WWII veteran Francis Turner recalls his service from North Africa to Berlin and the courage that earned him the Bronze and Silver Stars.
Announcer
00:12 – 00:34
World War II, Korea, Vietnam, the Gulf War, Afghanistan, and her other wars and conflicts. America’s fighting men and women strapped on their boots and picked up their guns to fight tyranny and stand for liberty. We must never forget them. Welcome to America’s Veteran Stories with Kim Munson.
Announcer
00:34 – 00:43
These stories will touch your heart, inspire you, and give you courage. We stand on the shoulders of giants. Here’s Kim Munson.
Kim Monson
00:47 – 01:07
And welcome to America’s Veterans Stories with Kim Munson. Be sure and check out our website, that is americasveteransstories.com. And the show comes to you because of a trip that I took in 2016 with a group that accompanied four D-Day veterans back to Normandy, France for the 72nd anniversary of the D-Day landings. We turned stateside realizing that we need to know these stories.
Kim Monson
01:07 – 01:27
We need to broadcast them and archive them. Hence, America’s Veterans Stories was born. But we have such a treasure trove of interviews that we thought it might be a great idea to rebroadcast some of these so that you can hear history from the men and women who lived it. I am absolutely thrilled to have on the line with me Francis C.
Kim Monson
01:28 – 01:35
Turner, World War II veteran. And you are just a little over 100 years old, aren’t you, Francis?
Francis Turner
01:36 – 01:37
I am now, yes.
Kim Monson
01:37 – 01:39
OK, well, welcome to the show.
Francis Turner
01:40 – 01:41
You’re quite welcome.
Kim Monson
01:42 – 01:58
So you have quite a story. You were involved in seven major campaigns in the European, well, in the North Africa European theaters. And that is pretty amazing. And you have two bronze stars.
Kim Monson
01:58 – 02:03
So let’s start about at the beginning. Where did you grow up, Frances Turner?
Francis Turner
02:03 – 02:13
Where did I grow up? I grew up in Eastern Crawford County near the town of
Kim Monson
02:13 – 02:21
Centerville. Okay, and is that in Pennsylvania? That’s in Crawford County in Pennsylvania. Okay.
Kim Monson
02:21 – 02:32
Yes. Okay. And your daughter, Susan, sent me some really interesting information. You were with the 17th Engineers and…
Francis Turner
02:33 – 02:37
17th Armored Engineers, yes. Yes. 2nd Armored
Kim Monson
02:37 – 02:51
Division. And this is pretty amazing, just the pictures and the information that she sent over. Tell me about, how did you get into the service? When did you join the Army?
Francis Turner
02:52 – 03:18
Well, I volunteered for the Army in January 1941. My reason was I had just become unemployed and my draft date was due in April. So since I was unemployed and I was about to be drafted, I enlisted
Kim Monson
03:18 – 03:28
in the United States Army. Not really. But I knew from publicity that we needed to be
Francis Turner
03:28 – 03:58
prepared and we needed to rejuvenate the Army and Navy or the United States government. So since I was unemployed and about to be drafted, I enlisted in the Army and I was sent to Fort Belvoir, Virginia.
Kim Monson
03:59 – 04:02
Okay. And tell us, what was boot camp like?
Francis Turner
04:03 – 04:45
Well, it was a short, quick, about six weeks of intensive drilling. and all those things that goes with basic training at Fort Belvoir, but then I was assigned to a special company at Fort Belvoir called the 31st Engineers. It was one company, and that company was attached to the engineer board, and they were doing research work on all kinds of engineer equipment.
Kim Monson
04:45 – 04:57
You know, and I am not sure that novices that haven’t really studied this a lot knows what engineers did in World War II. So could you explain that to our listeners, please?
Francis Turner
04:57 – 05:28
Well, the short definition is the Army engineers were educated infantrymen. We were schooled in such things as mine fields, installation and recovery, bridge building, and I guess the other thing, we were
Kim Monson
05:28 – 05:29
trained to be soldiers.
Francis Turner
05:31 – 05:36
You could say we were, like I just said, educated infantrymen.
Kim Monson
05:36 – 05:47
So you were building things while sometimes you might be possibly shot at as well, right? That’s correct. Okay. So you, uh, you are going through your training.
Kim Monson
05:47 – 05:51
Um, what happened after that? Where did you go after this?
Francis Turner
05:52 – 06:34
Fort Belvoir for the first year, we were busy with the engineer, uh, board, uh, doing things like, uh, putting up trailer loads of boats and bridge equipment and building bridges and learning how to build bridges and turn them down. After a year, they began to call for more officers and the engineers, well, in the Army. And so I applied for Officer Kennedy School. was accepted and I graduated in August of 1942 as a second lieutenant.
Francis Turner
06:35 – 07:06
And I went from there to Fort Atterbury in Indiana and then to Fort Knox in Kentucky in short order. And I found out what kind of engineer unit I was going to be assigned to and I requested a transfer to a combat engineer. So I got a transfer from Fort Knox, Kentucky to Fort Bragg, North Carolina and joined the 2nd Armored Division in the 17th Engineer Battalion.
Kim Monson
07:07 – 07:08
And
Francis Turner
07:08 – 07:35
we were training then for the invasion of North Africa. So we would make a train trip from Fort Bragg to Norfolk, go through an exercise in the Chesapeake Bay, recover our equipment, and go back to Fort Bragg. That happened about twice. And then the third trip, we found out that we weren’t going back to Fort Bragg.
Francis Turner
07:35 – 07:50
We were going overseas. And what happened, the fleet that we were in sailed to Casablanca and Port Laody in North Africa, in Morocco.
Kim Monson
07:51 – 08:02
OK, and so that was really the first foray generally into Europe. Well, to prepare to go into Europe, wasn’t it? But we had to get North Africa first. Am I am I correct on that?
Francis Turner
08:03 – 08:26
Yes, I think that’s quite correct. And that was the initial battle in the European theater. was a capture of northwest Africa. That would be Libya and I’m on a blank here as to the countries.
Francis Turner
08:27 – 08:57
Port Lyody is in Morocco and we moved from there to And then that was when the combat elements of the division were engaged in the capture of Sicily. I happened to be in that company and the engineers, that was in reserve, so we didn’t go. to Sicily, but we moved from there to England and prepared for the Normandy invasion.
Kim Monson
08:58 – 09:16
Wow. Okay. Let’s go back though, Francis, because I’ve done just enough studies on the North Africa campaign to just not really know a whole lot about what I’m talking about on that. But if I remember right, wasn’t it Rommel that we were really fighting
Francis Turner
09:16 – 09:58
there? back to Tunisia before he escaped to Italy and Europe. I’m not sure. It was a Vichy French military that we engaged in Morocco and And that just put up sort of a token resistance, shelled us a little bit and chased us a little further out to sea when they could reach us with our long-range artillery.
Francis Turner
09:58 – 10:50
The ship that I was on, my duties on that ship with my engineer platoon was to unload the ship. And there were 108 vehicles, 36 of which were tanks, on board that ship and we put them and they went into shore. Before I got off of that ship, we were torpedoed and abandoned ship, and I went back aboard the ship. There was 500,000 gallons of aviation gasoline and five-gallon cans in the tanks on that ship, plus tons of aerial bombs, 500-pound bombs, and artillery ammunition, as well as boxes and boxes of small arms ammunition.
Francis Turner
10:50 – 11:18
Some of it was destroyed when the ship was torpedoed, but we unloaded all of that in Port Lyody before we were put ashore at Casablanca and joined the rest of our combat units at Port Lyody. So we spent our
Kim Monson
11:20 – 11:25
first Christmas there in Morocco. Well, and this
Francis Turner
11:27 – 12:14
date and a lot of We did a lot of things and in fact one of the things that we were charged with was the retraining of the French Army to use our American equipment. So we had quite a relationship with the French. Army back and forth between our Bivouac in Africa and their headquarters in Algiers. So we spent a lot of time training French troops with American equipment before we went to Algiers to be trained.
Francis Turner
12:14 – 12:18
in support of
Kim Monson
12:19 – 12:29
our combat units that went to Sicily. Yeah. Well, we were still in the same unit, the same battalion, the
Francis Turner
12:30 – 12:58
same division, the 2nd Army Division. Only Combat Command A and Combat Command B of the 2nd Arbor Division went to Sicily and all the rest of the troops that weren’t assigned to those combat commands were in reserve and we stayed there in Algiers.
Kim Monson
12:58 – 13:02
Okay. And then when did you, when did you leave Algiers then?
Francis Turner
13:03 – 13:18
Well, we left Algiers, uh, uh, gosh, 1944. Yeah. And went to England. We were in, in, uh, Tidworth barracks in England over Christmas.
Francis Turner
13:19 – 13:35
And of course, preparing for the, uh, invasion of the European continent, which took place in, uh, went ashore, first troops went
Kim Monson
13:35 – 13:48
ashore in Normandy. Well, I went into Normandy Beach, we called it Omaha Beach Red, on the third day
Francis Turner
13:49 – 14:34
after the first troops So that would have been June the 9th. We went ashore, moved it to the vicinity of Saint-Lô and Normandy, and then we were preparing for getting out of the beachhead. Well, we had about two or five miles of depth into France at that time, and so it was a in July, I think, that we made the attack out of the beachhead and made our way all the way to through Belgium.
Kim Monson
14:35 – 14:51
Okay. What did you, what did you see when you went on? And did you go, you said you went on to Omaha Beach then. What did you see as you went into Normandy on that third day after the initial liberation activities?
Francis Turner
14:51 – 15:43
Well, you know, one of the things that surprised me was that the beach was cleaned up. All of the men that lost their lives on the initial landing had all been picked up and taken care of, and I guess they were buried in a cemetery on the back of Omaha Beach. that still exists there today. We went in maybe a couple of miles off of the beach and prepared for the breakout of the beachhead, which I didn’t think now, as I can’t say, but it Well, it was maybe within a month or two after we had landed at Omaha Beach in Normandy during
Francis Turner
15:43 – 15:59
the sixth. Dates didn’t mean much to us anyway. We were involved in defeating enemy at all costs, and so whatever was required, we did.
Kim Monson
15:59 – 16:22
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Kim Monson
16:22 – 16:50
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Kim Monson
16:50 – 17:25
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Kim Monson
17:25 – 17:31
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19:45 – 19:54
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Kim Monson
19:55 – 20:22
Thank you so much for listening to America’s Veterans Stories. We are rebroadcasting some of the shows that we have recorded in the past because we have these amazing guests and these amazing stories and we need to hear them. And so we thought that it would be a great idea to rebroadcast some of these so that you can hear our history and know our history because it is so important. So again, this is something that was recorded earlier and thank you for listening.
Kim Monson
20:22 – 20:30
Welcome back to America’s Veteran Stories with Kim Munson. I am honored to have on the line with me Francis C. Turner. He is a World War II veteran.
Kim Monson
20:31 – 20:45
He is one hundred and a half years old. And I stand corrected. I said that you had two bronze stars, but you actually have a bronze star and a silver star. So, Francis, tell us about, first of all, the bronze star.
Francis Turner
20:47 – 21:19
Well, the bronze star And that probably was awarded shortly after I landed in Normandy. The Silver Star was awarded to us when we were in Germany and we were involved in a mine removal activity to the town of Julek in Germany. And that’s where I got the Silver Star.
Kim Monson
21:20 – 21:28
Okay, so let’s go back to the Bronze Star. What happened exactly when you were then awarded the Bronze Star?
Francis Turner
21:28 – 21:54
I don’t really recall what the citation, how it reads now, but I would guess it was awarded in Normandy after we had secured the beach and prepared for the break out of Beachhead and the trip from St. Louis to Belgium.
Kim Monson
21:54 – 22:01
Okay. Is there a particular story? I’m looking at something. Okay.
Kim Monson
22:02 – 22:05
It just said that you were leading a minesweeping party.
Francis Turner
22:06 – 23:01
Yeah, when we got into Germany, north of Aachen, near, well I guess it was in the town of Besweiler, Germany, we were asked, well, we were That’s a better term—to clear the roadway into the town of Julik Mine. So we were on a mine discovery operation, cleared the road so that the rest of the combat team could make their way into Julik in their vehicles. Suffice to say, we didn’t find anything. and removal of minefields later after we crossed the Ruhr River in Germany.
Kim Monson
23:04 – 23:06
The Silver Star was a
Francis Turner
23:09 – 23:21
minesweeping detail and I’m sure was in the Ruhr industrial area in Jülich in Germany.
Kim Monson
23:21 – 23:37
Okay. I’m looking at a newspaper article that your daughter sent to me, and it was talking about you. It says, the McGee town man wouldn’t talk much about the experience. It was just something that had to be done, and he happened to be there at the time to do it, he said.
Kim Monson
23:38 – 23:42
And that’s pretty humble, Francis Turner. That’s pretty
Francis Turner
23:42 – 24:20
humble. I was a second lieutenant fresh out of officer candidate school when I went to North Africa and I was still a second lieutenant when we landed in Normandy and I guess I didn’t get promoted to first lieutenant. until after the war was over, but I think one of the things that I remember most vividly was the mine sweeping that we did on the road into Los Angeles. on the Ruhr River.
Francis Turner
24:21 – 24:45
And when we crossed the Ruhr River on our way to clear the west bank of the Rhine, we cleared a pass through a minefield on that side of the Ruhr River and made a pass for the tanks to get through on their way to their objective near Baisweiler, Germany.
Kim Monson
24:45 – 24:58
So Francis Turner, I am thinking about this. I’m not sure I understand how you clear a minefield. So you and your engineering colleagues are coming up to a minefield. What do you do?
Kim Monson
24:59 – 25:00
How do you
Francis Turner
25:01 – 25:02
do that? You do it very carefully.
Kim Monson
25:02 – 25:03
I’m sure you do. We
Francis Turner
25:05 – 26:03
had minesweepers, a piece of equipment that was kind of like a radio that would detect any metal that was in the ground. And we used those and we managed to clear a path using those minesweepers and picking up the mines. And we did that on the road to Jewel Lake and then again on the east bank of the River up to the Rhine River, and I can’t remember the name of the town now. The minesweeper The worst part of it was the man that was operating the minesweeper had to be standing on his feet and he was a target for small arms fire.
Francis Turner
26:04 – 26:42
That bothered me a number of times when we were clearing mines. We were out in front of the American Army. clearing mines, preparing a path for the tanks to go through. And there might be some infantry with us or ahead of us at the time, but even so, we had to remove those mines and we didn’t know, we had no idea whether the mines were moving draft or whether they were anti-personnel mines in that minefield.
Kim Monson
26:42 – 26:51
So how did you remove a mine? I mean, I’m fascinated with this. First of all, it sounds like extremely dangerous work.
Francis Turner
26:51 – 27:19
Well, you had to uncover it first. And their mines were such that they could place detonators in the mine for, I guess, personnel. So we had to attach a rope Or a line if you want to set it that way. So the handle on the mine, it didn’t get back away from the mine and pull it out.
Francis Turner
27:19 – 27:39
If it didn’t go off, then it was safe to handle. And fortunately, in my experience, we didn’t really remove any of those that were booby-trapped and exploded when we pulled them
Kim Monson
27:39 – 27:49
out. Okay, so then you’ve done that particular maneuver, then do you guys have to pick the mine up or what do you do with it?
Francis Turner
27:49 – 28:18
We picked it up and looked for a good place to dispose of it. We were quite lucky where we were picking up the mines, there was an anti-tank niche right there, so we picked the mines up and we dumped them in that anti-tank niche. because the tanks weren’t going to go into that tank. That ditch, they were going to either go along it or cross it at one place.
Francis Turner
28:18 – 28:35
And if it crossed the ditch, the anti-tank ditch, we would usually have to build a bridge or some other activity like bulldozing the banks of the anti-tank ditch out so we could get the tanks
Kim Monson
28:35 – 28:44
Wow, that is absolutely fascinating. Producer John and I are both just shaking our heads thinking about what you guys were doing on that.
Francis Turner
28:45 – 29:18
It was an ordinary thing. That was one of those things. We carried rifles and The engineers, their primary objective wasn’t really to act as infantry, although we could do that when we were called upon and did. At times we often pulled duty, guarding the tanks at night when they were in a stationary position.
Francis Turner
29:18 – 29:35
We would fortify ourselves around the tanks. have someone awake so that we weren’t surprised
Kim Monson
29:35 – 29:42
that the enemy had a chance to destroy our
Francis Turner
29:42 – 29:45
tanks.
Kim Monson
29:45 – 29:47
Yeah, that’s right.
Francis Turner
29:47 – 30:28
South Africa, even though we didn’t participate ourselves, A Company and B Company were in Sicily, so the whole battalion got credit for that. battle we had troops there. And then of course Normandy and northern France and Belgium and Germany and we crossed the Rhine north of the rural industrial area the town of Magdeburg on the Elbe River,
Kim Monson
30:30 – 30:37
which of course was the end of the war. Well that was, no, the beachhead was one battle, then
Francis Turner
30:37 – 31:40
northern France we had a few around the beachhead and before we made a mad dash to the Belgian border and then of course we had some battles in Belgium and Northern Germany and captured Baysweiler in Northern Germany and then we had to go backtrack and participate in the Battle of the Bulge, which was the German Army’s last campaign. We, the 2nd Armored Division, Command A and B, stopped the German thrust short of their objective and threw them back, and then we chased them back across the Rhine, I guess you could—well, the Rohrer River. at that time.
Francis Turner
31:41 – 31:42
That was right around Christmas time.
Kim Monson
31:43 – 31:46
Yeah, it was cold. I
Francis Turner
31:47 – 32:13
didn’t vouch for that. I went out to dig foxholes and the weather was not good and it rained a little bit and the foxholes would fill up with water. So it wasn’t a whole lot of fun and I guess that would be to keep moving and destroy the German army if we could do that.
Kim Monson
32:13 – 32:21
So you could get home quicker and not be in those kinds of… Yeah, we could get home quicker. Yeah. Well, let’s back up a little bit.
Kim Monson
32:21 – 32:25
You mentioned Belgium. So were you involved in Operation Market Garden?
Francis Turner
32:25 – 32:53
No, we weren’t. Market Garden was The 82nd and 101st Airborne were involved in that skirmish at Market Garden, although we were south of Market Garden in Belgium. I think the town that we were taking was Oakley’s.
Kim Monson
32:53 – 33:24
And Francis Turner, as you were liberating these towns, did you see many of the people that lived there? I remember that when I was in Normandy in 2016, there were photographs on just even on the walls of businesses on the outside and the Just the glee of the people of Normandy as they saw the American soldier was pretty amazing. Did you have any interactions with the people as you were liberating the places that they lived?
Francis Turner
33:24 – 34:04
No, not really. There was a directive issued by General Eisenhower that the American army was not to fraternize with the Asian So we were forbidden to socialize in any way with the inhabitants. It wasn’t until after we got to Magdeburg and took Magdeburg on help that that requirement was relaxed and we started talking. with the German people.
Francis Turner
34:06 – 34:27
I remember that when we got into Germany, it seemed like the German people there, the inhabitants, were glad to see us. And they would throw candy bars and cigars and things like that into our vehicles, and as quickly as they landed in the vehicle, we threw them
Kim Monson
34:27 – 34:30
out.
Francis Turner
34:31 – 34:38
We threw them out because we were still under the impression that anything that came your way could explode.
Kim Monson
34:40 – 34:42
Okay, so very quickly threw those out. In
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Announcer
35:28 – 35:44
All Kim’s sponsors are an inclusive partnership with Kim and are not affiliated with or in partnership with KLZ or Crawford Broadcasting. If you would like to support the work of The Kim Monson Show and grow your business, contact Kim at her website, KimMonson.com. That’s Kim Monson, M-O-N-S-O-N dot com.
Kim Monson
35:45 – 36:11
Thank you so much for listening to America’s Veterans Stories. We are rebroadcasting some of the shows that we have recorded in the past because we have these amazing guests and these amazing stories and we need to hear them. And so we thought that it would be a great idea to rebroadcast some of these so that you can hear our history and know our history because it is so important. So again, this is something that was recorded earlier and thank you for listening.
Kim Monson
36:11 – 36:18
And just, I’m learning so much, Francis. It’s just really fascinating to get to chat with you about this.
Francis Turner
36:20 – 36:46
decoration that I think is important. And that was, we were awarded the Belgian Fortiguer with the colors of the Krautiger. And it was an award that we received from the Belgian government that was a permanent award. We could put it on our uniforms and wear it.
Francis Turner
36:46 – 37:08
So that’s one that I have that I look at once in a while. It’s a red and green braided rope with a little tassel on the end of it that you wore around the arm of your uniform, on your shoulder.
Kim Monson
37:08 – 37:18
Now, Francis Turner, have you been back to Europe for any of the anniversaries of any of these battles or been back to Europe by any chance?
Francis Turner
37:19 – 38:11
Yes, I have. In fact, I just returned from a trip that was sponsored by the best defense organization where we visited in Belgium. I went over one other time earlier, I don’t remember the dates now, but we made a journey all the way to Berlin. After the war ended at Magdeburg on the Elbe, we were the first combat division of the U.S. Army to occupy the city of Berlin.
Francis Turner
38:11 – 38:32
So we got there first. of the American troops. One thing that sort of destroyed us a little bit was the Russians got there first and they looted the town. They took anything and everything that wasn’t tied down and moved it back to Russia.
Kim Monson
38:32 – 38:32
The
Francis Turner
38:32 – 38:35
only thing they
Kim Monson
38:38 – 38:47
didn’t pick up was the streetcar tracks. Yes, that is true. And I guess
Francis Turner
38:52 – 39:35
because And when we got to Magdeburg on the Elbe River, we were only about 35 or 40 miles from Berlin. And we were advancing without resistance, so it was just a matter of building a bridge over the Elbe River. And we could have been in Berlin. But in fact, at one place just south or west-east of Magdeburg, we did have a beachhead across the Elbe.
Francis Turner
39:35 – 39:56
And when the high command, the American command, learned that we had troops across the Elbe, they ordered us back. back onto the west side of the Elm. So we had to withdraw that regiment of infantry that had gotten across the river back onto the west side. And
Kim Monson
39:57 – 39:57
then we
Francis Turner
39:57 – 39:58
sat
Kim Monson
39:58 – 40:00
there. Well, I think the
Francis Turner
40:01 – 40:26
simple story is that when Roosevelt and the church Casablanca. They agreed on what everyone was going to do. And we were, the Americans were given the objective of the Elbe River and we weren’t allowed to make it into Berlin.
Kim Monson
40:26 – 40:31
Okay. What did you see when you arrived in Berlin then?
Francis Turner
40:31 – 41:10
When we got to Berlin, that was a pile of junk. The buildings were all destroyed. The Germans had cleared a part of the streets so they could get around, but most all of the buildings were destroyed or damaged. I know when we went into Berlin as the first occupation troops, of course, this was all I was lucky to find a section in Berlin that wasn’t completely destroyed.
Francis Turner
41:11 – 41:25
And we moved in German occupants that we were commandeering our homes and to get out. So we were living in houses that weren’t destroyed while we were in Berlin.
Kim Monson
41:26 – 41:32
Okay. And so what happened to the people when you guys commandeered their homes?
Francis Turner
41:32 – 42:00
We didn’t really care, we didn’t follow up, we just told them, find some other place to live. I assume that most of them had relatives in the city where they could go. crowd up in their homes is what was left of them while we were there. Okay, you can go
Kim Monson
42:00 – 42:08
ahead. What about food? Did they have food from what you could tell or had they been hungry?
Francis Turner
42:08 – 42:55
No, that was one of their problems. Their communications or their transfer way of getting food. So I know when we first set up in Berlin, people around there, old ladies and children, would come into our mess section and take the scrapings out of the biscuits that our men were discarding in the garbage can. from
Kim Monson
42:57 – 43:17
what I’m in need, they did. And this was Hitler’s kind of last hurrah. He was low on supplies. He needed fuel.
Kim Monson
43:17 – 43:26
And so it was kind of a surprise attack right before Christmastime. And so where were you at exactly in all of that, Frances?
Francis Turner
43:27 – 44:16
Well, we were stationed in the town of Besweiler in Germany and now Besweiler is north of Aachen, which was another large German city that was destroyed by the air force. So we were ordered to go back into Belgium during the age in Belgium. We were given an area for our assembly area in Belgium, and we picked up and moved. That was about a hundred mile march that we made in a day’s time or more, a couple of days, back into there.
Francis Turner
44:19 – 44:49
and we found it occupied already by the Germans. So we went from traveling to combat immediately. We made an attack of our own then towards, I can’t think of the name, Maastricht. It seems like one that comes to mind.
Francis Turner
44:57 – 44:58
clear
Kim Monson
44:59 – 45:10
the west bank of the Rhine. American Army was really stretched out over a long piece
Francis Turner
45:11 – 46:46
of ground and were pretty thin in their line. Their first initial thrust was successful, you might say, until we regrouped and put a stop on it and of course the 2nd Armored Division had moved from the Bayswiler area down to Liège and we went right into the attack. that we were taking and that was winter time and that made it a little hard for the tanks. Well, actually it was late winter, early spring and when the tanks were taken out, in a back area and we rearmed and cleaned up our tanks and getting ready for the attack towards Berlin.
Kim Monson
46:47 – 46:59
Wow. This seems like a long time. So Francis Turner, you left your family and went to serve. How long was it that you were gone before you came back to see your family?
Francis Turner
47:00 – 47:43
Well, I was gone for three years. for North Africa in 1942, or 41 or 42, until we ended up to war in 1945 on Helm. And of course we had General Patton had promised we would occupy Berlin, so the Eisenhower honored that promise, and we occupied, we were the first combat unit to occupy Berlin. we sort of established a norm for Berlin.
Francis Turner
47:43 – 48:04
But at that time, the Air Force was flying food and supplies into Berlin for the German population. And so there was a constant flight of aircraft from France and Belgium into Berlin.
Kim Monson
48:05 – 48:35
You know, what I’m hearing, Francis, is a couple of things that I find so interesting is, first of all, as you’re moving through Europe, you guys have orders not to fraternize with the people that live there. And in a way, that’s kind of unheard of in war as victors are are moving through. And then also, what what country that actually, you know, is victorious over another country then does food drops to the people that are there? I mean, I find that pretty amazing, Francis Turner.
Francis Turner
48:35 – 49:31
Yeah, well, we did that. Of course, the order for non-practicalization that came down from Schaeff headquarters didn’t last very long. It was kind of difficult to do that when you’ve got all these people around you. in our kitchens, girls served as waitresses for the men and officers, so it sort of got to a fraternization and of course the German people who were in Berlin when coming to the our areas and actually take what the men didn’t eat from their mess kits before they
Francis Turner
49:31 – 49:58
could get it into a garbage can and the German family would have it in their plate. That’s how hungry they were. And it took a while for the transportation system to finally catch up. And of course, the Air Force flew a lot of supplies into Tempelhof Airport to get food to central Germany.
Kim Monson
49:59 – 50:07
I find that really amazing. So Francis Turner, we are just about out of time. One final question. What would you say to the young people of America
Francis Turner
50:07 – 50:47
today? I had the opportunity when we were living in western Pennsylvania to talk to the students in the junior high school there about World War II, and I had a map of the battle area that I took with me that helped to describe a few talks to schoolchildren about our experience in World War II.
Kim Monson
50:47 – 50:55
Wow. Well, Francis Turner, I am so grateful. I appreciate you sharing many of your stories with us today. So thank you so much.
Kim Monson
50:55 – 51:12
It has been an honor. Okay, and so this we were talking with Francis Turner, World War II veteran. Thank you for joining us for this episode of America’s Veteran Stories. While some of the details may be a bit dated, the courage, sacrifice, and stories of our veterans never go out of style.
Kim Monson
51:13 – 51:27
For more incredible stories, past and present, check out our website. That is americasveteranstories.com or catch new episodes each week. Until next time, thank you for listening and for honoring those who served. We indeed stand on the shoulders of giants.
Kim Monson
51:27 – 51:30
God bless you and God bless America.
Announcer
51:30 – 51:53
Thank you for listening to America’s Veterans Stories with Kim Munson. Be sure to tune in again next Sunday, 3 to 4 p.m. here on KLZ 560 and KLZ 100.7. The views and opinions expressed on KLZ 560 are those of the speaker, commentators, hosts, their guests, and callers.
Announcer
51:53 – 52:02
They are not necessarily the views and opinions of Crawford Broadcasting or KLZ Management, employees, associates, or advertisers. KLZ 560 is a Crawford Broadcasting God and country station.
