Tell me about the Harding’s role in the D-Day invasion.

When weather finally got clear we thought we were going, but due to weather they postponed it a little. But on the 6^th they decided we’d go. We went out of the harbor, and we were the lead destroyer going over there. When we got off the coast of France, we had an admiral and general come onboard. It was Adm. Cooke [Adm. Charles M. Cooke Jr.], and Maj. Gen. Handy [Maj. Gen. Thomas T. Handy]. That was before we got to the beaches. They were going to observe fire, and we had targets on the beach that we were firing at. I think Gen. [Omar] Bradley was on the old Augusta.

In the first two days, we fired — just our ship — more than 1,100 rounds of 5-inch, 38 caliber shells – that’s just our ship.

They decided that we weren’t doing so well. The soldiers were pinned down on the beach at Vierville. There were three churches: Vierville, Collville, and St. Laurent. The Germans had spotters at Vierville. Maj. Gen. Cota [Maj. Gen. Norman Cota, deputy commander of the 29th Division] was on that beach, trying to get off. They were afraid to let the bombers come over for hitting the boys pinned down on the beach – and for the same reason the bigger ships firing their guns. So they decided to use destroyers as close support artillery. In the first two days, we fired — just our ship — more than 1,100 rounds of 5-inch, 38 caliber shells – that’s just our ship. The others were doing it, too. We rotated around like that. We hit the steeple there on the Vierville church. Boom! We got them. We took out their spotters.

At Pointe Du Hoc, we hit an underwater object and it damaged us and knocked our sonar out and it bent the screws. Our engineering officer – he later became a captain, he was from Oregon — he put on the diving suit and went under there; the screws were bent, and we lost our sonar. He had to make his dive to find out. That didn’t keep us from firing and keeping the Germans from reinforcing. The Rangers were going up cliffs there. At one time or another there were several [ships] involved, but we stayed and had a whale boat that went ashore and didn’t see a couple of the guys for a couple of days after that and the Germans destroyed that whale boat after it went in with supplies. The Rangers put [our sailors] to guarding some of the prisoners. We had wounded come aboard. Our doctor was very much in demand. Even with all the injured that were coming aboard, he still was able to remove the appendix of one of our sailors who fell sick. We all joked that that guy got the luckiest excuse to get out of the war! Anyway, we got the people transferred to the appropriate hospital or POW ships. Some of those prisoners came aboard evidently must have been from the Balkans, they had the old-fashioned World War I wrappings around their legs – a cruddy looking bunch if you want to know the truth of it.  And we stayed there doing this sort of thing until nearly all of our ammunition was gone. We had to go back to Plymouth. The Baldwin escorted us back. Baldwin, Harding, Saiterly, and Thompson, these four ships were together most of the time. We went to drydock in Plymouth. We got two new screws from Northern Ireland, and they repaired the sonar (took about 3 days). When we went back we were protecting against E-boats.

 

Did the Harding only use its five inch-guns for artillery?

Oh no, we used all of them. Some things we could destroy with 40s, but the pillboxes required the five-inchers. Our gunnery officer was very accurate.

 

And you were working below the guns?

I was a store keeper striker.  I was down in the magazine, and we were surrounded by ammunition – and were glad to see it go! We had two other guys down there. One was a black guy from Jacksonville, whose daddy was a preacher. And there was another man from a different background. The two of them were killed later at Okinawa (during a kamikaze attack). We were below the waterline, and everything that hit in the water, we would call up, “What was that?” And all the people above the waterline would respond, “What was what?” It kept you in a state of being scared, period. I would have rather been up above the waterline. The concussion would just reverberate, because all four guns would be firing. Like being inside of a drum. A lot of the guys had hearing problems from being stationed there. There weren’t any easy places on a destroyer.

You were working at a fast pace to keep the guns loaded.

Oh yeah, when we were in combat it was constant. They would let us know when to put ammo in the hoist. We sent everything through hatches.  The hatch where we were was sealed. We could hear everything [happening above], it kept us all scared, naturally.

 

How would a destroyer come to life when you encountered U-boats?

We immediately went to general quarters. The procedure when you were dropping depth charges, we moved about 25 knots, and we’d fire the 300 pounders and we’d roll the 600 pounders off the fantail. They would explode, and I remember thinking I was glad I wasn’t on a submarine when that went off. They kicked up a fuss when they exploded!

We immediately went to general quarters. The procedure when you were dropping depth charges, we moved about 25 knots, and we’d fire the 300 pounders and we’d roll the 600 pounders off the fantail. They would explode, and I remember thinking I was glad I wasn’t on a submarine when that went off. They kicked up a fuss when they exploded!

 

How long did it take to repair the Harding’s propellers and sonar?

About three days. It was fast. Long enough for me to go ashore. First thing I did, I stopped into a Woolworth store that had escaped the bombing to get a handkerchief. When I went in there, they asked me for my ration coupons. Everything in England was rationed, so you couldn’t buy anything unless you had these coupons. Well, one woman heard my problem, and she donated enough coupons, I think it was something like one-and-a-half, so that I could get my handkerchief. Later on, I understood how bad things were for them, and every time I was onboard our ship, I would go to the ship stores; I’d get cigarettes and candy, and anything that I could. I’d take it with me and give it out to whoever I thought ought to have it. They really were rationed hard – everything. Oh man alive… I just remembered seeing of one of our PC boats that got caught off one of the channel islands coming to Plymouth. It got caught in a crossfire with the Germans.  They knocked every gun off of it and had a direct hit on the bridge that killed everybody there. They got it back to Plymouth, but it must’ve been like a turkey shoot.