Bill Hogan 907th GFA

The HMS Strathnaver was a stinking , disgusting ship..... Just filthy! It
was a British ship. Men were sick, we had disintary it was terriable. Halg
of the men would spend a day on deck then go down into the hold and
spend a day. The hold was terriable, it was slimy, stinking, a mess, the
men were sleeping on the floor with filth.

Experiences of Charles (Bill) Hogan
B Battery, 2nd Section, 907th Glider Field Artillery
10st Airborne Division

Trip to england on the HMS Strathnaver

Marshalling Area

We were taken down to our marshalling area in Abergavenny, Wales....
there was allot of armored in there.... half tracks, tanks, and tank
busters... mostly all armored troops. Those armored troops really took it
easy. Those boys would lay around, play cards, shot craps.... and ya
know our officers would make us get out in the street and make us
double time up and down that area.... it would really aggravated me
because all the officers were trying to do was show off to those armored
troops so they could see how tuff we were.

They fed us real good, we had steak and eggs and the whole works....
and of course the foolishness around the area, we were always doing
something.... we would give somebody the hot foot or else we would
take condoms and fill them full of water, you'd be surprised how much
those condoms would hold with-out breaking! We would take those
condoms.... fill them full of water and slip them in these fellas beds, well
when they would get in bed.... their feet would hit these and would bust
the condom and flood their bed.
Then one night we made a dummy and put in this guys bed.... oh we had
boots, helmet, and cloths, the whole works. It was almost a life like
dummy and of course this guy had been out with his buddy drinkin.... I
never will forget that night when they came back.... they both came back
so drunk they couldn't hardly stand up.... singin "Basin Street Blues....
"Down to the end of the Basin street where the white and the black folks
meet".... then one would cut off and say take her away.... and his buddy
would start singin....
Well they decided to go to bed and he looked and said, "Who is in my
bed?" Well the dummy never said a word.... he said, "Get out of my
bed!" Well nothing happened so, finally he jerked this dummy out of his
bed.... we had it put together good.... so he dived on top of this dummy?
he beat the heck out of this dummy.... He finally realized what we had
did to him so; he gathered up all of this equipment and said "I'll tell ya
guys one thing.... no one is getting any of this equipment back!" He piled
all this gear under his bunk.... well of course a guy next to him would
reach down and grab a piece every now and then, pass it down to the
guys, then it wasn't long before everyone had all of their equipment
back.
That was good entertainment that night!

But what really aggravated me was all that double timing up and down
the streets. I thought we should have been taken it easy just like the
armor guys were doin, but we didn't, we had to double time every where
just to show those fellas that we were Airborne! And really though....
they respected us, they thought we were a tuff bunch of fellas.
We were guarded pretty well but guys still slipped off to go down to the
local pub, they didn't get caught but that was just the some of the things
that happened.

And then they briefed us on our mission. I didn't get much out that
briefing. They told us what we were supposed to do. The briefing officer
seemed to be in a hurry and I just didn't get much out of it.... I didn't get
heads from tails out of that briefing officer.

On about the 2nd of June we loaded up on a Liberty ship. We shared this
ship with an armored unit. On the deck were tanks, halftracks, and all
kinds of heavy equipment.
We didn't have bunks on the ship, we had to sleep anywhere we could
sleep.... and me and my buddy thought it would be a good idea to sleep
under a halftrack, so we spread out our blankets under this half track and
we slept that night... when morning came we were covered with oil!! The
halftrack was leaking oil! During the night the oil had dripped down on
us.... we were a dirty mess the next morning.
In the mean time the next morning it started raining.... so we stayed
under that halftrack to keep out of the rain. The weather was terrible,
raining, cold, and cloudy.

All of the 907th GFA couldn't get on this one ship so they were put on
the rest of the guys on the Susan B. Anthony which hit a mine just off
the coast of France, some of those fellas had quit a time getting in to the
beach.

All of the armored personal had bunks on the ship and they stayed down
in the hold of the ship. I had broken my hunt knife and I had a friend that
I was telling I had broke the handle on my hunting knife.... well he said,
"I'll get you one." I never thought any more about it. And he came up to
me after a little while and he had a nice marble handled hunting knife! I
said what you want for it? He said, "oh I don't know".... he told me what
he wanted for it and I paid him?. I asked him, where'd you get that knife?
He said, "Oh I went down and stole it from those tank guys!"

D-Day Landing at UTAH Beach

The 907th started their approach towards 'UTAH' beach in landing-craft,
An enemy shell explodes to the rear of the craft, then one to the front,
and if you know anything about Artillery, you know that the third shell is
dangerous! We all started to yell at the Coxswain to get
moving, he was British, the shells were falling all around us. I was so
scared... There was this Jeep in the landing craft with us, I tried to crawl
under nether it but my pack was too big I got all hung up.... then I realized
their was nothing I could do, so I went and sat down in the corner of the
boat. The landing craft made it ashore safely.

When we got ashore there were bodies laying everywhere, bodies in
the water, Jeeps had been hit, GMC trucks lying on their sides,
equipment scattered everywhere. This was all from the first landings, we didn't come ashore until D+3.

But the first thing we did when we landed was take the water proofing
off of the Jeeps and Cannons, we got yelled at that they needed
Artillery.

The Jeeps had been water proofed with a sticky, pliable substance
around the carburetor, spark plugs, and distributor cap. Tubes had also
been added to the breathers, gas vent, and exhaust.

Well, when we started to move down the road, there was everything
you could imagine scattered along the side of the road, in the ditche...
Books, letters, photographs, rifles compasses, ammunition.... just
anything you could think of!
I was a Bazooka man, carrying my pack, Carbine, 6 rounds of heavy
Bazooka rounds, as well as my rifle ammunition, grenades, and rations.
I was really loaded down! My good buddy, Bill Cruise, that lived 60
miles away from my home town was my assistant gunner, he carried 6
rounds for the Bazooka also. Cruise and me became separated in
the march to the cannon position.... I carried my load plus I also carried
Cruises' load of 6 Bazooka rounds.... that was 12 Bazooka rounds, that
was a real heavy load. I was really tired when we finally made to the gun
position, had I known that I could of picked up 1000 rounds for the
Bazooka once we got to the position, I wouldn't of carried that extra
Bazooka ammunition!

Once the 907 made it into position, We were all new to
combat, when we first got into position this mortar round came in... You
can't hear em coming... we just stood there, this was all new to us, and it
landed... It was a Dud! It just sputtered around and fizzled out. Well after
that... we all took cover. We fired allot of ammunition, that was hard
work. We didn't take many casualties there in Normandy.

Bill's Glider on his landing in Holland. L to R, British Tommy,
Bill Hogan, J. Moore, Un ID'd Dutch resitance man, Un ID'd 506th man.

Charles William (Bill) Hogan in the reserves after WWII.

Dry Runs

They would alert us, we would get all of our equipment ready to go, and then they would call the mission off. Several times we even got to the airfield.
One time we were to have a mission to France just outside Paris. We were to help Liberate Paris. We were all ready to go, got to the airfield with all of our equipment and everything. We were confined in a big canvas cover hanger where there was a sand table set up for the briefing. They told us our landing zones and our mission. We were to land at night and were not to fire our rifles until daylight.
They said the German troops that were guarding this area would be all static troops and would be easy to take care of. We were to us our hand-to-hand combat training to get rid of the guards.

Inside the hanger after the briefing there was everything going on, card games, crap games, church services, men writing letters home, some of the men drinking alittle if they happen to smuggle alittle booze in with em. So there was about everything going on. And of course the rumors were flying, some said no need to worry, we would be back to camp in 2 to 3 days.
In the evening they would get over in the corner of this big hanger and have movies. They only had one projector and of course 3 or 4 reels of film. So they would run one reel through the projector and they would have to rewind it and put on another reel. And of course we didn't dare have any lights, it was dark as pitch in there. These soldiers could always think of something. Everybody had a flashlight and about everybody had some condoms. Now what they would do is, they would blow these condoms up and bounce them around in the air. We all had a supply a of rubber bands we used to blouse our boots with and the floor in this hanger was gravel. When the condoms would get to floatin around up in the air these men would spot these condoms with their flashlights and then we would try had shoot these condoms down with little stones and rubber bands.
Well, we got along pretty good that way for awhile... then somebody got the big idea to put alittle dust in the condoms, then if one got blown up above you it would shower you with dust... well that went on... and then somebody got the grand idea... He took one of these condoms and he pissed in it!
Didn't have very much in there, just enough that it would bounce good and with that weight in there it would really go up in the air. And after one or two of those was shot down, if it was over you and they were shootin at it you would really see the men scramble. We did about everything for entertainment.
Well, this mission was called off, so we went back to Bradford farm near Newbury. And we heard that General Patton sent word to our commanding General, General Taylor, he said, "Take the shoeshine boys back to the States, we don't need them over here!"

Our next dry run was Tourney Belgium and the British beat us in there so that mission was called off.

About this time we were called out in a big formation and General Taylor spoke to us... I can still see him; he stood on the hood of a Jeep. I don't really remember too much about what he said except...
General Taylor said, "Now I know that you men are just as upset as I am about these missions being cancelled, But I'll grant you one thing, the next mission will be bigger and better then before."
We all thought that was kind of a stupid speech for a general to make. We were all willing to go, but we weren't looking forward to it.
The next mission that we were called for was...

HOLLAND

We got alerted, gathered up all of our equipment. We had allot of extra equipment we had gathered up during the Dry Runs. We had stole a extra Coleman stove, extra food, extra candy, and I remember our gunner Corporal, Paul Smolinski, had three rolls of Copenhagen. Smolinski liked his Copenhagen and when he ran out he was pretty hard to get along with, so he had three extra rolls.
We went to the Airfield at Greenham Commons, they briefed us on the mission... it sounded real simple.
We were supposed to lay a carpet of Airborne troops from the Belgium border to Arnhem and the British were going to rush up real quick and fan over into Germany and end the war!
The briefing officer was in a hurry again... It would be real simple, there wasn't going to be anything to it... all we needed was 3 days supplies and we would be pulled out.
So we went down to the Airstrip and loaded the Gliders. The Glider I was in, we had Pvt. Hardin Workmen the Jeep Driver, Cpl. Paul Smolinski the gunner, and our pilot Flight officer William Aussick.
In our Glider was the Jeep plus all of the extra supplies we could get our hands on. The rest of our section and the Howitzer were in another Glider. We loaded the Jeep, lashed it down good, tried to do everything we were supposed to do. Then we asked the pilot to check our load. He didn't seem to concerned; he said it would be alright. Really, we were alittle leery of him, because he seemed so unconcerned; we thought it was pretty serious business!
Inside the Jeep we had 105 ammo, Bazooka ammo, rations, small arms ammo, hand grenades, water, and extra gasoline. We were really loaded down; we had all of this besides our own personal equipment. We got the Glider all loaded and we were standing outside the Glider waiting to take off.

L to R, Sgt. Charles A. Richardson, Pvt. Joe Sabulis, T/4 Lawerence Mrozik,
Pvt. Jesse Moore, and Pfc.Charels W. (Bill) Hogan.
Notice under the rear round window is writen "KILOGARM" and the letter "B".
Also take note of the hunting knife on Bill's right lower leg.

We had a fellow in our outfit named Shanealy, and Shanealy loved to dance. He had a Carbine that malfunctioned all the time and he was supposed to turn it in, but he went to a dance and didn't turn the Carbine in! So he was taking off with a Carbine that wouldn't operate. A Glider pilot walking by had a good Thompson Sub Machine Gun and asks Shaneely to trade for the Carbine. I told the pilot is was no good, you'd better try it out and the pilot said, oh it'll be alright.
The it came time to load up. We all had Mae West's and also there was several flak Jackets laying there. All of us were putting our Mea West's, except the pilot who was putting on his flak jacket!
We said what are you doing putting that flak jacket on heading over the water?
He said I won't need that Mea West, and when we get over Belgium I want the flak jacket on, it'll be a hassle to get out of the Mea West and put the flak jacket on and fly the Glider. So he put on his flak jacket. I had a good pair of leather gloves that they issued to paratroopers and he kept looking at my gloves and he told me that if I would loan him the gloves, he felt that he would be able to fly the Glider better with a pair of leather gloves. So I loaned him the gloves, he told me that he would give the gloves back to me once we got to Holland.
We didn't have a co-pilot, so Cpl. Paul Smolinski was going to act as co-pilot. Now normally the pilot would give a short course on how fly to the Glider. But I don't think he ever said a thing to Smolinski.
It came time to take off. And we headed down the runway, and the first thing that happened to us was the tail flew up and the nose drug down the runway for quite some distance. But he got her straighten out. And we got airborne. Now you could look down there and see the C-47 had never left the runway... in alittle while the C-47 was Airborne. So we circled around and fell into formation and headed out across the Channel. Everything seemed to be going good, but after we got over the Channel we would run in and out of fog banks. We would run into this fog and you absolutely couldn't see a thing! One time a plane and glider cut right in front of us,I thought we were going to crash in mid air, but we made it out of that! After a few more minutes we ran into this fog bank and we never did come out! You absolutely couldn't see! You couldn't even see where the towrope was hooked to the Glider!
The pilot was having a terrible time; he was trying to get the Glider straightened out. He was flying blind, there was no way at all to see anything! Some how the towrope got hooked around the wing and we were going sideways!!! We were all screaming at the pilot to cut the Glider loose from the tug plane! I didn't think that he was ever going to cut that Glider loose, finally he cut the Glider loose and we headed for the water!
We had never had any training on crash landing in the water, no training what so ever.

Second Crossing to Holland

I remember the pilot, after we cut lose from that airplane, the pilot was trying get his flak jacket off and get his Mea West on and also trying to fly the glider.
In the mean time he had taken those gloves off that I had loaned him and he throw those gloves back to me and said, "here are your gloves", and I never did pick those gloves up.

We headed for the water and as we were going down, I was scared! I lived my whole life over in just a few seconds and I was almost frantic. I thought sure I was going to be killed. I seemed to think if got killed the whole world would stop and I was really excited. And then something kind of said to me, calm down there is nothing you could, you are all right!
So I got to thinking.... and I did this in a few seconds.... I thought well, what the heck! I may get killed but I'm sure going to try to live just as long as I can. And I got real calm.

Well we kicked out the two trap doors under the wings, which was the wrong thing to do! Because when we hit the water, the water rushed in those two doors we had kicked out. Then I took my knife out of my boot and cut a hole in the top of the glider, the wind got ahold of that fabic and tore quite a hole in the top.
I kept my safety strap on, I remember Hardin Workmen, who was sitting in the co-pilots seat, he unhooked his safety belt and was squitted down ready to jump out that trap door. When we hit the water, it seemed like nose first, and splitters just flew, the jeep broke lose and roled forward and pulled the nose up on the glider. I shot out through the hole I had cut in the top of the glide and I didn't hardly get wet!
I looked around and thought, my my I'm out here by my self, and the rest of the men had been killed. So I looked back in the tail section and I seen a head against the fabric, I cut a hole in the fabric and pulled out Hardin Workmen, and then I pulled out Paul Smolinski from the co-pilots area, and then I seen that the pilot Aussich was still in there and I pulled him out.

All of us except Aussich had inflated out life jackets, which was the wrong thing to do! They would throw you up against the side of the glider and you couldn't move, and that's way these fellows were having trouble getting out of the glider!
But finally we were all out on the wing.

So we floated around out there and I happened to think that I had smuggled a camera with me and I had it wrapped up inside plastic hid inside my gasmask.
You can see the white plastic material in the forground on the picture, so I got my camera out and snapped 3 or 4 pictures.

I don't know long we were out there. We heard a noise, we looked up, and here came a British boat! He pulled up to the end of the glider wing, I helped all the fellows on the boat and after we had them all loaded, I said I would like to go back for my pistol belt because I had somethings on that belt I don't want to lose.
One of the Britsh sailors looked at me and said, "You damned fool you let those thing go to hell! Your lucky to get out of here by the skin of your teeth!"
And ya know, I had been busy out there, I hadn't really stopped to think about the perdicament we were in!

Now today after 57 years, I can still remeber some of the thoughts that ran through my mind after we cut lose. I was just almost frantic, I just seemed to think that if I got killed the whole world would stop. Then this voice just said to me, just relax and calm down, there's nothing you can do, just take it easy, everything is alright. I still remember that. Then I thought, there's men getting killed over here every day and if I get killed it wouldn't make any difference, they'll just be somebody else to take my place. And ya know, I really got calmed down, it was a good feeling.

This British PT boat took us back to Ramsgate, England. On the way back they gave us a change of cloths. They gave us rubber boots, pants without any belt loops, turtle neck sweaters, and stocking caps.
When we got back to Ramsgate, they called an ambluance and took Aussich, and Workmen to the hospital. Smolinski couldn't hardly walk, his knee was hurting real bad, but he got around around me and he said, now look Hogan I can't go to the hospital right now, I said, way not Smo? Well he said, I lost all of my Copenhagen, I have got to have some Copenhagen! Before I go to the hospital I've got to find some Copenhagen!

So Smolinski and I just took off through this little town of Ramsgate, nobody knew us dressed up in these cloths. But ya know we had turned in all of our American money for Dutch Gilders and we didn't have a cent of money.
We found some Copenhagen one place and they wouldn't take those Dutch Gilders. Well it was getting late, we hadn't had anything to eat since morning, so we decided to hide out for a few days. We went down to a British tranit mess, they finaly feed us our supper. One of those men down there had some.... well it wasn't Copenhagen.... it was a powdery stuff that your supposed to snuff up your nose. Smolinski got some of that and that satisfied him for the time being.

It got to be about bed time and we were tired. So like I say, we thought we would hide out for a few days.... so we sneeked in to a American Red Cross, went over to a corner, got us some blankets and went to sleep. We hadn't been asleep very long till the MP's woke us up, they took Smolinski to the hospital, and took me to a building someplace. The next morning I got word that the Glider pilot Aussich wanted to see me. I went up to see him and all he wanted was to give me his address so I could send him one of those photographs. I had lost all of my equipment, and rifle, he had a .45 automatic pistol with a shoulder holster, I tried to talk him out of that, but he wouldn't give it to me. I did send him a picture though.

Cpl. Paul Smolinski had a broken knee cap, Pvt Hardin Workmen ahd a broken back, and I never did find out what was wrong with the pilot, I did hear from him 2 or 3 times later on. All that happened to me was a few bruises, a skinned face where some of the wood form the glider hit me.

The Mp's took me back to the Airfield and I got ready to make my second trip to Holland.

I never will forget, and is funny to me to this day, I pulled Workmen out, he was about knocked out, he said to me, Oh Lordy Lordy Hogan my neck is cut clear off, I said no 'Hairless Joe', (Hairless Joe is what we called him), there's nothing wrong with your neck, he said, yes there is I can feel the blood running down my back, I said no, that's water we've been in a bad crash. So I pulled him out there on this wing and I propt him up there, you can see in the photograph, and Smolinski was having trouble, he couldn't move, you notice how he has his leg out there in the picture.... there was something wrong with his knee.
The Pilot said that he too was hurt, but I never did know.

When we first got down, the pilot had lost his Mea West. And he started worring what he was going to do. So I got down into the Jeep, Ya know I got my knife out after I cut the top out of the glider, I put my knife back in the scabbard after and put it back in my boot. So I got my knife out, I got down in the gliderto the Jeep and cut a gas can or a water can lose, I can't remeber which, poored the contents out of it.... tied a rope in the handle of the can and gave this to the pilot.

I told 'Hairless Joe', "you get to helpin me alittle round here", I was kinda busy getting things all together, He said, "Hogan I can't move!" And ya know, I noticed he hadn't moved since I had pulled him out of the glider.

Down next to the water it was kind of foggy, but you could see, a airplane flew over and dropped a life raft, which was about about 300 yards away.
Everyone was hurt except for me, I thought there's that life raft with provesions and everything in it, I thought I should go after it. My Mea West was inflated, so I got in the water and started for the raft and when I did the Mea West would take me over on my back, I couldn't swim on my back, the water was terrorible cold, I got a few feet from the glider wing and I had trouble getting back to the glider. So I gave that up, I just didn't think I could make it.

The glider was getting lower and lower in the water and we were afraid it was going to sink. Those gliders are made mostly out of wood. So we decided, that I would get back down in the Jeep, get an axe, and chop the wing off and we would float on the wing. Well I got down in the Jeep and got the axe. I got to thinking, I couldn't chop that wing off, I could chop the wing off, but I couldn't cut those control cables and I was afraid that if I couldn't get the control cables cut the glider would form itself in the shape of a V and we wouldn't have any place to stay.
And then the pilot told me that I have a map down in the glider in a water proof case. He said if you could get down there in the glider and get that map we could take a watch and find out were we are. I said, "Good Gosh, it isn't gonna do us any good to know where we are, we aren't going anyplace! I've been down in that glider 2 times, I'm not going down there for a map!"

F to B, Hardin Workmen, Paul Smolinski, and pilot William Aussich

Floatin on the wing of their CG-4A in the NorthseaF to B, Pvt. Hardin Workmen has a broken back, Cpl. Paul Smolinski with a broken knee cap, and the pilot Willaim Aussich. Both Bill and the pilot escaped injury. You can see the camera wrapping in the forground.

Photo Bill Hogan

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Page created on January 1 2001
updated April 1st 2002

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