Buck-a-Day Gambit Leads Retiree to Five Wartime Campaigns
By Rudi Williams
American Forces
Press Service
WASHINGTON
-- The Great Depression still held a devil's grip on the nation's throat in October
1934 and John "Jack" W. O'Donnell, like millions of his fellow Americans, was looking
for food, shelter and a few bucks in his pocket.
And that's what the Army guaranteed: three meals a day, a place to sleep and about $30 per month. He enlisted.
"In those days, a buck a day was a lot of money," O'Donnell said. He served on active duty until discharged as a corporal in October 1940, then joined the Army Reserve. He served in 241st and 9th Coastal Artillery regiments and recalled the day spent planting mines to protect America's coastline. In civilian life, he worked for General Electric in his hometown of Lynn, Mass., repairing jet engines, then switched to marine turbines and gears for large ships.
He found himself back on active duty in November 1941 with the 252nd Ordnance Company at Fort Devens, Mass. He was transferred to the 701st Ordnance Company and attached to the 1st Infantry Division.
His unit trained in England, waiting for the order to invade continental Europe. Then the day came that vehicle mechanics quietly started putting putty around carburetors to protect them from water and the unit stocked up with extra weapons, he said.
"I knew we were headed to combat," O'Donnell said. "When they fed us fresh eggs and steaks, we knew that was our last hot meal for a long time. It was C rations from then on."
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D-DAY D-Day was the defining moment for a generation. The Allied invasion of France on June 6, 1944, was the largest amphibious operation in history. More than 7,000 ships landed combat teams from six U.S., British and Canadian divisions on five beaches on Normandy Peninsula. U.S. and British airborne units
spearheaded the invasion, landing behind the beaches. Their mission was to secure
the roads that led from the shore and to obstruct enemy reinforcements. By dawn, the landing force was in position. Battleships, cruisers and destroyers started pounding German shore positions. Despite sporadic, intensive fire, British and Canadian landings on Gold, Juno and Sword beaches on the east went well. The U.S. 4th Infantry Division landed on a lightly defended sector of Utah Beach, entrenched a beachhead and was headed inland within hours. But the entire invasion hinged on Omaha Beach in the center, where hard-core veteran German troops exacted a heavy toll. Thousands of soldiers of the U.S. 1st and 29th Infantry Divisions died or fell wounded at the water's edge and while assaulting the bluffs behind "Bloody Omaha." Their companies and platoons shredded, the Americans collected in small groups and, through dogged initiative and courage, blasted their way through enemy defenses. By the afternoon, Gen. Omar Bradley could report Hitler's Atlantic Wall was breached. |
O'Donnell and his unit were aboard transport ships in England on June 4 when a huge storm hit and "the ships were floating around like corks in a bathtub," he said. "We were all seasick." He left sick bay on the second night, climbed into the cab of a truck on the deck and fell asleep.
Thundering sounds of heavy gunfire shocked him awake. "Three battleships behind us were firing those huge 14- and 16-inch guns and the projectiles sounded like express trains going over our heads," he said.
Landing in Normandy, France, on Omaha Beach on D-Day, June 6, 1944, O'Donnell went on to fight in five of World War II's toughest campaigns: Normandy, Northern France, Ardennes-Alsace, Rhineland and Central Europe. He survived unscathed.
The Normandy invasion was chaotic in the air, on the water and on the beach, he said. Allied planes were dropping bombs on German positions and the Allied fleet and German shore batteries were trading artillery fire, O'Donnell said. An Allied armada pasted Normandy with the most intense bombardment in naval history, according to historical accounts.
"There was a tremendous amount of noise and terrific light effects," he said. "You can't imagine what it was like. You never saw fireworks like that."
When the invading Allied forces finally reached the beach, they were greeted by death, misery and mass destruction of equipment. They were also greeted with heavy small arms fire as they fought to scale bluffs to drive the Germans from the heights.
"I kept my head down," he chuckled. "An ordnance company is supposed to be pretty safe, but there were people in my company killed by booby traps, land mines and carelessness. That's where good training comes in. You don't stick your head up when you're not supposed to.
"I remember telling a young fellow to keep his head down, but he didn't listen," O'Donnell said. "He stuck his head up one day and got a bullet right between the eyes."
U.S. forces fought their way from Normandy across France to the Ardennes, the wooded plateau in Northeast France, Southern Belgium and Luxembourg. It was there the Germans launched a counterattack Dec. 16 in what became the largest land battle of World War II -- the Battle of the Bulge. The Allies sealed the Germans' doom in the Ardennes before Christmas, but the battle raged on until Jan. 28, 1945.
O'Donnell said there were two enemies during the Battle of the Bulge -- the Germans and the worst bone-chilling winter weather Europe had seen in years.
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"We just slept on the ground and woke up covered with two or three inches of snow," he said. "We didn't change our clothes for a whole year; didn't take a shower for months at a time. We washed out of our helmet. There was no rest. We went from one battle right into another, and they were all bad battles."
"We swept across Germany and I ended up atop a brewery in Czechoslovakia," he said. "We gave all our cigarettes, soap and stuff to the man who told us about the brewery beneath us and hired about a dozen people to dig down into the brewery. When we broke through the roof, all you could see were rows of barrels with the stamp of the German army on them."
"When Gen. (George S.) Patton found out about it, he put a guard on it and we were rationed beer," O'Donnell said.
Pausing and sighing again, O'Donnell said the nervous part of war is getting ready to go into battle. "You're going into harm's way and you don't know whether you're going to survive," he said. "Your whole life passes before you. But once you're in there, your adrenalin surges, the excitement takes over and you don't think much about it. You don't have time to be scared. You're too active."
O'Donnell came home as a sergeant first class, quit active duty and returned to General Electric. He didn't hang up his uniform, however. He stayed in the Army Reserves until 1957 and began drawing retired pay at age 60 in 1974. He retired from his middle management job at General Electric a year later.
Illness brought him to Washington in 1992. He'd had an aneurysm repaired on the main artery to his stomach. He needed a second operation, but his surgeon died.
"They said the best surgeon was at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., so that's where I had it done," O'Donnell said. He spent a year convalescing at the Soldiers' and Airmen's Home, which is near the medical center. He left when he was well, but came back within a year.
"What better place to be when you're in your 80s than where all the medics are?" he asked. "I was living in Ringe, N.H., and the nearest doctor was 25 miles away.
"It's great to be out in the country when you're younger and in good health. But when you get older, you've got to start looking around for medical facilities in case you get a heart attack or something. So I think most of the people come here for the health attention. And, of course, the food here is out of this world.
"I'm in very good health for my age," O'Donnell noted. "There are 320 acres here I can walk around. This is a beautiful place."
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