Posted on 05/01/2009 2:59:46 PM PDT by csvset
NEWPORT NEWS — Jim Kennedy slogged onto Utah Beach in 1944 and saw the bloated bodies of American servicemen in the water.
The tide washed them out. The tide washed them back in.
It was three weeks after D-Day, June 6, 1944. The drama of the landing had passed, and the grim work of cleaning up the beach had begun. The Allies were pushing inward.
And Kennedy's own story was just about to start.
He belonged to a unit of U.S. Army deep sea divers who were dispatched to the port city of Cherbourg. The Allies had captured it after a bitter fight, and the Germans had done their best to make it unusable as a supply point.
Whatever could be sunk in the harbor was sunk. Among the debris were 24 rail cars crammed full of sea mines. The job of Kennedy and his crew: Clear the damn harbor.
He and fellow divers worked around the clock in two-man teams. They lifted out mines one by one. They strapped cables around chunks of wire-reinforced concrete — chunks as big as Buicks — and waited for a steam-operated crane to do the heavy lifting.
"They would bring it up," he recalled, "and at the very beginning, the minute it broke the surface, the cable would snap."
Lovely.
"Yeah, lovely is right," he said with a laugh.
He can smile about it today, at least once in a while.
Now 85 years old, Kennedy holds a special place in the rapidly disappearing World War II generation.
He is the last known surviving U.S. Army deep sea diver, and he is being honored this week in Williamsburg, where the U.S. Army Divers Association is holding its reunion.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailypress.com ...
ping
Ping.
For later reading. Thx!
I never knew the Army had divers. I saw a program on the History Channel a while back about deep sea divers. The suits they wore in WWII were basically the same ones used in the 1800’s.
I can’t imagine working under water with boxcars full of mines.
Bump
And I’m going to guess his children were daughters.
Don’t know if was ever proven about divers having a higher percentage of daughters.
Ping!
Me neither.
What's a real shame is that my kids will never have a real feel for the D-Day sacrifices other than watching 'Saving Private Ryan' or playing a video game like Medal of Honor.
They sure as hell won't get it from their history classes.
D-Day memories: Hampton Roads welcomes last surviving Army diver....
Jim Kennedy is the last known WWII deep sea diver. He is being honored for his service at a diver's reunion this weekend in Williamsburg. Kennedy and other past divers are at Ft. Eustis, where current Army divers will don the old WWII diving suits and do a demonstration inside their Diver Training Facility tank. (Joe Fudge, Daily Press / April 29, 2009)
Yes indeed. My Father was in the combat engineers in WWII. They were fortunate that they too went ashore a few days after D-Day.
I read that on D-Day the combat engineers suffered the highest casualty rate of any outfit.
What a great thing for them to do. I’ll bet he has some hair-raising stories to tell!
The cable WOULD likely snap when the object reached the surface. Underwater, the force needed to lift it would be offset by the weight of the water displaced, while in the air it would only be offset by the weight of the air displaced.
This is from wikipedia, the army has everything.
United States Army
Some Army Rangers attend the Special Forces Combat Diver Qualification Course.
Delta Force – all trained in Combat Swimming.
Army Engineer Divers- Trained in underwater construction, salvage, demolitions, hydrographic survey, hyperbaric chamber operation, beach and river recon, bridge recon, underwater cutting and welding, side scan sonar operations, mine and countermine operations, search and recovery operations and ships husbandry operations. Army divers use both surface supplied “Hard hat” and scuba to perform their missions.
The Special Forces maintain a robust combat diving capability. One Operational Detachment-Alpha (ODA) per Special Forces Company is trained and equipped to conduct open and closed circuit sub-surface maritime infiltration operations. Special Forces combat divers, along with many combat divers from other services, attend the Special Forces Combat Diver Qualification Course, which is held at the Special Forces Underwater Operations School, Naval Air Station Key West, Key West, Florida.
Thank you for your service Jim Kennedy!
God bless Jim Kennedy a true Hero..
BTTT
Thanks Kathy. Great story.
One thing playing Medal of Honor did was prompt my son to ask a lot of questions about D-Day. He was blown away when I explained that men really ran up those beaches right into the machine gun fire as depicted in the game.
I believe the combat engineers were among the first ones in - to try and clear some of the obstacles. More guts than I'll ever have.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.