Blowing a Path Through Omaha Beach: BM1 Nelson Dubroc

Ken Harbaugh:

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I’m Ken Harbaugh, host of Warriors In Their Own Words. In partnership with the Honor Project, we’ve brought this podcast back at a time when our nation needs these stories more than ever.

Warriors in Their Own Words is our attempt to present an unvarnished, unsanitized truth of what we have asked of those who defend this nation. Thank you for listening, and by doing so, honoring those who have served.

Today, we’ll hear from Boatswain's Mate First Class Nelson Dubroc. Dubroc served in the Normandy Invasion with a Naval Combat Demolition Unit (NCDU). It was their job to destroy obstacles with explosives in order to clear the way for the rest of the invasion.

BM1 Nelson Dubroc:

Actually we were drinking beer at the beer garden in Camp Perry one night, and then this guy, Jake Dumas, on the way back to the barracks, he said they were having a meeting and recruiting guys for demolition, and maybe we ought to go see, so we went down there and listened to them, and signed up. I found out then I wasn't going to be stuck in one place all the time, so it sounded pretty good. All we knew, that we were going in demolition, and whatever assignment they gave us.

I thought of it as a privileged outfit because we were privileged. Oh, we had no duties like KP, or guard duty, or fire watches. Nothing like that. We had our liberty card in our pocket. After the first part of your training, you could go to town every night. We was first in the pay line, first in the mess hall line. We got good pay.

Well, they just told us from the get-go that we would be that way. That was some of our privileges for being in that unit. I guess, to give you an incentive to sign up. Because when you're walking guard duty in the snow or in bootcamp, it wasn't too great, so that was something to look forward to. Then they also told us that you would travel a lot and you would be exposed to danger, but it wouldn't be for that long like the Infantry that went on, and on, and on, and on. About, I'd say, after the second day, we were on a picnic.

Our job was to place charges of C2, which was the explosive that we used, place them on the obstacles on the beaches, and then tie them into a ring main, if the guys came around. Had a ring main, tie it into the main ring main and then blow these obstacles up.

Well we went first through what they called hell week, one week of pure hell. Then later on, we learned about explosives, the different formulas, and power, and stuff like that, and how much to use and all. We had all these figures in our head, but we never had to use any of that. They just had the C2 in a little canvas bag with a hook on one end, a cord on the other end. Excuse me. You wrapped it around the obstacle and got it to the ring main.

They weren't really dangerous. You had to be careful. You couldn't just put fire on it, but as long as you didn't have a detonator on it, it wasn't all that bad. We used to play pitch and catch with the stuff. It was like putty, like Play-Doh. Like at Normandy, all we used was C2. Now, if you wanted to blow a channel, we'd use what they called rubber hose, which has granulated TNT in it. They were about 20-feet long.

We had trained in England. We went to Salcombe. We trained on the beaches. They had the obstacles like they had on the beaches, and we trained, coming into the beach and hooking the stuff on the obstacles, and all that. We really didn't know it was going to be for D-Day. We were just training for that. Then about maybe three, four, five days before D-Day, they put us on the ship and that's when ... My unit was on the Princess Maud.

Then they'd get all the crews, every crew would get in a separate huddle with his officer and he kept looking at pictures of the beach. You had pictures of all these obstacles, and where they were, and where they were set up. Everybody was assigned one particular job. You had a particular job to put on certain obstacles with the C2 explosives.

Just another. We were going in combat. That's all. It was going in there to clear the beaches. We knew it was for real, but we didn't know how big of an undertaking it was. They had told us that, towards the end of the programing, I'd guess you'd call it, when they were showing us all these pictures and all, they told us that Navy was going to shell the beach, and approach us to the beach, and everything was going to be pretty well cleared up, and the opposition was going to be minimal, and all that kind of stuff, so we really weren't too concerned. Just another dry run.

I remember when we had signed up for the thing, they had told us that the possibility of casualties would have been heavy, maybe two or three out of five would get hit, get hurt. Actually, for D-Day, I didn't, myself, it never dawned on me that I was going to get hurt or could get hurt. Of course, when you're 18 years old, you're pretty well shock-proof or invincible. You think you are anyway.

One of the reasons I went in this thing ... I was in the Seabees in Camp Perry, and then I found out that the Seabees might get put on an island or wherever, and you'd work there, and then you were just stuck there. This thing here, they told us we'd be traveling around, and you wouldn't be stuck in one place all the time, and you'd get plenty of liberty, and you'd get paid well. It sounded good.

Our primary objective was to clear like a 50-foot gap so that when the tide came in, we could guide these boats in through the gaps, and then they could get the Infantry in that much easier so it wouldn't expose them to as much danger, I guess. That was our primary focus.

We came in there, I guess, about 6:30 or less, about that time. Because the weather was so rough, not one unit landed, I don't think, right on time or just specific place that they were supposed to land. It didn't make too much difference because all the beach were the same, all the obstacles were the same. When we landed, we were looking at the pictures. The only difference is they were shooting at us, and then we just picked up ... We couldn't get that rubber boat fully exploded off the LCM, so we just picked up as much as we could carry and just jumped in and start putting them on the obstacles. And the casualties in the front ... They had Army people in the front of the boat. I guess, they maybe were there to protect us. When they dropped the ramp, they fired the guns right into the boat, and these guys were just laying there, so we had to climb over them to get out. They couldn't pick that boat up, so we just picked up as much stuff as we could and went in with it.

As soon as we came out of the landing craft, we start putting the chargers on the obstacles. They had these Belgian Gates they called them, big gates set up like you see where they're doing road work. They have these barricades and all, and they had stuff, looked like the jacks that the girls played with. They had these on the beach. You had to put it in the crook and blow that out. They had posts with Tellermines on top of them, and stuff like that.

The pack was about this long and maybe two inches, like so. Then on one end, they had an iron hook on one end. On the other end, they had a sash guard, and you just take it and wrap it around there and hook the sash guard in the hook, and it would stay there. Then you'd take the primer card that was onto the firing chap inside the charge, and you'd tie it onto the primer card.

We got a bunch of it done right on the water's edge, and then we were going to blow it up. To pull the fuse, actually, they pulled the fuse and then Bill Venyon told me later the reason they didn't blow it, well, everything was snafued then. The Army was coming in on top of it, and you couldn't blow the thing with the Army coming in. You'd have blew them up, so they cut the fuse and then we'd come back later and put it back in there. Because the weather was so bad, you had the rough seas, and all the confusion. It made it kind of tough.

You had stuff flying all over the place. I mean, these was about four, five, six-feet high, some of them, the ones way out in the water. We'd put charges all over, and then that was all angle line, about four-inch angle line, I guess. When that stuff starts flying around, there was no place to hide. You just laid there and hope it don't come down on you. That's where they had this fire in the hole, hollering, "Get out." Those that could, get out as best they could. Some of them, we'd drag them out. I never did drag anybody out, but I know some people that did. You couldn't just leave them there, if you could help it. You'd try and protect them. Like I say, when you'd fire it, this stuff was flying all over. Some would fly straight up, some sideways, and so maybe that would fall on you, or the Germans hitting you with the machine gun fire and the sniper fire. Other than that, it was just everything was danger. That's all. It was mass slaughter.

I know it sounds like Hollywood, but you could look and you could see the stuff hitting the sand: The bullets hitting in the sand or the shells. Then you'd run to that hole, or you'd run past that and you'd stop and try to hide behind something, or behind the bodies that were there already. Then when it come back again, then you'd go some more.

They would sweep the beach, back and forth, plus you had the 88 artillery shells coming in, falling all over the place. If you happened to see it coming then you could stop and hope it doesn't hit you. Then you'd move on. You figured you weren't going to get hit anyway. As strange as it seems, that's the train of thought you have, I guess. What you'd call it, I really don't know.

Then too, if you were putting it on a post, you'd get behind the post, and then you'd hook it. Then you had to leave and go somewhere else, but still, it wasn't because you were a better soldier, or better trained, or better, more efficient. You were just lucky. That's all. It wasn't your time. I didn't realize it then, but now I realize it.

Everywhere you looked, you could see the fire coming from the beaches. Then on top of that, you had the artillery coming in too, which in a way kind of helped us because in a backhanded way, I guess, you might say, because they would hit the beach and blow some of the obstacles away too, so that kind of helped out. Then it would blow holes where you could jump in, and that helped out.

We were on the edge of the beach on the dune lines. Then we had a little protection, and then I realized that then you could see all the bodies floating in the water. This was serious business. It wasn't a game anymore.

When you're in combat, no matter which part of it you're in, it's the same level. They're shooting at you, and if they hit you, your time is up. That's it. But I didn't think of it as a suicide mission really.

I was telling this guy, one ... He was a soldier. He must have had his helmet strapped on under his neck and they blew his head off. He was laying on the edge of the wall and the tide would flip his neck back and forth, back and forth. One of these guys, I guess, it got to him. He picked up a wooden ammunition box, and inverted, and put it over to guy's neck so you wouldn't be looking at that. Because we were laying on the beach. There was nowhere else for us to go, so we're just sitting there and you had to see all that. Then you'd see body parts floating up and all.

Then late that afternoon, I guess it was maybe, it was into evening, really. They started shelling the beach again, and we're running. Jumped in this slit trench they had. I guess, a shell hit close to it or whatever happened, but the thing caved in on us and buried a bunch of us, and one guy never made it out. They couldn't get him out. That was kind of bad because after we got him out ... Well, they got him out, really. They had to get me out too. They were still trying to revive him, and it was bad. That part there, I remember that. I've never dreamed about it, but I remember it. It's one of the things I remember, that stuck with you. That and the guy's head. I didn't find out till years later how long my neck was when I start having arthritis in my neck. The doctor told me that's what it was, and I said, "My neck ain't that long." He says, "Oh, yeah." Then I thought back to this guy. I can still see that neck just whipping in the water.

In my particular unit, we had me, Waddell, Walter, Davignon, and Bruce. There were five and one officer. The officer was the only casualty. He got shot. I mean, he wasn't dead. He was wounded. His wife is here today. He was wounded, but the rest of us got lucky.

After the beach was cleared, we didn't do anything really. We just set up camp in the field, a bivouac in one of these hedgerow fields, and just stayed there waiting for them to come get us, take us back to England. See, the deal was they were supposed to bring us in. We would do our job, and then they would take us out. As they brought the Infantry in, they would take us out, but then there was so many casualties that we just stayed there, which was the right thing to do. They just took the casualties out and we stayed there. We must have stayed there two, maybe three weeks and then finally, they brought us back to England.

Well, we waited for the guys to come back from the hospital and wherever they ... the survivors. Then we eventually came back to Fort Pierce, and regrouped, and formed Team 25

I think we had an effect because even though the casualties were heavy, I think we saved a bunch of people. They were able to get in quicker because the first guys coming in, believe me, these guys, the artillery fellows, they had this thing zeroed into a science, and they would hit some of the boats coming in. Some of these guys never made it ashore. They just ... The boats blew up. I'm talking about the Infantry and everybody else. By blowing these gaps in there, when the tide come in, they could bring these boats right up to the beach where they could come out on solid ground and didn't have to flounder around in the water as much.

Mainly, I did what everybody else did. They were called, they did their share, and they went in there and did what they had to do. I think we helped out to hasten the end of the war. I really do. Maybe we didn't, but I believe we did.

The heroes are dead. Anybody will tell you that. We just ordinary people doing the job that had to be done. That's all.

One nother thing that, it happened ... Of course, this didn't happen at Normandy. After we came back from overseas, they gave us a leave. I went home and this man comes to ... My dad had a mom and pop store. This man comes in the store and he wanted to talk to him. I go over there, and his son had got killed over there. He was in our outfit and he got killed, and he kept asking me ... The Navy had sent him a telegram, or the War Department saying that he had got killed, but they hadn't found his body. He wanted me to tell him that he was a prisoner or whatever excuse that he was still alive. I kept telling him, "We accounted for all our people. We know who's dead and we know who's alive. Nobody was taken prisoner. Nobody ..." The thing that really then, I think, affected me more than anything else, it was his only son, only child. When he left, he put his hand on my shoulder and he said, "Well, son, I'm glad you're back." That affected me a little bit because like I said, at the time, I was only 18 years old. I thought I was invincible, but I felt sorry for the man, really. Other than that, we just did our job that we were supposed to do like everybody else.

Ken Harbaugh:

That was Boatswain's Mate First Class Nelson Dubroc.

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