Aberistwyth, or as some of us called it, Aber-Wrist-Watch. All good things must come to an end so eventually we wound up back in Camp Checkendon doing the usual routine training duties the rest of the outfits around us were pulling.
Things began to look as though there might be an invasion after all so we were sent off to the Assault Training Center in the southwestern part of England near Barnstaple, Devonshire. As usual the 440th performed in its outstanding manner. The officers there said it was a pleasure to work with an outfit that learned as rapidly and as well as ours. The day the jeep drivers tested their efficiency as water proofing experts everybody had a field day. A couple of the drivers went out a little too deep and all that could be seen was the driver riding around steering a great big wave. After we had become proficient at loading and unloading and LCT they told us to go on home and wait for the invasion.
Back we went to the boring business of waiting and training again. Infantry drill and hikes, that's all we did for a couple of weeks. One fine day we were told that we were moving out, yes moving out in the woods for a while! So we set up house keeping in the woods. There was a growing tension in the air, the whole world knew it was coming but didn't know when. June 6th, the radios bellowed forth the news, the newspapers screamed the headlines in 6 inch type. At last the Allies had decided it was time to crush the Nazis. Everybody was restricted to the area but nobody minded, we hung around all the available radios and eagerly awaited each newscast.
The advance detail took off and headed for France with the Battalion following close behind. The trouble is they wouldn't let us just go ahead and drive straight to France, instead we had to go to a marshalling area in the southern part of England and get organized in groups for loading up on the LCT's. We hung around the marshalling area going to movies and the like while waiting for our turn on the hards to load up. The jeeps left first with the rest of the Battalion right on their heels. Those hards were nothing more than a concrete ramp sloping down into the water. Every-body was well supplied with seasickness pills and most of us used them. The trip across the channel was uneventful so our first taste of actual war was Normandy itself. When we hit the beach P-47's were dive-bombing nearby Jerry installations and warships were pouring a barrage inland on a line of pillboxes. The engineers had the beach pretty well organized by that time so we had little difficulty in unloading. We did find out that our waterproofing had not been perfect, for a "cat" drug a couple vehicles up to dry land for us. Thus started the combat period of the 440th AAA AW Bn.
13