Dave Andres
Dave Andres was drafted into the U.S. Navy about four months after turning 18, choosing the Navy over the Army because he believed it would be cleaner and allow him to serve as a medic. He had been attending SMU for a short semester before entering the service. He trained at a base in San Diego, near Balboa Park. His first voyage overseas took him from Brooklyn across the Atlantic aboard an LST, following a northern route past icebergs to avoid German submarines. During the crossing, two of roughly fifty ships in his convoy were struck and sank, a harrowing experience for the young sailor who was still just 18.
Andres arrived first in Milford Haven, Wales, then traveled to Plymouth, England, a heavily bombed city he found both vulnerable and quaint. There he trained at a gas warfare institute, experiencing mustard gas exposure while wearing a gas mask. His LST, which he noted was as long as a destroyer at about 327 feet, loaded troops, tanks, ambulances, jeeps, and Army medics at Southampton on the English Channel. On June 4th or 5th, he and everyone aboard received the now-famous letter from General Eisenhower to the soldiers, sailors, and airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Force, of which he kept the original.
On June 6, 1944, Andres watched from off the coast of France as the battleship Texas and another warship fired their big guns onto the beaches. His ship carried a couple hundred soldiers, who descended a Jacob's ladder into small landing craft, likely bound for Omaha or Utah beach. Returning to England, he volunteered to help tend the wounded aboard another ship, patching up American, German, and even a conscripted Mongolian casualties over roughly eight hours. On June 15th, he returned to Sword Beach, where a nearby ship was hit by German fire and his own vessel took a hole near the bow. After the war he returned home to Dallas, and later served as a Red Cross gray lady volunteer.
Dave Andres z"l was born in Dallas, Texas, on April 24, 1925, to Chaya Ruchel and Harry Andres.
Full Transcript
day and the the days after dday so you're going to tell us a little bit about what you were just talking about some of the uh the June 6 we're coming up on the 60th anniversary June 6 so it's June 1st right now 2004 coming from the 60th anniversary prior to June 6th you had received a letter it's an authentic authentic letter tell us a little bit about where you were when you got that letter and we were out in the uh in the English Channel right off of uh out of Southampton and uh that was one of the loading places where we picked up
all the tanks and ambulances and and a bunch of uh Medics Army Medics and everybody got one of these letters it was from Ike soldiers Sailors and Airmen and of the Allied expeditionary force and everybody knows about this letter but I have the original here how does he sign off good luck let us all bese the blessing of almighty God upon this great and Noble undertaking I have full confidence in your courage Devotion to duty and skill and battle we will accept nothing less than full Victory that's the way the uh Allied Forces went all the way and uh so did Russia there was no
equivocating no side sidebar agreements with anybody that's why you see movies of the Russian army in Berlin firing Point Blank into the buildings okay so so you get that letter what was the date of that letter you got it you got it on June 5th maybe June 4th how many days it must have been one day before right okay so one day before and then you you kind of have an idea something's up yeah keep in mind most of us were 19 years old right very young never in a battle but when we saw the Texas and I think the Arkansas firing Point Blank into
into France with those big guns they had aboard uh we knew this was a real McCoy so the the original plan was to go on the fifth but there was a storm brewing and they waited till the 6th and in order to get in line to unload our man we did a a circle out in right off of France and we waited our turn to unload the soldiers we had aboard and uh how many soldiers did you you say had we must have had a couple of hundred and they were on the they were let out on those little dingy boats or whatever you call
them yeah they they were went down a Jacob's Ladder it's a rope ladder and into small boats lcvps uh are Higgins boat was that Higgins guy was he from New Orleans did we see him yeah right right when we went to the there's a museum down there Museum right so as soon as we got rid of all our guys we were ready to go back to England and do the same thing again load up with ambulances tanks jeeps all sorts of vehicles and what beats were did you actually approach when that first June 6th day you know we couldn't tell nobody told us anything at
least nobody told a 19y old guy anything but I assume we were in Omaha or Utah those were the two American beaches and we never got on the beach because the beach was loaded with LC lcms those are mechanized uh landing craft that could take one whole tank up on the beach but the Germans had our number there and sank all of them along the beach so lsts never I never saw one LS get up on the beach we stayed out there unloaded and they finally built a a uh ramp out there that was destroyed during a storm about 15 days after dday that we
could unload on on the on this pontoons the pontoons were connected and uh they could take uh ships and unload them there through the bow doors onto this onto the pontoons but the pontoons were blown away during what I said was a a storm about 15 days after the day so on June 6th though you're you're coming in on the ship and what what do you see what do you hear what what's like these well we saw the Texas and the Arizona or Arkansas battle wagons out in in in the uh English Channel shooting onto the beach hopefully they would make the beach safe for
the soldiers charging up the beach but they didn't they just you see clouds of smoke I mean what do you yeah well when when one of those big guns off of battleon shoots there's a big blaze of fire coming out of them but in later times we we saw that they didn't knock out the pill boxes that the Germans were hiding in so that and strafing the beach with all these Americans and I assume that it was very much like this along sword Beach which was the British Beach land okay so on June 6th you you don't hit the beach you send up a couple
hundred uh troops up there and then yall turn back yeah we went back to England and when we were gotten back our particular group was uh Medics and we got a notice from a ship in the bay back in England that the Medics were tired of of helping the wounded that the other ships had taken aboard off the beach so we loaded up on small boats and went over and helped other ships with their wounded and the minute I got aboard this ship and went down in the tank deck where the uh doctors were operating they were sawing a man's leg off I immediately got
sick I didn't throw up or anything but I went back up tops side and recovered my senses went back down and started patching up the guys who were down there that they picked up off of beach and uh it was quite a quite a scene there were all sorts of Americans Germans there was even a Mongolian there that had been conscripted from some place and put as a member of the workforce building what was called the the the uh wall that they hoped would keep the Americans from landing on the beach and how many troops were down there when you were in in the the
wounded must have been 150 or 175 and I I have repaired a bunch of those wounded guys one had a belly wounds and his gut was sticking out about 6 in and there wasn't much I knew to do except throw a bandage on and shove the gut back and hopefully somebody back in England in a hospital knew how to repair cuz I didn't so we stayed down there 8 hours or so helping the pharmacist mates off of whatever that ship was another LS and uh we hung around in England till June the 15th so the date when you went back was maybe June 7th or
June 8th or something when you got no the 15th no no when you went back on the on the small ship you're saying to to help with the wounded oh yeah that was about about the 7eventh or eth okay took us s long to get back but we uh loaded up in England Southampton or or one of those big ports probably with Southampton and then we went back on the 15th went back to the British Beach which was the most eastern part of Nory and the Germans supposedly were about 8 mil away and the British hadn't moved off beach I don't know sword Beach sword
all right so so you're coming in there on the 15th and what happens when you're you guys are approaching the beach well we're we're on the beach you're on the beach okay and we unloaded what we intended to unload which was tanks ambulances and Equipment of all sorts and all of a sudden the ship next to us got hit by one of the German uh 88s we thought we didn't know for sure and killed about eight men with its first shot and they were in The Wheelhouse all and the skipper was there and all the guys we stayed there on the beach because the tide
had pushed us way up on the beach and we had to wait till the tide came back and lifted us back off of the beach and cranked up our our uh wch that we let let go all 200 300 yard out from the beach and that helped us be pulled off the beach I guess we were there about 8 hours we got hit BW a hole near the bow door lxs were made with two holes I think and we were still afloat at the didn't damages but when I got back danged or we got back danged I went uh up top side and picked up
a bunch of trp no pieces that I think I still have little bitty pieces y went into town or just got off the ship and went just got off on the dock as I recall you think you remember the dock when you see it no don't remember it what year so that was already 45 or was it already Now 46 when when was it that y'all came through here 45 45 after the war end 45 and then did y'all stay here for a couple days or you know I think so then we came back we picked up a pilot you know marking on the dwine
somebody who knew the sand you have to be careful when you go on the Mississippi cuz our sand bars all through there yall were going up right yeah we went up then we came back down oh this was on the way back down yeah okay where was your Final Destination on that back to New Orleans New Orleans and uh went in the dry dock and then that was the end of it that was the last time you were on the ls yeah and but I landed on the base there for a while and uh they called me in one day and said where do you
live I said Dallas he said how in for worth Su you I said oh man send me there right and what did you do for I was a red CL cross uh gray lady hey Dad so tell us uh the first time you got on the LSD it was a Brooklyn was in a Ford was called 9 2 and I was sick about leaving the country after we got on the ship everybody was giving life jackets that didn't give us a good feeling CU we knew that the subs were out there right off the coast sinking lsts and anything else that would whose Subs were
those those were German Subs German Subs UBS but nothing happened we left and went up to New Finland and from Newland we took a uh Northern route ran into a bunch of ice burdens up there they told us that was to avoid the subs and uh it was clear sailing for about a week and then one night they ring General Porters two of the ships in the Convoy were head by the subs and were burning like a son of a uh we stayed top side and watch the Flames go out we thought well that's nice the reason they went out the ships went down into
the ocean how many ships were in the Convoy oh there must have been 50 two out of 50 got hit yeah and uh they told us they wouldn't pick up any survivors cuz Subs would be out there picking us up I don't know if that's true or not but would have been kind of difficult to survive in that ice water too wouldn't it yeah you pretty cold icebergs were floating around and and you realized he could hit an iceberg and it wouldn't affect your the ship the ship was just go right through it yeah there were't icebergs that we sailed into uhhuh but it was
a horrifying experience when we got back below decks we saw some of the guys never came tops side and u they didn't uh realize that there was General quarters or they couldn't hear and general qus means just that everybody goes topside even the skipper but we had our mind jackets on we felt pretty secure and after the other two ships quit burning we didn't realize what it was then we kept in the Convoy went all the way to Milford Haven Wales that was a nice experience how old were old were you then I was still 18 18 years old and when you first saw that
that big ship that LST what was your impression of that that was bigger than I had thought but I read up on it it was as longest Destroyer 3 27 ft as I recall and U that made me feel good and you had tanks loaded on there we had tanks ambulances and everything so we never did unload them in England I don't think from there from Milfred even we went down to plmouth and they gave us Liberty to go to pouth England and uh and pth it was a vulnerable City the Germans could shoot all the way across the channel as I recall and I
remember one stat there were 53 theaters in plmouth before the war and after all the selling there were only three left and we went into the city it was a quain little English town that's where the pilgrims I think landed in Plymouth Rock when they first came to the United States and uh it was it was an an interesting experience I don't think I was afraid much but uh but I was young and dumb older I got the more insecure I got later on we land clth we got back on the ship after Liberty and uh went to naval they gas Warfare Institute up there
and we were supposed to learn all about gas and I guess we did we put us in in there and let the gas go and about 2 minutes later you left and there everybody's coughing you know and uh we got out of there it was just an experience that we we tell our grand children and children about so you were did you have gas masks on or what do you mean yeah we were with gas mask and when they turned the gas on it was mustard gas which is kind of deadly if you bre that stuff MH it was widely used during World War um
one Germans used it and a lot of Americans were gas I think War Lee his dad could live next door to the store his dad was a veteran was gas dur War he uh later on committed suicide by drinking something were you drafted into the Navy yes how how did that all come about I went up to the draft board and they run us through the fiscal when the fisal was over they said you want to go in to the Navy or Army I said I'll take the Navy because you know I knew it be clean and I could be a a medic like I
knew something and uh they they said okay you're in in the Navy but would you like to go into the Marines it's a part of the Navy I said no thank you so I stayed in the Navy and was s right away to uh San Diego which was a training base there it's no longer in existence tried to go there once right baloa park yeah right and they wouldn't let us in right I thought we alqaeda I think no I don't think so I don't know so um so you had gotten a letter from the draft board saying it's time for you to come in
that's how it happened you received that letter and about 4 months after I was 18 right so they gave me a break there and it was was rather nice and I stayed in school I was in SMU for one semester or something yeah it was a short semester uh-huh