abworkman

Good Morning from the National D-Day Memorial did you know if you live locally in the New River Valley area…you could save hundreds of dollars in gas and hotel fees and avoid DC traffic and see the Japanese Cherry Tree Blossoms locally here at the Memorial. There are 116 trees planted here that are dedicated to the 116th Virginia National Guard Unit which still exist today. In fact the 116th Virginia National Guard returned from a one year deployment to the Horn of Africa on January 30, 2023.

During World War II, the 116th would join with units from Delaware, New York and Maryland to form the 29th Division the first unit to land on Omaha Beach at 630am Dec 6, 1944. By nightfall that fatefull day of the 175 men who formed Company A,B,C,D and F only 15 lived to fight another day the Division suffered a 90 percent casualty rate and the memorial was built here in Bedford because Company A came from here and it alone sustained 20 deaths that day making this small town have the largest per capital rate for casualities during opening phase of D-Day. For this reason Japanese Cherry Blossoms have been planted at the Memorial to honor the memory of the 116th Virginia Regiment and the 29th Division..please come out and enjoy the Cherry Blossoms while remembering the sacrafice of the Bedford Boys and the 29th Division.

This is another one of my internship projects recently given to me…there are between 450 to 600 of these plaques at the D-Day Memorial my task is to record each one, then build a data base as to where each one is located, so that future visitors or family members will be able to quickly locate plaques or tributes given by family members, associations/organizations or locate units their loved ones served with on D-Day. Do I have any volunteers locally would like to help if not this by myself is going to take at least 6 months just to record then build the database…in the immortal words of JFK “Ask not what your country can do for you ask what you can do for your country” I’ve completed Zone A it’s just about 10 to 12 more zones to go lol.

Today I continue my series of Hidden Stories of Operation Overlord or the D-Day Landing in Normandy, France 6 June 1944.

In Honor of Black History Month I’m proud to introduce to you.

SSgt Waverly Bernard Woodson Jr.

(Aug 3, 1922-Aug 12, 2005)

SSgt Woodson was an American staff sergeant and health professional. He is best known for his heroic actions as a combat medic during the Battle of Normandy in World War II. A pre-med student at the start of WWII, after Pearl Harbor, Woodson voluntarily left med-school at Lincoln University and enlisted in the U.S Army and was subsequently assigned to the 320th Barrage Balloon Company. After successfully completing training as an Anti-Aircraft Field Artillery Officer-in which he was one of two African Americans who completed the program only to be told he would not be commissioned because there were no officer positions for people of his race. He was retrained as a combat medic. The 320th Balloon Company would be the only African American unit assigned to the D-Day Landing. Woodson’s landing craft enroute to landing zone struck a land mine and shrapnel injured his leg and his groin–he requested a fellow medic bandage him up and he returned to the battlefield where for over the first 24 hrs of the D-Day Operation his knowledge and expertise as a medic is estimated to have saved over 200 lives of Allied soldiers regardless of race.

Recommended for the Army’s 2nd Highest Medal the Distinguished Service Cross–his commanding general wanted his medal upgraded to the Congressional Medal of Honor with President Roosevelt to present it–In 1997 President Clinton called for an inquiry into why no African Americans were awarded the Medal of Honor for World War II. This honor was subsequently awarded posthumously to 7 African American World War II veterans over a 5 year time period after 1997. SSgt Woodson wasn’t among this group his Distinguished Service Cross was subsequently downgraded to a Bronze Star and Purple Heart because the then War Department in Washington, DC discounted the service of African American military personnel during World War II. Additionally Woodson’s military records were lost during a fire at Army Archives Center in 1973–therefore making verification of his actual service and actions at D-Day impossible in 1997. Since 2020 there has been a renewed push to get SSgt Woodson awarded the Medal of Honor Posthumously the package as slowly been working its way through both the Congress and Pentagon and President Biden has said he will sign off on awarding SSgt Woodson’s Medal of Honor Package if the Congress will send it to him. Both the story of the 320th Barrage Balloon Battalion and SSgt Waverly Woodson have been lost to the archives of time and one of the hidden stories of D-Day that I have been uncovering during my research ” Hidden Secrets of D-Day”. Time doesn’t permit me to tell this entire story for more information on the 320th BBB and SSgt Woodson please read the following book ” Forgotten” by Linda Hervieux. Despite training in the segregated south at Camp Tyson, Tennessee each went on to serve with honor at Operation Overlord. You may know their story of training from the hit movie “A Soldiers Story” a play on Broadway and also a hit movie in 1984 is loosely based on the 320th Balloon Battalion.

Footnote:

In September 2020, United States Senator Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) introduced bill S.4535: “A bill to authorize the President to award the Medal of Honor to Waverly B. Woodson, Jr., for acts of valor during World War II”.[40] An equivalent bill, H.R.8194, was also introduced in the United States House of Representatives by David Trone (R-Md.).[41] Woodson’s widow Joann has announced that, if Woodson was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor, she would donate it to the National Museum of African American History and Culture.[39] In June 2021, Commanding General of the First United States Army Thomas S. James Jr. wrote in favor of Woodson receiving the Medal of Honor.[32]I

Day 3 of Orientation/Training at the National D-Day Memorial–2hrs of classroom training followed up by walking the monument training with our Trainer Bob Garst who is phenomenal both me and Joelle pictured with her back to my camera in photo 2 are blessed to work with Bob his knowledge of the Bedford Boys, D-Day and World War II is beyond measure– We still like him even though he gave us 2 must read books neither one under 300 pages due by next Saturday plus 2 videos. Me and Joelle come from rival schools me from Roanoke and she from Virginia Tech doesn’t help that she is Army and I’m Air Force, but I think we may put those differences to the side and try to survive this internship since it’s only the two of us. It may snow tomorrow here in the Roanoke Valley so we won’t have class or have to do tours the museum might be closed–I hope so this way I get a week to work this assignment. The 5th picture is Bob and Gerald two of my trainers at the museum–Gerald’s father recently passed he was one of the survivors of the D-Day landing in France, we are losing so many WWII Veterans I am hoping that at least one will come to the museum so I can get some knowledge from them as well. Our oldest Vet who does tours is Richard a sprite young man of 90 years old he was too young for WWII, but he did fight both in Korea and Vietnam and has a ton of energy for a man his age. Last is a picture of General of the Army Dwight Eisenhower also the 34th President of the United States his statue sits at the center of the garden surrounded by his 6 subordinate commanders of the D-Day/Operation Overlord campaign. I will get a better picture of the Garden next time–that’s all for now from the tiny town of Bedford.

Good Morning it is indeed cold here in the Shenandoah Mountains of Virginia and it is day two for me interning at the National D Day Museum–if it’s too cold for tours today I will be teaching about the lady in the picture above as one of those hidden stories about the D-Day landing that very few people know about. Many Americans have watched movies like “The Longest Day” ,”Saving Private Ryan” or the HBO series Band of Brothers–what these movies do well is portray the role that men played in the initial D-Day landing on June 6, 1944. One of the hidden stories I will be discussing while at the museum involves Martha Gellhorn also the wife of the famous author Ernest Hemingway. Women during World War 2 were not permitted to go into a combat zone an issue until the election of Bill Clinton to the presidency in 1993—even at the height of the first Gulf War in which I was a participant in 1991 the role of women as front line military personnel was limited. Martha Gellhorn was an accomplished writer and also a journalist long before she became Ernest Hemingway’s 3rd wife. In fact it’s his jealousy of her writing skills and world wide notice for those writing skills that will cause her to take on such a daring feat. Martha using her journalist credentials did sneak aboard one of the landing craft leaving England for the beaches of Normandy, France–in fact she hid in one of bathrooms of a landing craft the entire trip over from England to France–and the only reason she was able to get even close to the landing crafts was because she pretended to be covering a story about the invasion to be later printed in English newspapers.

Once the landing craft had arrived on the beach she quickly made her way ashore and began to record and take some of the 1st pictures of the D-Day invasion that would eventually find its way into American and British newspapers. Once she was discovered by American Forces in the combat zone–she was captured and held prisoner by Allied Forces returned to England and stripped of her journalist credentials for the remainder of the war….. Yet this daring lady isn’t mentioned in any of the movies that I listed above and her story would still be lost if I had not located its while doing research on “Hidden Secrets of the D-Day Landings”. Stay tune to my blog fellow historians and military vets I have many more of these to tell and again for those in the local area of Bedford or Lynchburg stop by on a Saturday or Sunday take a tour with me or attend one of my classes I think you will leave with a better understanding of the military and also the sacrifices of these brave young people many between the age of 18-21 made. For this reason alone they will always be known as America’s greatest generation.

Being at the National D-Day Museum is a humbling experience even if today was orientation and training attached you will find pictures of artifacts each with a story behind it. The above medic arm band belonged to Dr. Robert Ware he was supposed to serve as a battalion surgeon on D-Day setting up a field hospital as soon as possible post landing to treat the wounded. Unfortunately, Ware age 29 never got the chance to save lives, he lost his own when he was hit and killed by enemy fire immediately after exiting his landing craft. Weeks later the medic armband Ware wore that day was returned to his family who subsequently donated it to the museum. The Quonset Hut used for housing and hospitals during both WWII and the Korean War houses the classroom where I will be teaching lessons on D-Day to visitors over the next coming months. It also houses the artifacts room which host a treasure trove of German and American artifacts brought home by returning American servicemen that were eventually donated to the museum. Finally, the most sobering item I worked with today were actual Western Union telegrams used to inform loved ones of service personnel who made the ultimate sacrifice on D-Day. I did have to spend two hrs. out in subzero temperatures conducting D-Day tours with my trainer this afternoon the fortunate part–I have been to Normandy France several times during my time in the Air Force and was able to share personal stories that all the visitors really enjoyed and give advice to a couple planning to visit Normandy and Berlin next year on the 80th anniversary of the D-Day Landing. For those in the local area come out to the museum over the next several months to one of my classes or tours but wait until the weather warms up that wind coming off Peaks of Otter Mountain is unforgiving, I don’t care how much winter gear you have on as a couple from North Carolina discovered this afternoon–I will post more pictures and eventually a Pod-Cast I will be working on to go with my dissertation. which covers ” The Unknown Stories of D-Day—I will be talking about the only woman who landed on Omaha Beach on D. Day as well as the 330th Signal Balloon Company the only African American Unit to participate in the D-Day landing and a host of other stories like Dr. Ware mentioned above. My mission at the museum as my trainer stated clearly is to re-tell this important American History Story as the 80th Anniversary of the D-Day Landing approaches in June 2024…