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Posted on Mon, Jun. 09, 2008

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Kansan recounts D-Day capture

The Wichita Eagle

This is one in a series of vignettes celebrating Kansas history. The series' name comes from the state motto, Ad astra per aspera: "To the stars through difficulties."

BY BECCY TANNER

The German soldier ordered the prisoners of war to put their hands on their heads.

Wichitan Dale Q. Gregory was reluctant.

A few minutes before, gunfire had pierced his hands. Blood was spurting from his right wrist, his left hand had fingers askew.

It was the early morning hours of June 6, 1944, and history was in the making.

The news that Allied armies under the command of Gen. Dwight Eisenhower had landed in France had been anticipated for months, but when it came, it energized the home front and gave hope to millions around the world.

American paratroopers, sailors, pilots and infantrymen who participated in the invasion on the coast of Normandy had trained more than a year for this day.

They had been blessed by fellow Kansan Gen. Eisenhower:

"The eyes of the world are upon you. The hopes and prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere march with you," Eisenhower told troops in preparation for D-Day 1944.

But paratroopers and foot soldiers, like Gregory, would discover that the D-Day Invasion wasn't over in a day.

More than 6,000 Americans were killed, wounded and taken prisoner in the invasion.

The 101st Airborne, Gregory's division, suffered incredible losses. Only a sixth of the men reached their destination.

"They stripped us of everything," Gregory recalls of that time, 64 years ago this week, when he was taken as a prisoner of war. He was left only with his dog tags and uniform.

He had been on French soil only a few hours and had managed to fire off two grenades.

"I didn't fire a weapon," said Gregory, now 84. "I just threw those two grenades. I didn't know a thing about whether they had made a difference in the war."

In the early morning hours of June 6, Gregory was dropped south of the Douve River in France. German soldiers walking patrol on the river's dike fired on them once the men had landed and crossed a road.

The American paratroopers tried to get through a hedge to escape the Germans. Gregory remembers pushing his sergeant, who was firing a submachine gun.

Gregory then remembers his carbine was wrenched from his hands and felt a burning, stinging on the right side of his face.

"I got up on the run, feeling my bloodied cheek with my right hand. I ran faster than my feet, stumbling all over myself," he said. "I knew I must have a hole in my head, so I tore off my helmet and kept feeling for the hole I just knew must be in my head."

Looking down, Gregory saw his right hand was spurting blood. The bullet that hit his right wrist had also grazed his cheek. He reached with his left hand to grab his first-aid kit and discovered his left hand wouldn't work.

While bandaging his hands, German soldiers took him as a prisoner of war. He was marched to a medical station less than a mile away, then to a field hospital.

With the exception of a few survivors, the rest of Gregory's squad was killed.

• On June 7, 1944, Gregory was blacking out from the blood he'd lost.

• By June 9, Germans told him he needed to have his arm amputated. Bandages that hadn't been removed from June 6 had become encrusted in blood, but Gregory wouldn't let them amputate.

• On June 10, he and 20 other POWs were loaded on horse-drawn carriages as American troops advanced. There were no horses, so the prisoners pushed themselves.

• June 11, the prisoners escaped. French citizens hid them in a slate mine.

• On June 12 the U.S. 1st Infantry Division came across the prisoners and took Gregory back to Omaha Beach, then to England for recovery.

Before the war ended and he was discharged, Gregory married an Army nurse. They came to Wichita in 1951, where he spent 38 years as a production planner at Beech Aircraft.

More than 215,000 Kansas men and women served in uniform during World War II. Of those, more than 3,500 died in action. According to one estimate, 3,879 Kansans died of wounds received in the war.

Reach Beccy Tanner at 316-268-6336 or btanner@wichitaeagle.com.