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INTERVIEW WITH GENERAL WILLIAM C. PURNELL Tuesday 4/8/58
Present position and address: Vice President and General Counsel Western Maryland Railway 300 St. Paul Street Baltimore, Maryland and present Commanding General 29th Division.
On D-Day, 6 June 1944
Age: 41 in Sept.
Married? Yes.
Children? Two
Wife's name? Charlotte Thilo Purnell
Education... BSc St. John's College 1923 LLB Harvard Univ. 1927
As of D-Day, wa [crossed out] s [end crossed out] [inserted[ Lieutentant Col. Purnell Assistant Chief of Staff of the Twenty-Ninth Infantry Division. As such, established Division command post on Omaha Beach (or rather, in OB area) about 5 pm. Had gone in first with a small party. Landed near Vierville exit; to the left (as one approached from the beach) was a little stone quarry where the Command Post was set up. The Hq. group spent all of D-Day night trying to locate the scattered elements of the Division which had preceded it into Normandy.
The 116th Regiment had landed in the assault wave. The 115th went in between 11 and noon. 175th Regiment was Corps Reserve, and did not land until the following day.
The dead were literally piled on the beach that afternoon. As the tide came in, their bodies floated up on the rising water. Where the beach met the land was a sea wall about a foot and a half high. Above the wall, holes had been blown in the barbed wire defenses
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with bangalore torpedoes. There the dead had fallen in clusters-- many men were shot at the makeshift exits. Beyond the beach and the wall was an area thickly mined and marked with corpses, so that men coming ashore in later waves had to stick [crossed out] close [end crossed out]to the road. And on the road at the Vierville exit an incoming tank had run over a pile of dead men.
Lt. Col. Purnell had crossed the Channel in an LCI with other Hq. personnel. In southern England, the previous summer ( '43) , [inserted] he [end inserted] had had first certainty that 29th would be part of invasion--when a truck from a QM outfit drove in and asked where/to deliver the Mae Wests. Official notice and official briefings came months later--but Mae Wests had told the story; Purnell and other bn. commanders initiated amphibious training immediately. Troops were sent to resort area of Torquay for swimming lessons-- in battle dress, in icy water.
At start of another summer, during first couple of days in June '44, Division Hq. group boarded LCI at Plymouth. Sat until 5 June in Plymouth Harbor, with others of invasion force including Bradley's command ship Augusta, which pulled out late in the afternoon of June [inserted] 4 or [end inserted] 5. All along the southern coast of England, [crossed out] that day [end crossed out] [inserted] on June 4 and 5 [end inserted] as far as could be seen from Plymouth Harbor, came a long line of ships headed for Normandy.
LCI carrying Hq. group of 29th left Plymouth Harbor late in evening of June 5. Part of double row of LCI's following command ship. In the Channel, passed long line of dead ships moving slowly towards
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Normandy. Silent, dark in early morning light, but moving under their own power, part of Force Mulberry. Looming British battleship with great tall towers seemed especially strange. (What time was this?) just abour daylight -3-4A.M.
At about 3 am., just at first light, officers gathered on deck of LCI....Lt. Col. Purnell owed Colonel Donovan, Catholic Chaplin of the 29th Division, 8000 francs from a poker game [inserted] paid on Beach [???] [end inserted] (had the game been running [inserted] No [illegible] - since boarding ships. Too busy before then. [end inserted] more or less since the first days of June?).... The Division G-2 was concerned about German buzzbombs, launching sites for which had been identified at Cherbourg. Intelligence code for these was CROSSBOW. Official G-2 estimate was that buzzbombs would be used against invasion force. Officers on deck of LCI thinking about this, thinking "Maybe they're going to fire the CROSSBOW's pretty soon!"....
Preceding vessels had mineswept channels to beaches; there was a big red buoy at the head of each run. Their LCI didn’t arrive off the beach until 9 or 10 am. Day was clear, breeze brisk. From where they were in the water, they could see no German defenders-- only Americans falling as they hit the beach.
By the middle of the day, a hill on Omaha Beach caught fire. There had been great controversy at Supreme Headquarters about whether or not a smokescreen should be laid. By accident, a fire started [crossed out] in front [end crossed out] just West of St. Laurent draw-- [inserted] and created rather heavy smoke screen [end inserted] and that was where the penetration beyond the beach was made [crossed out] . [end crossed out] by the 2nd Bu. 116th Inf.
Their LCI went in part way with those carrying the 26th Regt.of
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the First Division. ( This was a reserve regiment ). Eight or ten [inserted] (maybe dozen) [end inserted] LCI's ran in/to the beach in a neat line. This was at high tide: the troops ran out onto dry beach--and fell, as fire from somewhere off to the flank inflicted many casualties. Fire probably came from 2 guns ( '88's ) located in pillbox at Vierville road.
LCI circling throughout most of day. Sometimes moved in to within two or three hundred yards of shore to take a look ( always using field glasses ). All aboard were very interested in what was happening in the States, but nothing of the homefront reaction came through the ship's open radio. From the beach there was [crossed out] nothing, [end crossed out] very little then only very fragmentary reports. Hq. group knew almost immediately that the 116th had had a very bad time. However, there were few reports from them; information came, rather, from liason officers already ashore.
When Lt. Col. Purnell's group was ready to go ashore, they were transferred from the LCI into an LCM , because loose mines were afloat in the high tide, which covered the beach defenses. The LCM ahead of theirs turned in to the beach--and theirs followed. By then-- four or five in the afternoon--there was no direct fire on the beach except for that of a rifleman here and there. [crossed out] On the beach [end crossed out] In Vierville Lt. Col. Purnell found [crossed out] wooden [end crossed out] cartridges [inserted] with wooden "bullets" in them [end inserted]--mock ammunition scattered during maneuvers of the recently- arrived German 352nd Infantry Division. Coming up from the beach, [inserted] during the night of D-day [end inserted] he broke up a "full-fledged battle" [inserted] in darkness [end inserted] between two elements of the 29th. Which had landed at different times and in different places, Germans were also in the vicinity so that confusion was not unjustified.
This was at the village of St. Laurent. The 115th had gone in from the beach to take the village earlier in the day, and had