Last week we met Green Valley’s Fred Braakman and learned how he was drafted into the Army; inducted at Camp Dodge, Iowa in January 1943; and sent by train to Camp Haan, California where he trained as a gun mechanic Battery D of the 546th Automatic Weapons Battalion (AWB).

The men of the 546th AWB finished their training; boarded troop trains; and headed cross-country to the East Coast in April 1944.

The unit offloaded at Camp Shanks, New York, an embarkation point for units deploying to Europe. Fred described Camp Shanks’ role.

“(It was) for processing and getting ready to go overseas. You get shots and make sure you had all the equipment that you needed. And then they ferried us across the river and loaded us on the Queen Elizabeth.”

Fred described how the enormous ocean liner accommodated thousands of troops.

“Well, they had converted it to a troop carrier. There were three or four cots stacked above each other. It was pretty crowded, but they got a lot of men on board.”

He explained how the 546th AWB held a special status during that Atlantic crossing.

“(W)e were the only unit on board that . . . was trained for anti-aircraft work. So, our battalion got to man her guns going across the ocean.”

Not every aspect of that crossing went smoothly. Fred laughingly shared an uncomfortable, night time incident.

“One thing that sticks out in my mind about the Queen Elizabeth is that it was the first time I was in jail. She traveled alone. They figured her speed would keep her out of trouble from the U-boats. So, blackout was absolutely mandatory! In those days I was a smoker. I stepped out onto the deck, but I was puffing on a cigarette. An MP grabbed me by the arm and marched right down to the brig. But so many guys were being caught for the same thing, they had to let me loose after an hour or so, so it wasn’t so bad.”

The Queen Elizabeth arrived in Scotland and Fred described how the men of the 546th AWB disembarked to a troop train that headed south.

“We got on a train and went down into England. Battery D wound up in Dunmore. A lot of the guys were bivouacked in private homes. It was . . . a foreign country, but at least you could understand them. The two things I think I remember most about England: their bad coffee (and) those little shops that dispensed fish and chips and I loved those.”

Fred recalled how the men of the 546th AWB resumed training once settled in England.

“We got a new gun sight for the guns a Wiess gun sight. So, then we had to go out and fire at sleeves and test this new sight and everybody was real happy with the new sight. (A sleeve is) just a cloth cylinder towed behind a plane that’s used as a target for practice.”

Fred explained how the 546th AWB was scheduled to go into France with the follow-on forces after the initial invasion.

“We were a separate battalion and we were assigned to Patton’s Third Army. We had to wait until the Third Army went across . . . So, we just sat in England and waited until they could accommodate us over there.”

Their turn to cross into France came in mid-July 1944 when they moved to the port of Southampton. But this final move south made them military targets.

“We left from Southampton where we were introduced to the V-1 rockets. We were still on our trucks and one of those beastly things came right down the highway. But it veered away from the highway maybe 200 yards and the engine cut off. So we just sat there and watched it take that BOOM.”

That first night in Southampton left quite an impression.

“That first night we were housed in tents and had slit trenches dug on all four sides of the tent and the flaps weren’t tied down. I don’t know how many times that night we jumped out of the cot and into those stinking trenches that had about a foot of water in them. As long as you could hear the (V-1’s) engine, you’d let it go. But if you heard them shut off, you jumped in the trench.”

The night before they crossed the English Channel, the 456th drove their trucks and guns aboard their designated landing craft.

“C and D Batteries were loaded on the ‘Pearl Harbor.’ We landed on Omaha Beach. It was congested and there was just an amazing amount of material . . . piled up on the beach. It was a very, very busy place.”

The men of the 456th AWB had joined the effort to liberate mainland Europe.

“That first night we didn’t go too far inland. The Luftwaffe (German Air Force) came calling. Our unit was not operational. So, we just sat and watched the show. But there was another unit close by – the same 40mm’s and .50s – and I tell you, they just lit up the sky with searchlights, and flares, and tracers.”

I asked Fred if he recalled what he was feeling as his unit joined the invasion forces in France.

“Mostly anticipation. I don’t think that anybody at that time was fearful. It was all new. Of course, when you are at that age, you don’t think anything is going to happen to you anyway.”

It wasn’t long before the men of the 456th AWB encountered the sobering realities of combat.