Chic Chicoine Oral History - Essay Example

Father-in-Law and D-Day This oral history essay is on the interview of her father-in-law, Jules "Chic" M. Chicoine, a paratrooper with the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division that saw action in France during the Second World War. Focusing on events before and after his first combat jump into enemy territory on June 5, 1944, one day before D-Day, Chic's story of his personal experiences during the war gives a first-hand view of how young ordinary Americans did some brave heroic things out of love for their families and their country. Chic was born on May 13, 1920 in Rutland, Vermont and grew up there. After high school, he found work as a meat cutter for the Grand Union Company and was married in February 1941 shortly before his 21st birthday. It was after returning from his 3-day honeymoon that he received the notice that he was being drafted for the war. He signed up and volunteered to be trained as a paratrooper, following the footsteps of his older brother George, who was already in the Army and was fighting with the 502nd Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division. In August 1941, Chic registered at Fort Devins, Massachusetts and being newly-married and an expert meat cutter, he was told that he would be given consideration to work as a Staff Sergeant at a meat cutting plant in Chicago, preparing meat for the troops. Chic would not have anything of it. "No," he said, "you know how you are when you're young and you want a little glory. No, I want to go in the paratroops." So the Army sent him to train as a paratrooper at Camp Taccoa, Georgia. Chic, chuckling during the interview, said that it used to be called Camp Tombs because the camp's site used to be a casket factory. Since he spoke French, was good at photography because of his father, could read maps and the compass very well, and had a good sense of direction, Chic was assigned to work in military intelligence and was trained to be a paratrooper who would be dropped behind enemy lines from a plane so they could check on the enemy, sabotage their transport and communication lines, and give information to American troops on where the enemy was holed up. It was dangerous stuff because these paratroopers would always be the first ones to fight the enemy so they could keep safe those who would come later during the attack (Encarta). From September to October 1941, the training at Camp Tombs turned Chic and thousands of other recruits into hardened young soldiers, preparing them for the tough years ahead. Then off they went to the Parachute School at Fort Benning, Georgia for more training, this time as paratroopers. Chic learned to jump from high altitudes, and shortly before coming home for the Christmas holidays in 1941, he earned his wings (paratroopers who complete their training get a set of golden wings that they proudly display on their uniforms) after his fifth training jump from an airplane thousands of feet up in the sky. The first two jumps were pretty scary, but Chic got the hang of it and found it pretty exciting that he got his wings ahead of the others in his group. In 1942, Chic underwent more paratrooper and combat training Camp McCall in North Carolina, where they practiced landing behind enemy lines, engaging in dangerous maneuvers, and jumping some more from planes. It was perhaps this long training program that kept Chic alive when he finally saw action, although some of his friends who trained with him never survived the war, and some survived but were seriously wounded. Anyway, during the whole time he underwent training, Chic and Lorraine, his wife of less than a year, lived in their own quarters just outside the camp, like other married soldiers did, and this may have been Chic's secret to learning the art of staying alive in the midst of danger. Having someone to come home to somehow sharpens a man's sense of danger and survival, and this made him sensitive to what goes on around him, preventing him from becoming careless (Ambrose). In 1943, Chic was shipped to Swindon, England, this time without Lorraine, and stayed at the estate of Sir Ernest Wales, owner of a cigarette factory, where they went through more training. Chic enjoyed his stay in England, traveling to London on weekends together with his friends Alfred Tucker of Connecticut and Robert Watson of New Hampshire (who was killed during the war) to socialize with the other troops and the locals. During his training there, he met up with George and got into a sort of lighthearted sibling rivalry about being the first to jump out of planes. They jumped at night, landed on trees, learned how to survive in the jungle and in enemy territory, showed their abilities to different audiences like Winston Churchill and General Eisenhower, and by the middle of the following year, they were ready and raring to go into battle. On the night of the 5th of June, 1944, Chic was on a plane headed for the Cherbourg peninsula in France, his face blackened with camouflage. He was the head scout of a 20-man team that was about to be dropped 20 miles behind enemy lines. Their job was to report on all traffic coming and going, types of guns the Germans had, and since he spoke French, to interrogate some locals to get more information that would be sent to the invasion force that was landing the next day, D-Day, the 6th of June 1944 (Associated Press). Told they would stay there for only three days and would go back to England to rest, they ended up staying and fighting for over a month. The trouble started even before they made their jump as the Germans saw the planes and started firing anti-aircraft cannons with bullets that the soldiers called "flack" that exploded at a high altitude, scattering bits of metal that could destroy engines or enter the plane and kill or wound those inside them. The planes were under such heavy attack that the pilots could not slow them down and become easier targets for the enemy. Chic and the others had to jump just the same and were lucky that no one broke his neck as the parachute opened behind them. Just to show how dangerous it was Chic said that his bag with the rations and ammunition was torn out of him by the wind and many others lost their equipment, including their machine guns. They landed in different places and Chic landed on top of a giant elm tree, above some Germans in a bunker who were shooting at the American paratroopers gliding down in their chutes. Chic managed to get out of his harness and joined his team, all of whom survived the jump, although one of them broke his leg when he landed. Using little toy crickets that made a chirping sound, they somehow found each other in the dark. There were soldiers from other teams who wanted to join them, but Chic, focused on the mission, refused and instead told them to find their way to their own teams. As lead scout, Chic's task was to lead the team through unknown territory. By daybreak, they started encountering bits and pieces of the enemy, and some locals who were hostile to American troops. His baptism of fire came at the hands of some Russian troops who were captured and were now fighting for the Germans. Coming across their camp, Chic engaged two of these Russians in a brilliant maneuver with his friend Watson and shot them both. Chic acted as bait and Watson, crouching 50 feet behind him, fired on the two enemy soldiers who thought was Chic was alone. Then, they came across a flooded field and met a French girl who showed them a 75-foot nylon cable that was used by the gliders that brought in more soldiers the previous night. Chic told her to keep the rope, and in exchange she gave him biscuits that he never got to eat. They were in a small town, and as he walked ahead of the main troops, he passed by a church and realized that the houses were empty. A little further up the road, he saw two American soldiers with their heads bashed in, their radar equipment lying just beside them. He got the radar and threw them to the ditch and exploded a grenade so the enemy would not be able to use them. Further on, he saw another dead soldier with a shovel resting on his back, a first aid kit, and the dog-tag (with the soldier's name and serial number) exposed. Chic had the funny feeling it was a trap, so he went back to rejoin his troops and they went around the town to avoid the church. Good move. Later on, they learned that another team went through the town and were slaughtered by Germans hiding with their submachine guns at the church steeple. Chic said that the Germans allowed him to survive because they knew that he was just the lead scout and if they did not shoot him, then they would surely have more soldiers to shoot at, which is what happened. They reached a farm with a U-shaped barn where they spent the night. They had another uneasy time when they heard German guns being fired, until they realized that it was American troops who were firing them. The next day, they reached the town of Carentan, just behind the beaches of Normandy where the bulk of the D-Day landings took place later that day. Chic's team secured Carentan and was even able to round up some German prisoners. There were many dead bodies all over, Germans and American paratroopers who died during the jump the previous night. There were also tanks with dead soldiers slumped over them. When asked what went through his head when he saw all those dead people, Chic said: "The funny thing about it is those first two Americans were the ones that bothered meit was like somebody grabbed my guts and turned and twisted them, but after that, you see so many of them you don't pay attention to them." As Chic and his team went through an apple orchard, he noticed a dead German in a sitting position, with his binoculars slung around his neck. Chic, who lost his binoculars during the jump, had to cut the strap to get the binoculars. He also noticed a dead American soldier who must have been cut down when he got too close to some Germans with a machine gun. Another soldier, Charles Acker, saw a dead German with a Lugar pistol and when Acker tried to get the pistol, the German burped, scaring Acker and making the other laugh so hard. As Chic looked at the battlefield, all these stories of individual lives wasted ran through his head and made him feel good to be alive. Chic said, "It sounds funny horrid, but it is part of the war" They eventually settled in the town and had dinner with a French family that invited them to a feast of artichoke and olive oil. After three days, they moved out and as Chic crossed a little bridge to deliver a message to the nearby field hospital where the wounded were being treated, he heard a bullet barely whiz by his ear. He turned around and guessed that the sniper must have fired from the steeple of a nearby church. He walked coolly, delivered the message, and then went back to the church, asking one of the French locals to join him. Together, they climbed the stairs to the steeple and caught a girl who was collaborating with the Germans and sent her to the prisoner of war enclosure. Over the coming weeks, Chic and his team captured some more locals who were spying for the Germans. One early morning, Chic led a team of seven men to scout ahead and go behind enemy lines to find some prisoners so they could get information for the advancing Allied troops. They came across a farm house where they heard someone talking on the radio. As they got closer, German troops fired at them and they had to retreat, barely escaping certain death. The battlefield was really dangerous because American and German troops were fighting close to each other and were difficult to distinguish from one another that one could get shot at by one's own troops (PBS). With his wits and putting his long training to good use, Chic survived all sorts of dangers despite being the lead scout. As Chic said to me: "You are a chicken if you're not in front." In war, as in life, the bravery of staying in front and going ahead of the others saved Chic from harm. Just before Chic and his team flew back to England in early July 1944 for a two-month rest, he managed to meet with George. George gave him a German swastika flag that he captured. They had a good though short get-together. As Chic was waiting for the ship that would bring him to England, he had another close call when a truck loaded with explosives just exploded on the wharf. On the ship back, Chic traded some of the rifles he captured for a one gallon can of turkey meat that he ate with his team. Thus, everyone had a good treat as they headed back to England for some rest to get ready for more battles ahead until September 1944, when they came back to fight in Holland. Works Cited "Allied Troops Land in France." Associated Press. June 6, 1944. Ambrose, Stephen E. Band of Brothers: E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne from Normandy to Hitler's Eagle's Nest. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2001. Chicoine, Jules M. Interview with the Author. November 3, 2007. "Paratroops." Microsoft Encarta 2007 [DVD]. Redmond, WA: Microsoft Corporation, 2006. PBS. "D-Day: The American Experience." PBS Online. November 11, 2007 . "The 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment: Unit History." The 101st Airborne. November 13, 2007 Read More