War Stories

Col. Cross - The British and American Air Forces were there to prevent the Germans from using their air force, and from using the French railroads. When we got in there and wanted to use the rail lines, we found that we had the same obstacles as the Germans had. I made it to St Lo after I returned to France from the hospital. I was on a train with a bunch of other replacements coming back, and we left one place outside of Cherbourg, I’ve forgotten where, on this ‘40 and 8’ train. 18 hours later we were outside of St Lo, we had only gone a distance of 20 miles in 18 hours because of the railroads. When we went through St Lo, it was devastated - absolutely wiped off the face of the earth. We didn’t know where we were until one of the men asked a British railroad official, “What is this town, where are we?” “You are in St Lo”, he answered.

The 29th Division had gone through St Lo and had taken a terrible beating there, but the town had been destroyed. Subsequently, when Mrs. Cross and I went to France in 1994 for the 50th Anniversary of the D-Day landing, we drove through St Lo and to my surprise it was a thriving city. We were on our way to La Haye du Puits and we had to go through St Lo to get to La Haye du Puits. I couldn’t imagine how that devastated little town had emerged and developed into such a lovely little French city. I guess the point I’m trying to make is that the communications after the war were horrible because the railroads had been so badly damaged by the bombings. The French FFI had also done a lot of damage to the railroads. I think they were called the FFI, Free French Infantry or something… and of course when in combat, the first thing anyone wants to destroy is any communications center, so they would blast it with artillery. Artillery didn’t help to improve the railroads any.