Carl Felton, U.S. Navy, D-Day Veteran (Full Interview)

my guest is Carl Felton he's a u.s. Navy veteran of World War two and he participated in the Allied invasion of Normandy on June 6 1944 better known of course as d-day and Carl thank you so much for being with us thank you for having me well let's start at the very beginning of your story when and where were you born I was born in Somerville Massachusetts on February the 6th 1926 and what was your life like growing up as a kid sports all the sports everyday sports should have been more academic in school but schools sports but a happy life but it was during the Depression if you get more specific I was born in 1926 a the depression set in 1929 and as a result of that there was a lot of panic people who were fortunate enough at that time to help stocks were losing them people who had money in the bank we're running to the bank to get their money out before the banks closed there were people who lost the jobs a lot of people were unemployed they're unable to pay the rent enough money to buy groceries for the families and programs were set up to help them with food and there was a sad situation at that time wages then of course was very very low to begin with if a person had a good job they might make 35 or 40 dollars a week that would be the tops at that time so you were 15 almost 6 ten years old when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor what do you remember about your reaction to that unbelief really when heard about the war over in Europe you know but that was a surprise you know till the nation December 7 and they didn't foresee that and we're not properly prepared as a result you know that they didn't expected Pearl Harbor yeah so you joined the you graduated high school in 1943 and you also joined the service that year yeah I graduated in 1943 in June my family then moved to Maine Augusta Maine from Massachusetts my father held a job up there and from there I joined the Navy in Portland about 60 miles south of Augusta and took a train down there and late fall maybe October or November of 43 I was 17 at that time I turned 18 the following February 44 talk about your training a little more what did they train you to do well we had boot training up in Sampson New York and that lasted probably two months or so and they had a variety of different things that they were teaching rowing a boat and things like that which most of us didn't know anything about if we didn't know how to swim we replaced them through was a big huge swimming pool I didn't know how to swim at all and they had different pools I was in one for about a half hour and they said that's good enough good enough get into the next one I got into the next one for a little while this is one after another said no you're better than that get them next one well next one was you know way over your head and is that's good enough I I didn't learn how to swim I didn't know how to swim but in an event the next step was to climb up very high on a ladder where there was a platform on top and the swimming pool on the bottom and was probably the height of two houses you know so I climbed up there you were supposed to jump down you know a little Mae West and I was frightened of that water jumping so I saw one person standing off to the side and he apparently refused to jump he just could not do it and I saw that happened so I walked over to him I said I'm gonna go to where he is I'm not gonna jump either he got away with it maybe I can get away with it too so I walked over there and then right away the person in charge up there yelled at me so loud he scared the heck out of me so next thing you know I died died left I just jumped but I thought I'd never returned back up to the surface but it was a a great training course was strict you know and get up early in the morning and run two miles and a variety of other things like shooting a rifle out of target and things like that I can't remember them all but I will say this they had different companies maybe a hundred people in each one and in charge was a chief petty officer who was very nice very understanding they were all young and we're trying to learn and he was trying to teach us stuff the big jump that you talked about that they had you do that was the height of two stories was that so if you had to jump ship you had experience doing it well that's why they were doing it you can see how to jump off of a ship Wow yeah well you also learned communications that was your position later on d-day so how did you learn communications aboard the series or any of well upon leaving Sampson New York we got on a train went down to Pier 92 New York City were there for a little bit in Brooklyn in a in a hotel I guess and then they put us on a truck all travel by truck squeezed in to the Queen Mary and the Queen Mary took off from New York City and nobody knew we were going always in the dock you don't know but we did know that was traveling south so people used to be saying where are we going where are we going other people say well it's getting warm we must be going there flower or somewhere but what it was they were avoiding the the area between England in New York where the u-boats were frequently sinking ships crossing back and forth that was the purpose without we learn later then when up across Spain and up into Scotland upon arriving in Scotland I'd say for a week or so we would just you know just there and then one day some officers summoned everybody together we had maybe a couple hundred sailors and a big circle and the officers were in the middle and we didn't know what it was all about but anyway they eventually said we need volunteers for demolition well at that time I maybe didn't study enough in school but I did not know the word demolition but anyway nobody stood stepped out not one person so then the officers started shouting you know quite loud you know with why did you come over here I guess we came over cuz they took us over but anyways why did they come here well unbelievably I was one of those that did step forward and unfortunately I'm old the person 30 I call him old then but he was in training with me in New York and he yanked me back he said you know what that is and I said no he said that's for the mining sweepers he said before d-day you know you do not want that so I think obviously what they did then they selected people out of a just pick names I guess but that was that beginning and next thing you know in my lifetime over there they put us everything by train went into England to another camp and there they had different sections of training people for different things and I was put into a communication area to learn the Morse code and to be a single month flags and then the Morse code with the light so I like that and I picked it up you know pretty good so then I became able to communicate you know with the light now the line I might save the light if you want them do a little bit the light it's the Morse code ABC and all of that but at the beginning of that it's a blur just a blur for example my name is Karl to spell my name would be C dot dash dot dot a dot dash dot dash dot L thought that I thought so after a while even after 75 years it's engrained into you so to communicate properly you do it slow make sure the spaces are there and the same thing and receiving the light from somebody else do the same way but unfortunately a lot of them won't slow down fast and Wendy can't like a person talking too fast so you have to really space it out to do it properly amazing we'll talk more about that we'll also talk about what happened with you and your ship on d-day when we come back on Veterans Chronicles welcome back to veterans chronicles on the radio American network I'm Greg karumba honored to be joined today by Carl Felton he is a world war ii veteran of the u.s. Navy and also served at the Allied invasion at Normandy known as d-day which we'll talk about in just a moment sir when were you assigned to the MS series well following the training to be a single man we once again got on a train and went to the - Plymouth England on the shore and once again went into barracks and during a period of two weeks or so we were doing like working parties gathering supplies for the ships and we're in warehouses some of which were ammunition and hiding that also transporting it to the various ships and that went on for about two weeks and then after that by random all of us were placed on various ships and I was placed on a British ship called 8cms series CER es and that was an old 1918 World War one ship very old and it was a communication ship it was not designed at the time to fire you know airplanes because they didn't want to attract attention apparently we had a lot of high-ranking officers on that ship and some German ships airplanes came by you know overhead and passed by where I was then they went inland and dropped some bombs you know in there and then came back out again and I will never forget when the planes came by the offices were up top looking at the sky and a British sailor of myself or up there also and when the planes came in from the channel like from France over he and I would run that way you know toward the water and duck you know that's for you that's yeah young you know we didn't know that if they ever hit everything would blow up anyway but we did that and then when they went in and they come in that way we were he ran again there was like a fence you know maybe four feet high we there I will say this the police are the not the police office the officers stood right up there there were American officers and British opsins together and when the planes came they stood right up a wreck saw what happening and stood there and when they came over went back and started back come on again I felt a little relieved and not being so afraid because one officer said dog gonnit they keep coming back he didn't want to come back either he was re3 in the France and stay there you know I felt a little more comfortable at being afraid you know for the planes going back and forth alright so talk to me about June 6 1944 how did the day begin for you how did the Navy how did the day begin on d-day for you well I understand that all together on the various beaches we're at Omaha Beach Utah Beach a lot of American beats off to the west I understand that all along that probably were six thousand ships you learn that you know later that there probably was six thousand ships initially on the first wave you know going over there and they're just progressing oval ships everyplace and in front of us off to the right there were mines and the mother ship did hit one it was a susan b anthony was a name of it and when that got hit with the mind big explosion and it kind of turned off to the right and then like stagnated sup like but the other ships continued you know on so apparently in the great design of things they had ships you know designed for that purpose to assist people if they had to jump off the ship but I understand it did sink you know later I learned that how did that affect you to see the ship right next to you get sunk well it happened so quickly I mean it was shocking to see that and concern for those people that would be on that ship as you got closer what happened next well there was a storm at the time and I understand later the Eisenhower wondered what should we do here should we go and not go there's a debate about it you learn that later but anyway they decided to go because they were planned to go and they did and before long you observed in the water for the ships the LSTs they went all of the way in and then the troops and the tanks went down and there was a lot of casualties and a lot of the bodies never even reached the land as I understand that so because of that there were a multitude of dead bodies everywhere and they were floating everywhere I recall looking and seeing one body having not only the Mae West but an inner-tube all of which you know portrays the feeling of the desire through to live and not die but there are a lot of a lot of that there was another small or a landing craft presumably because of the storm broke into two pieces we are back on Veterans Chronicles on the radio American network I'm Greg carumba honored to be joined today and in the home of Carl Felton a World War two veteran of the u.s. Navy served at d-day and sir we're right in the middle of that story you mentioned that there were roughly 6,000 Allied ships off of the Normandy coast your job is to communicate with not all of them but a lot of them how difficult or not difficult was that given all those ships being there well there were 6,000 ships on the sand but they ran along the coast of France all the way from Utah Beach passing by Omaha Beach and all the way golden beets where the British were was a long long distance so you're only able to view the ships within the area where you were and as I understand that a ship was designed to be a communication ship directing convoys and traffic of the various ships in and out and also communicating I'm sure with these all these offices what's going on in other places too so that's what we were doing primarily and being a signalman we also had radio men also in the cabin so between the two houses the lights are concerned when we were directed to communicate we did that and when ships communicated with us we did that but we're told you know what to say when did you find out that we had successfully captured the beach never never that was ongoing ongoing there was very very little that I can recall of the German airplanes at that time you know coming from France over was primarily the united states air force going over from england and that direction there were however shelves coming out from from the from the from the beach from the germans later on i had an opportunity to go on the land not initially but after had returned to england and i went back again to france on an LST then we went inland and viewed you know what looked like in there and we noted that there he had like on a railroad tracks very very wide railroad tracks with huge guns in there and underneath they had pill boxes still with the shells a lot of shells i don't know how many of those the word but we did happen to see some what was it like did a step foot or that immense battle had happened well the thoughts were concerned for those that had to continue on and what they faced in there and like the Battle of the Bulge situation which this young lady here her husband was born in 1925 he was in the army and he was involved in the Battle of the Bulge so as bad we heard about that subsequently how many lives were lost there you know a lot of life that was a difficult situation there where did you go after that I was the ship I was on returned to England things that settle down a lot on the beachhead then I returned from England on an LST to shurberg which was not near Omaha Beach it's off to the east somewhat on part of the land which sticks out quite a bit and I was a sign there to a a tower as a signal Munn with the shifts of 7:00 in the morning to 3 3 to 11 11 to 7 communicating with ships out there and it was all darkness and I recall one scary night there I had the shift at 11 o'clock at night 2 7 and from the barracks it was probably a quarter of a mile to walk to where the tower was because it was way way out on a peninsula and ships would come in on the daytime and dry docks you familiar with dry docks the ship would command in the water and unload so in the mornings there would be big piles you know in the air for people to carry wherever they were going to carry him to on this particular night was dock and I was walking along to get to the end of it with the towel was and to climb up on that and then on the side there was all piles way way as high as the house almost and then there were areas where the ship's had gone to be nothing but water there and I was walking along and all of a sudden I heard a voice behind me and I turned it was a German voice and I turned my head and I saw what to me was a huge guy and he had a long coat and he was behind me and he spoken when he was probably a Collins you know and back of me but over toward the water pot and I turned and saw him well you know I was always a fast runner but I think on that night could have won the Olympics because I took a running and I don't think my heels ever touch though touch the ground was all on my toes because I didn't have a gun or anything we didn't carry a gun and there I go took away and I ran for my life because obviously he was going to hit me over the head and toss me into the water he but he came out from behind you know he was hiding and when I passed by he came back out and was behind me walking toward me so it was pretty obvious what he was up to but he made the mistake of speaking instead of walking silently and hit me over the head you know so that was a rather scary looking back upon it did they ever apprehend him no it was on one person though he could could never have caught me no did they catch him oh I don't know okay I do not know now Cherbourg was a very busy place that was the main port where all the supplies were coming in soon describe what it was like there well I was my part of it as I say was the communication part of it but the things would settle down you know not like it was earlier so how long were you in Cherbourg and where did you go after that when my departure from shurberg was back to England and on England again I'll show stop your station with the flashing light where the ships going by on the inlet and we had a Kaizen then in England it's all pretty much quiet you know you can go out and things like that I remember when christmas came one time and i went off and got on a bus and it was kind of eerie because nobody else was on the bus you know but I just wanted to get out of the camp and I will say something about the people over there I had occasion one day and Plymouth to be walking along and I met this young girl she was 17 and we talked and then went through an outside little restaurant where they had famous for the English cod fish I think and chips and then I walked her back to where she lived and then she told me that her mother was killed by the bombing her father was off somewhere and she had an older sister and she was in the military somewhere so she was staying with some other people that were taking care of her and the area you have to say that the people over there even though they're not involved in the military part of it they were exposed to the war and the churches were down schools houses rubbish everywhere so they're part of it all as far as the suffering in the grief and not knowing you know where her father was not knowing where her sister was but knowing her mother was gone then what sir after you went back to England then where did you go that was rather the termination of my ventures over to France and I remained on that station they call it vicarage barracks and Plymouth and then word came that the war was over and there was jubilation everywhere and they had a parade a huge praise and the Americans you know meit's along the streets and the people's cheering and everything and that was the that was the termination of it and a little bit prior to that they did have me on a destroyer escort for a while and was more or less patrolling you know patrolling but I will say one thing I was patrolling but we did have an occasion to venture out pretty good unto the ocean and we ran into a storm and the storm was such you thought the destroyer rescue was gonna tip over I mean it would be going along and then down down down you'd think it's gonna hit the bottom then we hit her wave and go way way way back then what turned over to the side you thought a tip over that way and everybody was down under the under the nobody's out everybody's down holding on but the ship didn't sink but that was have to say quite scary it's a small ship destroy rescue it right the whole thing the ocean Oh be very narrowing was very were you still over in Europe when the Pacific War ended no the Pacific War was still going on and I had a brother who was 2 years older than me he also joined the Navy when he was 17 he was mechanically inclined so he was referred to aviation machine school in Pensacola Florida and he became very proficient in the airplane engines he was assigned to an aircraft carrier called CBS wake island in the Pacific my brother was gone from home pretty much most of four years out there in the Pacific and his ship was in the middle of a lot of activity and eventually it was struck by a suicide Japanese bomber kamikaze which struck the bow the ship didn't sink and there was no deaths because where the kamikaze suicide bomber struck was at the bow and that was the sleeping quarters and at that time everybody was at battle stations but that was scary for him absolutely what was it like to come home for you well strange to say when you're going for your family or a couple years and when you left you were very young and when you come back it's two years later almost all the you have matured somewhat the fact that there's been that separations of a so long you seem to be detached and somewhat scared almost to come home and it was very difficult for me to ring the doorbell till they felt but I didn't know what to say I felt different like a different person on us and I really really really on the way home from the Fargo building in Boston to get through Medford Massachusetts where my family moved back to I was I decided to go in there but after that it became relaxed again but just to get there you didn't know what to say but once you hugged him it was all good once you hugged them it was all good right yes yes it was it was almost immediately but there is it's strange thing if you don't see anybody for a long time so you left the service in 1946 yes I did I was discharged from the Navy thinking April 46 yeah what did you do in your career after that when I came back home I went to Newman prep in Boston and there the professors in there or such that they seemed so much on a higher level that it made you want to learn in other words had developed thirst for learning you wanted to know things or as before in high school it wasn't that way but I was very very very very impressed by those professors they used words and terminology hadn't heard before and one professor referred to the class as becoming members of the intelligentsia and letting us know that knowledge is power I remember that expression a lot and it made you want to learn then I went to Suffolk University and Suffolk law school after that but one thing I carry away about you know what situation it's sandwiched in between a period of peace between world one and what we have today we had world walked on world will one or after that folks referred to that is the war to end all wars when were Wilson said that in 1920 he said that and he promoted that the countries in the Navy on the planet come together and form what he referred to as the League of Nations whereby all countries would form a military so strong that no nation would fear every nation would fear to declare war he advocated that it didn't go through never happened and unfortunately the United States at that time voted against the - I think there were thinnest with more than one I didn't have any more palpable apparently but the United States did not for either you know so here we are today the war of World War two is over and we still have skirmishes and the way the situation is today with all the dictatorships that we have with the North Korea the China the Russia the Iran and others and and the problems going on in Syria people losing their lives suicide bombers killing people we're in a very bad situation and we're in the the remedy for that it may not even exist to be able to solve it very difficult very difficult back when wouldn't Wilson was there they had a chance to get rid of dictators if they could if they could try to have everybody have a democratic society but today the way things are it's impossible I don't I don't think it's possible anymore have you ever been back to Normandy no I haven't what would you say you were most proud of from your time in the service to our country I'm proud of all of them regardless of what they did and they they put their lives in harm's way they had no control over where they were going to go some had the misfortune to be hit and situations where was really tough for example Juana's father on the Battle of the Bulge and all of those that were in the in the in the Air Force and those that had to be in the tanks and the infantry infantry people and hand to him shooting that that sound unimaginable and what was in their mind they all want to everybody nobody wants to die but they were there and that was so sad I thought of that a lot thought about a lot is it amazing it's it is an amazing generation and mr. Felton we thank you and the millions of others who yeah so Kennedy you know President Kennedy's brother that family Joe Kennedy was his last mission flown the airplane he didn't have to do it he volunteered to do it and then this airplane blew up itself blow up assault yeah sir we thank you so much for your time today and we thank you very much for your service to our country thank you sir it was my pleasure Carl Felton is a u.s. Navy veteran of World War two he served aboard a ship in the English Channel on d-day and he has been our guest today on Veterans Chronicles

Channel: American Veterans Center

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Rating: 4.9304347 out of 5

Keywords: AVC, American Veterans Center, carl felton, carl felton wwii, us navy in europe wwii, us navy ms series, june 6 1944 omaha beach, d-day veterans us navy, queen mary during wwii, wwii veteran oral history, carl felton wwii veteran, battle for normandy us navy, carl felton us navy

Id: CizGwcYQxMM

Length: 41min 6sec (2466 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 02 2019