It took nearly 3 years for the Allies to finally force Italy and Germany out of North Africa. When the Allied forces met in Tunisia, they had killed more than 40,000 Axis soldiers, destroyed 8,000 aircraft, and captured more than 430,000 soldiers, preventing them from returning to Europe. Germany had to supply and support an army of 500,000, which took some pressure off the Soviet Union, who were facing nearly 4 million German invaders.

By the time my father arrived in Oran, the Battle for North Africa was largely over. The goal had been to push the Axis forces out of North Africa, take control of the Mediterranean Sea, and prepare for the invasion of Southern Europe. In this third part of The Woodard Boys Go To World War II, my Father discusses his experiences in North Africa and the preparations for the coming invasion of Italy. One of his nighest priorities was reuniting with the 3rd Woodard, H.L. who was fighting with the 36th Division in Italy. — Harrison Woodard

The Woodard Boys Go to World War II

From Oran To Naples – Part 3

By Hollis Hood Woodard

(1917 – 2009)

It was like I had gone back in time about fifty years.

We left the ship at Oran, North Africa about 10:00 AM. It was like I had gone back in time about fifty years. The first thing I noticed was a camel train loading up on the dock to go inland. The dress of the Arabs was quite unusual. I didn’t have time to do much looking around before they had us in formation to march us away from the dock. It was already getting hot and we were dressed in our wool uniforms. One thing I will never forget was this red-headed First Lieutenant attempting to march us out from the docking area. He had us in columns of fours and I was in the front row on the left. As we marched up the hill we were expecting to be given the command to go to the right. This First Lieutenant got excited and gave the command, “column left”. Being on the left, I made a nice turn to the left followed by my three buddies in the front rank. When we made this turn we marched right up to a box car that was parked on the railroad track. In fact, my nose was about six inches from this car. Well the Provost Marshall came running up and started chewing on this First Lieutenant and told him to get us out of there. The First Lieutenant came up and tried to get on my case by telling me I knew we were supposed to go to the right. I told him I knew that, but he had commanded us to go left and he was in charge. We finally got out of that situation and up to the staging area. We were to wait for trucks to take us out to our camp. When the trucks finally arrived, we were all so hot that our wool uniforms were wet with sweat. They packed us on trucks and I happened to be on one that was so loaded that my rear and my pack was hanging over the tail gate. We were being hauled by another outfit because our trucks were on another ship and had not been unloaded. We arrived at our camp later in the afternoon and I was so tired I found a tent and spread out my blanket on the ground and went to sleep. I slept right through the “C” ration supper that they had passed around. I was awakened in the night about to freeze. Everyone in the tent was fishing for another blanket. We had the sides of the tent up so I got up and let them down thinking it would make it warmer in the tent. When day came the heat came back. Within an hour, we were rolling the sides of the tent back up and getting ready for the heat. When the sun was out it went over a hundred degrees every day, but the nights were very different. We were there only a short time before the rainy season hit. This was something else. There were hot rainy days followed by cold rainy nights. Our Division bugler would always get us up and play some tune that would go with the weather. One cold morning it was, “I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas”. One morning when there was thunder and lightning he played, “Stormy Weather”.

One thing I remember most about this period was that diarrhea hit the camp. We had moved to pup tents and it was hard to get out of those pup tents in a hurry when nature called. I was hurting so bad one day that I went to the Medical Tent for treatment. They gave me a big white pill and told me to go back to my tent and lay down. I did that but started to hurt so bad that I got up and went back to the Medics again. They told me that I had to give the pill time to stop the pain. This all lasted about a week and then we got orders to move again. We all had a pretty good idea where we were going.

We loaded our trucks up and headed across Africa to Tunis where we were all sure would be the place we would board boats. In crossing over to Tunis, we had to cross a high mountain range. The roads on the side of the mountain were two lane and most of the time as we neared the top we were above the clouds. When we were in the clouds the roads were slick and we lost one jeep. The driver and passenger were able to get out before it went over the side of the mountain. They found the jeep later about two miles down the side of the mountain. As we got near the port we knew that there were going to be lots of troops and tanks there getting ready to go to Italy and that the Germans would try to do something to make it hard on us.

LCT-34 participated in landings in Italy and Southern France.

We were told to load our Battalion onto a Landing Craft Tank and that we would have to put our trucks on the top deck. It so happened that I was available and was assigned the job with some other guys of fastening these trucks and trailers so they wouldn’t roll around once the ship got out to sea. Well, after we finished this I went down to the sleeping quarters to find a hammock to sleep in during the night. I had waited to long and had to find a place on the floor. As I was fixing my bed some officer came along and said there would be no sleeping on the floor. Finally, I got my bed roll and went back up on deck and found our truck and got in the back and put my blanket down on the seat. I had just dropped off to sleep when we ran into a little storm and I found I couldn’t stay on the seat with the boat rocking around the way it was at the time. I tried everything and did manage to get some sleep. Finally in the early morning I decided to get up and go out on the deck and look around. We still had a pretty good storm going but not bad enough to cause trouble.

I had been out on deck a short time when I saw this light out in the distance that seemed to be up in the air. My first thought was this is not right. I started watching the sailors and they didn’t seem to be bothered about it. Finally, I could stand it no longer and stopped one of the sailors and asked him what is was. He laughed and told me we were coming into the harbor at Naples, Italy and that was Mt. Vesuvius. He went ahead to tell me that it had been active for several days and that the Germans used the light to come in to bomb the port at night. This gave me something to start watching for they didn’t try to bomb while we were pulling into dock and unloading.

H.L. Woodard – U.S. Army

While we were in North Africa we knew where H. L. was but could never catch him. He shipped out about the time we did and was assigned to the 36th Division. Frank and I were determined to locate him as soon as we could and we had learned that the 36th was back in the lines. It had been in on the invasion of Italy and had suffered many casualties and had to get new men and go through a short training period before going back to the front line.

After we got off the boat and unloaded our trucks, we went to an orange grove outside Naples and set up camp. We were told we were to wait there until they were ready for us to come into combat. We were close enough to hear the artillery in the distance and the war began to get real for us. They had several barrage balloons over head to protect us from enemy aircraft. One of our Lieutenants had managed to get a siren off one of the damaged trucks in North Africa and he informed all that we would sound that siren if enemy aircraft appeared. They told us all to dig fox holes that we could get in if there was a bombing raid. Well, right after dark it got cloudy and we had a down pour of rain that filled all our fox holes up to the top. This Lieutenant had managed to get dead drunk when this storm hit. Lightning hit one of the barrage balloons and set quite a fire ball in the sky. This Lieutenant started cranking on his siren and most of us looked outside and saw our fox holes were full of water and stayed in our tents, but one poor guy near me was apparently asleep and came bounding out of his tent, jumping like a frog into his foxhole. I had to laugh because he went out of sight and came out of the hole shaking the water out of his hair and ears. He had to get back into his tent and find dry clothes. The other officers found the Lieutenant and hid his siren.

I enjoyed this area the short time we were there because I love oranges, and all we had to do was go out and knock them out of the trees. The next day we got our orders and started getting ready to go up to the front. It hadn’t stopped raining and continued as we loaded up to move out. We were warned to watch out for enemy planes even though it seemed impossible for any to fly in the weather we were having. The rain was really coming down and our trucks started slipping and sliding on the road. They stopped our convoy so we could put chains on our trucks. But here again we ran into trouble with the Provost Marshall whose job it was to keep the trucks moving on the highway. He came up to our truck and the driver was under the truck putting chains on the back wheels. The Marshall, a Colonel in the army, wanted to know what that man was doing under the truck and a smart soldier in the truck told him he was sleeping. Well this remark got us all out of the truck into the downpour. We finally got chains on and got moving again. Somewhere around ten at night. They decided to pull our truck off and park it to morning and then come back and take us into the line. My officer and I saw an Italian farm house a short distance away and told the other guys we were going to inside. The barn was under the living quarters. Inside, we found plenty of hay and started bedding down. The Italian showed up and asked us not to smoke in his barn. We promised him we would not. We had each found a pile of straw and had made a bed and I was about ready to drop off to sleep when this officer asked me if I smelled a pig. I couldn’t, but got up and started looking around in the dark. I found that he had made his bed down back to back with a big sow. He was a married man and I had to tease him by asking if he was going to let his wife know that he had slept with a sow.

Before we could get to sleep, we were ordered to come to the area where the Battalion had located. We got up and joined the others. We were close enough to see the artillery firing, and hear the shells coming in. Here I wondered what this poor old country boy had gotten into. In order to reach the Battalion, we had to cross a ditch full of water. I was asked to wade out and see how deep the water was and find the best place to cross with the truck. It so happened that the first place I tried the water came up to my shoulders. Since I was wet I told them I would go ahead and find a shallow place. I did find a place where the water was only knee deep and told them to cross there. After we got the truck across we set about pitching tents. In order to get out of water my buddy and I cut branches off a tree and put them in the bottom of our tent so we would be out of the water, but we were both wondering what to do if they started shelling our area. We were lucky that they didn’t find us the first night and I was able to get some dry clothes on and get some sleep. By the next day, we had all figured in order to have a dry fox hole in that rain we would have to dig the hole and pitch our tent over it. That way we were already in out fox hole at night if they started shelling. We had problems with the rain coming into our hole with the small pup tent. Later, I found a German Truck that had been knocked out with a large tarp on it. I got this and my buddy and I were able to keep the water out by digging drainage ditches around our tent area so the water would not come near our foxhole.

It didn’t take the Germans long to locate us and they made sure we knew that they knew where they were. I was posting guards late one night when they first hit our area. Man I grew up fast. I happened not to have cover when they first began firing but in the dark I found a ditch and got down as low as I could. The first night they didn’t hit any thing but scared the daylights out of a bunch of green soldiers. Later, we were to have our first man killed in combat. It must have been about five in the evening when they let us have it. In the middle of the shelling I heard this soldier scream. I can still hear that poor devil after all these years. It happened that a shell hit near him and cut him in half. Our Medical Doctor told me what we heard was a death scream. I knew the guy fairly well and had talked with him and found out he was married and had four sons. During the depression, he had found that by getting in the army and getting some rank he could do better than he could trying to work in civilian life. Well after this old boy got killed, I began to realize that we were in a war where you could be alive one minute and dead the next minute. This led to a lot of praying.

Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3 – Part 4 – Part 5 – Part 6 – Part 7 – Part 8

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