An American in Europe
WWII veteran Pete Shaw describes his fight through a devastated continent from Normandy, through the Battle of the Bulge, to Dachau
Veteran Pete Shaw shares his journey from the D-day beaches to liberating Dachau
During World War II, millions of Americans fought on the Western Front in Europe. With the Allies under the overall command of Supreme Commander Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Americans contributed by the far the most resources, including manpower. From the beaches of Normandy to the liberation of concentration camps in Germany, US forces advanced to free country after country from Nazi tyranny.
Among these US soldiers was Harry ‘Pete’ Shaw. A corporal in the 283rd Field Artillery Battalion, Shaw fought across the continent between June 1944-May 1945. Providing vital logistical support to frontline troops, he witnessed terrible bloodshed from Utah Beach to the snows of the Battle of the Bulge as well as the unspeakable crimes of Dachau concentration camp. Now a decorated and honoured veteran, Shaw describes his personal experience of the Allied advance that freed nations and changed history.
“We had to go”
Born in 1924, Shaw was in high school in Pennsylvania when Pearl Harbor was attacked in December 1941. The shock of the Japanese attack on the Hawaiian naval base persuaded Shaw and his friends to join the armed forces, “We were just reading and learning about the war beforehand. It was even studied in school and we were talking a lot about it. After Pearl Harbor we couldn’t wait until we graduated because we’d then be old enough to join up. I figured we had to go in and do our part.”
Shaw’s motivations were partially personal, “I came from a town that was more of a farming community and everybody was very close. I also had some really good friends who were in the navy at Pearl Harbor and there were at least 11 of us who signed up right away. My mother was hesitant but we had to go. We enlisted in December 1942 but we were only 17.”
Although Shaw’s first choice was to join the US Navy, he was colour-blind and he instead joined the US Army aged 18 on 21 May 1943. After being assigned to the artillery and taking an IQ test, Shaw was informed that he was eligible for officer training or an Army Specialized Training Program (ASTP). Despite the opportunity of serving with a higher rank, Shaw declined to become an officer, “If you went with that offer it was 90 days before they made a lieutenant out of you. I didn’t want to be a so-called ‘90-Day Wonder’ so I went for specialised training instead.”
Shaw’s ASTP training took him down an unexpected route, “I thought it was good because I assumed I’d train in radar or something important. However I was sent to a gas and chemical warfare school in Kansas. I said, ‘Why would you send me there?’ and
“FROM THE BEACHES OF NORMANDY TO THE LIBERATION OF CONCENTRATION CAMPS IN GERMANY, US FORCES ADVANCED TO FREE COUNTRY AFTER COUNTRY FROM NAZI TYRANNY”
they replied, ‘You’re the only one that’s really qualified because you took all the sciences and algebra at school.’ That was it, I learned about mustard gas and chemical warfare and then had to go back and teach it.”
Learning about chemical warfare was essential due to its previous widespread use during World War I, “It was believed that the Germans would gas the Allies. A lot of people don’t know this but for the first three months of the war we wore gas masks. This was until it was decided that gas wouldn’t be used and we stopped wearing them.”
Preparing for an invasion
Shaw subsequently joined 283rd Field Artillery Battalion as a corporal. An independent unit, 283rd was soon deployed overseas. After crossing the Atlantic Ocean, Shaw completed his training in South Wales where he was struck by the landscape, “Hollywood had made a movie called How Green Was My Valley and it was the most beautiful country I had ever seen. That was where we were headquartered but we also went to London and even Ireland to get supplies. This was because when our ships left America they never went to the same place twice so that U-boats couldn’t track them. When it was time to go to Europe we had all the supplies ready loaded. We distributed what was needed to the firing batteries and everything was set.”
Shaw also recalls that relations between the American forces and the British population were cordial, “They were good and the majority were tickled to death that we were there.”
The 283rd were only a small element of the huge preparations for the invasion of France in early June 1944. Shaw remembers the tense delays, “Eisenhower put out the codeword for the invasion, which was ‘Overlord’. We waited four days for that to come on. If the Germans knew that we were backed up seven miles to go aboard they could have bombed us and there would never have been an invasion. The weather was so bad and you could not see a thing. You couldn’t even see your hand in front of you because of the fog and the rain.”
Normandy
The invasion finally began on 6 June with 283rd sailing over to Normandy eight days later onto Utah Beach, “We were the third wave because we were a mechanised division. Because we were in the artillery we didn’t do that much on the beach but there were so many scars from what was done there. It was a pitiful sight, especially when we saw Omaha.”
The savagery of the fighting on the American beaches just over a week before was a grim introduction to the war for Shaw and his comrades, “Even though we were late, we saw a lot of evidence for what happened and we couldn’t get off fast enough. We were told that if we saw any bodies we had to take their dog tags and put them in their mouth. You wore dog tags around your neck but you would open their mouth and stick them in so that they would know who that soldier was.”
Now operating in a deadly combat zone, 283rd got to work. The battalion consisted of A, B and C Batteries along with two other batteries for servicing and headquarters. Shaw was assigned to the Service Battery, “The Headquarters Battery was responsible for doing all of the communications. The other batteries, including ours, would go ahead and we’d service all the ammunition, food and clothing, and so on. Our Service Battery was on the road 24 hours a day and we couldn’t move in daylight a lot of the time because we would be bombed. We often worked at night and provided service to whatever was needed at the front.”
Performing this logistical work at night was further hampered by intentionally low visibility,
“In my group there were three trucks, which three of us drove. It was called a ‘brigade’ but there were only three of us. When we travelled at night there were no headlights on the vehicles apart from a little light called a ‘cat eye’. It was half an inch wide and an inch long and the drivers knew that if he let that light get a little too far ahead of him, he was on his own.”
“BECAUSE OF DEVASTATING AERIAL BOMBINGS AND ARTILLERY BOMBARDMENTS, 95 PER CENT OF SAINT-LÔ WAS DESTROYED. THIS LED ONE AMERICAN SOLDIER TO GRIMLY QUIP, “WE SURE LIBERATED THE HELL OUT OF THIS PLACE”
“ALLIED LOSSES, THE VAST MAJORITY OF THEM AMERICAN, NUMBERED APPROXIMATELY 90,000 MEN WHILE THE GERMANS MAY HAVE LOST 100,000. IT WAS THE LARGEST AND BLOODIEST SINGLE BATTLE FOUGHT BY THE UNITED STATES DURING THE WAR”
In these dangerous driving conditions, Shaw’s truck would guide the other vehicles, “In a convoy you couldn’t stop but our lead convoy truck had a little light with a reflector on it. It would show light just three feet in front of the wheel but we were the only truck that even had that. We called it a ‘spotlight’ and the other trucks would follow our little dot as we went down the roads.
“We never lost anybody because we would blow our horn every once in a while so that we could follow each other.”
With the convoy, Shaw soon found himself experiencing heavy fighting as the Allies struggled to break out of the bocage, “The Panther and SS divisions were really well trained and I hate to say this but, at times, their tanks were so superior to ours. This was because ours were taller with a big dome on them. They were big targets but Patton later found a way to stop the German tanks, which was to hit them in the back! However, when we went into France, those tanks were in the back of hedges and we couldn’t see them because the hedges were higher than the tanks.”
Nevertheless the Americans fought with determination and their artillery was a critical factor in achieving the hard-fought advance out of Normandy, “After we had opened up a lot of the towns with the bombing, shelling and infantry we managed to break out, although nothing was easy. The Germans were still there but we’d loosen them up with our shelling”.
Liberating France
After the breakout from Normandy, the Allies made rapid progress east across France where they would release imprisoned civilians and receive increasing numbers of German prisoners, “There were a lot of occasions when we liberated the French from little compounds that the Germans had held them in.
“Then the Germans themselves became prisoners! They didn’t think we were marching that fast but it didn’t take us long to pick up the pace after we had a start.”
Shaw recalls the gratitude of the French after years of Nazi occupation, “There were two guys in our company who could speak French and that helped a lot. When they came out they even started to learn a little bit of American. They would say things like ‘Chocolate! Cigarette!’ and they also asked for food. If they didn’t have a flag they would wave a white cloth and say how wonderful it was that we were there.”
The 283rd finally entered Paris in August 1944, “We were only there for three days and two nights but I got to go into Notre
Dame Cathedral. One of my friends could speak French and, like me, he was a Catholic. We went in and each got a rosary that the archbishop blessed for us while we kissed his ring. I later gave that rosary to my mother”.
Wounded behind the lines
After Paris the Allies advanced through northern France into Belgium and Luxembourg. It was here that the fighting intensified again for 283rd under the command of George S. Patton, “We had a lot of battles there and although I never met Patton, I was twice within 100 yards of him when he would wave from a Jeep. In the Ardennes he moved so fast that he went back into the lines. He called up 105mm guns and said, ‘I’m not sending in any soldiers’, he had our cannons to replace the mortars and pointed our guns at angles that were almost straight up.”
The 283rd’s guns fired shells that would provoke German troops into emerging from wooded defences, “They would put a certain amount of powder balls into the shells. When you fired it, it was just enough to get the shell into the air and come down from 50 feet before it would explode. This was so it would level off trees to enable the Germans to break their positions. If they ran out they would be prisoners but if they didn’t they would still be there.”
It was now late 1944 and during the advance 283rd captured an enemy ordnance plant, “There was no gas to move the cannons and trucks in there and we were ordered to destroy them. There were also a couple of big guns known as ‘Big Berthas’, which were either six-inch or even eight-inch guns. We didn’t know how to dismantle them but there was a camp where German prisoners were held. We could tell from their insignia that they were artillerymen and four of them could speak English so we got them to help us.”
The Americans and German POWS towed the pieces with a truck but Shaw was unaware that one of the prisoners was still prepared to fight, “We pulled one of our trucks up with a winch on the front. I was wrapping a winch cable around the piece so after it was unhooked we could drag it out of there. However one German pulled the pin on purpose with my feet under it. As soon as he did it he said, ‘I knew I would get one!’.”
Shaw’s feet were crushed, “My feet were in sand and they dug them out from at least a foot. The shoestrings were broken on my shoes so both feet were smashed and the left foot was broken. I was in hospital for 14 days with that injury and I’m still having problems with it!”
“OUR SERVICE BATTERY WAS ON THE ROAD 24 HOURS A DAY AND WE COULDN’T MOVE IN DAYLIGHT A LOT OF THE TIME BECAUSE WE WOULD BE BOMBED”
Despite his wound, Shaw would have little rest as his battalion was about to be plunged into a wintry nightmare in the Ardennes.
The Bulge
Sometimes called the Ardennes Counteroffensive but more commonly known as the Battle of the Bulge, this huge and bloody campaign was the last major German offensive on the Western Front during WWII. Launched through the forested Ardennes region of eastern Belgium, northeast France and Luxembourg, the Germans’ objectives were ambitious.
The offensive was intended to stop the Allies’ use of the port of Antwerp and to split their lines. If this was achieved the Germans aimed to encircle and destroy four separate armies and force the Allies to negotiate a peace treaty that was favourable to Germany. Fought between 16 December 1944 and 25 January 1945, the Germans initially achieved total surprise and American forces bore the brunt of the assault. The ‘Bulge’ was the large gap initially created through Allied lines by the offensive and it would be prove difficult to close.
At the battle’s peak the Germans deployed almost 450,000 men while the Americans were significantly outnumbered at the beginning. US forces were eventually brought up to over 600,000 men and the offensive was effectively broken by 27 December 1944. It took another month before the Allied frontline was restored to its original position.
Shaw remembers the scale of the American forces, “The 2nd, 3rd, 7th and 9th Armies were all there and they all had a part to play. That’s not even counting divisions such as the 42nd and 147th, who also played a big part. There were so many that I can’t even remember them all.”
The 283rd joined the battle four days after it started where it was divided, “We went into Luxembourg and Bastogne and that’s where most of our fighting was. We were transferred at that time and they split our outfit up because it was getting smaller. I went into the 690th Field Artillery Battalion and that was when we re-supported Patton.”
The Bulge became notorious for the extremely cold winter conditions that the soldiers fought in, “It was freezing weather and
“HITLER WANTED TO PROVE THAT HE WASN’T DONE FIGHTING. THAT’S WHY HE BROUGHT IN ALL THESE SOLDIERS FROM DIFFERENT FRONTS. THEY INCLUDED GERMAN KIDS WHO WERE ONLY 15-16 YEARS OLD”
I’d swear it was ten below zero for seven days in a row. When it was cold over there, you froze and when we took our shoes off we wrapped our feet in blankets.”
Unlike other troops who had to travel on foot, Shaw was lucky to have some comparative shelter, “The advantage we had was that we were mobilised. We had a truck but the guys who didn’t had to walk and sleep in tents. We were at least blessed by having a vehicle. If we saw guys along the road we’d pick them up if we weren’t carrying supplies or only had a few. We’d let them get in the truck to thaw them out as much as we could. We didn’t have doors on the vehicle so some of them would stand on the running boards or climb up on the sides to stand.”
As well as the weather Shaw had to contend with the Germans who fought a desperate but hard battle, “Hitler wanted to prove that he wasn’t done fighting. That’s why he brought in
all these soldiers from different fronts. They included German kids who were only 15-16 years old at the Bulge.”
The casualty figures for the Bulge are disputed but nevertheless huge. Allied losses, the vast majority of them American, numbered approximately 90,000 men while the Germans may have lost 100,000. It was the largest and bloodiest single battle fought by the United States during the war. For Shaw, his immediate environment was enough for him to believe the figures, “At the time we didn’t know that many were killed but we were thinking, ‘My God, it’s all you’re seeing.’ The Bulge was certainly the most severe fighting as far as we were concerned.”
Dachau
After the Battle of the Bulge, Germany’s strategic reserve on the Western Front was exhausted and the Allies were finally able to invade the country in late March 1945. Shaw was part of the advance into Upper Bavaria a month later when his unit received orders that did not initially appear unusual, “3rd Army called down to our headquarters and said, ‘Close to where you are, there is a supplies depot. You go in.’ Our outfit went in but I stopped the trucks right away and said, ‘There’s something wrong, this is no supply depot.’ This was because there was only one German vehicle and we didn’t see any soldiers.” Shaw’s outfit had chanced upon something far sinister, “There was a big flue sticking up about 30 feet and there was smoke coming out of it. We then looked to the south of that building and saw a big trench.
“We said, ‘What is that?’ before a shot was fired from inside the building. Of course, the five guys in the truck got out real quick and we blasted rounds from a machine-gun into the air. Five Germans came out with their hands over their heads but five more decided to run. What we had found was Dachau.”
Opened in 1933 Dachau was the first purpose-built concentration camp intended for permanent use in Nazi Germany. It was not designed as an extermination camp, although it was still a place of extreme horror where more murders of political prisoners were committed than at any other Nazi camp.
Over 40,000 of approximately 200,000 people imprisoned there were killed by the time American forces liberated Dachau on 29 April 1945. By this time Dachau’s camp system had grown to include almost 100 sub-camps. At its liberation there were still approximately 30,000 prisoners held at the sites.
Shaw was only 19 when he and his comrades liberated their part of Dachau, “You couldn’t believe it. There were cattle cars filled with Germans that didn’t sympathise with Hitler, crippled children and German Jews who were half dressed and half dead. The trench was twenty-foot long, four to five-foot wide and fivefoot deep, and it was filled with bodies.”
The liberated prisoners also informed the Americans about the camp’s gas chamber, “We liberated 127 people and two of them could talk a little English while another spoke German to a guy in the outfit who knew the language. They told us they had been about to have a ‘shower’ before they were transferred. However they realised something was up because they hadn’t seen anybody come out of the shower.”
To prevent people attempting to deny the existence of the concentration camp, the Americans filmed official footage, “The army red-taped the area and when the Nuremberg Trials came up that film was in there.
“A lot of people who had heard about Dachau then said, ‘Now we believe it’ but it was nothing compared to Auschwitz.”
The war in Europe ended shortly after the liberation of Dachau but Shaw believed that he would be redeployed to the Pacific Theatre, “They were going to send us to Japan but Harry Truman stopped that when he dropped the atom bomb. When he dropped the second one we were instead told, ‘Guess what, fellahs? We’re going home, the war’s over’.”
Shaw returned to the United States on 28 January 1946 and was discharged on 6 February. He had distinguished himself greatly during his wartime service. As well as receiving a US Presidential Unit Citation that was awarded to 283rd Field Artillery Battalion, he is also the recipient of four Bronze Stars. Awarded for “services rendered beyond the call of duty”, he won one of his Stars for an incident in Belgium, “We were delivering ammunition at about 10.00pm at night and one of the cannon groups that was firing got hit. They were all under fire and we’d just unloaded our trucks so I helped to take one of the wounded men off the field. I put him on a Jeep but I don’t know if he ever made it or not.”
Despite his heroic actions, Shaw remains modest about his recognised courage, “If they documented it, then you got the medal. I don’t know of any soldier that wouldn’t do what he had to do. He did it because he wanted to do it.”
Return to Normandy
Three quarters of a century after his military service Shaw regularly gives talks about his experiences during the war. He is also touched at how veterans of the conflict are now received by young people, “It’s unbelievable how many young children in the USA are taught about WWII and the veterans in school over the last ten years. No matter where I go, I always wear my WWII veterans’ cap and many of them come up and say, ‘We want to congratulate you for your service.’ That never happened 20 years ago.”
In June 2019, Shaw returned to
Normandy for the 75th anniversary of D-day commemorations. His trip was paid for by Donnie Edwards, a former American football player for the Kansas City Chiefs and San
Diego Chargers who now devotes himself to philanthropic work, “He said, ‘I played football while all the soldiers were fighting. Now I’m doing my part.’ This is the 14th year he has paid for everything out of his own pocket. There were 26 of us altogether and everything was first class. He deserves all the credit.”
Edwards also encouraged Shaw to wear his medals, including his Légion d’honneur, which he received from the French government in 2016, “Donnie said, ‘Wear your Legion of Honour because the French will know what it is.’ I had it pinned on me and I couldn’t believe
“YOU’RE STILL GOING TO BE HERE, BUT YOU’LL BE GOING BACK IN MY HEART”
all the kisses and salutes I got from people. It was wonderful to be back.”
On 6 June 2019, Shaw was an honoured guest for the 75th anniversary commemoration at the American cemetery and memorial in Colleville-sur-mer. This was attended by heads of states and governments including President Emmanuel Macron of France and American President Donald Trump, “They were right there on the stage. I never got to talk to the president but I gave the First Lady a high-five!”
However the most poignant moment for Shaw was when he visited the graves of friends he had lost in Normandy, “It’s really gorgeous the way the French keep up the cemeteries, which are well manicured. I’ve got buddies that are there and they had me place wreaths on the tombs. They all saluted and it was wonderful that I could see their graves but I couldn’t just walk off. I said to my buddies, ‘You’re still going to be here, but you’ll be going back in my heart’.”