Thanksgiving Day 1944

[floydragsdale]

My name was selected (probably with 100 or so others) to have Thanksgiving Dinner with the King & Queen of England at Buckingham Palace in England. To say the least, I was looking forward to that and was excited about the occasion .

However, higher echelon officers had other plans for for my Regiment (424th) of the 106 Division.

On Thanksgiving Day 1944, my Company and others members of the 2nd Battalion of the 424th Regiment were riding the rough waters of the English Channel; headed for France.

The little banana boat we were on sat in the English Channel for five days before we could wade ashore at Omaha Beach, Normandy Peninsula, France.

What did we have for Thanksgiving Dinner as that little vesse pitched and rolled in unfriendly seas? I don't remember; maybe nothing.

One moment I do recall is this; all of us were gald to get our feet on solid ground again as the landing craft we were on opened its' doors and we waded ashore on a gloomy, misty day in France.

One thing this ex G.I. will be thankful for this Thanksgiving day is the fact that I will not likely have to repeat that act again.

Floyd,

424th Regiment

[Carl W.]

Thanks for these recollections Floyd. It must have been something, having to celebrate Thanksgiving so far away from home AND being sent into combat at the same time.

This is what the 424th had for Thanksgiving dinner in 1943 while at Fort Jackson, SC



Happy Thanksgiving!

Carl

[connie]

#3

What amazing bits of history...

Dad had his Thanksgiving in England ( November 23, 1944) along with other officers from the 589th and 590th Field Artillery Battalion. The dinner was a good one. I presume it was the traditional turkey with all the trimmings. They did not sail for the continent until December 1st.

[floydragsdale]

#4

Connie & Carl:

Thanks for the 1943 Thanksgiving day menue, Carl. I was a raw recruit at that time & don't remember much about that day. My location, then, was at Ft. Benjamin Harrison, near Indianapolis, Indiana. My Grandparents lived 5 miles from there & memory tells me I had a pass to go to their house for dinner that day. Wow! that was 66 years ago.

Thank you for telling me where you Dad was, Connie. Now I realize, for sure, the 106th Division crossed the English Channel by bits & pieces.

We (2nd Battalion) boarded trains, near Adderbury and rode them to the Port of Liverpool, England & boarded ship there. As we sailed toward France, I still recall seeing the white cliffs of Dover, as the English coast-line faded away in the distance. That reminded me of words in a song "there'll be blue birds over the whit cliffs of Dover." Judy Garland sang that song in a movie about WWII. That film, I think, was shown on the Aquitania while we were going overseas.

Memories are a wonderful treasure to have; thank goodness, most of the time, good ones out weigh the bad ones.

Floyd

[Carl W.]

#5

Is this the film you were talking about Floyd?

"The White Cliffs of Dover" ( MGM 1944)

Carl



2017: Don't bother clicking on the link. It no longer works. --Connie

2022: Here are a couple of related links:
song There'll Be Bluebirds over The White Cliffs of Dover: www.youtube.com/watch?v=we5hKqf-zsA

Rick Steves video of the Dover area and the White Cliffs with narrated history: www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_-aX282Ps4

[connie]

#6

Thanks, Carl & Floyd,

The song, of course, is familiar to this post war child. But, I did not know that a movie existed. This is an interesting clip. I picked up a little more history on the song and posted it here - see post 5 for the tune and 10 for the history:
106thdivision.proboards.com/post/681/thread



Interesting that you began your channel crossing in Liverpool, Floyd.

Connie

[floydragsdale]

Hello Carl & Connie:

Thanks for the film made in 1944. No, that wasn't the one. Judy Garland had a "key" part in it & she sang the song.

How well I remember the Spitfire planes. They were very successful during the "Air Battle for Briton", after France surrendered to Hitler.

I had not viewed the site about "war years music" for several months. However, I did today. I didn't recognize the girl that sang, "White Cliffs of Dover", nevertheless, it wasn't Judy Garland. Those tunes certainly remind me of WWII years.
Thank you

[gfgrant8443]

Floyd

Vera Lynn did a popular version of "White Cliffs of Dover". I just bought a copy of her CD and that was on it. I think Judy Garland did a popular version of a song called "Lilli Marlene". It was a popular song with the German soldiers. That was also on Vera Lynn's CD in English. That CD brought back a lot of memories for me even though I wasn't born until 1943, but my mother and grandmother had recording that they played.

Please keep the memories coming.

Frank Grant

[connie]

As Thanksgiving 2022 approaches, it seems right to think about where the members of the 106th were on Thanksgiving of 1944.

589th & 590th Field Artillery Battalions at Reservoir Camp near Gloucester England
(I believe that the 591st and the 592nd Field Artilleries were also at Reservoir Camp; 589th and 590th shared a mess halls there; Likely 591st and 592nd shared mess halls there, too)

My father Lt. Gerald Pratt, then with the Service Battery of the 590th Field Artillery Battalion, spent time that day in the officer's mess at Reservoir Camp (near Gloucester) in England sharing a Thanksgiving dinner with officers of the 589th and 590th.

After dinner an officer from the 589th who was a talented pianist played music on a battered piano there. His repertoire included Dad's Request for " Smoke Gets in Your Eyes". (links to this tune: 106thdivision.proboards.com/post/672/thread )

For these men a journey to the continent was just days away.
After a day long drive from Gloucester to the northern edge Isle of Portland and an overnight in a Barracks there, he sailed from Portland Harbor across the English Channel on December 1.

422 Infantry Regiment
Rev. Ewell C. Black Jr, 422 A (POW XIIA & IVB) 106thdivision.proboards.com/post/5026/thread
noted that he was in England on Thanksgiving: The Division left Camp Atterbury, IN, in October, 1944, for England.
Shortly after Thanksgiving, 1944, we went to France and then to Belgium.
On December 10, 1944, we relieved the Second Division in The Ardennes which was described as “a quiet front.”

Where were you or your 106th loved ones on Thanksgiving Day 1944?

[connie]

With Thanksgiving less than a week away here, I thought I'd call up this thread again...

Wishing you the best on Thanksgiving... and thinking of the family members during WWII. Most of the men from the 106th Infantry Division celebrated Thanksgiving in England but would soon be making their way from England to the continent.


Connie

[jrwentz]

Just went through my Dad's letters from November, 1944. Thanksgiving was the 23rd. On Nov 25th he sent my Mom a six-page letter. He had been on furlough to Birmingham, England, where they stayed in dormitories run by the Red Cross. If they ate there, it was one shilling and three pence for a meal - about 25 cents in American money. Their Thanksgiving meal was free and they had turkey. He lists a number of movies he saw, including "The White Cliffs of Dover", and noted the limited hours the pubs were open - 11am to 2pm and 6pm to 10pm. They went ice skating one day, and he talked about the penny arcades being just like the ones in the states. He said there were large numbers of teen age girls at the arcades "looking for suckers". Dad said "The English people are nice enough to us, in a detached sort of way." He said they won't make the first move to have a conversation but if he talked to them a little they were friendly and alright. Then he mentions going to a crowded pub on the edge of town with John Collins (Co M, St. Charles, Illinois). They each bought a glass of beer and started looking for a place to sit, when someone called out for them to sit at their table (it was a couple). Turned out the man was from Canada but doing insurance work in England. Dad said the man was pretty "tight" and got around to loudly complaining about the way the British people operate, especially the trains. Fortunately, it didn't start any trouble. However, Dad and John missed the last bus back to their dorm and it took them an hour to walk back in the rain.