During World War II, 14.9 million Americans served in the United States military, with 290,000 killed in action and 500,000 wounded. England was a transit point for forces going to the Mediterranean theater and also to Europe. Probably 5 million to 6 million American service personnel passed through England or were stationed there. One common soldier was my father, David Goldstein.
David Goldstein was born in Boston in 1905 to Russian-Jewish parents. His father was a lady’s tailor with a shop in the impoverished immigrant district known as the “West End.” Following his father’s footsteps in the garment trade, David became a thread salesman.
After Pearl Harbor, because of his expertise in textiles, he was drafted into the U.S. Army Quartermaster Corps, the Army’s logistical supply and support division. After 90 days of training at Corps headquarters in Camp Lee, Virginia, he was transferred to Bristol, England, for two years to help prepare for the invasion of France.
On D-Day, June 6, 1944, he went over in one of the first waves, going on to fight with frontline units in Cherbourg, Le Havre, and on the outskirts of Paris. He rose to the rank of corporal by the war’s end.
The heroism of the Corps, like that of other support units such as the British Royal Air Force transport squadrons, has received less publicity than more glamorous air and ranger battalions, although a small memorial stands on the cusp of the cliffs of the Normandy beachhead.
Like most frontline units, David’s sustained high casualties. My father survived without a scratch. He remained in France helping the French textile industry recover. After VE (“Victory in Europe”) day he was transferred back to Camp Devens, Massachusetts, to help prepare for the land invasion of Japan scheduled to begin in November 1945. My mother joined him there.
The August 1945 dropping of atomic bombs on Japan and subsequent Japanese surrender made a full-blown land invasion unnecessary. David remained in the service after VJ (“Victory Over Japan”) day, was demobilized at what had become Fort Devens by the fall of 1945, and I came along about a year-and-a half later.
Before his 1958 death from cancer, David spoke freely about his wartime experiences in Britain and on D-Day. His first story, which I have corroborated with several of his buddies, was of his ship’s arrival in Bristol Harbor in 1942 as part of the first flotilla of American military relief ships to reach that city after it had been battered by the Nazi Blitz.
Bristol was not only a major transatlantic port but also the site of the Bristol Aeroplane Company. It was the fifth most heavily destroyed city in the entire U.K. After suffering the harassment of bombing for so many years, some Bristol women were so thrilled to see the American relief ships that they perched on the prows of tugboats and exposed their breasts.
David saw the wartime obliteration not only of Bristol, but later of Cherbourg and Le Havre in France.
“What a mess!” he told me.
The U.S. Army’s official World War II history, the “Green Book,” provides broader context: the critically important — and largely unpublicized — role of the Quartermaster Corps in the creation of the ultimate victory over Nazism.
In preparation for the Normandy invasion, the Corps and other armed services assembled a flotilla of dilapidated naval vessels. On D-Day, they were floated to the French coast and sunk to form breakwaters.
Years before D-Day, the Corps also assembled fleets of Mulberry Piers, the portable floating docks that were quickly slipped in beside the breakwaters. Within a couple of days of the invasion, the Corps off-loaded trucks, tanks and other military vehicles and pumped fuel ashore, ultimately laying a fuel pipeline under the English Channel. Most importantly, the Corps’ Red Ball Express kept the supply lines moving with the troops. The logistical key was four-wheel-drive trucks, probably the most valuable item the Corps provided to Allied troops.
The Germans had trained for “blitzkrieg” tactics. The American army also moved swiftly, but its four-wheel-drive American trucks and Jeeps could keep up with the armor in snow and mud. German tanks were good on roads and fields in the summer but not as good at off-road performance, especially in snow and mud. Most German supplies moved by horse-drawn wagons. Toward the end of the war, the Nazis confiscated trucks from all over Europe, creating a spare parts nightmare.
The Red Ball Express became the quintessential supply backbone that enabled the Allied forces to move swiftly and remain fully supplied, while the Germans suffered the fate of Napoleon’s hungry and immobilized army.
As we drove around New England in the 1950s, my father would often point out convoys of these same Army vehicles “on maneuvers,” as he would describe them in his own quiet way. A modest man to the end, he never went into specifics and never communicated how vital his service was.
The 70th anniversary of D-Day is an appropriate time to remember the contribution of tens of thousands of David Goldsteins to the survival of England, the United States and — as I am sure he would add — the Jewish people.
Dr. Jonathan Goldstein, an Orono resident, is Plumer Visiting Research Fellow in history at St. Anne’s College, Oxford University, during the 2013-14 academic year.