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Military Oral History Interview Transcript
John Helms
Drexel, North Carolina
14 October 2011
HF: Harrison Fletcher
JH: John Helms
HF: All right, my name is Cadet Harrison Fletcher; we're in Drexel, North Carolina. Today is
October 14, 2011 and I'm conducting an interview with Mr. John Helms, World War Two
veteran, and the interview is for our Military History class and the information provided in the
oral history archives at Appalachian State University. Thank you for being here Mr. Helms, I
appreciate it and I appreciate your service most of all. First off, I'm going to ask you, you just
feel free to answer however you want. Where were you born and raised?
JH: Right here in Drexel.
HF: Drexel?
JH: Yes.
HF: What was your birth date?
JH: April the 20th, 1923.
HF: How old were you and in what year did you enter the service?
JH: I volunteered like a dummy, I quit high school (clears throat) and joined the Army now
that's smart isn’t it (laughter well, I didn't realize we were going go straight to war. Anyway, I
joined in November…I mean…January 1943. That was when the war started for us, in 1943.
Then I went to Camp Atterbury, Indiana. We stayed there until to spring of 43' and then we went
on maneuvers in the desert for 3 months. We walked from the desert.
Can you believe there is a desert below Knoxville, Tennessee? There was one in Tennessee. We
walked all the way back. Took three weeks to walk back to Camp Atterbury, Indiana. We walked
every step of the way back (laughter) took three weeks to do it and we stayed there until 1944
and we (stutters) we went from Camp Atterbury down to Fort Breckinridge, Kentucky that time
and I stayed there until the spring of ‘44.
Then we went to England and landed in Southampton. And we went up in the mountains there in
Southampton, England and stayed up there for about two to three weeks up in there where it
rains about every day and then we finally came out and we went all the way down to the English
Channel. We went down to the English Channel and the British had a great big ship sitting there
and 15 thousand of us got on that thing. We went from there to the Normandy landing and the
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�weather was so bad we couldn't make no land we stayed there for about a week waiting for the
weather to let up. You probably know that already.
HF: Hmm (acknowledges).
JH: We sat there until the weather let up and we got in there and made that Normandy landing.
Lucky I wasn't in the first wave. The first wave that went in they just killed them all. I went in
about the fourth or fifth wave and a lot of us got killed then. You got to know you were in a little
old boat going in there and they were up there sitting on top of that of bank about a hundred feet
high shooting at you with everything they had, you didn't have nothing. They killed a lot of us
before we got off and when we got off that thing the water was still deep were we got off the
boat at and some of us that went in never came up.
HF: (Acknowledges).
JH: You see we had all that gear on us, I had a rifle and had all that damn mess swung around
my neck and getting ready to go in for the Normandy landing. They were a lot of them that never
did come back up. After we got in there and got that beach head established, we started fighting
across France and the 4th of July was the main push-off to start the whole war, it was for us.
Man, I tell you right now, you talk about the 4th of July. I thought we shot off firecrackers on the
fourth of July; we had some firecracker works (laughter). They killed about half of us. You know
there was about 190 makes up a platoon [possible mistakenly references his company] and by
that evening there was only 43 of us left.
HF: For documenting purposes, what unit were you with and start with your division and go all
the way down to your…(Helms cuts in).
JH: I stayed with the 83rd through the whole thing.
HF: The 83rd Infantry Division?
JH: Yes, sir.
HF: And the composition of that was all light infantry?
JH: Yeah, there were not any colored (mistakes “light” for “white”) in it at all. Back then they
wouldn't let colored people just enter the service. They might have been in the truck driving stuff
but they didn't get into the fighting and I didn't see any of them.
HF: And it was a light infantry division?
JH: Yeah.
HF: Foot infantry?
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�JH: Yes, I was in the light infantry and we fought until we got into southern France fixing to go
in about where, southern France where you go in, what’s that country that’s got a (hesitates).
HF: Switzerland?
JH: About the time we got to go into the Switzerland we got word to load back up because
Germany had broke through the Battle of the Bulge. They was taking everybody up there to stop
them German’s to keep from circling around and having us closed out and we fought in there
until we got to the Battle of the Bulge and we stayed in there and it was below 30 below zero in
there and we didn’t have the clothing for that.
HF: You were part of Patton’s relief force?
JH: No, they fought beside of us, but it wasn’t no relief force we was with them.
HF: You were with them and then?
JH: Yes, we fought beside of them mostly then the infantry helped protect them. We would take
these battalion tanks and things. They would get all knocked out if they didn’t have somebody
outside to protect them. All they would have to do walk up and shoot the tank or something and
the people would try to come out and they would kill everyone that come out of the tank and if
they didn’t come out they’d shoot through the tank.
HF: Hmmm.
JH: They had the stuff to shoot through them. Our guns wouldn’t do it, but theirs would do it.
That 88 would shoot through anything.
HF: The German 88’s.
JH: That is the best gun that’s ever been made. Anyway we got into the battle of the bulge and
it took about three to four weeks to clear that out and we started going across Europe and we
stayed in Europe until we got to the Rhine river and man I said man I tell you right now trying to
go across that Rhine river in a boat was going to be tough, but we finally got them hooked across
from there and the engineers got a bridge built across there. You would put these things in there
and run (interrupted).
HF: A pontoon bridge?
JH: Yes, a pontoon bridge. They finally got a pontoon bridge, but half of them got killed trying
to build it and the German’s come down there and tried to knock it out all the time they were
trying to go across it and they had a time getting across that thing, getting across the Rhine river
(chuckled). With them standing there shooting at you and you trying to come across you didn’t
have much of a chance I tell you. We didn’t have much of a chance at all because there
equipment was superior to anything we had.
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�HF: Yes.
JH: I don’t know about the airplanes. We had an advantage in the airplane, but the Germans, the
rest of it, the tanks and infantry they had the advantage of us. They were well trained and we
weren’t. You would go in there and spend a year or six months here. Hey were some of the boys
come over with 13 weeks of training.
Once we would get killed off they send some over here with only about 13 weeks of training.
That wasn’t right, but that is what they did. We didn’t have enough a fighting for us. Each week
they’d get killed off and we have to have another bunch come in the next week to do the fighting
and you can believe or not, but from the time I landed in Normandy until we crossed the Elbe
River looking at Berlin I never left the front lines.
HF: So you stayed (got interrupted)?
JH: I got wounded four times.
HF: Four times?
JH: Four times. I got shot through the neck twice looking out a window trying to direct fire on a
pill box. They had a rifle with a scope on it and they stood and shot me. They shot me right
through the neck. They was a boy standing right behind me looking over my shoulder and they
shot him through, cutting his spine and killed him dead and I let him go.
HF: So you stayed on the front pretty much then?
JH: I stayed on the front from the time we landed in Normandy until we crossed the Elbe River
and the war ended.
HF: Through the whole campaign?
JH: Yes, I never left the front lines.
HF: Going back to the Normandy campaign, you care to describe the beaches if you don’t mind?
JH: When I got there, see I was about the fourth or fifth wave. The first wave that got in there,
they had that thing mined. I got the pictures of that in here (shuffling through papers) at
beachhead and all of that. Let me see if I can find some of them and show you.
HF: We have a reference, a history book for his division and he is showing me the photographs
of Normandy Landing and the beach obstacles.
JH: Yes, they showed you all that. They were just like that and that barbed wire up there, they
had that razor sharp barbed wire. You had to go in there and try to get over that and them mines
were so thick you couldn’t set a foot down it’d blow your legs off with them little mines they had
set in that sand.
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�Oh, Lord a lot of them got their legs blown off trying to get into that and that bank there was
about 100 feet high and I finally get in there and got to that bank and laid my back against that
bank and I couldn’t sit down. I stayed there and everything got cooled down a little bit.
HF: How heavy was the German fire when you landed?
JH: Oh, Lord you didn’t have a chance. They had been there ten years preparing for that.
HF: Um hmm.
JH: They whooped France and come in there and they had all these pill boxes over and guns
sticking out and all they had to do was stand in them pill boxes and shoot at you. They had those
big trenches built around there and pill boxes with all of them machine guns on there and all we
had to do was walk along over the ground and you didn’t have much chance of surviving it.
HF: Yes.
JH: Anyway we got through all that stuff and got through certain parts of it. Look through this
and you can see ever bit of it from day one. This book right here’s got ever minute of it.
HF: After the beaches were secured on Normandy describe what the following days were like
when you were trying to secure the area or the hedgerow country.
JH: Oh, Lord we got to have that? Well I’ll tell you when that all started. We finally fought our
way up that bank and got up there on the land. We got set and had enough troops. The main war
started with us on the 4th of July and I never will forget it. I said here I used to be at home
shooting firecrackers at the 4th of July, this is a big firecracker thing (chuckled). Yes sir. When
that evening ended after the 1st day there were 43 of us out of 190. The rest of them had been
killed or wounded.
HF: Forty-three out of 190? And what was the fighting like in those weeks following Normandy
when the allied forces were bottled up in Normandy for that initial period after the invasion, how
hard was the fighting in the country?
JH: Them German’s never did let up. They intended to fight until the last; they fought until the
last straw. They didn’t give up. There were some of them that did give up finally. When we 1st
landed in Normandy and we got to the top of that bank there was a big peninsula out in the
Atlantic Ocean there, we captured 60,000 there to start with. They were in that peninsula there, at
Cherbourg.
HF: Sixty-thousand at Cherbourg?
JH: Yeah, it will tell you in here. There were about 60,000 of them. We captured about 60,000
of their troops to start with.
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�HF: So, you were involved in the taking of Cherbourg, the capture of Cherbourg?
JH: Yes, that was in the Normandy. That is where it was at in Normandy. That’s what I was
talking about.
HF: Um hmm, the follow-up capture.
JH: We captured about 60,000 after we got in and landed in Normandy there. I said this war
could have ended we caught that many of them, but that was just the damn scratch of it. You
know they robbed every country over there and made them fight for them. They were about five
or six Balkan countries over there and they got people out of all of them in their army and that’s
where they got them fighting for them.
HF: Did you run into any foreign soldiers fighting with the Germans in France?
JH: Did I do what now?
HF: Did you run into any soldiers from the Balkans that who were fighting for the German’s in
France?
JH: Oh yes, you seen them all. They were mixed and I mean all of them Balkan countries was
part of the German army. That was it.
HF: So they mixed them with your German units?
JH: Oh yeah. But the only thing about is you couldn’t understand anything they said, I couldn’t
(laughed). We fought through Germany until we got to France and we were fixing to go down
into the southern part of France when the battle of the bulge broke out. They put us on a truck
and rode us all the way up there day and night until we got there.
But it was during Christmas and about halfway up they stopped long enough for us get Christmas
dinner. Somebody had something cooked and we stopped long enough to eat Christmas dinner
on the way to the battle of the bulge.
HF: Did you stop in Paris before you were moved to (was interrupted)?
JH: No, we didn’t see Paris. I didn’t see it going or coming. I never did get into Paris. When I
got ready to come back I came by the edge of Paris and went down there and caught one of them
boats.
HF: Um hmm.
JH: But, anyway we fought into Germany there. Man they was tough when you got into
Germany. We freed German people too you know. We went into their cellars and houses. When
we went across France every cellar had a wine cellar in it every one of them. You’d get all of the
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�wine you wanted when we were going across France. Man you could get plenty of wine to drink
if you liked to drink.
HF: (Laughed).
JH: Every house had a wine cellar in France, every one of them.
HF: Um hmm.
JH: (Stutters) Well, when we 1st got in there they had bridges of dirt about that high on about an
acre of land, each one with hedge rows, they called it, and around them hedge rows they had fruit
trees all the way around the acre of land. The next over there was an acre of land with fruit trees
that was about that way for about 20 miles into France with all of them fruit trees and them
hedge rows.
HF: Um hmm.
JH: And well, they wouldn’t let us pick up no German equipment. One of them boys shot one of
them German officers and he had a pistol in his pocket and they captured it.
HF: A Luger pistol?
JH: Yes sir. He had that in his pocket when they captured him. They took him out there and I tell
you what (stutters) they tied him up between two trees. His feet were about that high off the
ground. They tied his arms out to the trees and his feet out to the trees and took that pistol and
stuck it down his throat. When we got there he was there stuck with that pistol down his throat.
That pistol they had in his pocket they told us.
That old man said right there we aren’t going to pick up anymore German equipment. It cost that
boy for picking that up. They rammed a gun down his throat. That’s when they said we could
never pick up another German pistol and couldn’t have it; wasn’t allowed to pick up nothing. I
didn’t want it no way. I had a pistol that I carried. I carried a pistol through there, but it wasn’t no
good. It was a 38. You ever seen one of them American pistols?
HF: Yes, a 38?
JH: It won’t shoot. I tell you what we had some ammunition in that thing and the bullet dropped
about 100 yards out of that pistol. The ammunition was faulty in that pistol.
HF: Wow.
JH: You couldn’t do anything with those pistols. I carried one of them, but it wouldn’t, up real
close as to that wall you could kill somebody with a .38.
HF: What was your opinion of the German soldiers?
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�JH: The best in the world.
HF: The best in the world?
JH: They were well trained in equipment.
HF: Very well trained? What was their morale?
JH: But, there was one thing about it they would give up. If you go the ups on them he would
give up.
HF: Um hmm.
JH: They were a well-guided force there is no doubt about it. They had been trained for years
before we ever got there.
HF: Um hmm. Was there a sense of mutual respect between the two?
JH: Yeah, we respected each other, but I tell as we got in there the deeper we got into German
territory the meaner they got to us. They killed some of our boys and left them laying at different
times and all of that stuff. That was after we got in Germany. They didn’t do it in France, but
after we got in Germany they got to where they would do something like that.
HF: So they got more desperate towards the end?
JH: Yeah they were more desperate towards the end. We finally got to the Rhine River and I
dreaded crossing that Rhine River in a boat and them over there shooting at you (chuckles).
HF: Um hmm.
JH: But finally they brought in the Air Force there. You wouldn’t believe it. They brought in so
many planes over there I don’t see how they come across and bombed them. We sent thousands
of planes in there. They air was full of them bombing them Germans where we come across the
Rhine River.
HF: Um hmm.
JH: The engineers came and finally got bridge across there, them float things and put that bridge
across there and we got across, but I went across in a boat. We went across before that bridge
was ever built and we got to fighting in Germany. A Germany town to me is like America. They
were the closest country to America I was in since I was over there.
HF: Oh really?
JH: Oh yeah. There are streets and towns and lights and everything they had in the stores and
everything was similar to the America. I enjoyed that part of it, seeing something like home. I
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�tell you something else I seen in Germany, they had Christmas trees. It was Christmas season. I
looked into some of the homes and they had lights and Christmas trees.
HF: Yes.
JH: The ones that didn’t get run out.
HF: Was the German resistance elevated in their homeland, in Germany?
JH: Oh yeah, oh yeah, their resistance it was unreal.
HF: Was it much greater than France?
JH: Well, they didn’t let up over in the France or nowhere else. They were out to kill you. They
were out to win. If you were back in your country and you know somebody was going to take it
you’re going fight to the last straw.
HF: Um hmm, that’s right.
JH: Anyway I was on the front lines and never left the front lines for a solid year I was going for
the fourth time and I got shot through the neck twice. I got a piece of shrapnel in my leg yet.
HF: It’s still in there?
JH: Yeah, right in there.
HF: Yeah, I see that.
JH: I got a piece in there yet. I thought they’d shot my foot off (laughs).
HF: Shot. Did they ever try to remove it?
JH: No, I didn’t let them go in there and operate on mine.
HF: Has it been a major hindrance to you or is it just?
JH: No, it hurts once in a while, but I don’t pay any attention to it.
HF: Oh, yeah.
JH: If it did I would have it took out. Anyway we fought across France and then we went up to
Belgium to start with trying to stop that Battle of the Bulge. We go up there and it was 30 below
zero with three foot of snow on the ground. It snowed for two weeks while I was in there 24
hours a day. For three weeks we was in there and it snowed every day and night and it 30 below
zero. You can imagine what that was being in there. We won the battle anyway.
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�HF: Were you adequately supplied for the (interrupted)
JH: Oh yes, we had plenty of ammunition. They kept us supplied.
HF: What about clothing, warm clothing, did they give you enough?
JH: Do what now? No, our clothes weren’t for that. We didn’t have any clothing for that
weather.
HF: How did you stay warm?
JH: We had that underwear that hooked behind, but that wasn’t enough with what clothes you
had on.
HF: Yeah.
JH: I tell you what I did and a lot of them they told us when we went there, said you go to sleep
your going to die. If you laid down and went to the sleep your froze to death. That was the Battle
of the Bulge. Yeah ran in place the whole time, I done it all night long, I mean all night long. The
next morning I was still running to keep my feet from freezing.
HF: Hmm.
JH: We didn’t have no boots or nothing to combat that weather.
HF: Did a lot of soldiers suffer from frostbite?
JH: Oh Lord yeah, Lord some of them lost their legs with frostbite in there around 30 below
zero I tell you right now. Now my brother Jeff he was in there and he got froze. They came a hair
of taking his legs off. He stayed in the hospital down at Raleigh down there about six months.
They was going to take his legs, Jeff, your know Jeff, they was going to take his legs off at one
time. He wouldn’t let them.
HF: Did they pull him off of the front lines?
JH: Yeah, yeah, he got froze and they pulled him off and he came back. Now Gerald went over
there before any of them. Gerald was the first one in there. They took him to South Africa.
Gerald went over and started in South Africa and went from there to Italy and they left Italy and
invaded the southern part of France.
HF: So he was with that expedition, the Southern France Expedition?
JH: Yeah, the ones that started fighting it and most of them came up and invaded France to help
us get a head start in there. We had plenty of fighting for us and everything. The United States,
France, and all of us were fighting in that. You know France isn’t much bigger than Texas and
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�Germany is the same way. Germany isn’t much bigger than Texas. Can you imagine a country
the size of Texas fighting the world?
HF: Um hmm. It hard to believe it isn’t it?
JH: Yes. I walked all the way across France and all the way across Germany and all the rest of
it. I walked all the way across there to do it all. I didn’t ride any of it. We walked it all.
HF: True infantry huh?
JH: True infantry.
HF: Never got trucked anywhere hardly?
JH: Huh?
HF: Did you ever get trucked anywhere, motor moved?
JH: Once in a while. They trucked from the southern part of France to the Battle of the Bulge up
there. They were trying to stop them.
HF: And that was just for speed purposes?
JH: Yes, for speed purposes. They rode us up through there and they stopped long enough for
us, it was during Christmas. They stopped about an hour. They had some Christmas dinner
cooked and we stopped and ate Christmas dinner on the way to the Battle of the Bulge.
HF: Um hmm. Going back to the beginning of the war, what made you personally volunteer for
service before (interrupted).
JH: You ain’t going to believe it.
HF: What is it?
JH: I was a poor boy and didn’t have any money. I went to high school up here barefooted.
HF: Um hmm.
JH: That’s exactly how come me in there.
HF: Um hmm.
JH: I joined the Army at 17. Nobody didn’t have nothing back then much.
HF: So you joined to better yourself?
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�JH: Yeah, I joined to get some money.
HF: To get some money?
JH: Yeah, I went to high school up here (stuttered) in November barefooted.
HF: Um hmm.
JH: That’s the truth.
HF: Yeah.
JH: We didn’t get no new clothes. My mother patched my overalls and if I got a whole in that
patch she’d put a patch over that patch.
HF: How would you say the patriotism and the idealism, fighting for the country, how did that
play into the uh?
JH: It couldn’t have been no better.
HF: Um hmm. Did that play into a lot of your decisions to ah?
JH: Yeah, everybody would help everybody. If something happened one of us somebody would
stop and help them. Everybody was for everybody in that. You see if you wasn’t you wasn’t
going to go nowhere.
HF: So, you say fighting for each other is what kept you?
JH: That’s exactly right. Fighting for this country; we didn’t want to be under German rule.
They drilled that into every day when you were training. We didn’t want the Germans to win this
war; there wouldn’t be any more America.
HF: Yes.
JH: They wouldn’t. If the Germans won the war there wouldn’t have been any more America.
HF: Um hmm it was crucial, yeah.
JH: Yeah we would have been prisoners. If they would have took over you would be in prison.
HF: Um hmm.
JH: I thought about that.
HF: Was that one of the things that kept you going?
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�JH: Yeah, that kept everybody going.
HF: Um hmm. Describe your relationship with your fellow comrades, your fellow soldiers.
JH: We were ideal. Everybody was for everybody.
HF: Were they mostly your same age or younger?
JH: I was only about 18. When I came back after the war was over I was only 20.
HF: Um hmm.
JH: See, I quit high school to join the Army.
HF: So even the NCOs, noncommissioned officers, were they still young?
JH: Yeah, a lot of them were.
HF: And the officer corps?
JH: You can see through here in this book the officers in here. Every one of the officers are here,
right in the front of this thing (looking at a photograph).
HF: What was your rank by the time you got out?
JH: I was a sergeant.
HF: You were a sergeant by the time you got out?
JH: Yeah. Here’s all of the officers (referring to a book) There’s part of them, there’s part of
them, there’s part of them, and here’s part of them.
HF: How many soldiers did you have? Did you command a squad?
JH: Squad, I had my own squad. I was in the mortars.
HF: The mortar squad?
JH: Yeah, the mortar squad.
HF: So how many men did you have under you about.
JH: Seven.
HF: Seven, okay. How many mortars?
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�JH: There were three.
HF: Three mortars?
JH: There were three seven-inch guns. It took about seven men for each mortar to carry the
ammunition and the mortar and all that.
HF: Um hmm.
JH: You had a thing to put over your back and the front and you put about three or four of them
there mortar shells in the front and about three or four in the back. If something would have ever
hit one them and they would have went off they would have blown you to kingdom come
(laughter).
HF: Were you in the mortars your entire time?
JH: Yeah, I was in the mortars from the start to finish.
HF: Start to finish?
JH: But I carried a pistol, but that pistol wasn’t any good I’ll tell you.
HF: (Laughter) It was a 38?
JH: If you’re a non-com you got to carry a pistol, but it wasn’t much.
HF: What was you opinion of the officer corps, the officers?
JH: They were pretty well trained. We got most of them, what’s that think down there in
Georgia?
HF: Fort Benning?
JH: We got most of the officer’s out of that down there, most of them were real young.
HF: Um hmm, and did you have high opinions of them?
JH: Yeah, most of them were well trained. There was no doubt about it. I only had trouble with
one officer.
HF: Um hmm.
JH: One time they took us out about 3:00 in the morning and they was going to do a 50 mile
march that day, 50 mile. It rained from the time we got up until we come back that night. We
walked all day and half the night. I could see the lights from camp and I was wanting to get there
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�and I wasn’t in step and that old officer come up beside me and said get in step. I didn’t pay him
no damn mind. I was mad. I was wet and mad.
I didn’t get in a step. He said I said get in step hut two, three, four. I didn’t pay any damn
attention. He got me by the shirt and jerked me outside and jerked one of the other fellows out
and said I want you to be a witness to this. "I gave him the command to get in step and he didn’t
do it and I want you to be a witness to it." He was going to court marshal me for not listening to
him. When we got into the camp that night he took me over to the office. I am going to show you
the man that going to court marshal me.
HF: Reference to a company roster book.
JH: There is my commanding officer, the one I was with right there.
HF: This is your commanding officer, Major Lawrence A. what was his last time? Laliberte?
JH: Laliberte
HF: Laliberte
JH: Yeah. He took me over there to the office and he said he was going to court marshal me and
the lieutenant said you ain’t court marshaling no damn body.
HF: Um hmm.
JH: That showed him that somebody ain’t getting mad and somebody not do what you tell them
to do. He said you court marshaling no damn body. That’s exactly what he said to him. That is
the last I ever heard of it. He was going to court marshal me for not obeying a direct order. He
was court marshal me for not getting in step and hell I wasn’t going to do it. I was mad and wet
and didn’t give a damn (laughs).
HF: Other than that, was that the only confrontation with an officer?
JH: Yeah, yeah. I never did like that officer and I tell you the truth. I had ever intention when we
got overseas and got in battle I was going to shoot him. I did, I thought about it a long time. I
said when we get overseas and I said I catch him out somewhere over there I am going to shoot
him. I had ever intention of killing him, but I didn’t.
HF: Um. Changing the gears a little bit, letters from home, did you receive those regularly or
was post (interrupted)?
JH: I didn’t get mail from home much because my mother didn’t write much. She was like me
she didn’t have no education either. I got some, but didn’t get enough. I’ll tell you what I met a
girl from Kentucky and there was not a week passed she didn’t write me a letter.
HF: Oh really?
15
�JH: And she sent me lots of cakes and things. She sent me candy. I got stuff from her regular.
When I got back to the United States I said I’m going to go see that lady. When the war was over
with and I got back to Fort Bragg and on the way to home up here I called her. She was working
in this here bomb plant over in Knoxville. I called her and said I just got out of the Army and I’m
coming by to see you. She said I’d be as mad as hell if you didn’t she said.
And I went up there to see her and I got home and seen my old fellows and I caught a bus and
went to Knoxville, Tennessee and I caught a bus and went to the bomb plant and there two
sergeants there guarding the gate. He talked to me a little bit and he said you see that bus over
there. I said yeah and he said get your ass back on it and go back to Knoxville; you ain’t got no
pass to get in here. I went back to Knoxville and I called her and told her they stopped me at the
gate and wouldn’t let me in. She said I’ll fix it. She went somewhere there in the bomb plant and
get me a pass and I went back and got it and I stayed there a week or two with her.
HF: Oh really?
JH: Yeah.
HF: Describe the last portion of the war if you would as far as the conclusion. What were your
last experiences in Europe before you came home?
JH: I crossed the Elbe River.
HF: The Elbe River?
JH: You could see Berlin from it. It was twenty some miles from Berlin that’s what it was.
HF: Did you ever go into Berlin after the fall of Berlin?
JH: No they wouldn’t let us go. The Russians had no (unintelligible) with our president to take
Berlin and they took Berlin. We didn’t have any part in it.
HF: They held you in reserve twenty miles from there.
JH: We got right there where we could see Berlin, but we never went in it. The Russians took it
and had it. You know they had a hell of a time after it was over with getting some supplies into
the parts we had. You remember we had to fly parts in.
HF: The Berlin Airlift?
JH: Yeah it was the only way to get in. They wouldn’t let us go on the ground or on the train.
We had to fly it in.
HF: When did you leave to come home to the United States?
16
�JH: Let’s see. When the war was over with it was in late May.
HF: Late May?
JH: The captain said I am going to let you go home first and I said there are fellows in here with
children need to go home 1st and he said I’m going to let you go home because you didn’t miss a
day of combat and I got to come home on that very thing. I was the 1st one to leave there to
come home.
HF: Um, okay.
JH: And me a twenty year old and there was fellows in there thirty years old with kids. I thought
that was odd. He said that’s my decision and you can do it. That fellow right there sent me home.
HF: That Major Laliberte?
JH: Yeah.
HF: Where did you fly into or did you take a ship back?
JH: I caught a ship back.
HF: A ship back?
JH: I got into about Paris and got into one of the boats that they had to carry supplies over; what
do they call them things.
HF: Little barges?
JH: No those little ships only about 300 is all that could get on it and the ship I went over on
there was about 15,000 of us on it.
HF: Liberty ship?
JH: Yeah, we come back on a Liberty ship. There were only about 300 of us on it, but the
German submarines were still in the ocean and they were afraid to go across. They went back
around England and around Scandinavia, and come around by Iceland. It took us forty days to
come home dodging them submarines.
HF: Forty days, wow.
JH: I didn’t see land for forty days when I came back. I didn’t know where we at. They wouldn’t
tell us where we were. As we come by the Statue of Liberty I said I know where I’m at now.
They docked that thing and we came down that gangplank and the Salvation Army was down at
the foot of that thing and they had boxes of milk in those little cartons. That was the first milk I’d
seen since I’d left the United States.
17
�HF: I bet that made you happy?
JH: Yeah, I’d drunk two or three of them if they’d give it to me, but they only gave me one.
They took us to the Camp Shanks and we had to go in there and view movies for two weeks how
to walk down the street and treat people decent. All we knew was if a man was on the street by
God kill them over there.
HF: So they tried to re-acclimate you?
JH: Yeah they had to de, de what you want to call it?
HF: To get you back used to?
JH: Yeah being around humans. They said all you fellows know is how to kill somebody said
we got to teach you how to treat people right on the street. Then we spent two weeks in the
Camp Shanks, New York learning how to treat people and be kind to them and not try to kill
them. There were some, I’ll tell you, we had some damn fellows in there that I believe would
have done it.
We had some Mexicans that went in there and killed one of them Germans for no reason at all.
We was in some German camp and we took this town that evening and one man had a chicken
coop outside that had some chickens in it and 1 of them boys said I’m going to kill them damn
chickens and I’m going to cook me a chicken. He went down there and one of the Germans said
nix, nix, nix you can’t get my chicken and he just shot the damn German and got him one of the
chickens. That’s how bad he was. He did that.
HF: Wow.
JH: I wouldn’t do that, no sir. I wouldn’t kill anybody unnecessarily, but there were some of
them that did.
HF: How long after you got back to New York before you got to come back to North Carolina?
JH: I was there two weeks debriefing us, that’s it. Yeah we had to walk down the stress and
learn how to treat people and this, that, and the other for two weeks and go home and not kill
somebody. That’s all we knew was to kill somebody. You see somebody and you kill them.
HF: After the debriefing where did they send you?
JH: I got to go to Fort Bragg.
HF: You got to go to Fort Bragg.
18
�JH: Yeah, I was there four days and they gave me a forty day furlough, forty days, and I got to
come home for forty days. That’s how I went up there to see that girl and stayed two weeks up
there.
HF: That was during your furlough?
JH: Yeah.
HF: Now how long were you in Fort Bragg before you were out of the service.
JH: That was in June. I stayed there until almost Christmas day the following year because
Japan wasn’t over with. I mean they were still fighting Japan and that war was still going and
they were not letting anybody out.
HF: So they held you in reserve?
JH: Right. Until the war in Japan was over with you wasn’t going nowhere. I stayed at Fort
Bragg and worked in induction and separation center and seen a lot of boys they were still
drafting them coming in. I went and got some papers and I was going to send a bunch of them to
Fort Bragg that was going to Japan and I walked down through Fort Bragg down there and there
was a bunch of them sitting up against the building and guess who was sitting up against one of
them buildings, C.P. Clark. You ever know C.P?
There he set with a bunch going on the Oklahoma to Japan. I talked to him and I said C.P. what
are you doing down here. He said hell they fixing to send me to Japan. C.P Clark was married
and had children. He was sitting up there against the building and I got to see C.P. there. He said
what are you doing here? I said I was over there and I got to come back and I am here working in
the induction and separation center.
HF: What year were out of the Army?
JH: ’45.
HF: ’45, you were out the same year?
JH: December of ’45 is when I got out. See the war in Japan quit in about September or October.
HF: Uh huh, so you had the last three or four months there?
JH: I had enough points and everything to get out.
HF: I have a few closing questions real quick. I was going to ask you how did your experiences
in the Army during the war shape your life as far as after the war on to the present day?
JH: Well, in the war and during the war you had to protect yourself. There wasn’t anybody to
protect you there. If you was stopped somewhere you dug a foxhole.
19
�HF: How does that shape you today and throughout your life?
JH: Learn how to listen and do what you’re told.
HF: Do what you’re told, um hmm?
JH: Yeah when they disciplined you, you learned a lesson from it.
HF: Do you ever have any recurrent memories from the war and how often?
JH: I used to, but I don’t know more.
HF: No more. How often do you think about it?
JH: All the time.
HF: All the time?
JH: Because somebody I was close to got killed. You get close to somebody they're going to get
killed.
HF: Um hmm.
JH: That’s the bad part of it.
HF: Yeah.
JH: Anyway we went through that thing and done the best we could do. You killed everybody
you could and I didn’t like that. It was kill or get killed. I want to show you something here.
HF: This is a reference to a memoir.
JH: There is a piece in this book about me. I believe it’s on page 64. I want you to read it.
HF: The highlighted portion?
JH: Yeah, some of it.
HF: I am going to read the highlighted portion of this book in reference to the interviewee:
“Alpha Company was coming in to replace us and we were moving back to our old positions in
the Hurtgen Forest to regroup. In the meantime Herschel McIntosh, and John Helms (the
interviewee), were having a field day picking off the Germans trying to get out of the way that
evening. McIntosh was from Kentucky and Helms was from North Carolina. They both were
from the 2nd platoon. Forty years later we three fought this battle all over again at an 83rd
20
�division reunion” from the book in reference to the interviewee, John Helms. So you picked
them off huh (laughing).
JH: By God you had to or they would get you and I got a lot of them. Back then I was 18 and I
had 20/20 eyesight and didn’t have no trouble seeing them for a mile. You could that German
rifle that M1 and you could shoot them from a mile and I done it.
HF: You were using a M1 Garand?
JH: Yeah.
HF: What do you think of that weapon system?
JH: The M1 was a good rifle. The only thing about it is if you got any dirt in it, it would jam on
you sometimes and you had to keep it clean. You couldn’t let it go. You had a rifle and you had
to clean it regular. That was your best friend. You needed it if you got out. If it didn’t suit you…
you didn’t have anything.
HF: You were in A Company? Was that “Able” Company?
JH: No, I was in F Company.
HF: Uh huh. Was that you called it, Able Company and Fox Company?
JH: All right.
HF: So I used a modern reference when I said Alpha? I apologize on that one, but um, do you
have any other closing remarks you would like to say on the events of the war or how they have
affected you personally just throughout your life?
JH: It affected me a lot when it was 1st over with until you finally outlive it kind of.
HF: So you’ve learned to cope with it over the years?
JH: Well, I don’t think about it a whole lot. Let me show you something (searching through
book).
HF: Once again I appreciate you bringing all of these reference materials.
JH: You want to look through them? You can keep them and look through them.
HF: Yes sir, I would appreciate that. I would love to do that.
JH: I can’t believe it I lost that picture. There is what I wanted to show you.
HF: Is that a picture of you?
21
�JH: That’s when I first went in.
HF: Oh really, there you are.
JH: That’s what I looked like when I went in. That’s me and Gerald. You know Gerald?
HF: I never knew Gerald.
JH: He knew him [pointing to my father] and R.G. that married my sister was there.
HF: Is there anything else you would like to say in closing the interview, maybe anybody else
who would be studying the war, the professors or the students who will be studying.
JH: There is a whole lot, but at the moment it’s hard to do it ain’t it.
HF: Is there anything that stands out in particular, anything you would like to say.
JH: (Long pause) Well, the war was hard to get over when you come back. It affected you.
There is no doubt about it. All that happened to me and so many people it is unreal. I looked
pretty young there didn’t I?
HF: Yeah. Well if that’s all sir, I really appreciate you doing this and this will conclude the
official part of our interview now.
JH: If you read that you may want to put some of that down there.
HF: Yes sir I will make a reference of all of the documents you brought us today. That’s really
good. I appreciate it sir and thank you again.
JH: I just think about all of this a lot.
HF: We will conclude the interview.
JH: I went to Fort Bragg to start with and then I went to Camp Atterbury, Indiana, I went from
Camp Atterbury to the desert for three months and I went from the desert back to Camp
Breckinridge, Kentucky. I went from Camp Breckinridge, Kentucky to New York. I didn’t know
where I was going. You know when we left Camp Atterbury they put us on a train and they
didn’t tell us where we was going and the next thing I knew we was in Arkansas.
I said what in the world are we doing in Arkansas? First thing I know we was in Oklahoma and
about two, three, or four days later we landed in New York getting on a ship going to Europe.
They didn’t want anybody to know where we were a going when we left Fort Bragg on a train
going to Arkansas. They didn’t want the enemy to know where we were going. They kept
everything a secret.
22
�HF: Well, thank you very much sir. We will conclude the official part of the interview now.
23
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Appalachian State University American Military History Course Veterans Oral History Project
Description
An account of the resource
Each semester, the students of the American Military History Course at Appalachian State University conduct interviews with military veterans and record their military experiences in order to create an archive of oral history interviews that are publicly accessible to researchers. The oral histories are permanently available in the Appalachian State University Special Collections. The project is supervised by Dr. Judkin Browning, Associate Professor of History at Appalachian State University and all interviews are transcribed by the student interviewers.
Copyright Notice:
Copyright for the Veterans Oral History Project’s audio and transcripts is held by Appalachian State University. These materials are available for free personal, non-commercial, and educational use, provided that proper citation is used (e.g. Veterans Oral History Project, University Archives and Records, Special Collections, Appalachian State University, Boone, NC).
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed.
Helms, John
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview.
Fletcher, Harrison
Interview Date
10/14/11
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
43:18 min
Copyright
Copyright for the Veterans Oral History Project's audio and transcripts is held by Appalachian State University. These materials are available for free personal, non-commercial, and educational use, provided that proper citation is used.
Tag
Drexel, World War Two, Army, Camp Atterbury, Fort Breckinridge, England, Normandy, D-Day, infantry, Switzerland, Battle of the Bulge, Purple Heart, Cherbourg, France, Germany, Rhine River , shrapnel, Belgium, Elbe River, Berlin Airlift, Camp Shanks
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with John Helms, 14 October 2011
Subject
The topic of the resource
World War, 1939-1945
Helms, John
Veterans
Personal narratives, American
United States
Interviews
Description
An account of the resource
Harrison Fletcher interviews John Helms who served in the United States Army during World War II. He joined the military right out of high school because he was living in poverty in the United States, and he saw it as the only way to make money. He served in the 83rd Infantry Division, and was in the front lines the entire time he served in Europe. He walked straight through France and Germany, and said he was never transported anywhere. He fought in both the Normandy landings and the Battle of the Bulge. He was wounded four times, but says that morale among the American soldiers was high.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Helms, John
Fletcher, Harrison
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a title="UA.5018. American Military History Course Records" href="https://appstate-speccoll.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/167" target="_blank">UA.5018. American Military History Course Records</a>
Extent
The size or duration of the resource.
23 pages
Language
A language of the resource
English
83rd Infantry Division
Battle of the Bulge
Cherbourg
Elbe River
Normany landing
Rhine River
sergeant
Southampton