Veteran recalls Normandy invasion

line of veterans to remember WWII.

by T.L. Huffman

Wayne Shaw, who celebrated his 80th birthday on New Years Day, is among the last of a long line of veterans to remember WWII. Little did he know at the time, but he would be part of an emerging technology that would forever change the way wars were fought — RADAR.

Always a camera and radio buff, Wayne was signed up as a radar mechanic during World War II.

The 19-year-old was a member of the 1st Allied Airborn Division, 9th Troop Carrier Command in Europe.

He found himself in central England around Nottingham, where the C47 troop carriers, nicknamed the iron work horse, hauled in the 101st and 82nd airborne divisions.

They were building up for the Normandy Invasion.

“We did practice runs up to 40-50 times for that one big trip to the country of France,” says Wayne, “We’d load the paratroopers up, pick a spot in England, and they’d bail out. We did that about every other day. Night missions, too.”

Wayne flew along with them as a navigational instructor. He describes the radar screen as a five-inch tube. “A lot of the pilots didn’t know what radar was. They’d never heard of it. At that time, it was all a big secret. When I went home on a 14 day furlough I couldn’t mention the word radar.

Some radar mechanics had an MP go home with them to make sure they didn’t talk about their work.”

No one knew the exact time of the invasion. But Wayne suspected.

“For two days before, we were on 24 hour shifts. We were setting the radar and checking frequencies of the radar and radio. We knew something was about to happen. It was around quitting time, we’d come back after chow. The Officer in Charge told us that at 11 p.m. tonight we’d be dropping troops over enemy occupied Normandy. He showed us on the map. We were some of the first to know.”

Wayne’s outfit was part of a special group of about 20 planes. They were the first ones to fly over the coast of Normandy and land behind enemy lines. They were called the Pathfinders.

Each plane carried about 50 men as Wayne recalls. They wore fully equipped field packs, plus their parachutes, plus portable radar sets. They were so weighted down they pretty much had to crawl on hands and knees up the steps to get on the plane.

When the paratroopers landed, they would set up their Eureka sets, ADF radios, and other beacons to help guide the paratroopers that were coming in behind them.

Wayne was part of the landing crew that remained at the base in England which provided the communications, navigation and weather support.

“We had the radar to pinpoint the landing spots. They had the radar to pick up radio signals so the air force would know where to drop the troops and supplies.”

In the hours that followed, Wayne watched the next group of planes take off. These carried the U.S. 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions. The C47’s were either loaded with parachutists or towing gliders which were attached to a cable behind the plane. “Like pulling a kite,” says Wayne.

“It was something to think about,” he recalls. “You wonder how many will get back. I knew that thousands and thousands would die.”

The C47’s themselves were unarmed.

“They’d go in, drop the troops, release the gliders, make a quick turn, and get the heck out as fast as they could.”

Wayne was confident of the radar equipment.

“We could pinpoint the accuracy of their landings to a couple hundred feet and sometimes right on target. In other words, if we were aiming to land them on the courthouse square in Gallatin, a few would land on the square, a few would drop on the publishing company and a few would land at the lumber yard.”

Things didn’t go as planned, but the problem wasn’t the technology. The Pathfinders had not been dropped in the right places. Their pilots swerved around cloud banks and weaved around German anti-aircraft fire. The markings the Pathfinders did set up weren’t much help. When the gliders and the paratroopers came over, they too, ran into the same cloud and anti-aircraft problems.

The American 82nd and 101st airborne suffered many casualties. Nevertheless, small rag-tag groups of paratroopers did manage to capture the most critical of their objectives.

Their job done, the C47s come back empty. Most came back in one piece.

“There was an element of surprise there. The squadron I was in lost one plane. Others lost a few.

One crash landed in South England; it had mechanical trouble. The planes had bullet holes in several places. They were lucky they didn’t get shot down.”

As dawn neared, bombers began to strike up and down the coast on Normandy, flying the first of what would become, by the end of the day, more than 11,000 sorties.

“In the morning you could see the bombers overhead leaving in formation. The sky was full of them. Then, in the evening you could see hundreds of them, not in formation, coming back. Then there would be another group getting together to bomb at night. They looked like flocks of geese over Gallatin.”

American, British and Canadian troops met heavy resistance from the German forces defending the area, but were able to march steadily inland. It was the beginning of the end for Hitler’s Germany.

After the invasion, Wayne’s outfit was moved to the outside of England, around Oxford. His squadron continued hauling gas and supplies.

Wayne had a memorable incident happen to him while he was at a post office in England. He was getting to mail a package. It had Pattonsburg on the mailing label. Wayne was born and raised in Pattonsburg and graduated from high school there in 1941.

“There was a colonel walking down the sidewalk. He said, ‘Wait a minute, Corporal. Pattonsburg is close to where I live.”

They had a nice, long talk and Wayne found out the Colonel was born and raised around Maysville. His name was Colonel Blair. He later became the governor of Missouri.

Wayne had no more than come back home to Pattonsburg when President Truman called all reservist into active duty for one year of service in Korea.

Wayne was with a paratroopers medical crew in that conflict. These were B-17s with lifeboats strapped underneath in case of a crash at sea. The helicopters picked up the wounded off the front lines and flew them back to the hospital.

“Our motto was ‘You Crash — We Dash. We Haul — You all.’ When we got a call of an aircraft in distress we’d take off as fast as we could. If the crash was over the ocean, we’d drop the lifeboat which had emergency equipment for the survivors to get in to.”

Wayne finally came home for good. He worked as a farmhand until he got on the payroll at Lambert Cap Factory in April 1955.

Through all the years, Wayne has remained a radio and photography buff. But he says he would “have no idea what a radar set looks like in a plane now.”

The use of radar in commercial aircraft has come a long way since Wayne was in the war.

“When I got back after the war, commercial airlines didn’t have any use for radar. It was too large and bulky. They wanted the space to haul freight and payloads.”

Of course that’s changed. Wayne is impressed by the use of precision instruments in the war in Iraq: navigation in general, smart bombs, and the seemingly effortless landings on aircraft carriers.

“In WWII we didn’t have laser guided bombs. Pilots flew over their target. They’d push a button, the bomb bay doors would open, and the big bombs would fall out. It was a little like swinging a 12 gauge shotgun up. You sight down the barrel and pull the trigger.”

Wayne also likes to read and work with his hobby equipment. He keeps busy mowing yards and up until recently continued working in maintenance at Lambert.

“I’m a stereo nut, too. I don’t care for classical too much. I like ballroom, country and western, and the old music. I listen to music more than I watch television.”

Wayne likes to dance at the senior centers around. “I like the jitterbug, swing and the Texas Two step.

He’s a life member of 2172 VFW post. in Gallatin. He has a sister Mildred Hardin who lives at Sunset in Masyville.

Wayne sums up his 80 years of life’s experiences: “Well,” he says. “I’ve seen a variety of things.”