Flight Officer Charles E. Skidmore, Jr.
Compiled from the
memoir of Flight Officer Charles E. Skidmore, Jr., Glider pilot with the 91st
Troop Carrier Squadron, 439th Troop Carrier Group
Charles (Chuck) Skidmore, Jr. knew
right from his pilot’s briefing for the Invasion of Normandy that a glider
pilot’s life could be a short one.
His
group briefing was somber right up until the final moment, when he recalled the
following: "Sir," asked a glider pilot, "What do we do after we
land our gliders?" Chuck relayed that there was a brief period of silence,
after which the briefing officer, a non-flying person, admitted, "I don't
know. I guess we never really thought of that." Chuck considered that
maybe glider pilots were actually considered to be expendable, as he stated
that the best answer to the question came from a glider pilot sitting next to
him: "Run like hell."
But one of the briefers, a 91st Troop Carrier Squadron's
captain named Merriman, showed pilots that certain officers were going to make
sure that they had the support they needed to make their destination. Chuck
recalled the captain explaining: “Glider pilots will release when the pilot of
the C-47 leading the formation starts a gradual turn to the left to return to
the coast. If any C-47 pilots cuts his glider off during an invasion without
sufficient reason, and there shouldn't be any, he'd better keep on going
because if he comes back here, ”I'll be waiting for him" and a courts-martial
will be convened immediately. Chuck added that he never heard of any tow
pilot needlessly cutting his glider off during the several invasions that took
place on the European continent.
Cutting the cord
The moment of truth, as Chuck Skidmore, his co-pilot, and 13
troops passed through the thunder of anti-aircraft, rushing wind, turbulence
and the roar of C-47 radials over the Normandy coastline, is best shared in his
own words: “When the other pilot and I cut ourselves free from the tow planes
for the Normandy landing, we caught a burst of machine gun fire from the ground
which missed my head by about a foot, and then stitched the right wing from end
to end. The first bullet - I was flying copilot - just missed my head as we
turned our plane to the left, and that’s why it didn't get us. If we'd gone
another second farther (or a half second) it would have gotten us both right in
the face and we'd have probably all gone down.”
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“Germans had flooded our proposed landing area, so we landed
in 3 feet of water,” he continued. “I went out the side of the pilot section by
tearing off the canvas and tumbling in the water after first removing my flak
vest. One guy didn't have the presence of mind to take off his jacket and fell
into a hole where the water was over his head. Luckily for him, the other
glider pilot rescued him after a series of frantic dives...Upon landing, we discovered the
source of the ground fire that nearly got me. It turned out to be a bunker
containing about a dozen conscripted Polish soldiers with one German in charge.
After the glider infantrymen from several gliders, including ours, directed a
hail of rifle fire at the bunker, the resistance ceased. There was silence in
the bunker, and then a single shot. Then there were shouts and laughter, and
the Poles emerged with their hands held high and surrendered. They weren't
about to fight the Americans so they simply shot the Kraut sergeant.”
The other glider pilot, Del Summers and I then decided to
take refuge in a thatched roof farmhouse nearby to get ourselves organized and
were surprised to find an American paratrooper in a bed. He had jumped and had fallen through the
thatched roof, he broke his leg. He
simply had crawled into the bed and was waiting the outcome of the war. We left him there after a awhile, but at the
time, he was being aided by a young French lady and didn’t seen to care whether
the war continued or not. I hope he
made it back home.
The cost of freedom
On the edge of the field where he landed, Chuck saw a
burning C-47. “I could still make out the number on the tail and I knew it had
been flown by a good buddy of mine,” he explained. “All aboard were killed, I
heard later. I guess I was just lucky to get off so easy. A lot of other guys
weren't so lucky.”
By nightfall, Chuck had joined with a group that was looking
for a place to bed down for the night. They came upon some GIs digging holes in
a small field. “Figuring out that misery loves company, several of us sunk our
shovels at the edge of the field,” he stated. But the response was not what he
expected:
"Hey, you guys can't dig in here."
"Why?"
"Because we're starting a temporary American cemetery here."
“That did it. We went elsewhere,” Chuck declared.
Returning home
Following his general instructions to get back to the coast
and board a ship to England, Chuck spent some time along the way assisting a
crew manning a 105 howitzer and later helped a communications outfit. Once at
the beach, glider pilots were assigned to load German prisoners on to LCIs
(Landing Craft, Infantry). From there, the prisoners were transferred to LSTs
(Landing Ship, Tank) to be moved to prison camps in England.
Chuck hitched a ride in an LST to make the return trip across
the English Channel. The ship was crammed with 1,200 German prisoners on the
main tank deck and only “4 GI cans” to serve as toilets. And just because he
made it off the beach, didn’t mean he was out of danger. Among the 1200 were several
Officers who were pretty well subdued, except for one
Nazi storm trooper. This lieutenant
insisted that
Every German prisoner passing by him give the Nazi
salute. One glider pilot finally got tired
of this and told a German Corporal to tell the lieutenant without the
preliminary Nazi salute that if he, the Nazi, saluted one more time, he , the
glider pilot, intended to emphasize his point with a bayonet on the end of his
rifle. That was the end of the saluting.
“The LST was anchored next to an American oil tanker, which
later attracted the attention of a German E-torpedo boat,” shared Chuck. “The
E-boat fired one torpedo into the tanker, which exploded and sank almost
immediately. One sailor, along with a dog who was on top of the mast as lookout,
were the sole survivors. The LST crew fished them out of the water. The
E-boat's luck ended with the sinking, because at practically the same second as
the American ship’s sinking, a British ground attack aircraft swooped down with
rockets and machine gun fire and destroyed the German attacker. At the end, it
was like watching a newsreel as we observed the whole drama, from the deck of
our LST.”
A couple more
incidents on the boat: The German commander of the E-Boat was taken from the
water suffering from a wound in his leg.
I helped carry him to the operating table below deck where an American
medic got ready to work on the wound.
When the medic indicated that he wanted to cut apart the officer’s
prized seal-skin pants, that latter raised all kinds of hell. It seemed he prized the pants above his
well-being. “If he wants them that bad,
let him keep them,” the sympathetic medic said. So three of us pulled the pants off of the
wounded leg. It must been dreadfully
painful, but the Kraut never uttered a sound, and that reminded me of another
German who caught his ring on a nail while descending on a ship’s ladder. The ring tore into his flesh so badly the
same medic had to take a surgical saw and remove the ring. He did it without painkiller, which for some
reason the German refused. Again, the
pain must have been terrible, but again no sound. Most German soldiers had guts, but so did a
lot of Americans I knew during the war.
The Glider Pilots made it back to England OK on my ship, and were glad
to be there, and I imagine the Germans were glad to be there too.
This is what I
remember from my experiences as a glider pilot on the Invasion of France in
June 1944.
Charles E. Skidmore Jr. – US Army Air Corps,
Flight Officer Glider Pilot, 91st TCS, 439
th
TCG .
Postscript: Life
Expectancy of US Army Air Corps Pilots in Combat
During World War II
Bomber Pilots…..
Fighter Pilots…..
19 Minutes
GLIDER PILOTS…..
17 Seconds
