Speaker 1: Welcome to Veterans Chronicles. I'm Greg Corumbus. Our guest in
Speaker 1: this edition is Frank Davida, a Coast Guard veteran of
Speaker 1: World War II in both the European and Pacific theaters.
Speaker 1: Mister Davida crewed one of the boats bringing ground forces
Speaker 1: ashore at Omaha Beach in the early morning hours of
Speaker 1: June sixth, nineteen forty four, better known, of course, as
Speaker 1: D Day. When Frank Davida heard about the Japanese attack
Speaker 1: on Pearl Harbor in December nineteen forty one, he like
Speaker 1: millions of other young Americans, immediately went to the nearest
Speaker 1: recruiting station, and for him, that was in Brooklyn, New York.
Speaker 2: I first volunteered for the Air Force as a bully,
Speaker 2: go you know together, and I took all that says
Speaker 2: and I filled because of peripheral vision. So then I
Speaker 2: joined the Navy. I passed all the tests they wanted
Speaker 2: and it says fine, come back in six weeks. I
Speaker 2: wanted to go immediately, So next door was the Coast Guard.
Speaker 2: That's how I became a coast Guard.
Speaker 1: When Davita's mother found out that he had joined the
Speaker 1: Coast Guard, she was overjoyed.
Speaker 2: And when I joined the Coast Guard, my mother was
Speaker 2: very happy. She thought I'd be patrolling the beaches and Conia.
Speaker 3: Six weeks later, I was the wrong way to Europe.
Speaker 1: Instead of being assigned to guard the US coast, he
Speaker 1: was assigned to the crew of a troop transport ship,
Speaker 1: the USS Samuel Chase.
Speaker 2: My job originally I was a gunners mate. I was
Speaker 2: in charge of four twenty millimeter anti aircraft guns on
Speaker 2: the stern of the ship, but during invasions, I was
Speaker 2: on the Higgins boat going into the beach.
Speaker 1: Due to the high demand for sailors, the Navy had
Speaker 1: given the Coast Guard the responsibility of manning the thousands
Speaker 1: of landing craft that would bring the troops ashore during invasions.
Speaker 1: Frank Davida and thousands of other men who had joined
Speaker 1: the Coast Guard expecting an easier assignment, were in for
Speaker 1: a rude awakening. Davida deployed with his ship to England
Speaker 1: in nineteen forty three in preparation for the impending invasion
Speaker 1: of France. By early June of nineteen forty four, after
Speaker 1: months of training and maneuvers, the time for the invasion
Speaker 1: had come thousands of transport ships and hundreds of warships
Speaker 1: left ports on the southern coast of England and sailed
Speaker 1: south toward the coast of France. The invasion target Normandy.
Speaker 1: On the night of June fifth, paratroopers from the American
Speaker 1: eighty second and one hundred first Airborne Divisions and the
Speaker 1: British sixth Airborne Division began the invasion, landing behind enemy
Speaker 1: lines in order to cut off German reinforcements from reaching
Speaker 1: the beaches. Early the next morning, June sixth, Frank DaVita
Speaker 1: and the men of the fleet woke up and prepared
Speaker 1: for the main event, the landing.
Speaker 2: You know, we had twelve hundred troops aboard my ship
Speaker 2: from the big Red one, the first Division, and the
Speaker 2: day of the invasion, we made a big mistake. We
Speaker 2: fed the troops bacon and eggs and everything you could
Speaker 2: think of.
Speaker 3: That was a big mistake.
Speaker 2: If you know anything about going in battle, the Russians
Speaker 2: used to go in battle with a heart attack and
Speaker 2: a glass of water or something like that. We overfed
Speaker 2: the troops. It was the worst thing they could ever
Speaker 2: do because they all got seasick, every one of them.
Speaker 1: After feeding the troops breakfast, it was time to head
Speaker 1: to shore. DaVita remembers how he felt when the time
Speaker 1: for the landing had come.
Speaker 2: I was scared because I knew there was going to
Speaker 2: be a lot of casualties on the beach, and we
Speaker 2: ended up with two thousand casualties on my beach.
Speaker 3: Omaha Beach, we.
Speaker 2: Were the worst of the the five stars.
Speaker 3: We were the worst. Omaha Beach were the worst.
Speaker 1: There were five landing beaches selected by the Allied generals
Speaker 1: for the invasion. Gold, Juno and Sword beaches in the
Speaker 1: east were selected as the British and Canadian landing areas,
Speaker 1: with Utah and Omaha beaches in the west selected for
Speaker 1: the Americans. Omaha was the key to the success of
Speaker 1: the invasion, as it connected the Americans at Utah with
Speaker 1: the British and Canadians at Gold, Juno and Sword. If
Speaker 1: Omaha could not be taken, the other beaches would be
Speaker 1: cut off and the Germans would be able to crush
Speaker 1: each landing. In turn. Omaha was also the most heavily
Speaker 1: defended beach. Overlooking it were bluffs more than one hundred
Speaker 1: feet high, the crests bristling with bunkers, machine guns, artillery
Speaker 1: and mortars. Farther below were the beach obstacles. Frank Devita
Speaker 1: and the rest of the men that would be responsible
Speaker 1: for taking Omaha Beach beach, both Army and Coastguard were
Speaker 1: all about to be witnesses to the worst slaughter of
Speaker 1: D Day. Davida boarded his landing craft around four am.
Speaker 1: He and his comrades in the Coastguard would soon be
Speaker 1: bringing the first wave of troops ashore, and they knew
Speaker 1: full well what sort of deadly dangers lay ahead.
Speaker 2: At four o'clock in the morning, we started dropping our
Speaker 2: boats in the water.
Speaker 3: We had twenty six takings boats.
Speaker 2: We circled the ship one time, supposed to be good luck,
Speaker 2: and we headed towards the beaches. We were eleven miles
Speaker 2: out because the Germans had a gun called the eighty eight,
Speaker 2: which is the best gun in the war, and had
Speaker 2: ranged at ten miles. So all the transports were eleven
Speaker 2: miles out, which was very good for them, not for us,
Speaker 2: because it took us two hours to get to the beach.
Speaker 3: And in the water going to the beach were mines.
Speaker 2: Made out of glass of plastic, and you call to
Speaker 2: see them in the water, you know a couple of boats,
Speaker 2: not from my ship. Well, a couple of boats hit
Speaker 2: the mines and they got killed.
Speaker 1: DaVita still remembers how the soldiers on his boat felt
Speaker 1: as they approached the enemy coast.
Speaker 3: They didn't realize they were going to their death.
Speaker 2: They were singing and talking and laughing, telling jokes until
Speaker 2: they get fired.
Speaker 1: As the landing craft approached the beach, more and more
Speaker 1: obstacles came into view. The Germans, under the command of
Speaker 1: Field Marshal Irwin Rammel, had littered the beaches with obstacles
Speaker 1: designed to sink landing craft hamper the movement of tanks
Speaker 1: and funnel troops into prepared killing zones. DaVita vividly remembers
Speaker 1: the moments before he dropped the ramp on his Higgins
Speaker 1: boat and the many horrors he witnessed once he did.
Speaker 2: We couldn't get on the beach because there was obstacles
Speaker 2: in the water, coursed beams with metal and it was
Speaker 2: mine and along the beach the Germans had thirty three
Speaker 2: machine guns and forty two's as far as one hundred
Speaker 2: sixty rounds per minute. So my job, originally, I'm a
Speaker 2: gunner's mate, so I was supposed to be posting a
Speaker 2: machine gun on the boat about three or four weeks
Speaker 2: before the invasion, they took my gun away.
Speaker 3: If you ask me why, I don't know.
Speaker 2: So consequently, instead of the machine guns, they give me
Speaker 2: the job of dropping the ramp.
Speaker 3: You know, in the front of the boat.
Speaker 2: The boat is made out of wood, but in the
Speaker 2: front of the boat they have this ramp like a
Speaker 2: garage door ramp, and it's made it two or three
Speaker 2: inch metal, so it could be stand with stand probably
Speaker 2: either a rifle or a machine gun. So when we
Speaker 2: got close enough to the beach, we we only go
Speaker 2: about two hundred yards on the beach.
Speaker 3: That's that's the closes we could get.
Speaker 2: And the machine guns opened fire on us, and uh,
Speaker 2: the bullets were bouncing off.
Speaker 3: The ramp cause it was metal. It was up.
Speaker 2: But I knew eventually I had to drop the ramp
Speaker 2: and then the bulls instead of hitting the ramp, they
Speaker 2: would come into the bull So the cocks says to me,
Speaker 2: dropped the ramp. I never heard him because the roar
Speaker 2: of the cannons, two big diesel engines in the back.
Speaker 3: Of the bar. Never heard him.
Speaker 2: Then the second time he says to me, dropped the ramp,
Speaker 2: and I froze for a few seconds because I didn't
Speaker 2: want to die. And I knew once I dropped that
Speaker 2: ramp bus and then he said to me, He says,
Speaker 2: God damned defeat had dropped the eff and ramp, so
Speaker 2: I had no choice. I dropped the rent. The machine
Speaker 2: guns opened. That fire killed about fourteen fifteen troops that
Speaker 2: were in the front of the boat. Now my where
Speaker 2: I was, there was a crank lower and and raised
Speaker 2: the rent.
Speaker 3: I was about three quarters the way back.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 2: I had soldiers in front of me. They were might pick.
Speaker 2: They were absorbing the bullets that would come to me,
Speaker 2: you know. But I had two stragglers. They didn't wanna die,
Speaker 2: so they didn't wanna get the other troops to go
Speaker 2: and forward. They stayed with me. They thought by staying
Speaker 2: with me they'd be safe. Unfortunately, by staying with me,
Speaker 2: they would drawing fire from the health and helped me.
Speaker 2: There was two guys. One guy was about four feet
Speaker 2: away from me. The other guy was about two feet
Speaker 2: away from me. The first guy got hit, ripped his
Speaker 2: stomach open, his stomach's outside his baby. Fortunately you live.
Speaker 2: This guy lived and the other guy that was two
Speaker 2: feet away from me. He was a red at a kid.
Speaker 2: The machine gun took his helmet off and part of
Speaker 2: his brain, that part of it, and he was crying,
Speaker 2: help me, help me, help me. I had no more feet.
Speaker 2: I couldn't help him. So he fell at my feet.
Speaker 2: He he fell at my feet, and he was crying,
Speaker 2: help me, help me, help it. I had nothing in
Speaker 2: my kit to help him, certainly. The only thing I
Speaker 2: had was the Lord's prayer, and I started praying, how
Speaker 2: far the war of it? I I never finished it,
Speaker 2: and he slumped down. I knew, yeah, I knew he
Speaker 2: was gonna die. And I reached down and I squeezed
Speaker 2: his in. I want him to know that he wasn't long.
Speaker 2: Then he died.
Speaker 3: He died. It was just a little boy, just a
Speaker 3: little boy.
Speaker 2: So the Coxson says, pick up the ramp because we're
Speaker 2: getting a lot of flock from the hills and from
Speaker 2: the machine guns on the beach. So he says to me,
Speaker 2: raised the ramp. So I pulled the handle. The ramp
Speaker 2: would not go up. Pulled it a second time. The
Speaker 2: ramp would not go up.
Speaker 3: So I put on orto we go up. So my job.
Speaker 2: There was probably maybe fifteen guys still alive on that boat.
Speaker 2: My job was to protect these guys with the ramp.
Speaker 2: So I I couldn't see the ramp from where I
Speaker 2: was because all these dead bodies in front of me.
Speaker 2: So I had to do something I didn't wanna do.
Speaker 2: I was calling over the dead bodies and asked 'em
Speaker 2: my f for Mike, for them to forget this. They
Speaker 2: were dead, and I'm saying I'm sorry, I'm sorry. So
Speaker 2: I climbed over the dead bodies and I started going
Speaker 2: through rent and all of a sudden, one guy came out.
Speaker 2: I don't know if it was a crew member or army.
Speaker 2: I didn't care. So I had some help. So when
Speaker 2: we got to the close enough to the beach, I
Speaker 2: wanted to know why the rent when you go up,
Speaker 2: there was two dead soldiers.
Speaker 3: They never got out of the boat and they were
Speaker 3: on the ramp.
Speaker 2: Yeah, plus the weight of the soldiers and he sold
Speaker 2: that night the pounds on his backpack so the ramp
Speaker 2: would not go up. So this other guy and myself,
Speaker 2: I pointed to his belt and we grabbed his bolt,
Speaker 2: and by step by step by step, we pulled them
Speaker 2: into the the two boys that were dead into the boat.
Speaker 3: Then he says to me, RA raised the ramp.
Speaker 2: So without the two guys, when I had to own
Speaker 2: a pilot, it came up by itself anyhow, So you
Speaker 2: know the Germans are very diabolical. They know how to
Speaker 2: kill people. Besides the mines and the machine guns, the
Speaker 2: telephone poles on top of the telephone pole was at mine.
Speaker 2: It wasn't screwed in or nailed in. It was just
Speaker 2: sitting there. So if you happened to tap the telephone pole,
Speaker 2: that mine would come in your boat. We were scared
Speaker 2: of the telephone poles. M So anyhow, the cock the
Speaker 2: Coxing was with me. He was a little kid from
Speaker 2: uh Brooklyn, New York, Dermott and uh he got out
Speaker 2: of it cause don't forget yet. He had to go
Speaker 2: backwards through these mines, through these telephone poles. He turned
Speaker 2: the boat around and we started heading towards my boat.
Speaker 2: My captain was very smart, which he each wave he
Speaker 2: came a little.
Speaker 3: Closer to this shore, a little closer this shore.
Speaker 2: So we had it for my boat white ship rather
Speaker 2: And then we saw this white ship with a big
Speaker 2: red course center.
Speaker 3: It's a hospital ship.
Speaker 2: So instead of going through our ship, we went to
Speaker 2: the hospital ship cause we had a lot of wounded.
Speaker 3: Uh my board badly wounded.
Speaker 2: And when we got to the hospital ship, there was
Speaker 2: a ramp on the back and two guys from the
Speaker 2: hospital ship got busted 'em. They jumped into my boat
Speaker 2: and they did something we couldn't do. They were peeling
Speaker 2: the dead off to get to the wounded. I I
Speaker 2: don't remember, except I was like an old shock at
Speaker 2: that time. I don't remember if they got five, six,
Speaker 2: I don't know how many. But they got these guys
Speaker 2: and they put 'em in the hospital ship. At least
Speaker 2: said we're gonna live that, you know. They they had
Speaker 2: the wheelchairs, and they had more feend had everything under
Speaker 2: the hospital ship, and I I was happy that these
Speaker 2: guys are gonna get all the care they needed. So
Speaker 2: then these two guys jumped out of the boat. We
Speaker 2: pulled it away from the hospital ship and we had
Speaker 2: it towards my ship.
Speaker 3: On the back of my ship, Dad dropped a sled.
Speaker 2: A sled is like a garage door, a big garage door,
Speaker 2: and we would put the dead and wounded on there,
Speaker 2: and then the crank would take him on board. Shit,
Speaker 2: So somebody yelt through a clax at home. I want
Speaker 2: one man from each boat to come up to be
Speaker 2: interviewed or not interviewed, because he figured maybe we could
Speaker 2: help the next wave. So I got aboard the sled
Speaker 2: and I went up and and I was interviewed by uh,
Speaker 2: a navy navy guy and a big army guy like
Speaker 2: I had hands as big as a baseball man. And
Speaker 2: he did something I like, I said, I was just shocked.
Speaker 2: He did something. He tapped me on the shoulder. He said,
Speaker 2: it's alright, s it's alright's son. It was like a
Speaker 2: huk like ah. So I was interview with and then
Speaker 2: this army guy said to me, he says, son, let
Speaker 2: me teach you something. He said, those machine guns can
Speaker 2: only fire for so long. Then they burn. They get hot,
Speaker 2: and they gotta change the change the barrels. When they
Speaker 2: change the barrels, that's when you drop the rent. So
Speaker 2: I said them, how much time do I have? Two
Speaker 2: or three seconds? Changed the barrel.
Speaker 3: So that's what I did.
Speaker 2: So then after I was interviewed, see my boat already
Speaker 2: I pulled away to twenty eight. So I'm waiting for
Speaker 2: another boat and I'm standing on the deck and nobody's
Speaker 2: around me because I stunk the high heaven. My uniform
Speaker 2: was covered with blood and puke. So I'm standing by myself.
Speaker 2: And I said to myself, the way I wanna go
Speaker 2: back into the belly of the beast. If they said machine,
Speaker 2: I didn't wanna die. So I thought about it for
Speaker 2: a while, and I said to myself, if I don't go,
Speaker 2: they're gonna send a replacement. Suppose the replacement gets killed.
Speaker 2: How could I live with myself? So I made up
Speaker 2: my mind. I'm going back, and I went back fourteen
Speaker 2: more times. I made fifteen chips all together. The Germans
Speaker 2: on the beach. The Germans owned the beach, not us,
Speaker 2: and they were slowing the troops left and right from
Speaker 2: the hill, from the from the ground, these these pool guys.
Speaker 3: He had no chance. You know.
Speaker 2: It was flat like a pull table, no place to die.
Speaker 2: You can't think in sand, and they were gonna be killed.
Speaker 3: So fist. So, like I said, I was a little
Speaker 3: bit of a shock.
Speaker 1: Thanks to coastguardsmen like Frank Davida, thousands of American troops
Speaker 1: made it ashore on Omaha Beach. However, those who survived
Speaker 1: the initial torrent of bullets and advanced across the beach,
Speaker 1: were still unable to scale the bluffs beyond the beach.
Speaker 1: Thousands of men from the first and twenty ninth Infantry
Speaker 1: Divisions were pinned to the ground behind a small sand
Speaker 1: embankment called the Shingle. If the German guns atop the
Speaker 1: ridge could not be silenced, none of the men taking
Speaker 1: cover behind the shingle would make it off Omaha Beach alive.
Speaker 1: Davida and then man on board the ships offshore looked
Speaker 1: on at the carnage, unable to help, until one brave
Speaker 1: skipper of a destroyer hatched a plan.
Speaker 2: There was five destoyers all along, but the lead Desjoyer
Speaker 2: was the Frankfurt, and then one or two other joys.
Speaker 2: The Sadly was there in the mcgook. So the three
Speaker 2: of them came in at the same time. When you
Speaker 2: attack an enemy, you attacked his nose, because there's the
Speaker 2: smallest silhouette. He did that, and he came so close
Speaker 2: to shore. You know, our boats can go on the beach,
Speaker 2: a Destoyer has a keel.
Speaker 3: They can't get too close.
Speaker 2: He was insand so then he did something I've never
Speaker 2: seen done before. This guy was willing to sacrifice his
Speaker 2: life and his boat and all his men because he
Speaker 2: wanted to hun help these guys on the beach. So
Speaker 2: he took his boat that was facing this way and
Speaker 2: he turned his sideways, exposing his beam to the eighty eights.
Speaker 2: The reason he did that destroy has four five inch guns.
Speaker 2: He wanted to fire these five inch guns at one time. Now,
Speaker 2: the guys up on the hill that were facing us
Speaker 2: up and machine guns eighty eights up there, we couldn't
Speaker 2: seem they were the grass foliage and stuff like that.
Speaker 2: So we he put around of his five inch guns,
Speaker 2: four at a time, and he took.
Speaker 3: Out those guys on the on on.
Speaker 2: The slope, and right then there the bouts started changing.
Speaker 1: One by one. The German guns began to all silent. However,
Speaker 1: the battle for Omaha Beach was not yet one. Small
Speaker 1: groups of American troops began scaling the bluffs, all the
Speaker 1: while dodging a torrent of German machine gun and rifle fire.
Speaker 1: After hours of brutal combat, the German beach defenses gradually
Speaker 1: fell to the American forces. As the battle on shore
Speaker 1: began to move away from the beach, da Vida and
Speaker 1: the coastguardsmen had even more difficult work to do.
Speaker 2: By the fifth wave, we ran out of troops, so
Speaker 2: we started taking the twenty ninth division, because the twenty
Speaker 2: ninth division was on Utah, and Utah at that time
Speaker 2: was clean, so they swung over to help the first division.
Speaker 2: That's the first five we ran out of troops and
Speaker 2: we had to do something else. Instead of going into
Speaker 2: the beach, we started to take the dead and the
Speaker 2: wounded off the beach. We really get in the water.
Speaker 2: I weighed one hundred and twenty five pounds. I couldn't
Speaker 2: have fun of these guys up. So two or three
Speaker 2: of us we got and we put them in the
Speaker 2: boat and we start going back to my ship. No,
Speaker 2: I don't know how many wounded we took to my ship,
Speaker 2: but I do know that we took three hundred and
Speaker 2: eight dead bodies.
Speaker 3: Why do I know that.
Speaker 2: Because I had a good friend of mine, John Ohler,
Speaker 2: who was a quartermaster, and his job was to put
Speaker 2: the bodies in the body bigs, and he dispensed three
Speaker 2: hundred eight dead body bigs.
Speaker 1: The battle for Omaha Beach ultimately claimed the lives of
Speaker 1: more than twenty four hundred American servicemen, but by the
Speaker 1: end of the day, more than thirty four thousand troops
Speaker 1: had landed on the beach and advanced inland. Securing the
Speaker 1: Omaha Beach had proved vital to the ultimate success of
Speaker 1: D Day. And it was like Frank Davida who brought
Speaker 1: the soldiers ashore. After the landings were complete, DaVita and
Speaker 1: his boat returned to their ship.
Speaker 2: They brought my boat up. I don't remember what boat
Speaker 2: it was, cause the twenty eight was gone. They brought
Speaker 2: my boat up and I looked at that boat. It
Speaker 2: looked like Swiss chefs the machines. I destinated it, and
Speaker 2: I'm saying to myself, how do anybody live off that boat?
Speaker 3: Right? So I got aboard ship.
Speaker 2: Aboard the ship, yeah, and I'm waiting.
Speaker 3: I'm waiting. I'm waiting.
Speaker 2: And the captain was so good for the name was
Speaker 2: Captain Fish. He understood what we had gone through. So
Speaker 2: after we took these two hundred date bodies and the wounded,
Speaker 2: I don't know how many wounded we were. When I'm
Speaker 2: aboard the ship and we're going towards Southampton, I'm all
Speaker 2: by myself. They announced it was a loud speaker, the cheese,
Speaker 2: sandwiches and coffee for the crews that went into the beach.
Speaker 2: So everybody went down to the medical. I didn't wanna go.
Speaker 2: First of all, I stunk to having I haven't and
Speaker 2: I didn't want him to see my crer. I wanted
Speaker 2: to see the crier. So I walked back to my
Speaker 2: twenty millimeter guns and I sat down, and I'm reflecting,
Speaker 2: and I said to myself, what the hell just happened?
Speaker 3: And how come I'm still alive? How come I'm still alife?
Speaker 3: So he was a web tech. Is probably ten eleven o'clock.
Speaker 2: I forget the time, and I all alone, and I
Speaker 2: looked around to see if any of my mates are
Speaker 2: with me.
Speaker 3: Nobody was there.
Speaker 2: But when I turned around, all the dead bodies, the
Speaker 2: two hundred eight bet dead bodies like a quarter would.
Speaker 2: I started to cry and I cried myself to sleep.
Speaker 2: And the next morning, when we pulled into Southampton, somebody
Speaker 2: tapped me on the shoulder. I think it was lit
Speaker 2: at the groove, I'm not sure. He said, the Vita,
Speaker 2: get up, we have to unload the dead in the wounded.
Speaker 1: Frank DaVita and the USS Samuel Chase never returned to Normandy,
Speaker 1: but his wartime service had only just begun. Coming up
Speaker 1: on Veterans Chronicles will detail the rest of Davita's service,
Speaker 1: much of it half a world away against a different.
Speaker 3: Enemy sixty Seconds of Service.
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Speaker 1: This is Veterans Chronicles. I'm Greg Corumbus. This week we're
Speaker 1: sharing the story of Frank Davida, a Coast Guard veteran
Speaker 1: of World War Two who served in both the European
Speaker 1: and Pacific theaters and crewed a Higgins boat at Omaha
Speaker 1: Beach in the early hours of June sixth, nineteen forty four.
Speaker 1: After taking Allied troops ashore on D Day, Frank Davida
Speaker 1: and the crew of the US S. Samuel Chase shipped
Speaker 1: out to the Mediterranean. In August of nineteen forty four,
Speaker 1: Davida helped bring troops ashore in the much lesser known
Speaker 1: invasion of southern France, code named Operation Dragoon. These landings
Speaker 1: were much less brutal than D Day, as the majority
Speaker 1: of the German troops in France had been moved north
Speaker 1: to hold off the Allies in Normandy. On one beach,
Speaker 1: Allied troops were greeted not by gunfire, but by an
Speaker 1: old Frenchman who was giving out bottles of fresh Wine
Speaker 1: to the soldiers after Operation Dragoon Davida Thaw he was
Speaker 1: going home, but the military had other plans.
Speaker 2: After all the horror of the two invasions in France,
Speaker 2: we thought we were going home. Then the announs of
Speaker 2: the wild speakers, get your gear in order. We're going
Speaker 2: to the Pacific. And I didn't make the actual invasion
Speaker 2: of the Philippine Islands, but we did bring replacement schiops
Speaker 2: into the Philippine, so we got credit for an invasion.
Speaker 1: In October of nineteen forty four, General Douglas MacArthur and
Speaker 1: the American sixth Army landed on Lette and the Philippines
Speaker 1: as part of the Pacific island hopping campaign. As American
Speaker 1: forces inched closer and closer to Japan, the fighting grew
Speaker 1: in brutality, both on land and at sea, where the
Speaker 1: Japanese deployed a new weapon, the Kamakazi.
Speaker 2: And then from there we went up to Okinaw and
Speaker 2: I was in Okanaho when the Kama came over and
Speaker 2: the Kama Kazis would sink a boat after the boat.
Speaker 2: David won my boat. My boat was only a transport.
Speaker 2: They wanted destroys and the aircraft carries.
Speaker 1: While the brutal fighting on Okinawa itself raged for nearly
Speaker 1: three months from April until June nineteen forty five, Kamakazi's
Speaker 1: inflicted huge casualties on the supporting fleet. Four nine hundred
Speaker 1: and seven American sailors were killed during the Okinawa campaign,
Speaker 1: almost all of them as a direct result of Kamakazi attacks,
Speaker 1: making the Battle for Okinawa the deadliest battle in US
Speaker 1: Navy history. Fortunately, Frank Davida made it out unscathed.
Speaker 2: So after the Kamakazis left, I had did twice when
Speaker 2: the kami Kaze twice, I was there then moving back
Speaker 2: to Pearl Harbor. And on the way to Pearl Harbor,
Speaker 2: we had a coral reef and we put a seventeen
Speaker 2: foot dish in the hull of the ship. You know
Speaker 2: the Titanic. The reason they sank they didn't close the hatches.
Speaker 2: So our guys especially trained for that. They closed the
Speaker 2: hatches on this one place where the water was coming
Speaker 2: in and the boat was tilting like this. So they
Speaker 2: gave us two destroyers to to get as far as Philippines,
Speaker 2: because the Philippines had a dry dock, and they took
Speaker 2: our ship putting the dry we had to wear our turn.
Speaker 2: They put in the dry dock and they put a patch.
Speaker 2: They couldn't put the whole hull up. So we left
Speaker 2: there and we started s to come to Pearl. We
Speaker 2: went to Pearl and the destroyers were store wars, and
Speaker 2: after pro we started going home to the United States
Speaker 2: and we went to San Diego. So I had a
Speaker 2: friend of mine who lived right near the shipyard, and
Speaker 2: I said to him, I'm gonna go hey Wall, but
Speaker 2: I want you to call me if they come out
Speaker 2: of dry doctor, I'll come back. So the train didn't
Speaker 2: leave from San Diego. It lived from San Francisco. So
Speaker 2: I took a bus from San Diego Army to San Francisco.
Speaker 2: I got on the troop train that was going through
Speaker 2: the United States called the Silver Street. All army guys
Speaker 2: and Navy guys. A lot of them mounted had no papers.
Speaker 2: But thankfully nobody has the papers. So I get home.
Speaker 3: I run to.
Speaker 2: My house was about a mile and a half from
Speaker 2: the subway where I got off. I ran all the
Speaker 2: way home. I wanted to see my mother. My father
Speaker 2: was at work, my brother was away, my kid brother
Speaker 2: was in school.
Speaker 3: I didn't know what to do. I said, went next door.
Speaker 2: A woman's name was Missus Bocher, and I said, Missus Boscher,
Speaker 2: where's my mother?
Speaker 3: Have something?
Speaker 2: You know, I'll tell youse I have something. The I said, no,
Speaker 2: I can't e where's my mother. She's at the church
Speaker 2: rolling bandages. So I ran to the church. It was
Speaker 2: about a mile a mile and a half away and
Speaker 2: they opened the door was like a big gymnasium, and
Speaker 2: I'm facing these women. They were in a big circle.
Speaker 2: M My mother had her back to me, but the
Speaker 2: people who were looking at me, they were like that.
Speaker 2: You know, my mother didn't know what's going on. She
Speaker 2: turned around and she saw me fainted it away, Oh
Speaker 2: I did I killed my mother? That I killed my mother?
Speaker 2: Sending out, we went home. My mother called the whole army.
Speaker 2: Frank is going Frank, it's on Francus. So I'm home
Speaker 2: for two weeks. You know you don't get two weeks leave.
Speaker 2: My father was in the army in the First World War.
Speaker 2: He said to me, he says, you know you're home
Speaker 2: a long time. Let me see you papers. I said, Pop,
Speaker 2: I don't have any papers. I'm alway a woll get
Speaker 2: in the car took me to the Grand Central station first
Speaker 2: train back to see if I had to wait for
Speaker 2: the first train. So I'm waiting for the train with
Speaker 2: my father and it was two MPs. My father walks
Speaker 2: over to the MPs. He said, you see that kid
Speaker 2: over there, that's my son. He's a wall, but he's
Speaker 2: going back. He threw me under the train, under the
Speaker 2: bus my own father. So the mpiece came over and
Speaker 2: he said, this is what we're gonna do when the
Speaker 2: train comes in. If you're on the train, we won't
Speaker 2: do anything. If you don't get in the train, we're
Speaker 2: gonna pull you in. I got on the train, I
Speaker 2: went it was still in the dry doc. I went
Speaker 2: back to my ship, and that's the end of my story.
Speaker 1: After going a wall, Frank Davida and the USS Samuel
Speaker 1: Chase sailed back into the Pacific, this time to Japan
Speaker 1: itself as part of the occupation forces. It was in
Speaker 1: that assignment that he found something in common with the
Speaker 1: Japanese people.
Speaker 2: I was in the occupation of Japan for about eight months.
Speaker 2: When I was in Japan, a little Japanese woman by
Speaker 2: five feet talk. She walked up to me first day
Speaker 2: bowt like this, and then she says, I wanna thank you.
Speaker 2: I said, why are you thanking me? She's the war's over.
Speaker 2: You know, it's the big people who make wars, not
Speaker 2: the common people. They're the ones who get hurt.
Speaker 1: Even now, seventy seven years later, the memories of Davita's
Speaker 1: time in combat still haunt him.
Speaker 2: And let me tell you something. If somebody in battle
Speaker 2: says they weren't scared, they were scared, they're lying. You
Speaker 2: gotta you gotta be scared, you know. I I I
Speaker 2: was on the on the boat when the machine cause
Speaker 2: I had the machine guns. Looks like a swarm of
Speaker 2: egg hungry beets. One guy went down, Yep, the guy
Speaker 2: went down, is the next one mine?
Speaker 3: You're scared?
Speaker 2: I relive it every day in my life. Not the
Speaker 2: other battles. But the day was the worst.
Speaker 3: I mean when I left after the fifteen trip and
Speaker 3: there was.
Speaker 2: Two thousand dead bodies on the beach, two thousand.
Speaker 3: You got to be scared. Anybody tells you they're not scared,
Speaker 3: they're lying.
Speaker 1: And Frank Devita still remembers the men he saw on
Speaker 1: Omaha Beach all those years ago, and he says, those
Speaker 1: who paid the ultimate price there deserved the greatest honor.
Speaker 3: I'm not a hero. A lot of people call me
Speaker 3: a hero. I'm not a hero.
Speaker 2: I'm a survivor. There's a cemetery up in France in
Speaker 2: normany Omaha which overlooks the cemetery. In that cemetery is
Speaker 2: nine four hundred kiss in the ground. Those are my heroes.
Speaker 2: They their life of the country. They were my hero.
Speaker 1: Frank Davida is a veteran of the US Coast Guard
Speaker 1: and a veteran of World War II in both the
Speaker 1: European and Pacific theaters. He crewed one of the landing
Speaker 1: crafts in the early horrific moments of D Day off
Speaker 1: Omaha Beach. I'm Greg Corumbus and this is Veterans Chronicles. Hi,
Speaker 1: this is Greg Corumbus and thanks for listening to Veterans Chronicles,
Speaker 1: a presentation of the American Veterans Center. For more information,
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