phillip Gamache had one more stop before returning home and that was Peleliu. There were still a lot of Japanese on the island under the watchful eyes of the Marines but there were some who had not been captured.
Fred Eichenbrenner - Army Air Corps +10 Total Videos

315th Troop Carrier Squadron

At the air strip in India, there was a company clerk who was a real character. He was a good guy, he just didn't like to work all that much. Fred Eichenbrenner recalls the stunt he pulled after being reprimanded.
Glen Gooch - Army +9 Total Videos

4th Infantry Division

The combat could be close at times with the Germans right up in your face. Glen Gooch was worried about one young soldier who wasn't very careful when the action started and, sure enough, he came to a bad end.
Clayton Nattier - Army Air Corps +20 Total Videos

369th Bomb Squadron, 306th Bomb Group, 8th Air Force

The German guards had fled in the night. The next day, a Russian tank was at the gate of the POW camp and, soon, a Russian general to go with it. Downed pilot Clayton Nattier recalls that the Russians wanted to remove the men to Soviet territory, but the senior Allied officer wasn't having it.
Marvin Russell - Army Air Corps +13 Total Videos

407th Bomb Squadron, 92nd Bomb Group, 8th Air Force

If you enlist together, you can serve together. Like so many others, Marvin Russell and his buddies joined up, only to be split up almost immediately. He went to aircraft mechanic school and became a flight engineer on a B-17 crew.
Glen Gooch - Army +9 Total Videos

4th Infantry Division

He'd had his feet frozen but Glen Gooch hadn't been shot yet. It was twelve days before the end of the war when German bullets finally found him near Nuremberg.
Ed Marriott - Navy +9 Total Videos

6th Naval Beach Battalion

A member of the Navy's beach battalion, Ed Marriott had one more invasion to participate in after the madness that was Normandy. Around the world to Okinawa, which turned out to be very easy for him with no fire on the beach. His ship had already started back for Honolulu when the radio went nuts. Back at Okinawa, the kamikaze attacks had started.
George Stamps - Army Air Corps +11 Total Videos

510th Bomb Squadron, 351st Bomb Group, 8th Air Force

After the end of the war, George Stamps had a different kind of mission. His entire bomb group would fly to Austria and pick up newly released French POW's and fly them home. It sounded simple.
Glen Gooch - Army +9 Total Videos

4th Infantry Division

Glen Gooch tells what it was like to capture a German soldier for intelligence purposes. You had to be fast and strong.
Marvin Russell - Army Air Corps +13 Total Videos

407th Bomb Squadron, 92nd Bomb Group, 8th Air Force

Somewhere in the spotty mail he received as a POW, Marvin Russell got the impression that his father had died. After his liberation and voyage home, he called his mother and got a big surprise.
Phillip Gamache - Marines +6 Total Videos

1st Battalion, 26th Marine Regiment, 5th Marine Division

It was 1942 when New York native Philip Gamache entered the Marine Corps. He had decided on the Marines because, if he had to fight, he didn't want to fight in the cold. He underwent a year of training in California and Hawaii before he entered the fray.
Glen Gooch - Army +9 Total Videos

4th Infantry Division

Glen Gooch describes how his company commander received a concussion during an artillery barrage and how he came to earn two awards during the Battle of the Bulge.
Jim Murphy - Army +9 Total Videos

928th Field Artillery Battalion

Jim Murphy was seventeen years old when the radio brought the news of the attack on Pearl Harbor. Since he enjoyed ROTC in high school, he was an enthusiastic member when he went off to Georgia Tech, where recruits were promised they would graduate and receive a commission. Of course, it didn't work out that way and he was off to active duty, where he managed to conceal something that would have ended his enlistment.
Murray Leff - Army +6 Total Videos

137th Infantry Regiment, 35th Infantry Division

It was against the rules but he did it anyway. Murray Leff had traded some cigarettes for a camera and he began to document his unit's action as they pushed into Germany.
Glen Gooch - Army +9 Total Videos

4th Infantry Division

There was an incredible barrage from German 88s in the Hurtgen Forest but it wasn't the tree bursts that nearly killed Glen Gooch. A German hand grenade came his way.