John Stiegman. Adirondack Daily Enterprise, June 4, 1994 Adirondack Daily Enterprise, June 4, 1994
Local veterans recall their parts in D-Day invasion
By MATTHEW RUSSELL
Enterprise Staff Writer
SARANAC LAKE — Fifty years ago Monday they were young men aboard landing craft bound for the shell-torn beaches of Normandy. Local veterans who took part still recall vividly their roles in the D-Day invasion, the pivotal event in World War II. Fifty years later, the rest of the world remembers with them.
John Stiegman, 71, of Paul Smiths and Carroll Yard, 75, of Saranac Lake, were 21 and 25 years old respectively when they and over 100,000 comrades set off from the shores of England to invade France. The mission of the allied American, British and Canadian forces: to defeat the German army which had occupied most of the European continent since 1940. The troops were aboard a 5,000-ship flotilla, the mightiest the world has ever seen, as 12,000 Allied planes swept the sky. It was D-Day — June 6, 1944.
Ensign John Stiegman had enlisted in the Navy while still in college in Massachusetts. Originally a member of the class of 1944, he and many of his classmates took an accelerated program and finished school in 1943 to join the war effort. In early 1944 he was assigned to a landing craft, LCT #199 of Flotilla 18 of the 11th Amphibious Force.
"We knew we were going for the invasion because we had practiced for it, but we didn't know the destination until just four days before," Stiegman recalled.
His ship was a "Landing Craft, Tank," about 105 feet long and designed to carry fighting vehicles, supplies and troops right up to the beaches. His ship was in a convoy of 130 LCTs which started for the coast of France from England in rough seas early in the morning of June 5. The invasion had been delayed a few days by storms, but Supreme Commander. Gen. Dwight Eisenhower had sent the ships in during a break in the weather. The invasion of the Normandy coast was on.
"We were busy more than anything else, getting ready to go," in the hours before setting off, Stiegman said. All but three of the crew of 16 had, prior invasion experience in landings Sicily and Italy — Stiegman was one of the three inexperienced sailors.
Making only a sluggish six knots in rolling seas, the LCT was carrying an Army anti-aircraft unit with four "half-track" armored vehicles and their crews. Their destination was Omaha Beach, a landing site for American troops on which occurred some of die hardest fighting of the invasion. For the casualties U.S. troops lost there, the beach became known as "Bloody Omaha."
The trip across the English Channel took more than one full day. The troops were wearing "impregnated" uniforms designed to be resistant to gas attack. The Germans did not fire gas shells at the troops, as it turned out, but the uniforms themselves were a problem for the already seasick troops, Stiegman said.
"They stank! If you were going to get sick, you did,!" he remembered.
Just after 8:30 a.m., the landing craft were in position. The beaches had been bombarded by Allied battleships offshore and by Allied planes in the air. The order came to hit the beaches, but Stiegman said the German artillery in fortified positions did not fire as the LCTs came in. Instead, the Germans waited until the craft hit the beaches, then fired at the stationary targets, hoping to disable some craft, which would entangle others coming in. The "enfilade" artillery fire from the Germans down the length of the beach was fierce, Stiegman said.
"We did not get hit, but when we off-loaded one of the half-tracks got hit.
"The artillery hits were from big guns... it's not like fighting a machine gun war. The troops were really getting pounded," he remembered.
LCT #199 got itself off Omaha Beach and headed back out to the big ships to take on another load. This time a contingent of medics with about 32 jeeps was put aboard, and LCT #199 headed back in.
"We were to take the wounded aboard once we off-loaded. We took a load of wounded aboard... the guys were shot up pretty bad," he recalled.
Stiegman's ship only made those two trips to the beaches on June 6. After anchoring offshore overnight, the landing craft made many more runs back and forth the next day in better seas. The American troops finally made their way up and beyond the deadly beach and headed inland, but because the Allies had not yet captured any of the coastal port cities, supplies had to be brought ashore by the landing craft for weeks afterward, Stiegman said.
"We were at that beach until September. I got my fill of sand," he remembered.
Later that year Stiegman's ship helped unload supplies at the French harbor at Cherbourg. LCT #199 then had the unusual mission of ferrying supplies up the Seine River, which landed Stiegman and his shipmates in Paris the day the European war ended — V.E. Day. Stiegman said it was an experience he'll never forget.
"It was really special to be part of that, and not just because of the booze! It was the feelings. We'd all been through so much — the French had and we had. The French owed a lot to us and they showed their appreciation." Stiegman recalled listening to the revelers' rousing singing in an underground railway station.
In the months which followed D-Day, Stiegman wondered about the fate of the men in the anti-aircraft unit he had helped ashore. He had gotten to know some of the men in the unit while they were quartered aboard the cramped ship before the invasion and so was curious about how the unit fared. He was doing supply duty in the port of Le Havre, near a processing center for troops rotating out of Europe, when he recognized a man from the anti-aircraft outfit. The last time Stiegman saw the man, he was heading down the ramp of the LCT on June 6. The two soldiers went for a drink and talked about what had happened.
"He said they had had to fight like an infantry unit to get up the beach before they got to their objective, on a bluff behind the beach. Then they could do their job," Stiegman said. His friend said the unit had suffered heavy casualties that day and on their drive into Germany.
Stiegman's unit was then to train for a planned invasion of Japan. He was to command a new type of invasion gunboat, but the atomic bombs the U.S. dropped on Japan ended the war and plans for an invasion. It was, Stiegman said, a great relief.
In May of 1946 he left the Navy as a junior-grade lieutenant and began a long career as a college football coach for several big universities. He had friends in the Saranac Lake area, where he later settled. His daughter, Elthea, graduated from Paul Smith's College in 1971, and there Stiegman is the director of institutional research. He said recently that he would very much like to go back to Europe and will try to this year.
The local World War II 50th anniversary commemorative committee recently presented a showing of "The Longest Day," a film about the D-Day invasion. Before the recent. showing at North Country Community College, Stiegman, dressed in his Navy uniform for the occasion at the request of local committee coordinator Timothy Owens, presented a collection of photographs and memorabilia of the war. He told those in attendance that the movie is a fairly accurate account of the D-Day invasion.
Carroll Yard is now commander of the Saranac Lake American Legion Post 447 and is a junior vice-commander of the Veterans of Foriegn Wars Post in Saranac Lake. But in 1942 he was working in a General Motors plant in New Jersey when he enlisted in the Army. He was discharged in December 1945 after taking part in the D-Day invasion, the Allied drive across France, the Battle of the Bulge, the invasion of Germany and the final link-up between Allied American and Soviet troops at the war's end.
"We went ashore the second day, June 7. The beach was still under enemy fire. It wasn't pleasant," Yard said succinctly.
Yard's unit was the 293rd Medium Maintenance Ordnance Group attached to the Second Infantry Division of the American First trucks in fighting shape as the armies clashed across Europe. Yard was a supply sergeant.
The 293rd was in the Belgian city of St. Vith during the ferocious German assault, which later was known as the Battle of the Bulge in the winter of 1944, Yard said. "That was a rough time," he recalled.
"Overall, we were pretty lucky," where casualties were concerned, Yard said, although a sniper killed the unit's master sergeant in France.
Yard later saw the collapse of the famous Remagen Bridge over the Rhine and subsequently crossed that German river in an amphibious jeep. In Pilson, Czechoslovakia, the 293rd met up with Soviet units who had driven the German Army out of Russia and across western Europe. Yard met the Soviets and shared guard duties with them. Then his unit was to take part in the fight against the Japanese.
"I was in France loading our equipment on a boat when the (atomic) bomb was dropped," he said.
In England prior to D-Day, Yard met up with his uncle, retired General Wade H. Hayes, who had fought under General John Pershing in World War I. His uncle, well connected in England, helped arrange two trips back to England on leave after D-Day.
"I've never been back (since), but I'd like to. I'd go right over to England," Yard said. Asked if he had a good time in England during the war, Yard said "You're damn right I did!"
Both men said it is important to remember D-Day and the Second World War. Owens said the local commemorative committee hopes to stage several events over the next few months in recognition of the 50th anniversary of the war and hopes the mayors of all three Tri-Lake villages will offer proclamations in honor of those who served their country on D-Day, 1944.
