My name is Thomas Blakey. I was born in Nacogdoches , Texas on October 22, 1920. I was raised in Houston, Texas and schooled there too. I went in the army early in 1942. I went from basic training in Mineral Wells, Texas, through jump school in Fort Bennett, Georgia, and went to England in the latter part of 1943 and I joined the 82nd airborne division in late 1943.
England was a fun place to be, we did a lot of training there, we did a number of practice jumps during training. We knew we were going to Europe some place, some time. The weather was lousy in 1943 - 1944, it was a bad winter, a lot of snow and quite cold and that had some bad dealings with our training but we made it work. Everybody was doing about the best they could and it worked out well in the end. We were a very good outfit. We were sharp, everybody wanted to make this jump into Europe.
There was only 2 ways home: a bad wound, or a trip through France and Germany. Nobody wanted a bad wound but everyone wanted the trip through France and Germany. We didn't know when it was gonna happen, but we figured it was gonna happen in spring of 1944 some place and it did.
We trained until D-Day came along. The Original date for D-Day was June 5th. We loaded planes on June 4th. Some were in the air on the way to France when they were called back and put away for 24 hours.
Everyone went to the station, and it was a down feelings. Nobody felt good about it. Weather was bad. We didn't know how long it was gonna be bad. There we were sitting on the bus waiting to go again. It was very bad morale, but we made it through the night, made it through the next day and that evening we got back in the planes and started off.
We didn't know if we were gonna make it or not because the weather was not that good again, but we made it all the way to France. At that point the front had gone through the beaches, but it wasn't quite through where we were.
When we jumped it was about 1 AM in the morning of June 6th. It was raining, everybody was cold and wet. I would guess the temperature was in the low 50s, mid 40s. But we made that work too. We went to where we were supposed to be, which was 10 miles from where we were dropped. Our mission was to secure this one bridge over the Merderet River. We got to the bridge early daylight and it was full of Germans.
The thing affected me the most was this little man, a German fellow I shot. I saw him standing from far away and aimed right at his chest. I couldn't see above his chest to his face, so I couldn't tell he was a young man or an old man. But it didn't make any difference. The Germans moved closer and I pulled the trigger. He leaned back, threw his hands in the air and dropped his rifle. There I knew, I killed him.
In a couple days he showed up in my mind for a few seconds. I was afraid that some of my guys will think I was a coward. In fact, I couldn't find a reason to tell anyone about it. And I haven't for years. The little man kept coming back and haunting me.
I was mad for no reason, I was critical of my family. I did things to them, which I shouldn't have done. Because of that little man.
Anyway, We cleaned those Germans out and took this little bridge. And we held that bridge for four days. In that period we had 500 casualties. No MIA or POWs, only wounded or dead. But we kept that bridge and therefore we kept the Germans from getting to the back of Utah Beach and the back of Omaha Beach with their tanks.
We went from there through little towns and secured the road that was going from Cherbourg to Paris. We cut that road to keep Cherbourg from being reinforced with new German troops. The 4th division was on the other side of the Peninsula going up to take Cherbourg, and we were there to make sure ne German is leaving or coming.
In July, General Lewis H. Brereton took over the airborne troops in Europe. I was pulled out of the 82nd and went to his staff and I spent the rest of the war on General Brereton's staff. We followed the 82nd then 101st a great deal.
One of the most shocking moments of that time was this prison camp we took over. It was a German prison camp called Wobbelin. And there were a lot, a lot of dead people stacked up like corn. The people that came out of those huts were just skeletons with skin hanging from them. At that moment I knew - this is why we are here. This why we need to end this war. But I was just shocked, couldn't say a word.
My mates did what they could for these poor people. Medics would take it over. They needed to be medicated and had to have their strength built back up with food. But we had to move further. We went on.
I had no sympathy for the German soldiers; even though we knew they were young like we were and were doing the same thing for their country, but that didn't make any difference. We had seen some massacres up to that time and we had no problems killing Germans. After we saw Wobbelin we had even less problems with it. We took a lot of German forces. We didn't let them misbehave. After we were in Normandy for 30 some odd days, we were sent back to England to get re-equipped and refitted with men. Then we went to Holland on September 17th, 1944. We were moving and shooting. I took part in Operation Market Garden, Battle of Ardennes and bunch of small fights. It was cold, snow, ice and death. During the Battle of the Bulge I got called up to go to Paris with General Brereton and stayed there till the end of the war.
In the beginning of May 1945 General Brereton's aide Major Joe Givens called us on the phone and told us Germany had surrendered. Champagne flowed freely, everyone was celebrating. It was finally over.
I was aware of the fact that all of us may wind up going to Japan. Somebody had to go. There wasn't enough over there to take it. With time I got to know what their plans would have been if we did a land invasion. And was supposed be a great occupation. They were going to use 5 airborne divisions to go in there.
And every Japanese person on the island would be an enemy. Six year old kids had a bamboo stick with a poisoned sharp point to stab in your leg. So that kid would be an enemy. I'm afraid if we had to take Japan, if they had not surrendered, we wouldn't have a living Japanese person on that island.
I was discharged in September of 1945, and January of 1946 I moved to New Orleans, Louisiana to go in business for myself in oil. It was very successful. I did well, got married, had a house and had children. Business was good. I moved an office to Lafayette, Louisiana and from there I moved to an office in Houston, Texas, so I had 3 offices at one time.
I sold my business in 1975 so my wife and I traveled a lot, played a lot of golf and spent time with our children. We went back to Europe several times. My wife had a stroke in 1988 and she passed away in 1994.
I went back to Normandy on June 6th 1994 for the 50th celebration of D-Day. I enjoyed that, came back, and ever since I've been here in New Orleans. Ever since the D-Day museum was open on June 6th 2000, I have been a volunteer there and seven years later several senators changed it from the D-Day museum to make it the National WW2 Museum.
It has been astounding. We have a tremendous place now, we've expanded into a number of buildings and we're sill expanding. It's a wonderful place to be. I'm still working there. I have obtained close to 13,000 hours in volunteering and I have enjoyed every day of it and I'm still enjoying it. I'm doing what I can do, it's made my older life far more pleasant and fun.
But as long as I live I wanna go to that bridge one more time. Though I can't make any long time arrangements any more.
