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Charles L. Gribi

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Bombardier and navigator Charlie Gribi remembers volunteering for every available mission in order to get home by his daughter's first birthday. He also passed up a promotion, which may have saved his life. Video provided by the Clermont County Public Library. Visit charliegribi.com for more information on his life and missions. (1:37)

Charles Shepherd

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Charles Shepherd started with ROTC because of the uniforms. There was a depression on and it was free clothing. The newly commissioned Lieutenant shipped out from Boston on June 6, 1944, arriving in Normandy as a replacement. He talked his way into the 121st Infantry Regiment, his father's outfit in World War 1. (6:32)

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They were green replacements in hedgerow country. Their first night there, one of them died when he went outside to answer the call of nature. No one knew him and he knew no one. Charles Shepherd recalls that sad first night at the front, where the hedgerows presented a unique battle environment. (4:31)

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Charles Shepherd was near Saint-Lo during the massive bombing campaign over that city. The men in his rifle platoon were baffled when strips of aluminum began falling around them and they hustled to gather them up. Later they learned what they were and how they were no danger. As they moved out, meeting no resistance, they advanced and dug in seven times in one day. (4:45)

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The French woman was talking and pointing to her barn. Three German soldiers were in there and they surrendered to Charles Shepherd and his platoon. Some of the German soldiers in the area were Asians captured at the Russian Front fighting for the Russian Army. The Germans pressed them into service as occupation troops in France. (4:21)

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They moved through a lot of small towns in France and Charles Shepherd reveals how you could tell what phase of the battle the town was in by the size of the rubble. They were pestered by German planes and instructed not to shoot at them. At one point he made eye contact with a German pilot flying low in a valley and he knows he could have shot him down. (5:21)

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In the fighting around the French coastal town of Saint-Malo, Charles Shepherd was constantly dodging artillery shells. At one point he was between his own mortar platoon and a German self-propelled gun. Everyone was firing and he took a shell fragment in his hand. For the moment, there was no evacuation and no morphine. They were surrounded. (7:30)

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Asked whether the shrapnel that hit him was from German or American ordnance, Charles Shepherd just laughs. In combat, he says, it doesn't make a difference. A chance meeting years later gave him a little insight into what happened. Evacuated to England, he faced new difficulties, like trying to get into the officer's club at the hospital. (5:19)

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Evacuated to England, Charles Shepherd had to undergo three operations on his hand. The third one was only necessary because the doctors bungled the second. Before he went back to his unit, he had to lead enlisted men in physical rehabilitation and then endure Christmas and New Year's Eve at a resort hotel. (7:43)

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Recovered from his wound, Charles Shepherd's first stop was the Fontainebleau Palace. He then rejoined his unit in the Hurtgen Forest, where the trees were devastated from the furious artillery barrages during the fighting there. They occupied a trench where they fought snow and ice more than Germans. (5:38)