06/03/2007

Young and scared

Man recalls going ashore on D-Day

By Tom Carr

tcarr@record-eagle.com

Record-Eagle/Tyler Sipe
Clarence Weber fought on D-Day during World War II.

TRAVERSE CITY — Clarence Weber took a boat ride 63 years ago Wednesday, wondering if he would step off to his death when it landed.

Weber was a 25-year-old farm boy from Kingsley when he joined the more than 160,000 Allied soldiers who came ashore at the beaches of Normandy, France, to gain a foothold on Europe after Adolf Hitler and the Axis powers had occupied most of the continent by force.

"I thought maybe I'll get killed, and that's quite a thought to have,” he said.

Weber was the third of 11 children. He attended St. Mary's of Hannah until the eighth grade, then started farming with his father.

In the days leading up to D-Day, he marked time in England inside an encampment with the knowledge that he and the other soldiers there would be shipped across the English Channel to a shore guarded by Nazi machine-gunners.

They just didn't know when until about a day before.

Then, while it was still dark out on June 6, they were loaded aboard landing ship tanks (LSTs) with large holding areas for the soldiers to stand.

"They had us packed in there like sardines,” he said. "We were young and had a lot of vinegar in us and we were all scared. Anybody who says he wasn't scared is out of his mind.”

When the LSTs landed, Weber hopped into the chest-deep water with a 50-pound pack on his back, holding his .30-caliber rifle(*) above his head to keep it dry.

"Another little guy would've drowned if me and another guy hadn't grabbed him under his arms and carried him,” Weber said.

Their task upon reaching the beach was to "run like hell and start digging a foxhole.”

"The hill was all lined with machine guns,” he said.

The Allied casualties were estimated at up to 10,000 that day, with as many as 3,000 killed.

The forces then started their inward drive, pushing the Nazis back through rural France, Paris, Belgium, the Netherlands and into Germany.

D-Day was only the beginning and before it was over, Weber would also take part in two other historical turning points: the Battle of the Bulge and the liberation of the concentration camp at Nordhausen. The smell of death at Nordhausen was even worse than elsewhere on the war-torn continent, he said; there were trenches full of bodies that were "skin and bones.”

"Some were still moving,” Weber said.

Despite the horrors, he has a few good memories. Like when he shot a deer and got bawled out by his captain, but he and his fellow soldiers enjoyed a rare feast with fresh meat.

Weber returned to Europe about 25 years ago with his wife, Thelma.

"You could see the scars of war,” Thelma said. "Buildings were pitted and there were places where memorials were built up.”

But to Clarence, things had changed a great deal after decades of peace.

"It looked so different, I couldn't recognize anything,” he said.