Hard Times, War Times, and More Hard Times

By London L. Gore

London L. Gore is a World War
II veteran serving front-line duty
in a Sherman tank with the 5th
Armored Division after the Utah
Beach landing. Living through
the shelling on the battlefield
was like being in a never-ending
thunderstorm surrounded by
unrelenting lightning strikes.
After the war, London returned to the Carolinas and worked
at timbering and right-of-way clearing. He met and married
Ellen and settled in Sumter, South Carolina. Their marriage
of fi fty-one years produced two wonderful daughters, four
grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Ellen passed in 2003
of natural causes.
London remarried and he and his current wife, Mary, reside in
Shallotte, a small community in southeastern North Carolina.
In this book, he shares a lifetime of memories from
childhood to present to include many of his wartime
experiences of World War II.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Apr 3, 2013
• ISBN: 9781479792337

London L. Gore

London L. Gore is a World War II veteran serving front-line duty in a Sherman tank with the 5th Armored Division after the Utah Beach landing. Living through the shelling on the battlefield was like being in a never-ending thunderstorm surrounded by unrelenting lightning strikes. After the war, London returned to the Carolinas and worked at timbering and right-of-way clearing. He met and married Ellen and settled in Sumter, South Carolina. Their marriage of fifty-one years produced two wonderful daughters, four grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Ellen passed in 2003 of natural causes. London remarried and he and his current wife, Mary, reside in Shallotte, a small community in southeastern North Carolina. In this book, he shares a lifetime of memories from childhood to present to include many of his wartime experiences of World War II.

Book preview

Copyright © 2013 by London L. Gore.

Library of Congress Control Number:   2013902470

ISBN:   Hardcover   978-1-4797-9232-0

             Softcover    978-1-4797-9231-3

             Ebook          978-1-4797-9233-7

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CONTENTS

Introduction

My Early Days

Start of Army Life

The Hürtgen Forest

The Final Days of War

Homecoming

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

London L. Gore is a World War II veteran serving front-line duty in a Sherman tank with the 5th Armored Division after the Utah Beach landing. Living through the shelling on the battlefield was like being in a never-ending thunderstorm surrounded by unrelenting lightning strikes.

London was born in December of 1923 at Ash, North Carolina, the first of three children. He attended Brunswick County schools finishing the eighth grade. He helped on the family farm until joining the U. S. Army in 1941 a few months prior to Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. He attended basic training at Fort Jackson, South Carolina. From there, he was stationed in Oklahoma and California serving in a horse-drawn artillery company. Soon afterwards, he boarded the troop ship, Alexander, to cross the Atlantic soon headed for Utah Beach in France where he served 161 days of battle in the front line invasion and fighting to liberate areas in France.

After the war, London returned to the Carolinas and worked at timbering and right-of-way clearing. He met and married Ellen and settled in Sumter, South Carolina. Their marriage of fifty-one years produced two wonderful daughters, four grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Ellen passed in 2003 of natural causes.

London developed a love for flying and was finally able to buy a plane during the late sixties. It was a 1943 L/5 Stinson. He continued with the hobby of flying until 1993 when the skies became overcrowded and his medical condition deteriorated making it unsafe for him to continue flying. He began playing his guitar and singing in country bands, and playing for square dances in various Southern communities of the Carolina’.

London remarried and he and his current wife, Mary, reside in Shallotte, a small community in southeastern North Carolina.

In this book, he shares a lifetime of memories from childhood to present to include many of his wartime experiences of World War II.

This book is dedicated to my daughter, Ginger

She gave so much of her time helping me with both of my books. Without her, I would have never made it. Ginger owns her own company, ‘Clarks Engineering Services, Inc.’, in Lexington, S.C. She loves the type of work she does and has been very successful. No matter how busy she may be, she is always there to help out her old Dad.

And to a great friend who was killed in WWII in Europe, Michael Dicky

In the early hedgerow fighting in France, my sergeant, Michael Dicky, stepped off the tank and a mortar shell fell on him. For my good friend, the war was over. He taught us well. To all of us he was like a big brother. I’m edging up to 89 years old and Sergeant Dicky is still a great part of my life.

INTRODUCTION

I was born and raised in a small community called Ash, North Carolina. Ash is located on Highway 130 just several miles west of Shallotte and is near the North Carolina—South Carolina state line. Shallotte, a small town located on US Highway 17, has an added advantage of being just off the Atlantic Ocean, although while growing up, we didn’t recognize the importance of that. I mean, who cared about a stretch of sand that no one could farm. However now, Shallotte reaps the benefits of the beach traffic that passes through all week long.

MY EARLY DAYS

M y earliest recollections go back to when I was only about eight or so years old. I was still a child, but back then, I was considered old enough to work on the farm.

My first memorable job was to work all day in a tobacco barn on a nearby field. I would hand tobacco to a stringer who would place the leaves on a five-foot stick in such a way that would allow the leaves to cure.

Now there is quite an art in stringing tobacco. On each side of the stringer was a hander (that was me), who would bundle two or three broad leaves together and then hand them over to the stringer who would then loop the string around the stems going left, right, left, until the stick was full of bundled leaves. Then, the stick boy would take the full stick inside the tobacco barn and hang it on a lower tier pole. Later, two to three people would rehang the sticks by placing them among the other sticks set inches apart throughout the barn. Its placement allowed air to circulate between the sticks of tobacco to permit proper curing. When the barn was completely full, a fire was built in the furnace and was kept running for several days until the curing process was complete. And what a treat it was to walk into a barn right after the curing cycle as a barn of freshly cured tobacco gives off the most pleasant aroma imaginable.

A stringer could make about 75¢ per day, while the handers and the stick boy would get only about 50¢ per day. The croppers, who were the field workers removing the leaves from the tobacco stalk, could earn $1.00 per day, and the drag boy guiding the mule-driven carts that hauled the tobacco leaves from the field to the barn would get 50¢ per day. I longed for the day that I was old enough to go to the fields to make the big bucks.

The day finally came and I became a cropper making $25.00 my first year. I felt rich! I was ready for my first big purchase, a red and white Flyer bicycle. Filled with anticipation, my dad took me along with him to Whiteville, North Carolina to sell our tobacco. This took just about all day. When we finally finished, we headed not to the bicycle shop but to the dry goods store. I couldn’t figure out why we were not going straight to the bicycle shop. I could only surmise that Dad needed something from the store to take home. I was taken aback to learn that he wanted to buy my first suit. Well, I guess my dad wanted to reward me for all the hard work.

The salesman measured me up and down. He measured my arms, my neck and then my cheeks turned red as a cherry as he reached into my crotch and measured my legs. I was doing alright until we got to the cash register. It was then that I realized that my dad was making me pay for it. I came home crying. Not that I ever hold a grudge, but it took about five years for me to get over that. I would never