(interviewer)
Okay, whenever you’re ready.
Could you start off, though,
and introduce yourself?
(Edward Tipper)
Yeah—
(interviewer)
Go ahead.
(Edward)
My name is Ed Tipper.
I’ve come a long ways in life,
much farther than I expected.
I’m ninety-three years old now.
I was in the military
group that’s got a
tremendous amount of
recognition which I think
it deserves, but other
people did the same
thing and did not get
that recognition.
I’d like to get
that established.
The Japanese, of course, bombed
Pearl Harbor December 7, 1944.
And I was about eighteen years
old at the time, maybe nineteen.
And like thousands of
other young men, when
that happened, we
immediately went down to
fight the Japanese
and to volunteer.
And one of the most
fortunate things for me
is that I volunteered
for the Marines about
two weeks after the attack.
And they turned me
down because my
teeth did not bite
together perfectly.
And if I’d gotten in
then, I probably never
would’ve survived
because most of the 1st
group that got in did
not get much training,
and they were in
combat far too soon.
So I got pretty mad at the
Marines for not taking me.
And they said, “Well,
you come back in two
weeks, and the rules
will be changed.”
I said, “You’re not
going to see me.
You take me now or I’ll find
somebody else.” And I did.
I found Airborne in the Army.
US Army Airborne was
just getting started.
And I went down with two other
men from the Detroit area.
And we went to Toccoa on the
train about August 3, 1945.
At the time, the E Company
506th Parachute Infantry
was just getting activated.
And I was one of the ones that
was with the group the week,
I think, they were activated.
So I was one of the originals.
And there are seven of us left
now. This was December tenth.
(interviewer) Are you originally
from the Detroit area?
(Edward)
Well, yes.
I was—grew up in
the Detroit area.
I grew up in a place
called the blighted area.
Inside the boulevard
was inner city.
It’s supposed to be a very
rough place, never was.
It was just lower-class
factory worker place.
It wasn’t nearly as bad as
it—everybody thought it was.
That’s interesting I came
from a pretty low beginning.
And I’ve done very well.
And people told me, “You
go into paratroopers,
that’s the last thing I
would ever go into.”
I said, “Oh, no, not me.
That’s the first thing.”
And it was a great decision,
never regretted it.
I met people I never
would’ve met.
At any other time in
my life, I would’ve
been probably a truck
driver or just not had
a college education because
in the military, I
came out, got a college
education, had that opportunity.
And I taught school which is
what I really wanted to do.
I was a school teacher for
more than thirty years.
And I survived World War II.
And I survived thirty years of
teaching teenagers at schools.
So that’s a pretty good
accomplishment, I think.
(interviewer)
That’s interesting.
My grandfather is
also from Detroit.
And if he was still alive,
would be about your age.
(Edward)
Did he grow up in a rough area?
(interviewer) I’m not sure which
section of Detroit
he grew up in.
(Edward) There were not very
many nice places or sections.
When we grew up, it
was a factory town.
(interviewer) He worked in
a steel mill, I think,
before he came down—
(Edward) Ford Forge had
a steel mill there.
My father, he may have worked
with—my father worked for Ford.
And he was very
proud of the fact
that he was just
an ordinary guy.
He could do all that work
that nobody else could do.
Most people had to drop
out after a month or two.
He and one other guy stayed
all the time and did it.
Probably cost him ten years
of his life. But he did it.
And he was very proud of that.
(interviewer)
That’s interesting.
Well, tell me a little bit
about growing up in Detroit.
What was life like for you?
(Edward) Well, I didn’t think
anything was unusual at all.
My mother and father
were Irish immigrants.
And they were very
strong Catholics.
And they sacrificed
to send me to
a Catholic school—high school.
And I think that was a good
decision on their part.
I think I got a good
education there because I
went out—after I came back
from the military—from
the war, I went to the
University of Michigan
with no real preparation
except that Catholic
school preparation
which was really good.
The emphasis was
on good behavior.
And I needed that at that time.
(interviewer)
Were you an only child?
(Edward)
No, I had a brother.
And I had my other
brother that died
at probably five or six months.
I think that was in
the great influenza
epidemic all over the
world about 1919.
(interviewer)
So he was older than you?
(Edward) Yeah. He was
a couple years older.
But I lived in a
very ordinary group.
We probably would
be considered poor.
But we never thought
of ourselves as poor.
My father always
managed—even during the
Great Depression, he managed
to put food on the table.
And he was always able to
find some kind of work.
(interviewer) Do you recall
where you were or what you were
doing when you heard about
the attack on Pearl Harbor?
(Edward) Yes. A friend of mine—I
played football in high school.
We were out at Ford
Dearborn—a village.
I forget the name.
It used to have—it
was like a museum.
A Ford Museum about
early automobiles
and things like that.
That was a good place to go.
We were out there on a bus.
And somebody flagged
the bus down and said,
“The Americans have been
attacked at Pearl Harbor.”
I didn’t know where
Pearl Harbor was.
Nobody in the bus knew either.
A couple of women
started crying.
And I knew that Pearl Harbor
was a military Naval base.
And they had apparently
some connection with it.
And they were crying.
And they were very upset.
And my friend and I were joking.
And we didn’t know it was
nothing to joke about it.
Oh, it’s nothing when
in a couple of weeks,
we’ll be eating fish
heads and rice.
That’s how mistaken
our attitude was.
We thought the Japanese would be
defeated in a couple of weeks.
Nobody realized the damage.
They took out half our Naval
forces at that attack.
(interviewer) What prompted you
to try to enlist in the Marines?
(Edward) Well, my country
had been attacked.
And like thousands of
other young men my age,
I was going to fight the people
that attacked my country.
And I don’t think I was
wrong at all about that.
Times are a little
different now maybe,
but I think the same reaction
with teenagers today
if the country was attacked. I
think they would defend it.
I’ve had a lot of contact with
teenagers in the
last thirty years.
So I think I have a pretty
good insight on that.
A lot of people write
them off and say kids
are just so pampered
and helicopter parents
take care of
everything for them.
And that’s true to an extent
but not true to everybody.
I think teenagers that I
knew teaching were not—if
anything, they were
much more knowledgeable
about world events than we were.
To me, World War was probably
twelve or fourteen years off.
And I didn’t know
anything about it.
I knew we won the war.
It was all in the history books.
And that never interested me
going into the history books.
Kids today have all this
audio-visual stuff.
And they know everything.
I’ve made a lot of
presentations to high
school kids in the years,
last ten years even.
And they are very knowledgeable,
much more so than we were.
And the important thing
that I did not realize
at the time, I thought everybody
had the freedom that we had.
This country. I didn’t know
that most of the world did not.
They were almost slavery
condition or slavery
by poverty or corrupt
government or whatever.
And I had no idea what
the world was really
like until I went in the
Army and got to see
what France and
everywhere was like.
(interviewer) You actually
enlisted in the Army, correct?
You weren’t drafted, were you?
(Edward) Yes. All the
paratroopers were enlisted.
Anybody that was in the
paratroopers was never drafted.
They all were enlistees.
(interviewer) So why not join
the Navy or get into
the Army Air Corp?
(Edward) Well, I had the
same attitude that almost
every man that I’ve
ever talked to in the
paratroopers that we
all wanted to see if
we could make it
with the very best.
And my idea was I didn’t
mind getting killed so much.
I was willing to be killed.
I didn’t want some goof-off
guy to get me killed.
Some moron would light
up a cigar or something
in the middle of the night in
combat and get everybody killed.
I wanted to go
with men that were
first-class and I could
trust my life to.
But if I had to be
killed, I didn’t
want it to be an
accident preventable.
And that was the
way it worked out.
We had training in
the Airborne that
no other unit had at that time.
We actually had a
year and nine months
of intensive training
of every kind.
Everything from riding
horses to stealing
trains and operating steam
engines, everything
you can think of, we had it.
And the training was
so intense that they
got rid of everybody
that was not serious.
In Toccoa, they took three
guys for every one they kept.
And these were all
young, athletic
guys to begin with,
very motivated.
And so I was very proud
to have made the cut
and to make friends with the
people that also made the cut.
They were incredibly—people
that I just
never would’ve met at
another time in my life.
(interviewer)
That’s incredible.
That’s an incredibly
high washout rate.
(Edward) Yeah, when you think
that the guys that started
were not just walking
in off the street.
They were all very motivated.
Almost every single one
was at least a high
school athlete; football
and basketball. Very good.
And two out of three were cut.
And it was the attitude
that got them cut.
The one thing I found out very
quickly: You could do anything.
You could even drop out.
But you never quit.
If you dropped out of a
run, you had to get—you
could drop out for a
minute and show up, get
back up, you can come
in half an hour late,
but as long as you made
it and continued to
try, you were still in.
(interviewer) When you enlisted,
did you go directly into
the paratroopers?
(Edward)
Yes.
(interviewer) Or
did you go through
basic training and then go in?
(Edward) We had
experimental basic training
with the paratroopers.
We had twelve weeks
of a mixture of
basic training and
paratroop training.
We even had mock
planes, were the
exact same as the
fuselage of a DC-7.
And we had these mockups
that we jump out
of, practice jumping
into a sawdust pit.
But that gave us the proper
technique for jumping.
You cannot make a
mistake when you’re
jumping, at least
in World War II.
If you had one of your
hands in the wrong
position, you can have
a terrible accident.
And we did it all.
We met our qualifying five
jumps at Fort Bennet.
We did everything
backwards and forwards.
We did everything
by reflex action.
And we did everything correctly.
We didn’t lose any men at all.
I think we lost
one—we did lose one.
He was a guy who had an
epileptic seizure in the plane.
And he couldn’t jump and
never heard from again.
But everybody else
made the qualifying
jumps—five jumps
and did them okay.
(interviewer) You mentioned
guys that you ordinarily would
not or who you wouldn’t have
met under ordinary conditions.
Were you any closer
to any one or two of
the guys than you were
to everybody else?
Or were y’all all just a
really tight-knit group?
(Edward) No, I had a very
close friend my age.
He’s from Philadelphia.
His name was Bob Blosser.
Bob was killed in the first day
of the invasion in Normandy.
And I’ve always been
just shattered almost by
the fact that thinking about
what he could’ve been.
He was a very talented guy.
But his life ended
at age twenty, I
think, had no family,
no career, nothing.
I always break up anytime I
go to a military cemetery.
I just can’t hold myself
together thinking
about the tremendous
loss of men like Bob.
A lot of our guys were
very ordinary but
later in life were
extremely successful.
Carwood Lipton was a very
good friend of mine.
Lipton became CEO of,
I think Illinois’s—
Owens Illinois Glass
Company in Europe.
He was in charge of
everything in Europe.
He was in a tremendous position.
Successful.
John Martin was in real
estate in the Phoenix
area, multi-millionaire,
did everything.
You never would’ve believed
he could’ve done any of it.
These are very
extraordinary achievements
by ordinary—pretty
ordinary guys.
And I think with the
training we got helped out.
It helped me, I know,
in later life because
I learned very quickly
that you’re capable
of doing far more
than you think you
can do if you will
make the effort.
And in the paratroops,
you always
found out you had
to make the effort.
And then you outperformed
anything you believed possible.
When we went into France in that
invasion, I was not
worried at all.
People said, “Weren’t
you frightened?”
Well, I was kind of
scared a little.
But I knew we had
the best training
and people to go to fight a war.
And I got on that plane.
I was not worried.
There was no way to improve our
chances because we had training.
And that’s proved
true in combat, too.
Things happened that we did
automatically correct.
We made the correct
decisions in combat.
And as a result of the
training we had, what
would happened—when I
landed, for example,
I was a bazooka
man—and I landed.
And the first thing
I did when I landed
was to check—there was
a little battery.
And it didn’t go on, the
bazooka was not operative.
The batteries were gone.
The opening shock
was so severe, the
batteries went flying
out of the bazooka.
So that bazooka was useless.
But a person without
that training
probably wouldn’t have
bothered to check.
And the first time you’d
know anything was
wrong was you stand up
to try to take a tank
with a bazooka that
was non-functional.
And that wouldn’t’ve
been very good.
(interviewer) Now with your
training, I’ve heard a lot
of stories about Sobel,
not with the benefit
of seventy years of
looking back at it, but
at that time, what did
you think of him?
(Edward) I knew Sobel very well
because I was his runner
for about three months.
I was close.
Well, it’s a
complicated situation.
He’s not as bad
as he’s pictured.
I always try to tell
people about Sobel.
He did not have to be in
the hazardous outfit,
but he joined voluntarily.
And that’s to his credit.
But he was in over his head.
He was a city boy.
And he did not function
in the woods at all.
He just didn’t know
what he was doing.
The other thing that
was bad about him was
not his fault, but he
simply made all the
wrong decisions in
dealing with men.
I think he was afraid
of his men because they
were all so much smarter and
sharper physically than he was.
Now one thing Sobel could
do physically was run.
I don’t know.
He was not an athlete.
But he could run forever.
I think—for example, everybody
could do fifty or
sixty push-ups.
Sobel could barely
do twenty, I think.
He just was not
physically gifted at all.
I think that bothered him.
But he just made wrong mistakes.
I think what he did was
he tried to use his power
over everybody to demonstrate
that he was superior.
But he knew that he
was way inferior
to almost all the
men he commanded.
Those are all ideas that go back
to World War II when I knew him.
He couldn’t read a map even.
He had trouble.
He said, “Lieutenant, why
don’t you come over here
and help me with it?”
And that’s pretty bad for
a company commander.
He couldn’t read a
compass, couldn’t—
had trouble reading a map.
The terrain contour was just
a little too much for him.
(interviewer)
Was Sobel West Pointer or no?
(Edward) No, he went to
some military school
in Chicago area, I think.
There was one in
Indiana probably.
So he had a commission as a
captain when he enlisted.
And that says
something about him.
He could’ve gone to a
nice, easy, safe job and
been a captain probably
much higher during the war.
And he didn’t. He took the
hard road that we all did.
And I don’t think he gets
enough credit for that.
But he would’ve also
gotten us all killed.
Somebody would’ve killed him
very quickly in combat.
I’m sure you know in the
book, Band of Brothers,
that the whole company
voted against going
to combat with him—and
the sergeants.
This was mutiny
punishable by death.
I don’t think the
guys realize how
bad—what a serious
thing they were doing.
But they all believed
that Sobel would get us
all killed unless somebody
killed him first.
In combat, he was just
not that competent
at all in combat—to
lead men in combat.
(interviewer) Did you ever have
any negative
interaction with him?
(Edward) Well, yes. I was
in company headquarters.
That was the group
with the company
commander and executive officer.
And that was his plane
that was shot down.
Everybody was lost
in that plane.
I probably—if I’d stayed
in company headquarters,
I probably would’ve
been in that plane.
I knew I wasn’t going to stay.
I had a break—the
reason Sobel had me in
company headquarters, I
happened to be able to type.
And I was the only person in
the company that could type.
So I was typing things for him.
I was also typing up
passes for all my friends.
And that was fine for me.
But I knew it wouldn’t last.
I figured he’d catch
me sooner or later.
I was going with some girl.
She was going to school
in North Carolina.
And we had a date about
a month I advance.
I told him, “I’d like to
go on this date that week.
So I’m going to be
gone that week.”
He said, “That’s guaranteed.
You’ll have it.”
When the time came, he says,
“I can’t let you go.”
Well, I said, “But this
is very important.
And you promised.
You promised me.”
I sounded like a
ten-year-old kid.
But I was so upset.
He said, “No, you can’t go.”
So I went anyways.
And I came back, I
knew I would no
longer be in company
headquarters.
And Lipton wanted me.
I thought probably nobody
would want me because
I was a better—but
Lipton asked for me.
He knew I was out of
company headquarters.
And Lipton had a group
of about like I was.
We could do everything
pretty well.
But we were also a
little bit allergic
to following rules
and discipline.
And that’s the kind of
company—that was 4th platoon.
I think we outperformed
everybody at all times
in E Company because of
the guy of men we had.
John Martin, the guy
that I told you about
that made millions of
dollars in Phoenix.
John Martin was in that group.
And Lipton was in
that group also.
He was a CEO of Illinois Owen
and Glass probably earning
four or five million dollars
a year. I don’t know.
Four or five hundred
thousand anyway.
There were others that were
successful in other ways.
I think I was successful because
I was a very good teacher.
I had a hard time
getting a teaching job.
Nobody wanted to hire me. I
couldn’t understand why.
I thought I was
twenty-eight years old
and had the war
in my background.
I was much more mature, I
thought, than most people.
But every superintendent
that interviewed me
backed away because I
could see that it’d
be much better for
them to get somebody
twenty years old out of college.
They would not
question anything.
They would be much
easier to control.
They saw that I would be a
potential troublemaker.
And they were right.
Turned out that I had
very little to lose.
I was not accustomed taking any
crap from anybody.
And I could talk for ten
hours about all the
conflicts I had with
administrators and principals.
And I had some very good ones,
really not very much conflict,
but the ones that
gave me trouble,
I gave them trouble right back.
And they were sorry to have me
around because I
was not married.
I didn’t worry about
losing my job.
Most teachers at that time
are just desperate
to keep their job.
They were married.
All teachers had to
work at something
other to bring in anything.
The pay was so low. That
didn’t bother me a bit.
I liked what I was doing.
And I did it the way I
thought it should be done.
And eventually I even got
a John Hayes fellowship
which that was twenty
of the outstanding
high school teachers in the
United States got that.
I had a year at Berkeley
on the fellowship.
So then nobody could say
I was a bad teacher.
They could say well, one thing
I’m trying to think of the word.
There was a word that kept
coming up all the time.
It was—I would never
criticize them.
I had people that if you
were for them ninety-eight
percent, then they considered
you a troublemaker
because usually they wanted
you a hundred percent.
You could imagine how
somebody like me
would get along with
that situation.
(interviewer) I’ve heard a
lot of people say that with
the training y’all
received, that Sobel would
not have been a good
leader in combat,
but credit as good
as y’all were—
(Edward) We were totally
united in hatred against him.
But he made the company
what it was in that sense.
The company would never have
been as good without Sobel.
We excelled all the time
because we were totally
against everything he
did, and yet we had
a unity that nobody else
had in our group, I think.
And if we’d had a
regular, ordinary company
commander, we would
not have had that.
(interviewer)
That bond?
(Edward) There was a bond
that formed very soon.
(interviewer) After y’all
finished the training in the
US, what was the trip
over to England like?
(Edward) Well, it was
interesting because before we
got on the boat to go
across, paratroops were
all told to take the
insignia off their caps
and pull it off their
boots, cross your legs
over the boots so the
boots were hidden.
And we were presented
to be regular troops.
We landed in England in
Liverpool as ordinary infantry.
When we got to our
barracks in Aldbourne,
England, little town,
somebody said, “Well,
"Lord Haw-Haw is on the radio.
Come and listen to
this” This was British
treasure broadcasting
for the Germans.”
And Lord Haw-Haw said,
“Welcome to 101st Airborne.
"We saw—we were watching
you when you took
"your insignia off in
New York, and we were
"watching you when you
landed in Liverpool,
"and we will always
be watching you.
"When you come, we will
be ready for you.
"And oh, yes, the
clock in Aldbourne
is ten seconds too late.”
We were dumbfounded.
We weren’t afraid.
But we were just
dumbfounded that the
Germans must have
spies everywhere.
How could they know of us?
What happened—what was really
happening, we did not
know at the time.
I found out after the war.
Every German that landed
in England was captured
by the English because the
English were in a German coat.
They got every single one.
And each one—they
gave them a choice of
being executed or working
with the allies.
And of course, they had a
big network of Germans
sending back authentic
messages of all kinds.
Nothing real important,
but they thought
it had an effective spy
organization. And they did.
But the English were running it.
And so everything, I
guess, has an explanation.
At the time, we had no
idea if—and nobody had any
idea if the Germans were
totally incompetent
or they were—their espionage
did not work at all.
The enigma code was supposed
to be totally unbreakable.
But the English did break it.
(interviewer) Yeah, when you
mentioned Lord Haw-Haw, I was
going to ask how that
affected y’all hearing that.
It’s the same thing
for the guys in the
Pacific hearing Tokyo
Rose welcoming them.
(Edward)
But this was so unexpected.
We thought we were landing
as ordinary soldiers.
And we didn’t dream
that somebody—but
that information was useless.
It was not critical at all.
But the Germans took
that from their radio
operators as if it was
good information.
They thought they had a good spy
network going and they did not.
It was completely compromised.
(interviewer) Well, tell me
a little bit about
your time in England.
What did y’all do there?
I know y’all—
(Edward) Well, I ran into a
little problem with that
because when I was two
and a half years old,
my parents decided to
go back to Ireland.
And we all went back to Ireland
for two to three years.
I lived in Ireland as a child.
I needed money,
shillings, penny a pinch.
[inaudible].
Things like that.
I knew the attitude
of people were
much more conservative
in America.
And I got along fine.
I met some English people—I
was walking down the road.
And this couple of
kids come up and
said, “Can you come
home with us?”
I said sure.
I went home.
And they didn’t
haven’t very much.
But they were very happy to
share it with an American.
So inconsequently, I was
able to do some favors
for them like bring them tea
that was kind of surplus.
I made it surplus
in the kitchen.
And they had tea
which was rationed
and very important
to the English.
I got tea for them all the time.
They would’ve still
treated me well even
without that because I
was in contact with
them for fifty or sixty
years after the war.
We went back—my wife
and I and daughter
went back and visited Aldbourne.
And we met some of them
that were still alive.
And that was a
lifelong friendship.
But so many Americans
had trouble
with the accent and the money.
I did not.
(interviewer) Did you have any
family still living in Ireland?
(Edward)
Well, yes.
As a matter of a fact, I did.
My mother’s family.
And I had a furlough
scheduled at Christmas.
That would be 1943 I think.
No, 1943 for Christmas.
And I was—had bought a train
ticket to visit
Northern Ireland.
But during the night
when I was traveling,
General Eisenhower
changed the policy.
And American troops were no
longer allowed to visit Ireland.
So when I landed
at the ferry boat,
they said, “You
can’t go across.”
And I never did go back
and visit them during—or
even after the war, I
never went back for
many, many years.
(interviewer) Did you get any
furloughs to go into London?
(Edward)
I wasn’t too interested.
I was kind of a contrarian.
I’ve always been that.
I didn’t smoke, for example.
At that time, I could
take a cigarette—we
got issued a carton of
cigarettes a month,
I think, and I could
trade that for
chocolate bars or other things.
And I did.
And the fact that I
didn’t smoke is probably
one of the reasons
that I’ve lived this
long because I started
smoking at age thirty.
I smoked for about fifteen years
to forty-five. And I quit then.
I have not smoked
since that time.
All the smokers are gone,
long gone in our group.
The people that are
left; Paul Rogers and I
and the other ones
that are left are all
non—never did smoke or
quit very long ago.
(interviewer) Thirty is kind
of late to start smoking.
(Edward)
Pardon me?
(interviewer) Thirty is kind
of late to start smoking.
(Edward) Well, I was—started
when I was taking my
master’s degree examination
which is a two-day thing.
And after a couple
of hours of that, we
got a break, and
everybody would smoke.
I said, “Give me one of those.”
(laughs) But I never
was a serious smoker.
I didn’t smoke three
or four packs
a week or anything like that.
But I did smoke for
fifteen years.
(interviewer) What were the
preparations like when y’all
were preparing for Normandy?
(Edward) Well, the preparations
were pretty strict.
Actually, I was on
detached service
with a group in
Southern England.
I wasn’t with the E
Company at that moment.
I got back a couple of
weeks before the invasion.
And everything was—security
was very tight.
We had very little contact with
anybody outside of our group.
They take us to the
airfield a couple of
days before the scheduled
jump in Normandy.
And that was surrounded by
barbed wire and armed guards.
Nobody got in or out of that.
And we had all this
intense briefing.
They had some table
made up of targets.
And they had all this
information—detailed
information French people
had been giving them.
And then they said,
“The German commandant
"is having a romance
with this woman.
"They have a dog called Fifi.
"And they walk their
dog at three in the
afternoon every Sunday
at the square.”
They did not have
information that we needed.
The hedgerows were a
total surprise to us.
The French people didn’t
think that was important.
They were sending
what they thought
was behavior of German officers.
And it would’ve been
a lot better if we’d
known something about the
hedgerows. But we did not.
But we managed to deal
with that anyway.
(interviewer) Yeah, like you
said earlier, when you were
younger, you didn’t
realize that all the
other countries in
the world don’t have
the freedom that we
have here because
what you see is what
you’re used to.
And you just assume everybody
else is like that.
(Edward) Yeah. I did.
I thought everybody—it’s
amazing how
little I knew about
the outside world.
Even when I went to
Ireland, lived there two
and a half years, that
was total paradise.
But it was not—particularly
for a child.
But it was not typical at all
for the rest of the world.
We were in a rural area.
And my mother would open the
door and say, “Out with yas.”
And we’d go out and play
with other children.
And anywhere we happen
to be, we could
stop anywhere and say,
“Oh, we’re hungry.
Can you give u
something—a bit to eat?”
And the people would feed
us and make a fuss over us.
And children were just—it was
a paradise for children.
No dangers at all.
No traffic, no pedophiles.
There may have been,
but they knew better
than if they had wanted
to do anything, you
couldn’t do it in a place where
everybody knew everybody.
They would’ve been
torn limb from
limb if they’d injured
any children.
(interviewer) You said that
prior to the Normandy invasion,
you were on detached duty.
Who were you with and
what were you doing?
(Edward) We were down
there in Winchester.
I was with a small group.
And we were preparing
barracks or a camp for
the 82nd Airborne group that
fought in North Africa.
And they were going to
be in the invasion.
And we were preparing
that camp for
them, just all
housekeeping stuff.
And we’d had enough training.
We weren’t worried about losing
a couple of weeks of training.
It was a good deal to
get away from the main
body, be down there—be on
our own for a couple weeks.
(interviewer) When it’s time
for the invasion, y’all
would’ve boarded aircraft on the
evening of the fourth, correct?
(Edward) Yeah, we didn’t
get on the plane.
We got right—we were
ready to board.
And they called it off
at the last moment.
Nobody was on the plane.
I’m sure some planes
had people on it.
But ours was not—we
were surprised.
But we just took it in stride.
That was what we had to do.
They said, “Well, the
weather’s too bad.
We’ll almost certainly—we’ll
go tomorrow.”
And we did.
(interviewer) Well, we see
photographs of
paratroopers getting
onto the aircraft.
And y’all look like
you’re four times the
size you actually are because of
all the things you’re carrying.
(Edward) All of the stuff
that we carried was probably
at least a hundred pounds of
equipment, probably more.
You could barely get up the
steps to get on the plane.
You had to have somebody
give you a shove.
A lot of that stuff
was unnecessary.
But they had gas masks
and gas impregnated—not
gas impregnated, but
some kind of preventive
against gas.
And it impregnated our clothes.
And we had to carry
that to put those on.
Somebody was yelling,
“Gas attack!”
I don’t know how we could take
everything out and
change clothes.
But somebody didn’t
think about that.
Most people threw
away the contents of
the gas mask and put
candy bars inside.
(interviewer)
Were you one of those people?
(Edward) Yeah, I think I
threw the whole thing away.
(interviewer) Tell me about
the night of the invasion.
Y’all go out to the airfield.
What’s going on before
y’all get in the plane?
What’s going on after
you get in the plane?
(Edward) Well, they
gave us a last view
like a condemned prisoner gets.
I think we had a turkey
Thanksgiving dinner.
We had ice cream which nobody
had for a couple of years.
And—but we took all that in
stride. We joked about it.
The main thing I just
can’t stress too much, we
were so confident that
we were the best-trained
people in the world that we
could take on the Germans.
I don’t care what
reputation they had,
we were going to be
successful probably.
We expected high casualties.
But we were willing
to take those.
We were totally confident we
could not be better prepared.
Our training was so good.
That proved to be true, I think.
When we dropped, we were
dropped total chaos.
The pilots flying our planes
were not combat pilots.
They were all
transferred pilots.
And when all the
rockets and flares
started coming up,
they panicked.
The story is that they
got confused over fog.
I think they were confused the
minute the shooting started.
Anyway, most pilots—the
pilot I’m going
to talk about, the
pilot of my plane—the
pilot on my plane was
supposed to reduce
his speed to 110 miles an
hour from 180. He didn’t.
To make the jump easier.
He did not. He panicked.
He gave us the green light.
That plane was going as
fast as it would go.
It was going so fast when
I jumped, my backpack
was torn off my back by the
impact of the opening shock.
I lost everything
I had in my pack.
And that didn’t bother me.
Richard Winters,
when he landed, all
he had was a knife in his boot.
Everything else was gone.
I had a rifle that
was in three pieces.
I just got to the ground and
got that put together quickly.
I had at least a rifle.
And I had a bazooka I
threw away because I
found out quickly it was not
working—in working shape.
No point in carrying it.
And I met—we had all these
elaborate passwords
which the Germans would’ve
had trouble with.
Welcome.
The Germans could not pronounce
welcome very clearly.
And he’d pronounce it
with a German accent.
And thunder and flash
were the three passwords.
And what happened to me was
we had these clickers.
I don’t think any of our
guys used the clickers.
Very few of us needed
to use the passwords.
We all knew each other.
The minute I landed,
the guy that landed next to me
close by hollered, “Tipper!”
He knew who I was.
I looked at him.
I knew who he was.
We trained together for a
year, well, almost two years.
So I very quickly—the
two of us were looking
for other stragglers
or—to form a group
large enough to do some damage.
And we did that.
We finally—we wind up with about
seventeen or eighteen men.
There were no officers.
That didn’t matter.
We could handle it.
We had one charger.
We had no automatic weapon.
That didn’t matter.
We could handle that.
The Germans were much more upset
and disoriented than we were.
When we finally had
enough men to attack
something, that was our
training, our mission.
And we found a place to attack.
And we attacked it with eighteen
men and took it very quickly.
In fact, I think
probably this whole
thing lasted four
or five minutes.
And they were not ready.
The Germans were not
ready at all for us.
In spite of the fact
that planes were still
dropping paratroopers
and gliders, there was
nobody in the
trenches surrounding
this three buildings.
And then some of them
went to about twenty.
And I don’t think we
lost anybody at all. W
e had nobody killed.
We might have had
one or two wounded.
And there were a couple
of Germans wounded.
But once they got away,
they started regrouping.
And the Germans were desperate
to recapture this place.
When we took it, we thought
it was a communications
center or some place
very important.
Once we got in
there, it was just
storage area, nothing
at all important.
But it had to be—we
realized it was important.
The Germans were
attacking—¬counterattacking
at least once an
hour all the time.
And we had guys up above
on the second floor.
And we could see them coming.
And they shot.
And there were eight or ten
of them at six o’clock.
And we were ready.
We had no trouble defending.
But they wanted it
back very, very badly.
They were desperate
to get it back.
I thought, there must be
some gold buried in there.
It’s just an ordinary
storage building.
Three buildings used
for storage, junk.
Fifty years later, I found
out what was so important
about it was it overlooked
the crossroads.
The Germans had to
have those crossroads.
We were half a mile
or so from the beach.
And the Germans had to
have those crossroads to
move supplies and things
to their pillboxes.
And they couldn’t
because we—even with
the small arms,
we controlled it.
And we took that
place and held it.
And more guys started coming in.
Started out, we had
two E Company guys.
And this other small group
did the same thing.
Right about the
time we attacked,
they had seven E Company guys.
So nine E Company
men were in there.
They’re all dead now.
And then there’s a guy they
called “the Mad Major.”
I’ll think of his
name in a minute.
And he was the first
officer that showed up.
He was from the 1st battalion.
We were all 2nd battalion.
We didn’t know him.
He came in and took charge.
First time an officer
took charge.
And he was a wild man.
And he did all the right things.
And he had his own
group with him.
And by the time he got
here and had it, we were
more than capable of
defending that place.
So we held it all
that day and all the
next—that night and the
next day until noon.
And Utah Beach was held
very much by the fact
that they had almost no
anti-invasion fire going.
Unlike the other one.
Omaha Beach was a slaughter
as everybody knows.
But we did our mission,
accomplished it without
even knowing we were
accomplishing it.
I didn’t know until fifty years
later how important
that place was.
We just did what we
were trained to do.
(interviewer) Do you recall
when y’all were flying over
before y’all hit the
coastline, could you see
the ships in the channel
that were heading over?
(Edward) No, but whenever we
took that place and captured
it, that installation—we climbed
up free buildings
all two stories.
Up on the second story,
you could look out
and see all the ships
in the channel, just
an incredible sight, never
forget it in my life, even now.
And yet I think we barely
made that invasion.
Everybody thinks it
was overwhelming.
No chance at a failure.
I think we probably could’ve
landed on Utah Beach.
But there were so many
casualties in Omaha,
I’m even surprised they
were able eventually
to capture—to get a foothold
in Omaha. They did.
And then what the ranger
did at Pointe du Hoc,
going up that cliff,
incredible, but they did it.
That was the kind
of men they were.
That made the
difference, I think.
(interviewer) Had you ever
considered joining the rangers?
(Edward) I didn’t
know about them.
I wanted to join the ski troops.
I heard about the ski troops,
I don’t remember now.
(interviewer)
So the 10th Mountain Division?
(Edward)
10th Mountain Division.
That sounded like
something I would
like even better
than what I was in.
But I made inquiries.
And I was discouraged
from inquiring about a transfer.
They didn’t want to transfer
anybody at that time.
(interviewer) How had you heard
about the Airborne
to begin with?
(Edward) I think I saw a movie
that Hollywood had some
movie that Airborne—I
had the idea
you didn’t have to hike very
far. You fly everywhere.
That was not true.
But I’ve never been sorry
at all that I joined.
It was right for me,
exactly what I needed.
(interviewer) A lot has been
said about the flight over
Normandy that—were all
of y’all given air
sickness pills to
prevent air sickness?
(Edward) I don’t remember
taking—we probably were
given them and told if
you feel you need it,
you’re feeling queasy
or something, take it.
I didn’t take it. I took it and
just gave it somebody else.
I don’t remember if we smoked.
I don’t think we smoked.
I think in the series,
Band of Brothers,
they showed a guy smoking.
But I don’t
remember that.
But that’s not very important.
(interviewer) I know there were
a lot of guys who were really
drowsy from the medication.
(Edward) I think
the guys that took
that pill probably were drowsy.
(interviewer) Do you remember
when—well, I’m sure you
remember—when did
your aircraft first
start taking anti-aircraft fire?
(Edward)
I’m sorry?
(interviewer) When
did your aircraft
start taking fire
from the ground?
(Edward)
We started taking fire.
I remember it was—we crossed
between the Channel Islands.
Jersey and Guernsey, I think.
We crossed just
past—I think they
had anti-aircraft
on those islands.
Anti-aircrafts were coming up.
People have asked
me, “Was it really
"as bad as the series,
TV, HBO series?
Was that really—was
that exaggerated?”
It was not exaggerated,
exactly the way it was.
And we were expecting it.
But we didn’t think
the plans should be
taking evasive action
and going down low.
We were supposed to be—dropped
less than about 450 feet.
And that’s going
to be a problem.
And they dropped us much lower.
I’d say about 350.
I hit a tree which is
normally a very bad thing.
When I jumped out, my
backpack was ripped
off, I came—landed about a
second later in a tree.
I went right through the tree.
And fortunately,
that slowed me down.
I think I would’ve
broken a lot of
bones if I hadn’t hit that tree.
I know normally it’s a
disaster when you hit a tree.
In combat, it’s very
bad to hit a tree.
Somebody would come
by and shoot you.
But that all worked
out accidentally.
I’ve been fortunate
in a lot of ways.
I was fortunate
in that way, too.
(interviewer)
Was your plane hit?
(Edward) Oh, yeah.
Every plane was hit.
You could hear the little pop.
I was hit with small arms
fire and machine gun fire.
But we were not hit
with anything big.
(interviewer) What was going
through your mind when that
fire starts coming up at you?
(Edward) Well, how soon can
we get out of this place?
I was mad.
I was quite willing to
jump anywhere we were
over land and not wait
for the exact target
that we had originally
planned to jump.
We were supposed to
jump at a little
town called
Sainte-Marie-du-Mont.
And we never—I
landed about eight
or nine miles away from that.
Everybody else was the same.
(interviewer) So y’all
jumped—the first night y’all
captured the building
at the crossroads.
You said y’all held that
all day on the sixth?
(Edward)
That’s right.
I was worried because we didn’t
have any automatic weapons.
We had a BAR that
was semi-automatic.
We didn’t have any tommy
guns or machine guns.
And I think that the
Germans who captured
that place, they thought we did.
They thought we were waiting
until they close in.
And I think they
hesitated a little more.
But they kept counterattacking
trying to get in.
We stopped every
counterattack they made.
We did all kinds of
things that if they had
been well-trained, they
would’ve been doing.
But they had not done—they
didn’t defend that place well.
(interviewer) Was
your baptism of fire
what you expected it would be?
(Edward) No, not—I didn’t
think I’d be afraid.
You’re just terrified.
Your mouth goes dry.
But you overcome the fear.
And you start doing all the
things you’re supposed to do.
And I didn’t expect
I’d be afraid.
I thought I’m too
well-trained to be afraid.
I go in there and start—when I
landed, I could barely talk.
My mouth is totally dry.
But that passes quickly when
you’re in a combat situation.
You can’t stand around
worrying about being afraid.
(interviewer) You just start
reacting at that point.
(Edward)
Yeah.
(interviewer) When did you
first off, find out that the
company headquarters
had been lost?
(Edward) Well, when the troops
came in from Utah Beach,
they got to us a day and a
half after the invasion.
And I don’t know. We
knew we had to go—
we knew where we were.
We knew where we had to go—where
Sainte-Marie-du-Mont was.
We knew our company
headquarters would be
near Saint-Marie-du-Mont. And
we started out in small groups.
We didn’t go
together, everybody.
But we went in two
or three groups.
And we were not that far.
We could’ve made it in
three or four hours.
But it was all area
in which nobody
really knew who
controlled anything.
And there were even some
cavalry troops from
another Polish or
some—they weren’t German,
but they were connected
German Army.
Some of our guys
captured horses.
And they were riding those
horses and having a good time.
But one other guy, a close
friend of mine and I,
the two of us—we left at noon.
I think we got there—we
found our company.
We were in our
company by evening.
But we did some
fighting along the way.
We even—we got to a town.
And there was a sniper up in
the bell tower of the church.
And he was shooting at people.
And everybody was afraid.
And they were American troops.
And they were all
not doing anything.
So Smith and I said, “Let’s
go get that sniper.”
We went in that church.
We heard the guy shoot while
we were in the church.
We went up the stairs.
And that’s kind of scary.
But we went up there, we got up
to the top, and
the guy was gone.
Where he went to, I don’t know.
How he escaped?
He had some way to
get out, I guess.
Maybe he had a rope.
We didn’t see any
ropes anywhere.
But that was a mystery
that will never be solved.
A sniper who disappeared
while we were
climbing the church steps
up to the steeple.
And he disappeared somehow.
He had his escape
all well-planned.
But anyway, we
stopped the sniping.
So we didn’t—we had things
happening on the way back.
I think—my recollection is
we get back in the evening.
We’d find different groups.
We’d say, “You guys know where
E Company headquarters?”
“Oh, yes, couple miles
down this way.”
We found it. When we got there,
about half our
company was there.
And we attacked Carentan
a couple of days later.
And well, it was a week
later, and we still
did not have—we were
missing fifty or sixty
men out of the group.
We had about a hundred men.
And we normally—we jumped
with a hundred—160 or 165.
And they all caught
up eventually.
Paul Rogers and Earle
Mcclain, two of our
very best men, did not get
to the company for a week.
But they were in
combat all that time.
(interviewer) Let me stop you
right there for a second.
(Edward) These little small
groups were holding different
little pieces of land
and controlling them.
It was a very
disorganized situation.
You could not really
know who was owning.
You just had to assume that
there were Germans every place.
(interviewer)
Stop right there.
Now what was it that
you said just now?
That there were three men?
(Edward) There were three
men that did not get to the
company for more than a week.
They were fighting
all that time.
And those three
were very good men.
Paul Rogers, Earle Mcclain,
and Jim Alley.
And when we attacked
Carentan on the twelfth,
they had not caught
up with the company.
The twelfth of June that was.
(interviewer) And the twelfth
was the day that you were
wounded, correct?
(Edward)
Yes.
(interviewer) What was going on
during the three
days prior to that?
(Edward)
Well, we were in patrols mostly.
And we did a lot of fighting.
And people were shooting at us
and we were shooting at them.
But it was always, you didn’t
know how successful—you
didn’t have an objective that
you did or did not take.
You just went out on patrol
looking for trouble.
And you found it very quickly.
We even had artillery
attack on our camp.
I guess somebody found
out where we were.
And we were in a camp and these
artillery shots came in.
They were not too accurate.
If they’d been accurate,
we’d been all killed.
But we moved camp very quickly.
The company headquarters
moved because
they had us target on
their map somehow.
But those big shells,
eighty-eights coming
and hit the ground, you
don’t stay there and wait.
You just get out.
(interviewer) How would you
rate the quality of the German
soldiers y’all were
coming up against?
(Edward) Well, they
were all over the map.
Some of them were
very, very good.
We fought the German
paratroopers at Carentan.
And they were pretty good.
They were about like
probably the elite troops.
But the ones that were
attacking that place,
defending them, the
German insulation that
we attacked and took, I’d
say were below average.
But it’s kind of
understandable because
they’d had a lot
of false alarms.
And if they’d had ten
or twelve false alarms
and reacted to them
and jumped out of bed
at four in the morning and went
into defense and
nothing happened.
They’d been having that go on.
Somebody planned
all that I’m sure.
And whenever we made our
attack, it was—there
were some people probably
not very surprised
by the poor performance.
The German’s equipment was
far better than ours.
But maybe it was too good.
Maybe it was better
than they needed.
And I never saw any Tiger Tanks.
Tiger Tank was in a
class by itself.
They didn’t have any in
Normandy, I don’t think.
Maybe they did.
But I never saw them.
But the Americans won
that whole war by the
production possible
by the United States.
I worked for an automobile
company in Detroit.
It was switched over
from an automobile
to an anti-aircraft overnight.
And everybody asked
they were making
a bomber every hour, I think.
And maybe we had—we didn’t
have any Tiger Tanks.
But we had the Shermans
which were much smaller.
And if you had six or
eight Shermans and
one Tiger, you know
what you’re doing.
You can probably
take out the Tiger.
You got to be very careful he
doesn’t take you out one by one.
But their weapons—the
German machine gun was
better, fired about
MG45, I think, fired
twice as many rounds as ours.
The Schmeisser machine
pistol was very much
more of a weapon—better weapon
than our old tommy gun.
Tommy gun was firing about
450 rounds a minute.
Schmeisser, I
think, was probably
a thousand rounds a minute.
But that meant advantages
and disadvantages
because you really didn’t need
to hit somebody six
or eight times.
You just need to hit them
once to be effective.
If you hit a guy once
with a forty-five,
that’s going to take him out.
And if you have a machine
pistol that shoots a
thousand rounds a minute,
that means you’ve
got to have all kinds
of ammunition.
You’ve got to have it
carried with you and
you got to have it
somewhere accessible.
And that’s a handicap, too.
But it works out in both ways.
(interviewer) I’ve talked
to German veterans who were
machine gunners and who
had been in the military
for several years before
the MG42s were issued.
And they had originally
used the MG34 which
was the older machine gun
that fired much slower.
Well, then they get
this new MG42.
And it fires so fast, it eats
up all their ammunition.
They didn’t like it at first.
(Edward) Well, it can
overheat quickly also.
(interviewer) But the ammunition
supply was their biggest squawk.
(Edward) Well, there are a
lot of generalizations that
were made about the Germans
and their stereotypes.
A lot of them are true.
What I would say about
the German soldiers,
they were very careful
not to do anything
unless they were ordered.
And if a German
tank was damaged,
they very often
just abandoned it.
And it was fixable.
There was just
took off and left.
And Americans would
take off, but they’d
come back at night
and fix it up.
They did not lose a tank.
I had an interesting thing
happen in that place.
The third day, the morning
of the second day,
a guy came up dressed
in American uniform,
had his hands raised.
He said, “Don’t shoot.
I was lost.
But I’m okay now.”
One of our men shot and
killed him in a single shot.
We all said, “What the
hell did you do that for?”
“Look at the boots.”
The guy was a German.
He was wearing German boots.
He never could’ve passed
himself off American.
He would’ve been far better
to come in barefooted.
His English was perfect.
Maybe a little too perfect.
And he was on a mission
that I can’t understand
how anybody in his right
mind would’ve tried.
There’s no way he
could’ve succeeded.
The boots he had
were spotted out
in the grass in the courtyard.
But the minute he went
inside on those stone
floors, take one step
with those boots,
his story was—it didn’t matter.
They knew he was German.
(interviewer) You could hear
those hobnails clicking.
(Edward)
Yeah.
I think the guy was just given
orders to do the mission.
“You speak English. You go down
there and find out how many
"guys they got and
what kind of weapon.
Find your way back.”
“Yes, sir.”
I don’t think
an American soldier
would’ve responded the same way.
I know he wouldn’t.
I wouldn’t.
(interviewer) Did you have any
encounters with the French
civilians while you
were in Normandy?
(Edward) No, I didn’t.
Well, yeah.
We met French people
that gave us food and stuff.
But I don’t know really.
That was an area that
had a lot more Germans
than anybody realized because
it was a dairy country.
And there were a lot
of people in Normandy
that sold dairy products to
the Germans and did well.
But I’m not saying there
was—there was not a majority.
The majority were very happy.
And I got to know some people.
Told stories of what happened
during German occupation.
They hated the Germans.
But that was not
true of anybody.
Of course, when you came in,
everybody was with
the Resistance.
Everybody was
welcoming Americans.
There were some I think
were unhappy to see
Americas come in and
spoil a good thing they
had going because we
were having to tell.
Even then, it was
impossible to tell.
(interviewer) I was fortunate
enough this past Saturday
to interview a lady
who’s a French
national who was
with the Resistance.
And I believe she was in the
French Army after the war.
But she had some good
stories about what
it was like under the
German occupation.
And she lost both
of her brothers.
Her father was taken away.
(Edward) Well, I knew this
woman pretty well who’s
family had had reluctantly
contracted to
give stuff to the German
Army—dairy stuff.
And they tried to
withhold a bit of it.
And some of the German knew.
And what they did,
they said, “We’ll let this
go,” They took the mother,
put a gun to her
head and acted like
they were going to execute her.
And then they said,
“We’ll let her go.
But the next time you lie,
you know what will happen.”
And there was no question
they would kill her.
(interviewer) Well, the big
event for you in Normandy, of
course, was Carentan How
did that attack begin?
How did y’all get there?
(Edward) That’s
again, a testimony,
I think, to our training.
I think where a
regular Army infantry
never could’ve done what we did.
Somebody decided that
Carentan—the best
place to take Carentan
was from the south.
There’s a huge swamp to
the south of Carentan.
And the Germans had just
decided nobody could
go through that swamp,
maybe one or two, but
not enough to make any—and
they had their—their
south end was
very-lightly defended.
And we spent the night.
About 200 men with
full equipment ready
to fight went single
file for miles.
I don’t know, probably
thirty or forty miles
all the way around that
area—around the swamp.
And then through the swamp,
you had to be very careful.
But single file. One wrong step,
one guy would ruin
the whole thing.
It never happened.
We did it perfectly.
And we attacked the
Germans in a place that
they didn’t think anyone
could attack them from.
So we were very quick.
We took Carentan.
I was wounded before we took it.
But I was wounded
in that action.
But we had three machine guns.
They had one.
And we were moving them back.
We came to a crossroads—a
three-way crossroads.
And I realized at the
same time as a couple
of other people that
if we kept advancing,
there were houses in backwoods.
Maybe there were Germans
in those houses.
And they could start
shooting us from the back.
So we said we better go
clear those houses first.
Well, we didn’t
have any grenades.
In the movies, they throw a
grenade in the whole house.
But that didn’t matter.
We knew how to do it with
or without a grenade.
And Joe Leibgott, and I
went out to clear a house.
And the first house
I got to, I went in, I kicked
the door in, went in,
nobody was there.
The house was burning.
How it was burning, I don’t know
because it was almost all stone.
But the banister
was wet, banister
with smoke coming out of it.
And I noticed there was
no toilet, no bathroom.
I said what kind of
people are these?
They don’t have a bathroom.
But that was a
middle-class house.
So I went upstairs.
I went out in the back
porch, had an outhouse,
I think, kind of thing.
And I hollered in
German in there,
“Come out with your hands
up!” nobody answered.
I just put a couple of shots
in there. No reaction.
The backyard had a wall—a stone
wall about five feet high.
And then nobody was there.
And I went back in the
house and waited.
I yelled across to Leibgott,
“This one’s clear!”
A big explosion happened.
I thought it was a grenade.
I thought a German had
missed and thrown a grenade.
Both legs were broken, my
right eye was destroyed,
I had shrapnel in my elbow and
back. I did not drop my weapon.
I turned around. I was
ready to get this sniper,
what I thought was a German
who threw a grenade.
He was coming and I was ready
for him. Well, I was in shock.
That’s why I could still stand.
But it’s amazing that
most people in a
situation like that—
most regular Army guys'
weapon would’ve gone flying.
All the time I was
in that training,
your rifle is your best friend.
You cannot ever
leave your rifle.
You hang onto it no matter what.
And that training stuck.
I’m pretty sure Leibgott yelled
across the street, he said,
“Tipper”—he said, “That’s a
mortar shot. I’m coming.”
And he came running over.
And by that time,
I was not able to stand.
And two or three guys risked
their lives to rescue me.
But that was just the way we all
worked. What did I expect?
I was not surprised that
they would risk their lives.
That’s just the way you
did things in that group.
And they had an aid station very
close to that intersection.
There had some Germans
they were treating.
And the doctor was a doctor
I knew. Dr. Nevels [sp.].
An E Company officer.
And I got pretty
good treatment then.
And they got a Jeep
in from the beach.
The Jeep had a stretcher
on either side and
another stretcher
crosswise on the back.
And they put the three
most seriously wounded.
And I was one.
And that Jeep driver
took off through German
territory just gunning
it and taking out guns.
The red flag didn’t
mean anything.
The red cross—Germans
shot at us.
But they were too far away.
I was thinking, my
God, we thought
we were doing
something dangerous.
This guy—his life expectancy
is probably about two days.
And he’s not getting any
extra pay or recognition.
To this day, I don’t
have any idea—
he got us into beach hospital.
Then we were okay.
I got first-class
medical attention.
But I should’ve died
from that wound.
In fact, one of my friends
is Sergeant Talbert.
And back in the
States—maybe you’ve heard
this story because I
told it a lot—back
in the States, I was in the
hospital in Indianapolis.
I went up and had Thanksgiving
dinner with his parents.
And they made a
big fuss over me.
We had a great time.
His mother wrote to
him: “Talbert”—whatever
his name was—well, anyway.
His mother wrote and said, “We
had Ed Tipper come to visit us.
He's in the hospital”
He wrote back right away.
"You call the MPs and have
that guy put in jail.
"He’s not Ed Tipper.
Ed Tipper was killed.
"I saw him killed in Normandy.
"And that guys an imposter.
Get the MPs on that.”
But everything was in my favor.
I was twenty-one years
old, I had all this
physical training, I was in the
best shape of my entire life.
But I probably needed an Army.
I was in the hospital a year
before they let me out.
(interviewer) There’s a very
emotional scene in the series
where you come staggering
out of the house
and Leibgott runs up—or
the actor portraying
Leibgott runs up
and puts his arm
around you and y’all sit down.
(Edward) That was pretty
close to truth except for
the fact that they
had me shoot a
bazooka into a doorway
or something.
A bazooka was not—well,
I was a bazooka man.
But I was really functioning
as a rifleman at that time.
I had a bazooka on my shoulder.
But it was not—I did
not use it at all.
I never got to fire the
bazooka even once.
I’m glad about that.
It’s just as well.
(interviewer) In this series,
they showed you really,
really banged up. Were
your injuries that severe?
Were they not as severe?
Were they worse?
(Edward)
Oh, they were terribly severe.
I put my hand up,
my whole head was
swollen like a
watermelon, mushy.
I couldn’t believe it.
I knew my eye was probably gone.
I couldn’t see.
But I could feel the eye.
I had a piece of
shrapnel in my eyebrow.
The bone under the eyebrow
got a notch on it.
But I lost my eye from
a concussion because
what happened, I was—a
mortar shell landed.
And that did all
the damage to me.
Probably more damage than
German grenade would’ve done.
(interviewer)
Do you remember the event?
Do you remember everything?
(Edward)
I remember everything.
Even now, yes.
I remember being
in the hospital.
I was at beach hospital—and I’d
heard somebody call Blosser.
And that was the
name of my friend.
I didn’t know—I knew
he was missing.
I got up and said, “Bob, Bob.”
They got to me and said, “No,
that’s not true, buddy.”
Years later when I got
back to the States,
I had somebody go to
St. Louis and go back and check.
In the records, they
found it was not him.
He never—he was
killed the first day—
first or second day. I went
back myself about 1947.
And I didn’t think
I’d find anything.
But I went to
registration group.
There were still digging
up dead Americans.
I said, “Well, we got
good news for you.
"we’ve got three bodies.
"We’re pretty sure one
of them is your friend.
We’ll get him identified
in a couple of weeks.”
And that was the identification.
That was two years after
the end of the war.
(interviewer) Yeah, they’re
still sending home bodies
from the Korean War
which just took place
five years after the
end of World War II.
They’re still sending
bodies back of all
nationalities; American, South,
North, Korean, Australian.
(Edward) They were still
finding lost tanks—tanks
were going into a place
that swamp and sinking.
Two, three years later,
somebody would say well—
some farmer would say
there’s some big thing
in the area, dig down a foot of
dirt and find a tank. (laughs)
(interviewer) There’s stories
all the time of farmers
plowing fields and
coming up with
bombs—unexploded bombs
and mortar shells.
You said Leibgott and
two others got to you.
Who were the other two guys?
(Edward) Lieutenant
Welsh and Leibgott.
I think there were just two.
And I could still
hobble on one foot.
My right foot tibia was broken.
And the left foot, the fibula
which was a smaller bone.
I could put weight on
the broken right foot.
And they helped me
to the aid station
under fire—under mortar fire.
That mortar fire was
still coming in.
(interviewer) How long do you
think you were at that beach
hospital before they—
(Edward) Well, I was there
about three or four days.
And I think they got me
pretty well stabilized.
And then they put
me on a boat to
go back to a
hospital in England.
And I was in that hospital
maybe, oh, three or four months.
And they flew me back to
the States after that.
Then I was in Crile General
Hospital in Cleveland.
(interviewer) Which hospital?
(Edward) Crile. C-r-i-l-e.
C-r-i-l-e. I was there
two or three months.
When I was there, I had
a strange thing happen.
Everybody was milling
around one day,
and this major
came out and said,
“Men, let me have
your attention.”
He said, “How many men here
have back pay coming?”
And everybody raised their hand.
He said, “You just get
in line and follow me.
We’ll get your pay.”
And they did. They
all followed him.
That guy was a psycho.
He was psychotic.
He was crazy. And he went to
the post office and starting
on, “These men
haven’t been paid.”
And they put him back.
He broke loose out of a
psychiatric ward. (laughs)
(interviewer) You
said you were flown
from England to the States?
(Edward)
Yes.
(interviewer) What was it
like for you—even though you
were so seriously wounded,
what was it like for
you to leave the guys
and go back to the
States?
(Edward) That’s always been
something that’s bothered me.
We had such a close bond.
A lot of the guys
would be wounded.
And they’d be fairly
badly wounded.
And they were put
in the hospital.
And then they would skip
out as soon as they
could to go back and join the
group even to go to Bastogne.
And I never had to
make that decision.
I’m glad I didn’t
because I don’t
know what I would’ve done.
But I’ve always felt
a little bit guilty.
I thought I did everything that
I should’ve done for seven days.
Total of seven days.
That’s a pretty short work
compared to what the
rest of them did.
But nobody’s ever said anything.
Everybody that I know
has always said,
“Well, we all took
the same chances.
"You just happened to come out
with a different result.
And you’re here.”
The first guy that got to
me on that jump was Millet.
Millet was killed later
by a sniper in Bastogne.
And he probably was very
thankful that he was
not badly wounded like
I was, but it was,
in the end, much better
result for me to be alive.
I’ve always felt a
little bit guilty.
But I don’t know.
I never—I just put
it out of my mind, I
think, the last thirty
or forty years.
It’s not something to
dwell on too much.
If I could’ve gotten
back—if I’d been hit
in the arm or something
and was wounded—if
I’d gotten back, I
would’ve been—probably
gone back to my group
no matter what.
The bond is so strong.
That bond has lasted all
the rest of our lives.
I’m still in touch with all
the ones that survived.
Paul Rogers is a year
older than I am.
I called Paul yesterday.
(interviewer) After you were
in Crile—where was that?
Where’s Crile?
In Chicago?
(Edward)
That was in Cleveland.
(interviewer)
And where did you go from there?
(Edward)
To Indianapolis.
And I even remember the
name of the hospital.
It was Atterbury General
Hospital in Indianapolis.
Outside of Indianapolis.
(interviewer) Was that the base
hospital at Camp Atterbury?
(Edward) Yeah, I
think they probably
have a permanent base even now.
(interviewer) And is that
where you stayed for
the rest of the
time that you were—
(Edward) Yeah.
(interviewer) And how long
were you in the hospital?
(Edward) I was in
different hospitals for
a total of one year.
(interviewer) So you would’ve
been out of the hospital
between the time
that the Germans
surrendered then the
Japanese surrendered.
Do you recall hearing
about those events?
(Edward) Well,
they were going to
send me to fight the Japanese.
They had me scheduled
to do that.
I didn’t want to do that.
I wanted to get out
and go to college
because I knew I could do that.
My parents were not
influential or anything.
They couldn’t call
somebody and get me out.
But I made the case myself.
I don’t want to go to
fight the Japanese.
I’ve done my—I don’t
think I should be asked.
And I raised enough
hell, they let me out.
(laughs) Actually,
I could’ve been
discharged after nine
months, I think.
I was functioning
well and mobile.
But I was still—the
wounds had not closed.
I was still draining.
They didn’t want
to let me go until
everything was completely done.
And there were going to put
me on the boat for Japan.
And they heard a very
different opinion from me.
(interviewer)
And when were you discharged?
(Edward) If my group had been
sent to Japan, I would’ve
gone with them without a thought
but not with strangers.
(interviewer)
That’s the key.
(Edward) Not with regular—not
with regular infantry.
(interviewer) Do
you recall hearing
about the German surrendering
and then the—
(Edward) Yeah, I
was in Ann Arbor
when the Germans surrendered.
I was trying to get into the
University of Michigan.
I wasn’t too sure
I would make it.
But they stretched the rules
a little bit and took me.
And I did not have any
trouble in college at all.
I didn’t know if I
would make it or not.
I didn’t even know if I
graduated from high school.
In high school, I
goofed around so much.
I moved around so much.
They gave the people
that were not graduating—they
gave them a blank diploma.
And all during the
ceremony, I was trying to
peek down and see if it was
blank or good that they gave me.
I’d taken some courses in public
school on Saturday to make up.
And they accepted them.
But the education was
a good education
I got in the Catholic
high school.
I had to work a little
harder than most
people that first
year in college.
But I was—it wasn’t too hard.
(interviewer) How
did you celebrate
the Japanese surrendering
and the war being over?
(Edward) I didn’t really feel
much like celebrating at all.
I wanted to be—when the Germans
surrendered, I thought, my God.
Here I am.
Everybody that’s important
to me is in Germany.
Those are the people
I would surrender
or celebrate with,
not anybody else.
People dancing in the
streets in Ann Arbor.
I’m sure most of them had
never heard a shot fired.
But that’s the way it happened.
I wasn’t upset.
But I didn’t want to
participate in any
dancing in the street with
people I didn’t know.
(interviewer) When were you
discharged from the Army?
(Edward) I was discharged in
August 1945 from the hospital
in Indianapolis at
Camp Atterbury.
(interviewer)
What rank were you?
(Edward) I was a PFC. I
got promoted to sergeant.
But Stephen, the guy that
wrote the Band of Brothers—
(interviewer) Ambrose?
(Edward) Yeah.
(interviewer)
He promoted you, huh?
(Edward) I don’t
know where they—
I never got higher than PFC.
I didn’t deserve a higher rank.
I could do everything
that everybody
could do, but I was
not outstanding.
I was not really mature
enough to be a staff
sergeant or sergeant
major, anything like that.
(interviewer) You were still
a real young man, too.
(Edward)
I was still what?
(interviewer)
A young man at that time?
(Edward) Oh, yeah.
I was twenty-one.
I was middle-aged in my group.
We had a lot younger.
Most of them were
eighteen, nineteen.
Rogers is a year
older than I am.
Paul was one of the very
few that were older.
Very few people were
more than twenty-one.
(interviewer) So you said
earlier that after you got out
of the service, you used
your GI Bill benefits
and went to school?
(Edward) Used them—I got
all the way through and
got a master’s degree
with the GI benefits.
(interviewer) Did you have any
trouble with like nightmares
or what they call PTSD?
(Edward) I did for a couple
of weeks, two or three weeks.
I’ve never had
post-traumatic stress.
I just had a meeting with
a psychiatrist in the VA.
I was getting
re-evaluated by the VA.
It took them fourteen months.
They did a tremendous job.
They pushed that very hard.
They kept saying,
“Well, you must
have had some
stress nightmares.”
I said, “No, I don’t now.”
The first three weeks
out of combat, yes.
At night, I would have dreams.
And the war was still
very much real.
But after I got out of
there, I lived a totally
normal life as far
as—except I got married
very, very late.
I got married at age sixty-one
for the first time.
And my wife was married
for the first time.
And she was far younger.
You met her.
She was thirty-four
when I met her.
Everybody was against the
marriage. Everybody.
But they all said we were
right, they were wrong.
Most of them said
that marriage can’t
last more than maybe two years.
We’ve been married
thirty-one years.
(interviewer) The important
thing is are you happy?
(Edward)
Yes.
(interviewer) Then
it doesn’t matter
what everybody else thinks.
Did you have any
trouble transitioning
from soldier back to civilian?
(Edward) No, I really didn’t.
and I had a lot less
of a problem with being
blind on one side.
People made a big
thing out of that.
I found I could adjust
to that when I was
getting consult for—at the
University of Michigan.
Said, “You want to be a
teacher?” The counselor said,
“You can’t be a teacher because
"if you’re blind in
one side, the minute
"the kids at high
school find out about
"that, they’re all going
to be jumping up
and making faces at you.”
It never happened at all.
Thirty-one years of teaching,
thirty-two maybe,
never happened.
I did everything I wanted
to do as a teacher.
And I think I was
pretty successful.
I had my fights with the
administrators, not
with the kids.
(interviewer) Other than when
you were wounded in Carentan,
what is your most memorable
experience of the war?
(Edward)
Most memorable experience what?
(interviewer) Of the war
other than being wounded?
(Edward) Well, I think
Carentan was very routine.
And I got wounded.
It was an ordinary wound.
It was not unusual.
I think the most memorable
experience I had
was landing and
attacking this place—we
had eighteen or nineteen men.
We never would’ve attacked
if we knew how many Germans.
There were seventy
or eighty Germans.
But they weren’t ready to fight.
They were all unprepared.
That experience of two
days holding that place.
The Germans wanted
it very badly.
It was our mission to keep it.
That was—I think the
guy I told you about
came out and said
he was American.
That was—I remember
that very well.
I’ve never been able
to explain it unless
a German just took orders
and followed orders blindly.
That’s hard for
me to understand.
But it could’ve happened.
(interviewer) We talked a little
bit about a couple of the
guys that you served with.
We talked about Sobel.
But give me your
thoughts on some of
the other guys like
Leibgott, Winters.
(Edward) Well,
Winters was always
a number one person in my mind.
He was criticized for
being a little bit
too much of a boy
scout, a bit too good.
He never drank, never
used bad language.
But I admired him very much.
I think we all did because he
was such a contrast to Sobel.
He knew what he was doing.
He never had to look around to
see if anybody was following.
He said, “Follow me.”
And he wouldn’t
look back because
he knew every man would follow.
If Sobel said follow
me, nobody would.
Everybody would disappear.
After the war, Winters got
a lot of recognition.
He made speeches at West Point.
In fact, I have a
friend that graduated
from West Point a
couple years ago.
He says it’s the thing
that Winters did
that should’ve gotten him
a medal of honor
but didn’t get it.
He took five or six
guys who just happened
to be standing there,
and he wound up with
about ten just ordinary guys.
And he took out four big guns.
(interviewer)
At Brecourt Manor.
(Edward) I didn’t really
have close—I went to most
of the reunions after the
war but not every one.
And Paul Rogers is probably
the closest friend I had.
And Campbell Smith
was the guy that was
with me in that first
day of the invasion.
And he was the one that
went up the stairs
with me after the sniper
in the second day
after the invasion.
(interviewer)
Who was it?
(Edward)
Campbell Smith.
And he died thirty years ago.
He survived the war.
But he died about age sixty.
(interviewer) And unfortunately,
a lot of guys went young.
My grandfather that
was from Detroit died
at fifty-nine, about
thirty years ago.
(Edward)
Was he a smoker?
(interviewer)
You know, I don’t remember.
I think he was, but I was
nine when he passed.
(Edward) Yeah, well, that’s
what killed a lot of them.
But there are people
that have accidents.
And then there’s
some—there’s one guy
that’s still remaining—I
always forget
his name because I’ve
never seen him after
the war, but he was
very badly damaged.
He’s had brain operations,
several of them.
He’s just basically been a bed
patient since the whole war.
And he’s still alive,
can’t believe it.
(interviewer) The injuries
that you suffered, have they
given you trouble
over the years?
(Edward)
The what?
(interviewer)
The injuries that you suffered.
(Edward)
No, until my nineties.
I was in pretty good shape.
It was mid-eighties I
had to quit skiing.
I could still ski fine,
but I couldn’t take
the chance of a bad
fall at high speed.
And I realized it.
I quit skiing about
eighty-four, I think.
I went to my daughter’s wedding
when I was ninety. I
was in good shape.
I walked without a cane, I
danced with her at the wedding.
I made a speech at the wedding.
Everybody was amazed
that somebody
that old was in such good shape.
But then I started
to deteriorate.
Everything—the
deterioration that I
have is almost
entirely in my legs.
And it’s all connected with
the wounds I received.
I’ve got a left ankle that
was never traumatized
that’s perfectly normal,
a right knee that
was never traumatized,
functions perfectly.
If I had been in
the war, I would
be walking without
a cane, I bet.
But I’m not complaining.
I just am saying
that I didn’t expect
the deterioration and
mobility to come.
But it has come.
I really need a
walker to get around.
(interviewer) Do you still
have shrapnel in you?
(Edward)
Do I have what?
(interviewer) Do you still
have shrapnel in you?
(Edward) Most of it has
found its way out.
But I probably still have some.
I don’t have any big pieces.
My daughter’s thirty
years old now.
I was complaining one time
about this lack of mobility.
She said, “Dad”—she said, “At
"your age, most people are dead.
They don’t have any mobility.
You can’t complain at all.”
She’s right.
And I still get around.
I can still drive.
And I consider myself a
good driver, although,
I’ve had people tell
me I should quit this
because of my age.
I don’t think so.
I’m going to take it
to—I’ll get a test after
the first of the year
and get an evaluation.
But I passed the driver’s
license test easily.
I had cataract surgery.
And my eyesight is
about the sight
of a thirty-year-old person.
My sight is good.
(interviewer) I had to take
my great aunt’s car keys away
from her when she turned 102.
(Edward) Well, I know there’s
a lot of denial involved
with people who just don’t
want to give up the driving.
But there are some
people that—I’ve never
had any trouble of
putting my foot in the
gas by mistake.
I keep accommodating
is what I do.
When my eyesight
went bad for night
driving, I quit right
away for ten years.
When I had that
operation, the doctor
said, “You probably
can drive at night.”
I said, “I don’t believe that.”
It took me quite a while
to realize I could.
But I made adjustments.
I stay off the real heavy
traffic, interStates
when—I don’t go to—I
can drive on them.
But I don’t push my luck.
I drive now only in areas
that I’m familiar with.
But I have—in the
last three years,
no accidents, no
tickets of any kind.
My insurance company thinks
I should still be driving.
So that says—that’s
a good—that’s
more than just I want to hear.
(interviewer)
Who was your squad leader?
(Edward)
My what?
(interviewer) When you landed
in Normandy, who was your
squad leader?
(Edward)
I don’t know.
I’m missing a word.
(interviewer)
Your squad leader.
(Edward)
Squad leader.
I don’t remember.
I just don’t remember.
(interviewer) What about
your platoon commander?
(Edward) Platoon commander
was a guy that was—did
not make the jump.
I can’t think of his
name right now.
But he was wrestling with
Winters and he sprained
his muscle in his—what
is that called—anyway,
he was replaced. And the
guy who was replaced,
it was one of the first—I
had an argument with him
because I wanted to jump first
because of the bazooka.
He said, “No,
officers go first.”
And he went first.
He was killed.
I was surviving. The
next two were killed.
So the first four out of
that plane, one survived.
And I was at—what was
that guy’s name?
I have a typical
short-term memory loss.
And my long-term memory
is pretty good if
it’s something that
I’ve thought about.
But I haven’t thought
about that man’s
name for sixty years,
seventy years.
(interviewer) I
just have a couple
of closing questions for you.
but before I ask them,
are there any other
little stories or events
that you can think
of from the war that
you’d like to add?
(Edward) No, I think we’ve
covered a lot of ground.
And I think—when I say I
lived a normal life after
being severely
wounded, that might be
a little hard to believe.
When I was wounded and in the
hospital, I thought I never
could live a normal life.
I won’t be able to drive,
I won’t be able to get
a job, I can’t pass
any physical test to get a job.
Those things didn’t happen.
I got a job I want. I had
a hard time getting a job
because they didn’t
want somebody like me.
I had a master’s which I
thought would be an advantage.
Big disadvantage.
Superintendents hiring
don’t want to hire
people with master’s.
They have to pay them more.
(interviewer)
Especially one that
was going to stand up to them.
(laughs)
(Edward) Well, that’s the
big surprise I had that
I was able to live
a normal life.
I’d ski and go up on the
mountains with my daughter.
And we’d take the Black Diamond.
My daughter one
time had a kid who
was making fun of her father.
She told me—she says,
“This damn kid said,
‘at least I don’t
have a father that’s
five hundred years old.' ’”
She said—and I told her—she’s
just in middle school.
“My five-hundred-year-old father
took me skiing last week.
"We went up to the top of Copper
Mountain. We skied down.
Nobody could catch us. What
did your father do—take you?”
And the kid started crying.
That’s surprised me
that I lived this—I
never expected to live
into my nineties.
I thought I would die.
My father died seventy-four.
His father died at
age seventy-four.
My mother died at seventy-nine.
I thought the genetics
would take me down.
At eighty, I’d be lucky.
And I’m long past eighty.
At eighty, I was in pretty
good shape physically.
(interviewer) You’re still
getting around good now.
I mean, you have a little
trouble with the walking.
(Edward) I find I can adjust
to these things a lot easier.
And even the wound—even
being blind in one
side, I’m having a little
trouble with that now.
But during—all during my working
years, I never had trouble.
I’d always make an
unconscious decision,
especially when I’m
driving, I would turn
my head very slightly.
I could see the full windshield.
Now I have to think about it.
But I can still drive.
Just driving, I had
one ticket, one
accident in the
last twenty years.
The insurance companies said
it’s not really an accident.
You got a ticket.
But you didn’t deserve it.
A guy slammed on his brakes
coming in the entrance of I-25.
That doesn’t mean
anything to you.
But the interstate.
A squirrel ran out in front of
him, slammed on his brakes.
I was behind him.
I hit my brakes.
I touched his bumper, didn’t
do any damage at all.
But he insisted in
calling the cops.
So he was right.
He didn’t feel any
impact at all.
But he didn’t know for sure.
The cops apologized for
giving me a ticket.
Said I have no choice.
(interviewer) How did—like I
said, I just have a couple
of closing questions for you—how
did World War II
change your life?
(Edward) Well, surprisingly,
I got tremendous improvement
in my life from World War II.
I got a college education.
And that changes
everything for a person.
I had the opportunity—it
was very easy for me
to take that opportunity
and do something.
I was able to choose the
occupation I wanted and work.
I came to school to teach.
And I enjoyed it and loved it
for thirty—about thirty years.
I started getting a little
bit cranky last year or two.
My hearing went out in 1979.
I had to quit teaching.
And I was not quite ready
to quit teaching—to leave.
But it’s very important.
I tell my daughter, if
you have you have to
do some kind of work, you might
as well do something you like.
And if you like it, you’ll
probably be good at it.
And she has exceeded
all expectations.
She eventually went up
as a high-paid corporate
attorney for an
international law firm.
She did that for
three years until
she got her student loan paid.
Then she quit, took a
tremendous pay cut to
work at the attorney
general’s office to
do what she really wanted to do.
So I think she made
a good decision.
She’s doing what
she loves to do.
She’s only been doing that
for about four months.
She could do the other job.
But she didn’t like being
at the beck and call.
They pay you a
tremendous salary.
But they want you on
call twenty-four, seven.
(interviewer)
And I agree.
You really have to
like what you do.
I mean, I absolutely love
what I do. This is what I do.
I have the greatest
job in the world.
What does your service during
World War II mean to you today?
What does your service during
the war mean to you today?
(Edward) Well, it changed
my life in many ways.
It changed my attitudes.
I think I’ve always had
probably an unrealistic
good opinion of myself, a
high opinion of myself.
But I think that gave me the
confidence I never had before.
Once you get into an
outfit that is the best
of the best and you know
you can perform with
them, it changes your
opinion of yourself.
And I’ve probably did
some fool-hearted
things that I
wouldn’t have done.
I just thought I could
take on anything.
I was in Vienna right
after the war.
And I walked into a Soviet hotel
for VIP Soviet
people by mistake.
There were guards
with machine guns.
I just walked on past.
I didn't care.
And I had a camera.
And I came in and
somebody grabbed
me and they grabbed the camera.
And they—I spoke some French,
I spoke good Spanish,
but I didn’t speak German,
I didn’t speak Russian.
And they kept me for a while.
Finally, a guy told me—he
spoke English—he said,
“You are in Soviet
territory right now.
"You’re under Soviet law.
"And you turn your camera—you
could be sent to Siberia.
And I’m not joking.” He said,
“I’ll let you go. I
think you’re harmless.”
But he said, “You’re very
fortunate you’re talking to me.
"Some people would—you’d
never be heard—you’d
"better reconsider what
you’re doing walking
into a place like this.”
And I don’t know.
I just—I’ve never been
afraid of anybody.
My wife worries about
burglars all the time.
I don’t worry about that.
I think even as old
as I am, I can
use a cane to disable people.
I don’t hit them on the head.
But I use a cane like a bayonet—
I know a lot of other things
that the ordinary person
doesn’t know, never
would dream of, especially
from somebody my age.
But I’ve never felt
any fear of any
of the normal hazards of life.
That’s one thing that changed.
I changed very much because
of my military experience.
(interviewer) I only had
one more question for you.
we’re here at the National
World War II Museum.
Do you think it’s
important for there to be
institutions like this
and for us to continue
to teach World War II
to future generations?
And if so, why?
(Edward) Well, I think
it’s all a part of dealing
in people a chance and
people particularly
a chance to see what
sacrifice we make to
preserve freedom and
how important that is.
And I think if they get
it now and I’m not
sure that people—even
teachers I don’t
think realize how
knowledgeable these kids
are about the important
things like that.
Yes, I think there’s
no question in my mind
there’s a very important
function of the museum.
And that’s one of
the things that it
does make available,
that knowledge.
A lot of first-hand
stuff, I’m sure.
(interviewer)
Well, that’s all I got.
I appreciate you.
(Edward)
Oh, not at all.
(interviewer)
Oh, I had a great time.
I didn’t mean to keep you
tied up for two hours.
(laughs) But I guess time
flies when you’re having fun.
I’m going to stop
this right there
unless there’s anything else.
Captioned by
AdeptWordManagement.com