Cornelius Ryan WWII papers, box 013, folder 44: Gerden Frank Johnson

D-DAY BOOK Release Johnson, Col. Gerden F. NEW YORK 4th Infantry Div. EXC Release

[crossed out]quest to be [illegible] by [illegible][end crossed out]

Box 13, #44 Release to PG

10:30 Landing seemed an anticlimax

Roosevelt

used Equipment

May use again

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= -- Pc 5-4131 -- = P4 PL 5-0945 = 46 [end crossed out]

[*Schenectady, N. Y. UTAH 4th Inf.*]

For Cornelius Ryan Book about D-Day

THOUSANDS OF MEN, ON LAND AND SEA AND IN THE AIR, PARTICIPATED IN THE INVASION OF NORMANDY BETWEEN MIDNIGHT JUNE 5, 1944 AND MIDNIGHT JUNE 6, 1944. IF YOU WERE ONE OF THEM, PLEASE ANSWER THE FOLLOWING QUESTIONS.

1. What is your full name? GERDEN FRANK JOHNSON

2. What was your unit and division? Hq. 1st Bn., 12th Inf. Regt., Fourth (IVY0 Infantry Division

3. Where did you arrive in Normandy, and at what time? Utah Beach, 6 June 1944, 10:30 A.M.

4. What was your rank on June 6, 1944? Major

5. What was your age on June 6, 1944? 36

6. Were you married at that time? Yes

7. What is your wife's name? Emily L. Johnson

8. Did you have any children at that time? Yes - son and daughter.

9. What do you do now? Public accountant.

10. When did you know that you were going to be part of the invasion? February 1944 (See also attached sheet)

11. What was the trip like during the crossing of the Channel? Do you remember, for example, any conversations you had or how you passed the time? (See attached sheet).

12. What were the rumors on board the boat, ship or plane in which you made the crossing? (Some people remember scuttlebut to the effect that the Germans had poured gasoline on the water and planned to set it afire when the troops came in). (See attached sheet)

- for Cornelius Ryan 2 - Your name GERDEN F. JOHNSON

13. Did you by any chance keep a diary of what happened to you that day? No. This was strictly forbidden under any circumstances because of its value to the enemy in the event of being killed or captured.

14. Were any of your friends killed or wounded either during the landing or during the day? Yes.

15. Do you remember any conversations you had with them before they became casualties? No.

16. Were you wounded? Not on D-Day. Wounded 11 August 1944.

17. Do you remember what it was like--that is, do you remember whether you felt any pain or were you so surprised that you felt nothing? Surprised. One aquires the fatalistic notion, "It can't happen to me."

18. Do you remember seeing or hearing anything that seems funny now, even though it did not, of course, seem amusing at the time? Yes. See attached sheet.

19. Do you recall any incident, sad or heroic, or simply memorable, which struck you more than anything else? See attached sheet.

- for Cornelius Ryan 3 - Your name GERDEN F. JOHNSON

20. In times of great crisis, people generally show either great ingenuity or self-reliance; others do incredibly stupid things. Do you remember any examples of either? See attached sheet.

21. Where were you at midnight on June 5, 1944? Aboard American LCI somewhere in the English Channel en route to Normandy.

Where were you at midnight on June 6, 1944?

22. Do you know of anybody else who landed within those 24 hours (midnight June 5 to midnight June 6) as infantry, glider or airborne troops, or who took part in the air and sea operations, whom we should write to? (See attached sheets). MR. BRYCE W. RHYNE, 3 WEST HOWELL AVE., ALEXANDRIA, VA. HAS AN EXCELLENT PERSONAL AND INTIMATE ACCOUNT OF D-DAY.

PLEASE LET US HAVE THIS QUESTIONNAIRE AS SOON AS POSSIBLE, SO THAT WE CAN INCLUDE YOUR EXPERIENCES IN THE BOOK. WE HOPE THAT YOU WILL CONTINUE YOUR STORY ON SEPARATE SHEETS IF WE HAVE NOT LEFT SUFFICIENT ROOM. FULL ACKNOWLEDGEMENT WILL BE GIVEN IN A CHAPTER CALLED “WHERE THEY ARE NOW; YOUR NAME AND VOCATION OR OCCUPATION WILL BE LISTED.

THANK YOU FOR YOUR HELP.

Cornelius Ryan

Frances Ward Research, The Reader's Digest

D-DAY, 6 JUNE 1944 by Colonel Gerden F. Johnson, AUS - Ret.

War is an intensely personal thing to the Infantry soldier. He lives it; time softens and obscures its deepest hurts for him, but neither by word of mouth nor setting his words on paper can he convey its meaning to others. Much as we bear alone the loss of a loved one , so must the soldier alone bear the inward scars which war deals him. He has lived it once and from it he can never escape. For the men who landed on the shores of Normandy on D-Day, 6 June 1944, it began then.

I could not adequately describe my experiences nor my feelings that day without going back to April 1943 for the circumstances of that summer are inextricably a part of the historic invasion of the European conti- nent over a year later. In the Spring of 1943 I was serving as Executive Officer of the First Battalion, 12th Infantry Regiment, Fourth Infantry (IVY) Division at Camp Gordon, near Augusta, Georgia. The Fourth Divis- ion, reconstituted at Fort Benning, Ga. prior to Pearl Harbor, was dest- ined to become the highest trained Division of the Army ere it saw com- bat. On April 19, 1943 I waved farewell to the last train bearing elements of the 12th Infantry Regiment out of Camp Gordon, en route to its new station at Fort Dix, N.J., and was feeling in rather high spirits because I would be leaving the next day as the Division's first non-regular officer to attend the Army's Command and General Staff School at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.

There were 750 officers in Class No. 13 at Fort Leavenworth that hot summer. For three months we sweat under the merciless application of every psychological trick in the book to break us down as we struggled to master the equivalent of two years study in peace time; the theory being that staff officers who would break in a quiet Kansas classroom could not be relied upon under the stress of combat. Our studies took us step by step from mastering the basic organization and equipment of every branch of the Army up through advanced strategy and logistics and finally culminated in a map problem which ran through three days and two nights. The problem was based upon a theoretical invasion of the Cotentin Peninsula and embraced the use of air, ground and naval forces.

Upon returning to the Fourth Division in September, I was ordered to conduct regimental officer schools based on this problem, with spec- ial emphasis to be placed on embarkation and loading problems for the purpose of debarkation on a hostile shore. It has always been a source of disappointment that I was not able to complete the schools before we were alerted for overseas movement.

The Commanding General of the Fourth Division had made a secret trip to London in December 1943 where, as we later learned, he was told that his Division would be one of the assault divisions in the forth- coming invasion of the European Continent. He was ordered to begin pre- liminary staff planning at once. Our Division sailed in convoy from New York on January 18,1944 and 13 days later arrived in England. From the time we landed, training might best be characterized as "intense.” I think we sensed rather than knew that we were going to have a major part in the coming scrap, although I can not say that I envisioned in- vasion in any precise form at any time. Neither, as I recall, did any of the men think too much about it. It was a time of expectant waiting.