D-Day Stories, Near and Far

A statue of Gen. William C. Lee outside the Airborne museum bearing his name in Dunn, N.C.

© By Tim Peeler, 2019

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Bill Lee, the football player

At 12:48 a.m. on June 6, 1944, thousands of Allied paratroopers, using a plan developed by Dunn native, one-time Wake Forest student and NC State graduate William Carey Lee, began jumping behind enemy lines in Normandy, France. Thus began the long-anticipated Operation Overlord, 75 years ago today.

I found the Gen. William C. Lee Airborne Museum in Dunn fascinating. Lee played football and baseball at both Wake and State and is rumored to have hit the longest home run in Riddick Stadium history. Here’s a story I did for this week’s worldwide commemoration of the 75^th anniversary.

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This is the story I did while working for NC State athletics as the managing editor of GoPack.com. Someone told me: “No one wants to read these stories.”

Fine, but I always like this sentence about Lee, a former NC State and Wake Forest football and baseball player: “And, no doubt, the paratroopers [Bill Lee] trained scored the most successful touchdown in world history when they landed in the hedgerows of France shortly after calling out his name.”

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Here’s a story the NC State Alumni Magazine did following a trip to Normandy, led by associate editor Chris Saunders. It mentions most of the NC State alumni who were involved in the D-Day invasion, both on June 6, 1944, and the weeks that followed. Many of them were buried in the Normandy American Cemetery.

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This letter from NC State forestry alum and former football player Warren W. Wooden of Baltimore was penned in England the morning after the D-Day invasion to his wife and two young children in Raleigh. Wooden was a captain in the U.S. Army, training in England on D-Day.

Darling,

Guard Warren W. Wooden

Just a few words to let you know that I am OK. Imagine things at home and in the states in general are really humming now that the invasion has started. Personally, and I believe speaking for the average officer, I am very glad to see the invasion start…

Yesterday morning at about 6 a.m. there was so many planes in the sky and they made so much noise that I was awakened from my sleep – went outside the hut and just marveled at the sound – knew something was cooking.

I am still in England at school and am enjoying school and England very much. Most of the people here are relieved to know that the final offensive is underway…I should have some interesting tales when I get home and do not have to worry about the censor. Please don’t worry about me darling – just take care of yourself and the babies for me.

Really would have liked to have been in London last night. Understand there was quite a bit of celebrating.

Stay sweet and remember I love you.

Yours,

Woody

Capt. Wooden was a star guard on the Wolfpack’s varsity football team in 1936 and ‘37, also lettering in wrestling and track. He landed at Normandy’s Utah Beach on July 9, a month after the initial invasion. He was killed in action among the Saint-Lo hedgerows of France on July 26, 1944, just a few days after this letter from England arrived in Raleigh. Wooden is buried at the Normandy American Cemetery in France.

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Maj. Gen. Clarence B. “Red” Shimer, a former 145-pound wrestler at NC State College and co-captain of the 1938 Wolfpack wrestling squad, was commissioned as a 2nd Lt. through State's ROTC program. During World War II, Shimer survived the invasions of Africa, Italy and France, including the D-Day invasion at Omaha Beach, as a member of the U.S. Army's 30th Infantry Division. He returned home afterwards to work at the Pentagon and as a military science instructor and ticket manager for athletics at his alma mater.

Red Shimer

Though he survived the biggest military conflict the world has ever seen, he was unable to navigate something even more troublesome: the NC State-UNC football rivalry. Apparently, Shimer was in charge of distributing tickets for the game when it was annually played at UNC’s Kenan Stadium, when the teams alternated being the home team on the Tar Heels’ home turf (Riddick Field was too small and crumbling to host the popular game).

It appears that UNC allowed its students free admission to games even when it was the “visiting” team and always charged NC State students to attend the game even when it was the “home” team. The student government addressed the situation at a heated meeting before the 1948 game.

Maj. Shimer left the university shortly thereafter, but eventually spent more than three decades in state government. After 28 years of service, he became the Adjutant General of the North Carolina National Guard, serving as the state’s top military officer from 1975-77.

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U.S. Navy Lt. Commander C.A. "Tim" Temerario stood in the sands of Omaha Beach on D-Day, sending troops--many of them to their deaths--from their landing craft through the impenetrable beaches to the bluffs ahead. Having already survived the Japanese invasion of the Philippines, Temerario was one of the few decorated men to survive action in both the Pacific and European Theaters in World War II.

When he returned home, the Lorain, Ohio, native continued his prewar profession: assistant football coach. He had coached at Denison and Indiana before the war and back at Indiana afterwards. In 1950, he helped the Cleveland Browns win the 1950 NFL championship.

In 1952, he joined head coach Horace Hendrickson's coaching staff at NC State, spending two years coaching the ends for the Wolfpack.

He returned to the NFL and spent 18 years with the Washington Redskins and, serving as director of player personnel, was the person responsible for telling players they had been cut, traded or were no longer needed. After a man has sent thousands of soldiers into the hellfire of Normandy, telling a player to clean out his locker isn't so hard.

Temerario died in 2001 at the age of 95. He is buried in Arlington National Cemetery. Read more about his NFL career in this Washington Post piece.

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While 156,000 troops landed at Normandy on June 6, 1944, more than 195,700 Naval personnel worked on the ships that delivered them to the beaches of France. Only three of the 1,213 naval combat ships were sunk on D-Day: the USS Corry, a destroyer which was downed either by a German artillery shell or a mine (the official report has discrepancies); the USS PC-1261, a submarine chaser that was also hit by German gunfire; and the Norwegian destroyer HNoMS Svenner, which lost 32 Norwegian and 1 British sailor from its crew of 219 after it was hit by a German torpedo.

The Svenner was the only Allied ship sunk by German naval activity on that day.

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Troops who ate breakfast on D-Day were more likely to die on the beaches and in the surf at Normandy than those who did not. Rough seas caused much seasickness on the transport ships and landing craft. The men who spent much of their Channel crossing vomiting were weakened by the time they tried to go ashore, as they tried to fight through the surf and cross 200 yards of sand under a hail of bullets. Served on the landing craft just before landing: coffee and doughnuts.

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The first battle won at the invasion of Normandy was by Allied weathermen. The invasion had to be near a full moon for tidal purposes. It was originally scheduled for June 5, but storms in the Atlantic forced Eisenhower to delay. Most German meteorologists, who had less information than their counterparts because of Allied control of the Atlantic, predicted that heavy storms would continue, so they either left their posts to attend war games in Rennes, France, and sent their men on leave.

Allied weathermen predicted a short break in the weather on June 6 and Eisenhower gave the go-ahead to storm the beaches at Normandy. Had he not, the next available dates were June 16-19. On those dates, the beaches at Normandy were pummeled by heavy storms that would have pushed an invasion into July. Stalin, whose troops were taking a horrible beating on the eastern front, had been promised May, and he would not have accepted another month-long delay in the invasion.

Sometime today, thank a weatherman for helping to save the world.