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D-DAY 75: ‘You ducked into your foxholes as much as you could,’ Hughestown native recalls

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D-DAY 75: How today’s Times Leader front page came about

<p>It was the summer of 1944.</p><p>For weeks, Wilkes-Barre native Ed Umphred and members of the 411th anti-aircraft gun battalion were among American soldiers penned up in a barricaded camp in the south of England, out of communication with the rest of the world.</p><p>&#8220;You couldn&#8217;t write home, you couldn&#8217;t leave, everything was top secret,&#8221; recalled Umphred, a 1942 Coughlin High School graduate.</p><p>Among Umphred and the rest of the troops, their ultimate destination was no secret, however.</p><p>&#8220;Everybody knew the invasion was coming. We knew that&#8217;s what we were there for,&#8221; Umphred, 94, said during an interview this week at his Kingston home. &#8220;We just didn&#8217;t know when.&#8221;</p><p>Early in the morning of June 5, 1944, that question was answered, as American, British and Canadian troops began their assault on Nazi-occupied France.</p><p>&#8220;All of a sudden, after midnight, we started hearing the roar of planes,&#8221; Umphred recalled. &#8220;I&#8217;ll tell ya, I&#8217;ve never heard anything like it. We were in Quonset huts. The vibration from all those motors overhead ran right through them.&#8221;</p><p>Three days later, Umphred, 19, would follow.</p><p><strong>The landing</strong></p><p>Umphred&#8217;s memories of those harrowing days 75 years ago remain sharp &#8212; and unlike so many, he lived to tell them, having come through the war relatively unscathed.</p><p>That doesn&#8217;t mean he isn&#8217;t haunted by the things he saw.</p><p>On June 9, 1944, his battery boarded a Landing Ship Tank (LST) and set sail across the English Channel for Utah Beach.</p><p>&#8220;When we were coming in, an LCI (Landing Craft Infantry) ahead of us, filled with infantry, hit a mine,&#8221; Umphred recalled. &#8220;The ship literally came out of the water, broke in half, bodies flying all over.&#8221;</p><p>Behind them, the battleship Texas and other ships had already begun bombarding targets on land. The stricken ship was doomed.</p><p>&#8220;Nobody can stop, you just have to move ahead,&#8221; Umphred said. &#8220;That was literally my first experience with war that day, on the water.&#8221;</p><p>Due to a mix-up, his craft landed on Omaha Beach instead, separated from other groups in their battallion, who landed at Utah Beach.</p><p>Three days into the assault the heart of the fighting had moved inland, so Umphred and his comrades at Utah Beach encountered less initial resistance than the first waves of attackers, and they swiftly moved to unite the beach heads.</p><p>In the process, they trudged past the horrors that befell Allied troops who had gone before.</p><p>&#8220;The road that we took down? Still hanging in the trees, the swamps, were dead paratroopers. All around were signs with the German word for mines,&#8221; Umphred said. &#8220;It was a trying time.&#8221;</p><p><strong>Grateful townspeople</strong></p><p>In September, Umphred&#8217;s unit had reached what was then called Ch&#226;lons-sur-Marne, about 100 miles east of Paris.</p><p>&#8220;The Germans were retreating so fast and surrendering, in Ch&#226;lons there was no aerial opposition or anything,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Our vehicles were used to haul prisoners.&#8221;</p><p>Instead, the Americans encountered grateful but hungry townspeople.</p><p>&#8220;This little girl comes over. Every family in that town on Sunday wanted an American soldier at their meal,&#8221; he said.</p><p>&#8220;They only had been liberated the day before. They were hungry. The Germans had been starving them,&#8221; Umphred continued.</p><p>&#8220;We go, and it must have been the only chicken they had. Stewed chicken,&#8221; he recalled. &#8220;For guys who had been eating K rations and C rations, it was the best meal I ever can remember.&#8221;</p><p>The gratitude didn&#8217;t end there.</p><p>&#8220;You go through some of these French villages, and their enthusiasm &#8212; bottles of wine, fruit, they were handing to you,&#8221; he said. &#8220;It had been four long years, and they were so happy to see the American flag and American trucks and American soldiers.&#8221;</p><p>Not everyone was treated with such kindness.</p><p>&#8220;Every town that you went into &#8230; the men who had collaborated with the Germans were shot, hung. The women, they would shave their hair off, and then they had to get out of town,&#8221; he said.</p><p><strong>Race to the East</strong></p><p>Umphred&#8217;s outfit settled on the Moselle River, battling against the Germans during that final, bitter winter of the war.</p><p>He celebrated St. Patrick&#8217;s Day in Luxembourg.</p><p>&#8220;Then the Germans collapsed, and it was just a race through Germany until the end of the war,&#8221; he said.</p><p>On the final day of the war in Europe, May 8, 1945, Umphred was deep in Germany at the Czech border when he and his comrades may have made history.</p><p>&#8220;We were seeing German planes coming west. They were fleeing the Russians,&#8221; he recalled.</p><p>One was an old-style bi-wing plane &#8212; an observation plane.</p><p>As far as the Americans knew, the conflict was still going on and the plane was a legitimate target.</p><p>&#8220;So we opened up fire and shot down this biplane. They weren&#8217;t hit directly, but the concussion brought their plane down. The Germans who got out wanted to know, didn&#8217;t we know the war was over,&#8221; he said.</p><p>&#8220;We told them the war wasn&#8217;t officially over until the Americans said it was over,&#8221; Umphred said. &#8220;And that was probably one of the final planes shot down during the war.&#8221;</p><p><strong>Return to Peace</strong></p><p>Umphred, then 21, finally returned home to Wilkes-Barre in the early hours of Christmas Day 1945, reaching his parents Scott Street home around 5 in the morning.</p><p>&#8220;When I rang that doorbell, my mother and father came running down the steps,&#8221; he said.</p><p>Umphred returned to the job he had begun in 1942, as an apprentice in the composing room at the Sunday Independent newspaper. He stayed there his entire career, retiring in 1989.</p><p>A few years after the war he married his sweetheart, Alice. They recently celebrated their 70th anniversary.</p><p>Umphred never returned to the scenes of his youthful military service. He had planned to go back to Europe with Alice in 1972, but the Agnes flood swamped their Kingston home, putting an end to those plans.</p><p>Frequently during his interview, Umphred said he has no regrets. That&#8217;s not to say he has no sorrows.</p><p>&#8220;I am a patriot, I would fight for my country,&#8221; he said. &#8220;But war is a horrible experience, seeing friends die.&#8221;</p><p>But, he added, the war was necessary, and not America&#8217;s doing.</p><p>&#8220;Germany declared war on us,&#8221; he said.</p><style>
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<div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/web1_TTL060619Umpherd1-1.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">Ed Umphred landed in Normandy during WWII. The Kingston resident is seen discussing his wartime service. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/web1_TTL060619Umpherd1-1.jpg</photo0><caption0>Ed Umphred landed in Normandy during WWII. The Kingston resident is seen discussing his wartime service. </caption0><photoCredit0>Aimee Dilger | Times Leader </photoCredit0></div><div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/web1_TTL060619Umpherd2-1.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">Ed Umphred holds a portrait of himself from his time in the military. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo1>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/web1_TTL060619Umpherd2-1.jpg</photo1><caption1>Ed Umphred holds a portrait of himself from his time in the military. </caption1><photoCredit1>Aimee Dilger | Times Leader </photoCredit1></div><div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/web1_TTL060619Umpherd4-1.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">94 year-old Ed Umpherds hands. Aimee Dilger|Times Leader</div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo2>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/web1_TTL060619Umpherd4-1.jpg</photo2><caption2>94 year-old Ed Umpherds hands. Aimee Dilger|Times Leader</caption2><photoCredit2>Aimee Dilger | Times Leader </photoCredit2></div><div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/web1_TTL060619Umpherd5-1.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">Ed Umphred points to a map showing his unit&#8217;s path across Europe in 1944-45. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo3>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/web1_TTL060619Umpherd5-1.jpg</photo3><caption3>Ed Umphred points to a map showing his unit&#8217;s path across Europe in 1944-45. </caption3><photoCredit3>Aimee Dilger | Times Leader </photoCredit3></div><div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/web1_TTL060619Umpherd3-1.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">Ed Umphred looks at a scrapbook from his wartime years. &#8216;Everybody knew the invasion was coming. We knew that&#8217;s what we were there for,&#8217; Umphred, 94, said during an interview this week at his Kingston home. &#8216;We just didn&#8217;t know when.&#8217; </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo4>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/web1_TTL060619Umpherd3-1.jpg</photo4><caption4>Ed Umphred looks at a scrapbook from his wartime years. &#8216;Everybody knew the invasion was coming. We knew that&#8217;s what we were there for,&#8217; Umphred, 94, said during an interview this week at his Kingston home. &#8216;We just didn&#8217;t know when.&#8217; </caption4><photoCredit4>Aimee Dilger | Times Leader </photoCredit4></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>By Roger DuPuis</p><p>rdupuis@www.timesleader.com</p></bylineMeta></div>

D-DAY 75: Wilkes-Barre native remembers horrors of war