Interview with Bob Sales, D-Day veteran

what we're sitting here in the home of Bob Sayles bob is as most of you know one of the great heroes of d-day and his actions on that day certainly were a story that if you haven't heard all this we certainly want you two to hear it with us Sargent sales on that day was awarded the Silver Star the Purple Heart for his wounds and he was the lone survivor of his landing craft and what an amazing story that he will will tell us sorry it's so good to see you we're very glad to be here today yeah I bet you are after that day take us back 70 years and let's talk about what happened bring us in from the well let's go back a little bit before that all right we were in an aster God who got doctor just a regular they were set to Fort Meade Maryland wait a minute you were you fudged a little bit oh now you were supposed to be a little older when you got in yeah but I did that make a difference I was just as tall as the rest of them I would just the low along where I could comfortable were 15 years old uh-huh so all right take us forward ever taught me that we went to camp bled in Florida we went all around training for a while get this dead remember when we went up we're inducted there's a year ahead of the wall the Pearl Harbor mm-hmm so we were all that way back from maneuvers in North Carolina going through Virginia here in a convoy it would stop for the night and somebody come running up to the trucks a parallel was Bob Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor most of us look to one another cuz we didn't know where per level but there was one boil there who had been in there island before it had bent over there and he said laws you can forget about ever going home anytime soon you got a war on your hands course over the next hours who developed you know what had happened and we begin more intensive training before we knew it we were on the Queen mer going to England not in a luxury liner bought but 15,000 ever so there and a lot of were from Southside Virginia you know Roanoke Lynchburg farmville Danville all those super on there and they off the coast of Scotland you know everybody was concerned about u-boats and the British sent a cruiser out to sweep mines in case the Germans are laid any mines and there's two ships in the ocean now the Queen Mary that cruiser and the Queen Mary cut the cruiser in half really you know 300 British soldiers died right in front of us and half went down one side of ship my after and next day we were taking off the Queen Mary was a whole new bow big enough put this house in so we were very lucky the ship went way over and come back up and we were all up on deck because it was October and her son was warm and scrout it down in the below if you want to eat your head to wait in line you could eat one time go back in line when we land in England and we're immediately met by the British take them down to a place called Ted worth about 24 hours train ride and we stayed there for a while but the good time sorta there's not a hard training but there was a lot of good times all these boys were getting did John letters from home and kind of upset they did have any trouble replacing those Dear John letters the all the British soldiers were in Africa fighting Rommel and it was really a good time in England and that's what they said about the Yanks you were oversexed overpaid and over here yeah so things that I was really ready you got quite a bit you know at night you could go to local town but every once in a while you'd get a three-day pass to London now that was a good time when you American soldier had little money in your pocket and hell three-day pass to London he couldn't get any better than that what was your first taste of English beer like we didn't make a difference we just record is all beer wedding notes would be a very little but the boys would sometimes have a few bottles of whiskey but they sold it out real fast most style is just straight beer but the training continued all it's all yeah but in the morning you know you might go out to see the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace in the morning but your afternoons and nights were filled with other things the Covent Garden the big opera house in London covers about a city block they converted into a dance place because the British had to work 24 hours a day they really struggled and they hit start dancing at two o'clock in the afternoon neighbor ala - that changed bands and I've seen as been as 200 women in the stag line and some of the old country boys from Virginia see all those one girl pretty girls you know and all you had to do was dance around real close to one they were tapped really you know you just worked a crowd everybody had a good time oh but that pleasure to see you doing London and how long were you there oh we're they're probably a year a year but we will always move it closer to the coast place called Slapton sands we would practice invasion landings and all and there's just one thing after another you know if you ever heard of the Moors well we go up on the moors some time for training and we went up there one time to test rations and it was a good place to do it because there was no way to get nothing what they give you it's just dry wet grass and it just gives under your feet the only thing the live-up that we ever seen was a few wild protists mm-hmm and we kept couple going and the time kept passing and finally we were moved to am Austin area and those British guards guarding the whole compound we couldn't get out us do nothing you know and this is where we were told with our parts just a part of the invasion would be and we see aerial maps of those cliffs and bunkers that they had there and you got to remember the Germans have been there for years and they were well prepared for us and they had anticipated us coming so they you know we knew is going to be tough in fact one officer said he could take a machine gun and hold us off a beach and he's almost mounted to that so we have to brief in there for three or four days we were again told yeah we go and we were in combat gear you know who whelmed but Weymouth England the ship's name was the empire Joplin was a British ship and we put out to sea and I think the scary Vasia was scheduled for the fifth but the sea was rough really rough storm and it was postponed until the 6th and we were on that boat for extra 24 hours did you get seasick no now all the seasons I've been on I never got seasick by sure I'm thankful for that because that's the bad that's the really rough situation what happened then next we were on the ship and when they finally said we go to bar at bet junuh six everybody was up at four o'clock in the morning and a cup time to go I went around to see everybody I could from Lynchburg his kid one another I'll see y'all to beach but I tell you everybody was scared but nobody was shielded and then we had to go down rope ladders into the land of grass and we had six boats be coming ahead six and we kept as they landed got loaded they circled the mothership and at a certain time we all stretched out and headed for the French coast and we have 12 miles out and that sea was rough those tall so the landing craft pharrell one or two of them sunk and we finally got close to the beaches I was a radio operator for the company commander and I was right with him all the time and he turned around to me and he hadn't said a word the whole trip in and he turn around him and said get up on the legend see what you could see that's crawled up then all I could see was smoke far and what looked like dead bodies I dropped back down told him I says dead bodies I believe he said something wrong about that time the British Coxon and told us he had could take us in any further they had to drop her rape and when he dropped a ramp the captain was first you know and they hit him and he fell in the water and my friend Dick Wright was second off and a medic was third and I was fourth when I went off the boat ran up and kind of threw me sideways I went off the side of the boat and I had all that regular gear like everybody but I had a 35-pound radio with me and I had rehearsed in my mind what to do if it situates the road and because I knew that radio would drown me and when we got I got to the bottom yeah I had not buckled it and I just peeled it off and left it right there and I come up and the captain was he was up in Howard I'm hit im hit I started towards him and we went down I went over there when I got there he was in he was a short man and he was in water over his head when I got there I could see blood boiling up from down underneath so I said that they do for him I got to save my own self yeah and it took me I look back and it rested him and coming off the boat was just being cut down just though it was just a slaughter and the reason is Aaron was fortified that area so it was only one road off the beaches all cliffs it was only one road going up to the town of very old Samara which was maybe a half a mile away and they had Bob La Crosse said hey I have bunkers Bob wah and that was the only road we had to get in their tanks or trucks or anything up and that's why they fortified so it was really I'll kill and feel there did you land that there was it you get you were you at the right place or do you I'll add to the right place and so your land Kraft was in the where he has to be yeah we were 0:10 on that steeple of that church in very real summer and we really like that where we're supposed to mm-hmm so that was the bad part yeah well so what happened after this your officers were killed and you're now off the boat what what happened I called it a saying and when I got up out my friend and Sergeant whose pictures on the wall up here he wasn't dead and he raised up on his elbows help me he ever did have seen me and his helper helped me about that time a sniper hit him in the head and his face just dropped down the same and I just buried my face too saying and waited for mine because I knew he seen me too this was a sniper this what never seen gun this was a sniper who was there taking care of the ones a machine gun missed and when they I'll just buried in it just covered my head knowing I was will get it next and that's when I realized I didn't know the 23rd psalm but I learned it for right quick and then after a while got turned her I kept looking I begin to move a little of thought baby he had them found some other targets looked around and I could see other boats coming in and one of them was close to us and a ramp went down and I seen a man come off to the end of it and get hit with a machine gun his helmet flew off and I knew then it was doctor where cuz he has route flaming red hair and he had brought himself in on a third wave rather than four o'clock that afternoon when the beach was clear and who was this captain robert wave from avesta' jr. he was a battalion doctor and he knew that he was needed there oh yeah yeah he had a bunch of men he scattered him out they went home different routes but he brought himself in and that was a mistake Wow because the just fills of water but I remember that red half for a long time well you're on the beach and things are just a mess what what happened next what did you do there was a wall several hundred feet away and I was trying to make it to that wall because it was protection now the Air Force was supposed to bomb the beach which will give us cradles and stuff to Guinean see some protection but they missed and bumped two miles in missed completely so you're crawling across the beach that's basically flat you've got people shooting at you from every direction how did you make it to the wall how we call it just crawling from one bug dead body to another log anything you know that I could get into protection from and when I finally got to the wall I found a buddy of mine named AK Smith from West Virginia and he'd been hit the face it looked like as I was partly hanging out I've got a lot of pictures of that somebody took a picture of it he was standing up and I've stopped a bandage on his eye and we started pulling dead out of the water because the log being able killed in the water in boats anchored they drown and we pulled a lot of in out of water what's a why we found alive Allah and Amir know know that right who continued to see some of that man got by pretty good and they they worked their way up at cliffs they got him behind those bunkers and the Germans either got killed all they run they didn't want to be captured so the fighting was furious all day long but no the officers were practically all days the second-in-command captain Williams he goes hit me and he was evacuated she really didn't have it man now I landed I was a PFC I had been a corporal and mr. train back one time from London and got busted back to private but I made up for it this day because they called me in to accept invasion and said we're going to make you Asajj I said I want to be a staff size they said Staff Sergeant it is now it's promoted to staff sergeant right on the spot good negotiating that's great well and because of the the casualties and everything else but also because of your heroism and bravery on that day you were promoted to to staff sergeant that's pretty spectacular many soldiers go their whole career and never make it to staff sergeant oh yeah but if you want to get promoted you get yourself get into infantry and get yourself a little longer just a little war okay so you made it to the wall and things were perhaps a little better at least you had a little cover what happened then well I had nothing to fight with I lost the rifles everything closed the radio did wouldn't make a difference because wasn't anybody talked to and I didn't have anything to fight with so pick up a rifle and it will fire because of the sand in it and just would chaos after another we were running into small bands of Germans and they would run and would shoot a few of them uh some but I mean we kept losing men that's that's where it got so bad but by the night they had sent a ramp ray uh launching and to pick up the wounded and I was down the beach get back on the boat and the lieutenant who's in charge there held it from the hospital ship said you're not the shape to go back you go on with them so I was taken to the ship the hospital ship right out there blue wave and the ship was going England soon as it was loaded with wounded and after I got there I found a bunk and a doctor come around later and give us appeals I would sleep next morning I woke up and the doctor there was I said doc I got to go back my company is in bad shape he said we're going to England soon as we get the fill this boat up I said I can't go with you I got to go back and he said well you go get kill if you go back he said stay till the bar look at you again so the next day you come around next one now about doc they said well you're going back in if you all get yourself killed but we're going Declan you could go with us I said now I don't need to go now and I went up on deck and it would bring it wounded from the beach and old launches and there's a pile of stuff where all when you come on you just left your rifle you belt bristled everything you just put through the pile so I'll fill it myself and got a ride on that launch back to the beach and when I got to the beach beach there was a recon outfit there for gas and I'll say how about give me a ride I got a fire my company and the next day I found become there they had been pulled off the line to get new men and new equipment and get it organized you know everything was in terrible shape and nobody know nothing and I found B company and they thought I was killing the rest up on that boat and I'll come running head so we thought she was dead Beth that's the dog that's it and then a few days later we will commit it back to the front and man it was tough great they had his rose Chairman's old heavy ever heads roll and we had to go over the edge road to get him didn't have no tank support much because they couldn't operate in the tang and around that train there Germans didn't want to give that country after now know I was that country all the way to same load and we didn't get to say hello until middle of July but once we got Salo there was flat country and then roads much better than the Norman area there it was it was terrible if right in that country mm-hmm did you did you have a chance to to see General Patton during that process because he was breaks in no I never did he was now I saw him when we got up into Germany and what was that like real nice the each mount one man from each company was sent back to see him and they asked me hey the another one asks how old are you that's four where I was from and it was getting enough to eat and clothes all we had to eat was K rations you know and he asked me something else he asked me it was right funny I asked if I had warm clothes and I told you as good as we could get and then at the end he said I'm gonna give you twelve men each brought a thousand pairs and it took us off the line and give us clean uniforms money if you want to draw it but you needed cigarettes and so stuff like that was far better than money and to Paris we wit it was got there we decided to break up into two groups six each because Paris had been liberated too long that we didn't know exactly what to expect but they welcomed us with no bombs and you know what nothing for a little boy to run a pull you bastard yeah yeah get sister sister virgin sister virgin you the oldest story you could walk into a cafe at 3:00 and afternoon and from six of us in a few minutes four or five women come down the steps a very liberal country it was it was parents after all wasn't but we had a good title thick web with the bed okay liberties over now back to the war what did you do next that comes the ball back to the big battle which was coming up for the Royal River and who's to jump off on the 18th 17th which we did and I had 35 men and I was reserved the first day and the first two got cut to pieces we've had our objective was a small town now called Cedric but we had to cross an open field to get to it and we we just call most got slaughtered that first Platoon did because they had machine-gun a little high ground and it was a just a little level beat field and so they pulled back got to did that at the dock and I curled up at a corner of the house went to sleep and the four o'clock in the morning the captain's runner come down said he wants to see you that's the man this is bad news and chilled up it was he said I want you to take your platoon and get across that field before daylight I said captain don't you think they've got the flash and he said I hope not I said to have we lined up and tried to go cross I feel that got pinned down and they opened up on us and then four or five men was killed I know and I'll go certainly got daylight I knew where the machine gun was as soon as it got daylight I crawled back down the drain ditch to where the company commander was and they had a couple tanks there and the tanks were in case the Germans pulled a counter-attack and I said if you give me one of those tanks I'd knock had gone out and they did give him his tank but I will I made a mistake taking him up the road because the machine gun was right on the corner of the road in the field now figured it'd be easy to get from there but run over mine and blew the track off oh so we had run back to him and I said you got to give me another tank and the tank man said I can't give you another tank and I said coming up with him and I showed him at field out there and man laying there just waiting to be shot and he said alright but I'll give you another but take it across the field that we did and we got up there where it with the range where the big gun on the tank could get him and we threw three shells in the third but I know we got him and I hollow down to the tank crew let's get out of here and we turned sideways they had a anti-tank rocket and they filed a hit right inside of that tank blew me out of the tank and I still can't understand why I wasn't killed because that much explosion right there when I was standing it killed him in the tank because the ricocheted through and they blew me out of the tank and I hit the ground and balls of fire rolled out of my eyes and I felt I had to roll away from the tank I thought it would explode so I rolled away from it and then I began to I felt warm blood put our thought was blood and I saw me behalf my head was taken off I didn't know no way to find out and a little while the men will be knocked a machine gun out by me an attack that took the town but didn't do me no good medics come up got me and I couldn't see nothing I was in bad shape I was cut on the back and I'm the one on the head but neither one of those men didn't say he was shrapnel in both eyes and I they took me back to the aid station and from there that but then I molasses in the back to a field hospital and everywhere I went they said we got nobody here they could handle your case he will send you back them they ended up back in Liege Belgium all the way back there and even though we're the big Hospital I said we can't do not fire we'll give her a tag yes what does that be he said that means you go to England on the first plane they had old planes and took all the seats out where Hey hang stretches around the walls and so I said okay let's go I wanted to get back to England because I had a girlfriend now but it's cut across my my but I had not thought of anything being blind and it looked like I was just so glad to get off at front you're alive that I was glad not you didn't think of nothing else but and when I was there in a couple of days they sent me out to the landing strip and it was old barrel factory where they had some man in and that's where they load you on the plane I was that Thanksgiving I remember I had Thanksgiving done I'd had eating with my hands but don't man out - he wasn't supposed to be there just drop you there lugs around the plane had German prisoners working there but they had a flight nurse and when she will tell us people have where she wanted so itself and she got to me she made the big error of the word I didn't want to hear well I guess putting them back of my mind I want to blind sergeant in the back of the plane with me it was the first Brooklyn woman not heard for a long time and I did get in the back with her and she talked to him and said you won't say an angle nah you going to the States and that's exactly what happened I ended up in England which was a good Hospital really good and it was one long till Christmas and I was there for Christmas but somebody could seem to do anything to me I had too much shrapnel and I had retinal problems and all that so they sent me back to the States after a little bit at the hospital in England who had at that time you had to have a pass they had to travel and my girlfriend could get a pass her trip wasn't necessary they said so I never got to see her again it was 50 years before I saw her again he didn't believe that Wow any way to send me back to the states to a place called Valley Forge was on the hospital and it dealt only in eyes and plastic surgery and when I could get some time from New York on a train and when I got there I just knew I was in a good place everybody I had three doctors looking after me they signed me a whack to take million where I want to go to px Alexi I was fine physically except I couldn't see ya I didn't have no brother problems at all and that whack was good to me one morning a couple of the other wards they were all combat boys in there blind and posh the blind and everything and they come in my room is that sales we got a problem I said what's the problem they said well we're gonna fix it I said fix what he said you got two of us back on the ward and then we go change that that's all right that I'm pretty well satisfied what I got that's funny but you know I made a mistake they come to commander who went off that boat ahead of me lived in Philadelphia and after the war quite a few years after the war his family come down here to see me and they just were great they were said they if I'd have known him then they would have been out there and really took care of me but they when they come down here they offered me that they had a summer home in Atlantic City and it said we'll let you have at home for a week just everything was furnished they were quite rich people and I never took him up I should have but if I had known them when I was in that hospital I would have did pretty well and I had another case that come up a little bit strange the head nurse come around I've been that wall and she said everything going on I said yeah pretty good and she said this won't lecture you nothing going wrong anything we go take good care of you I see how you doing that if she said anything you want us to well you know I was fighting that wall there for a good while and I'd like to hear some music she said what do you think I said well I keep hearing about this nightclub called a Latin casino now Philadelphia she said yeah I've been there I said I'd like to go she said well you could go but you'll have to go with a guide now guys this guy goes along with you and take care of you know he's just shot till she oh I'll look into that well days later oh boy come around and said we're going Lenox that are going to Philadelphia tomorrow so I put all clean uniform and medals no off to Philadelphia we read get out there this three station than there he said you stand right here I got to go ahead and see what time it train goes back so I was standing in will come up to me and say God bless you look what you've lost and put something in my hand and I said thank you ma'am and she disappeared if you met her soul guide come back and he said we got to be back here to the clock that's right what's this in my hand he says $10 where'd you get it I said I don't know but if you going over that stand out of the way I could make enough damn blood bill is nice let's go we didn't have to pay the bill of the woman sitting there not far from us she wanted to pay for the food and that whiskey just floated in and Bette had a ringside seat table that's great but the next at night it was back to full now back to the Phoenixville in the hospital and I stayed there for a year I was in hospital about a year and a half all together and I was there but a year but I had one thing going there the government had hired quite a few girls about my age at that there and they were doing the last six months of training there and the government paid them and they were not army nurses so you listen man couldn't go out with a nurse Armand Aires they were lieutenants but this these young girls were wide open you know and we stayed lovely I've had a lot of good times with watcha got some site back you know now when did you get your sight back how does that work I've been there for a while not too long and it got got B sub site back enough travel around with Wow and then you were the army must are you out from the hospital is that worried yeah yeah I stated hospital they calm it to a meeting one day and after I've been there long time and it said three doctors were there boy work told me and they said we there's no point in us operating any more although we will if you want to go through it but if you'd like we'll give you a discharge you can go home that's that I'll take the discharge and I did Wow now you since then lots of things happen you've had a wonderful life you've had a great career here in Amherst County and and just recently though you had a surprise from the French government tell us about that yeah that was the French Legion of Honor and the French president presented the six of us from all over the other one from Virginia I think other than me anyway when I got noticed that he was going to do it and the time and date now was Washington collagen I thought well maybe somebody will want to go with me so Rinda limousine 12c limousine and I would getting pants around and first thing you know I was a way over everybody wanted to go so I took six of my family and sixth ribs of a and we just filled it up no timer so I had to go red 118 past that cost me right good pity yeah but you only go through this once that's right that's what I thought he's never gonna do it again and we went up there you know the sheriff here found out about it and I didn't know what he was working through my wife yeah big bunch people from the church come down to see us all and then the sheriff poeta lady procession and he took us all the way through Tallaght no stoplights nothing that's nice and each county we went through we we met their sheriff at all they would come on board and talk to us enough that's great that's great well let's let's look back 70 years ago an incredible day an incredible career incredible time what sticks out of their mind Bob as you as you think about all this what what do you think back on well of course the day there was two days the first day d-day and the last day when that shell got my eyes so there are two days to stand out

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Id: Lpi0pCVpydI

Length: 41min 45sec (2505 seconds)

Published: Sun Jun 08 2014