Alfred B. Copt
Era: World War II
Military Branch: Army
Status: Featured Story
Mr. Copt served in World War II in the European Theater.
Mr. Copt served in the U.S. Army. He was inducted on March 22, 1942 and discharged in July 1945. He was assigned to the 359th Infantry, 90th Division. He served as a medic.
He served during the D-Day Invasion.
In his words: "For the Normandy invasion, we left Cardiff, England [Wales], June 1, 1944. I was on the ill-fated Susan B. Anthony when it struck a mine twelve miles from Normandy and sunk. Contrary to reports that all got off safely, I was right beside a soldier who was crushed by a steel beam that crashed through the ceiling. The lights went out, and it was dark in the hold except for the hole made by the I-beam. One end of the beam was still sticking up on the deck above. I tried to pull the I-beam off the injured solider, but could not move it. I crawled up the I-beam and could hear cries and pleading for help from below.
"As I got up, they announced to abandon ship immediately. Other ships came close and we had to jump from ship to ship. I wound up on a British destroyer. I think we landed about 11:00 a.m. To make the story short, after 27 days of combat I was wounded [July 3, 1944] on Hill 122 near La Haye-du-Puits [France]. I was hit by mortar shrapnel that passed through my hip, then through my small intestin and stopped in my ribs on my other side."
Mr. Copt was decorated with the:
Bronze Star medal,
Purple Heart,
European-African-Middle East Campaign Service medal with two overseas service bars.
He was honorably discharged on July 24, 1945.
Source: Hometown Heroes: The Saint Louis County World War II Project, page 61.
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Source: Interview with Mr. Copt (see below)
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I am Alfred B. Copt, and I lived in Brookston [, Minnesota,] when I was drafted into the Army. This is my version of World War II.
In 1938 and 1939, Hitler’s Germany was on the warpath. Dark war clouds were over Europe. We’d watch German troops marching on theater newsreels just before the movie. There was no TV then. This was about 1940. I think everyone was afraid that we’d be in a war soon. England was fighting Germany and Italy in North Africa. The U.S. government decided to start the draft, as Hitler had scrapped the Versailles Treaty, which forbid Germany to re-arm. He took back the rich coal are of Alsace-Lorraine, which was awarded to France after WWI.
They drew numbers from a large fish bowl in Washington, D.C. Every time they drew a number, it put about 200 boys in the service. The same numbers were in every draft board. I remember a friend of mine in Floodwood [Minnesota] had the first number. I think it was 125. I believe I had 136. My number was not drawn until late 1941 or early 1942. By then, Japan had attacked Pearl Harbor and nearly destroyed the U.S. fleet. It was a sneak attack, as no war had been declared. This was December 7th, 1941. The next day President Franklin Roosevelt and Congress declared war on Germany, Japan, and Italy.
Shortly after that, I received my orders to report for military duty. By then, I was working in Duluth. My orders were to report to the City Hall in Proctor, a Duluth suburb. They loaded up two Greyhound buses with young men. I was twenty-two years old.
We headed for Ft. Snelling. The next day we were sworn into the U.S. Army. That was March 22, 1942. Ft. Snelling was a very busy place. They kept shouting orders on loud speakers. We had to listen for our names.
On the morning of the 23rd, they loaded up a trainload of 500 men for Camp Barkeley, Texas. The same day, at noon, they announced that another load of 500 were leaving at 2:00 p.m., also for Camp Barkeley. I was on the load. We were on the Rock Island R.R. speeding for Texas. I knew where we were by looking at car license plates at railroad crossings.
When we got to Camp Barkeley, everything was in a state of confusion. Sergeants didn’t seem to know where to put us or where to eat. We were put into the 359th Infantry, 90th Division.
We started hard training, calisthenics, and pushups, and close-order drill marching.
One time, six of us did not hear the whistle. They made us run through a belt line: The officers placed them eight feet apart, and we had to run through as the troops hit our rears with the belts. They all took their belts off, held the buckle, and doubled the belt. We did not dare to sit on our bunks on breaks because when the whistle blew, we had to be out the door in a minute.
They would check our beds when we were doing calisthenics. If there was one wrinkle, we were in trouble. We started hikes with the light field pack, 25 to 30 lbs., and the hikes were only 4 to 6 miles. We were building up for longer hikes and heavier packs. I took the hikes better than the city boys, as I was from a farm and did a lot of walking.
One time I came back from a movie with a friend. It was about 10:30 p.m. Lights had to be out by 10. I could see enough from street lights. I sat on my bed to take my shoes off. I bumped something. I felt in the dark and there was nothing. I was puzzled. I took my pants off and went towards my foot locker and bumped something again. I felt again, but there was nothing. I thought, “The hell with rules.” I turned the lights on. My buddies roared, laughing. They tied an armadillo to my bed. I was not afraid of it, as it could not have bitten me. I just said, “What in hell is it?” We did get caught for having our lights on.
I was given a choice by a captain, to be a driver for Headquarters Company or an ambulance driver in the medics. I picked the medics and wanted to be an ambulance driver.
The captain was wrong. We never had ambulances. We were front-line medics, right with the infantry. When someone got hit, a medic was up to him in no time. We were all shocked when our major said how dangerous our job was. He said the life of a combat medic was right behind a machine gunner. Ambulances would only come to within 1½ to 2 miles from the front. We first thought that we had a soft job, but you don’t carry a stretcher crawling.
The hard training went on at Camp Barkeley. It was very hot, and the hikes got longer and the packs heavier. We went on maneuvers in Louisiana in the winter of 1943–1944 for two months. We got captured once and were prisoners for three days. We got traded back to our own division. After the Louisiana maneuvers, we returned to Camp Barkeley, Texas, for more training. In October 1943, we went to California for four months of maneuvers in the Mojave Desert. By now, our packs were full field packs weighing 60 lbs. I’d get numb back of the neck. I’d put my thumbs under the straps to relieve the pressure.
In California, we were in large six-man tents. One night a fellow soldier was walking by our tent and heard a rattlesnake under my bed. The sides of the tents were rolled up, as it was so hot. By the time they woke me up, about five men were there with flashlights. They were shouting at me to wake up, but don’t step out of bed. I jumped out to the middle of the floor. I was so blinded by flashlights; a fellow soldier hit the snake with a piece of driftwood and threw it my way. I leaped over a bunk and was gone—but Cherney had killed it with one blow.
Later we loaded up on trucks and went to Yuma, Arizona, and started maneuvers against a division dug in waiting for us in Phalen Pass in the Granite Mountains. We walked 10 miles in the sand with full field packs. We stopped and pitched tents. It looked like thousands of tents. Chow trucks came, and we ate supper. We thought these maneuvers were pretty good.
As soon as it got dark, whistles were blowing all over the place with orders to tear down our tents and be ready to march in 30 minutes. We marched all night with a 10-minute rest every other hour. The desert got so cold at night, and we could not open our packs. We walked 27 miles that night and caught the other division sleeping. That was a very smart maneuver. Their forward scouts reported us bedded down for the night, thinking they were safe for the night. We were the first division to break through a defending division in Phalen Pass! Umpires ruled who won every battle.
After the California maneuvers, we loaded up several trainloads of troops and went to Ft. Dix, New Jersey. This was January of 1944. In Ft. Dix, we got shots for everything and new clothes.
In the first part of March, we went to Camp Kilmer, [New Jersey,] a port of debarkation. We loaded upon a smaller boat, standing room only. We were standing so close that you could not fall if you wanted to. We sailed right by the Statue of Liberty. I saw a tear go down Carter’s cheek as he looked up at the grand old gal. We landed on Ellis Island and loaded upon a large British ship named Athalone Castle. I have no idea how many thousand were on the ship.
On March 22, 1944, we sailed out of New York for England. It took exactly two weeks to cross as we were in a very large convoy. Ships were all around us. About one-quarter mile on our left was a large aircraft carrier and behind that was a tanker. We could tell it was loaded, as it was so low in the water. We docked in Liverpool, England. It was very foggy. After unloading, we loaded up on a train that took us to Berrington Park, a duke’s estate between Ludlow and Leominister. The estate was taken over by the U.S. government. There was hundreds of tents, and his castle was fenced off from us.
The first day, two of my friends and I went walking, looking at the British countryside. After about 2 miles we turned back. We met three young British girls about our age. They were afraid of us and went in the ditch to get by. After they got by, we started talking to them, and they came back to us. We asked, “What goes on around here, and where are the towns?” They asked how far we walked, we said about one-half mile further. They said if we had gone another half mile, we would have come to the village of Ludlow. They said there would be a dance at Leominster the next night. We agreed to meet them there and had a good time. We met them at many dances, and some days just walked around.
It was now the first part of May, 1944. We went by truck convoy to a camp in Wales near the town of Abergavines [Abergavenny?], into a camp with a high brick wall around us. No one could leave. MP’s were at the gates. We were told that we are preparing for combat. We were waterproofing vehicles. We were given small rubber containers to put billfolds and other stuff that saltwater would ruin.
No one knew where we were going. We wondered if it was southern France. We seemed to be too far south to cross the Channel, where it was 21 miles. We loaded up on a ship in the port of Cardiff, Wales, in the dead of night, perhaps it was 1:00 a.m. Then we pulled out into Bristol Bay. I have no idea how any ships there were—I’d guess twenty or twenty-five. We just sat in Bristol Bay until around 2:00 or 3:00 p.m. When a speedboat went from ship to ship, someone predicted that they came with final orders. After about one-half hour we started moving. This was June 1, 1944.
We sailed around the bottom, the southern coast of the British Isles. By now, we had been told that we will land in Normandy on Utah Beach. One day, we seemed to barely be moving. We found out later that D-Day was supposed to be on June 5th. But the storm was so bad in the Channel that they postponed it one day to the 6th.
It was a very low overcast [day,] with a light rain, and clouds were low. Our ship was the Susan B. Anthony. As we were heading for the Normandy Coast, we were assigned to assault boat numbers. I was to be on No. 1 with forty-two infantrymen.
As we were strapping on our equipment, the ship hit a mine and was blown out of the water. I hit the ceiling and was knocked out for awhile. When I woke up, everyone was gone. I looked around, and there was a stairway 40 or 50 feet away. Men were crying for help. They were trapped under stuff. A large I-beam had crashed through the deck above, and one end was near me. I decided to climb the I-beam.
In the darkness, I could hear a soldier screaming right under me. I looked closer and saw that the I-beam was over his hips, and he was crushed. I tried to pull it off him, but could not move it. There seemed to be many soldiers crying for help. I climbed up the I-beam. They announced to abandon ship immediately. I tried to blow up my life vests but they would not inflate. I unbuckled them, and they were torn to shreds. I noticed sailors had opened a large cupboard and were throwing blue cork vests to each other. I ran up and asked if they had an extra. A sailor threw one to me. I put that on.
In the confusion, a 90th Division officer asked for volunteers to go below and try to free as many of those pleading below; just then, a Navy officer came and ordered that no one can go down and help. He said there will be more explosions when the cold water hits the boilers.
Other ships came on both sides of the sinking ship, and we had to jump from one ship to the other. They ran a bunch of us right across the deck and had us jump way down to a British destroyer. I was groggy and had a lump on my head. I went down about three steps and lay face down on someone’s bed. I don’t know if I lay 5 minutes or 20, but I woke up with a jump remembering what had just happened. I ran up a few steps and watched the Susan B. Anthony disappear to her permanent grave 500 feet down. All I could think of was those trapped soldiers. The British gave us salami sandwiches.
Pretty soon, assault boats came and hollered, “Do you have any 90th Division men?” The captain answered, “Yes.” When it pulled on side of us, I could see several of my friends. I was shouting their names. They said later that they could hear my voice but could not see me, as I had no helmet and I was in blue (my blue life vest). This was about 10:00 a.m. I was right in front on the assault-boat. When the big doors opened, I’d be exposed, while bobbing up and down heading for shore. I threw up the salami sandwich.
When we landed, the battle was five hours old. Fighting was about two miles inland, but the Germans were shelling the beach with mortar and artillery. While still in knee-deep water, our lieutenant got killed from shrapnel. While we were moving inland, two German planes strafed us. I looked one pilot right in the face, and he looked at me. They did not hit anyone.
After we got on shore, we were useless, as we had no equipment. We moved up near the front. We dug in [in] a county road ditch. We got a shovel from a jeep. One guy found a small blue plastic bag. I told him to leave it alone and dig elsewhere. All of a sudden, there was a big explosion in the middle of the road. Several of the boys were wounded with gravel. We found out later that the paratroopers had those plastic bombs to throw at the tracks of tanks to disable them.
That first night got so cold. We were wet to our armpits from jumping into the water from the landing craft. I was so cold I started jumping up and down. Someone said, “Get down, you fool, before someone puts a bullet in you.” I answered, “The sooner the better.”
Early the next day a dead paratrooper was near us. I took his field jacket. There were dead Germans as well as dead Americans. I needed a steel helmet. I saw one and gave it a kick and it hit the ground. We were told the Germans were big users of mines. They had one called the “Bouncing Betty.” After they were tripped, they would bounce to face level and explode. I was afraid of mines and booby traps.
By now we had been re-supplied, and we went to work with the 2nd Battalion of the 90th. We were right with the infantry. When the call “Medic!” came, we were up to the wounded shortly. Our wounded were heavy. Our job was to stop the bleeding and get them to the aid station, where there were two doctors. Then a jeep took them about two miles, where an ambulance came. One time one of our aid men was badly wounded. He lost one leg and the other was badly damaged. We went to get him with a stretcher. I really didn’t think we would get out alive, there was so much firing and mortar shells exploding.
On D-Day, paratroopers had landed early in the a.m. two or three miles from shore to disrupt communications, cut phone lines, and such. Many met their death while floating down. We saw many hanging from high trees and dead. Their chutes had caught high branches. Also many were rubber dummies to confuse the Germans.
Another thing: the U.S. government, along with the British, had made hundreds of gliders out of plywood with a very wide wingspread. They were pulled out over the English Channel early, then they were cut loose. All they could do was glide downward, as they had no power. They were given designated fields to glide into silently. But D-Day had a low overcast and drizzling. A lot of them could not find their fields and crashed into big trees.
We found one with a jeep, a 37mm gun, and fourteen dead soldiers. The glider was smashed. We saw one more, but did not go near it. It had also been destroyed by large trees.
We came upon a paratrooper who had made it to the ground. A tree had been ripped up by machine gun fire from one direction, then a bullet through the head from one side. Then the Nazis had propped him up against the tree, with one leg up, with his left wrist over the knee and a wristwatch showing. I told our men not to touch it, as it is an obvious booby trap, and anyone who touches the watch could be dead.
Casualties were heavy. A large percent could run back a bit, but a lot needed stretchers, and it felt like my arms were pulling out of their sockets. We had packets of morphine. It was like a small toothpaste tube. We had to break off a plastic cover that exposed a sterile needle. Just push it into the arm and squeeze the tube.
One time a soldier was badly hit in the corner of a hedgerow. The call for a medic came. I and a replacement ran down there. While running, the replacement got hit in the shoulder, and he ran back. So I got to the wounded man alone, except for one infantryman. I told him that if he can’t help me, I can’t do it alone. He offered, and when he partly got up, he was shot in the back and was killed. The wounded man was unconscious and looked like a hand grenade had exploded against his stomach. His intestines were showing. The one who offered to help had no pulse. The wounded man had a pulse, but I had to leave him. I told our staff sergeant about the badly wounded one, and he said, “You can’t go there, it’s too dangerous.” Tracer bullets were streaking across the field.
One time, a soldier had cut his hand on a rusty barbed wire and wanted it treated at the aid station. While our staff sergeant was working on it, a bullet went through his arm. He had to be evacuated to the beach hospital. He wondered what his men would think when he didn’t come back.
One day a Frenchman came to the aid station, and neither I nor the lieutenant could understand him, but I knew he was pleading. Then one of our soldiers came who could understand French. He wanted us to come and save his badly wounded son.
We walked with the Frenchman. When we got to a white stucco house, we went to the back door. The house had about twelve or more nuns, women, and a few men. The Frenchman brought us to the boy in another room. I guess he was four or five years old. He had a shrapnel wound in one leg and a smaller one in the intestines. He had a tourniquet on the wounded leg. I asked the translator, “How long has the tourniquet been on?” The father said, “Since yesterday.” I told another soldier not to say anything, but that the leg was lost. Gangrene had set in. We put him on a stretcher.
Women were crying. One wanted to know if he was going to America. We didn’t know.
As we were going to go out the back door, I asked, “Where are the Germans?” The Frenchman said, “Right behind the barn, 100 feet away.” I said that it is obvious they let us in, so I believe they’ll let us out. On the jeep I could tell he was in great pain. I gave him one of my 5cc morphine shots and in a few minutes he was riding in comfort. I was sorry that I did not ask them to put his name and address on his clothes. I don’t believe he lived anyway. I had no way of knowing.
One day I was in a small field surrounded by hedgerows. I heard the mortar or artillery shells land in the next field, filled [followed?] by cries of pain and “Medics!” I crawled over to that field. There were about five wounded and two dead. One of our medics was working already. I rushed over to a sergeant lying unconscious, and his arm was gone halfway between the shoulder and the elbow. I pulled him up to a sitting position by the hair. He woke up that time. I tried to put a tourniquet on the arm but could not stop the bleeding. I remember him saying, “Hurry up, doc, I can’t last long this way.” The artery was squirting blood with each heartbeat. I squeezed the artery with my finger. I told him to do it while I looked for a stick to tie up the tourniquet. I got it stopped.
Then I went to a soldier who had shrapnel through the arm. At the same time, a soldier named Roberts was busy. When we got them patched up, word had gotten to the aid station, and three jeeps came through the woods to get the wounded. When I got to the aid station, I told our lieutenant of what a good job Roberts did and recommended that he be awarded the Bronze Star. I ran into him five months later, and he told me that he got the Bronze Star from my recommendation.
One time I was in a ditch by a road, and something made a noise in the tree branches above. A spent bullet fell into my lap.
By now, the Allies had secured a good beachhead, and Cherbourg had been captured. On July 3rd, the Allies were going to stage a large offensive to break out of the beachhead. At 5:00 a.m., every piece of artillery would fire for one hour and stop at 6:00 a.m., and the infantry had to go over the top! I was in a foxhole right next to the Germans on the other side. The shelling was so fierce, I did not think anyone would be alive on the German side, but at exactly 6:00 a.m., they were there. Firing was heavy.
All day long, the fighting was fierce, and casualties were heavy. Hill 122 was right in front of us. It was well fortified—trenches and machine guns, plus rifle and mortars. We were supposed to take the hill and a small town beyond the hill. By evening, the captain said we had gained about 2,000 yards. Casualties on both sides were very heavy. We were in a swampy area at the foot of the hill. The Germans were laying mortars like rain.
We got orders to pull back to high ground for the night to avoid the mortars. Kirk and I had just dug our slit trench to sleep in below ground level. Captain Vincent came and told us there were five men from our company that he cannot account for. He asked Kirk and me to go listen where we just had been, in case they were wounded and needed help. We started down into the swamp. An infantryman asked, “Where are you going?” We told him, and he warned that they are firing mortar from near that white house on the hill, and they are very accurate.
I started running toward the area where he had been. Kirk was 20 or 30 feet behind. All of a sudden, three mortars exploded in front of me. They stopped for an instant. I stood up and shouted, “Let’s go, Kirk!” I had planned to run into where the three had landed. While standing and shouting, another mortar came. I heard the whistle. It landed about 15 feet left of me in a deafening explosion. It threw me into some brush. I had a terrible pain in my stomach. I shouted to Kirk that I had been hit. He answered that he’ll be right back. More mortar shells were falling. I figured that I have to get out of there. I was quivering and had severe pain and thought my intestines were exposed. I looked anyway, and to my surprise it was normal. I tried to run and I could not control my left leg. I looked at my side and saw a hole in my hip, and the left leg was blood soaked.
When Kirk came with three others and a stretcher, I was shaking uncontrollably. Kirk began covering my hip wound. I thought death was minutes away. And I asked Kirk to take the M-1, put it in my ear, and pull the trigger. He ignored me. I made a desperate reach for the M-1 and was turning it my way when he noticed what I was doing and jerked it away and threw it. They carried me out, and I was going in and out of consciousness. On the ambulance I shouted to stop the ambulance. They ignored me. I complained that I can’t stand the ride. Once I woke up and was head down. A doctor tried my pulse and said, “Give him another bottle.” I protested that I don’t need it, as my friend had bandaged the wound. I found out later that I had internal bleeding and nearly bled to death.
Next, I was on an operating table bare naked. They were soaping my stomach. I had my knees drawn up. Someone said, “Straighten your legs.” I said, “I can’t.” Someone on the foot end pulled my legs. I passed out.
I next woke up two days later to the friendly face of a nurse. She put two fingers in my mouth and pulled out a large rubber thing. I asked what that thing was for and she said so I couldn’t swallow my tongue. The operation was over, and I had made it.
Two days later the doctor who operated on me came to see me and gave me the shrapnel. He told me how lucky I was. He said the shrapnel had gone through my hip and how many inches near vital organs it passed. Just through the intestines and stopped in my ribs on my right side. It nearly passed through my body. They put a rubber tube down my nose to keep any gases from moving my intestines. That tube hooked up to a machine that kept a very slight suction. I was hooked up to that for two weeks. I was fed by intravenous feeding once a day. I was in a very long tent, all abdominal wounds. The soldiers on each side of me died. After two weeks, I was taken to Southampton, England, and to the 52nd General Hospital near Birmingham. I got very good treatment, and I started eating food again.
About two weeks after arriving at the 52nd Hospital, a nurse came up to me. She was hiding something behind her back. She said, “I bet I have something you would like.” She gave me all my personal things from my pockets when I was wounded, including my billfold with my money and all. I stayed in the 52nd until first part of October 1944. Then I was moved to the 37th field hospital where we had to get up early, dress, and go to show (breakfast). Then we started light drilling and short hikes, which increased every week.
About mid-November, I was heading back to France. We loaded up at Southampton and went to Le Havre, France, a seaport completely destroyed by bombs, then to Étampes, 20 kilometers east of Paris. We went to the 19th replacement depot. There I was informed that I was unfit for further combat and was assigned to work there. About 500 soldiers per day went through there heading for the front as replacements. They had to be re-supplied and get their shots. Many were young. They looked like they were just out of high school. Many were vets who were returning to combat. Our jobs were seven days a week and 10-hour days. But we felt lucky. There were no bullets or mortars. We’d get passes into Paris. Only a few could go at a time. I went several times with two or three friends.
On April 13, 1945, I was in Paris alone. I can’t imagine why I was alone. But I was, and I was not feeling good. While walking down the street, a Frenchman wanted to buy my shoes. He had a large wad of bills. He kept raising the amount he’d pay. I told him to get the hell out of here and leave me alone, but he followed me half a block behind. As I said, I was not feeling good. I knew that if I passed out, I would be without shoes.
Newsboys in Paris were shouting “Roosevelt!” and another word that I did not know. Showing newspapers with the word “Roosevelt” in heavy print. I met a GI and asked him “What did Roosevelt do?” he just answered, “He died.” I felt very bad, like I had lost a close relative.
I worked in the 19th replacement depot for quite awhile. I began getting sick from indigestion and got sent to a hospital in Étampes, France. While there, the nurses told us to go to a room at 2:00 p.m. and hear an important speech from Winston Churchill. His speech was that Germany had accepted unconditional surrender, and all hostilities will cease at 9:00 a.m. tomorrow morning, May 8. We mostly sat in silence. I might have been the first to say, “Anyone who tries to advance tonight is nuts.” Another soldier just said, “Finally.”
Next, I got sent to a very large American hospital in Paris. I was still all bound up. Then they also found out I had a bad case of sinusitis, and I had to be treated for that also. They’d put a long needle up my nose, into the chamber behind [beneath?] my eyes. After several treatments—they’d spray it with penicillin—and I’ve never had a problem with it again.
After that, I was ordered to be returned to the U.S. I was loaded upon a hospital train destined to Cherbourg. On the hospital train, I was right across from a young soldier on cots. He had one leg blown off by a land mine. He complained that the heel of the missing foot was itching so badly. But it was gone. It only felt that way.
We were loaded up on the S.S. Wakefield. It took us two weeks to go to Europe but only seven days to come back. The war was over, and we did not have to stay in a convoy. There were 5,000 wounded and injured soldiers on the ship. We had the first welcome into Boston Harbor. Three days in Miles Standish hospital, and I was sent in a large hospital train to Winter General Hospital in Topeka. I was discharged from Winter Hospital and then I was back home—having been gone for three years and four months.
