We were told, “Don’t try to help anybody. Don’t bring anybody back to the ship.
Get back here as fast as you can to get another load. We’ve got to get manpower on the beach.”
I was on the first wave, and not a man survived out of that.
As the United States was recovering from the Great Depression, President Franklin D.
Roosevelt initiated a work relief program known as the Civilian Conservation Corps.
Many young men, like Sherwin Callander of Oakland, California, were quick to volunteer.
They gave us Army uniforms and barracks to sleep in,
and we made campgrounds, fire trails, and things like that.
The recruitment officers from the different branches
would come to these camps and try to recruit us into their branch of the service.
A Navy man came and said, “You’ll have a girl in every port.” I said, “Sign me up!”
I was the first one.
That’s how I got in the Navy.
I went through basic training in San Diego, California,
and took what they call the “four piper destroyer” to Vallejo, California,
down through the canal and to the coast to Belfast, Maine.
Then I had to ride the train down to New York City to go aboard the USS Wright.
I took that down, through the canal again, and out to Pearl Harbor.
We’d go to Midway and Wake Island. We’d carry men and material out to them both.
The last time, on our way back from Wake Island, a carrier passed us, going the same direction.
We were heading back to Pearl, and they were heading towards Pearl too.
We knew it was a carrier, but it was at night and we didn’t know what nationality it was.
Then, the next morning, we heard over the news broadcast that they attacked Pearl Harbor.
When we pulled in to Pearl Harbor,
I’d never seen such a mess in my life. I even had to pull bodies out of the water.
One that gets me so bad that I’ll never forget - I reached out and grabbed him by the hair,
started to lift his body out.
He was slipping, so I reached over and grabbed his arm, and the meat just came right off the bone.
I’ll never forget that.
The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor inflicted more than 2,000
American casualties, and the U.S. went to war.
Having experienced far more than he had anticipated,
Sherwin requested a change of scenery.
I didn’t want to mess with them Japs anymore, so I volunteered for amphibious training.
They sent me all the way to Little Creek, Virginia.
And that was the most vigorous training I ever went through.
His training complete, Sherwin was deployed across the Atlantic to take
part in some of the first American campaigns in the war against Germany.
Transporting units of the 1st Infantry Division,
Sherwin would begin his combat experience in the invasions of North Africa and southern Italy.
But the next operation would be the largest and most decisive yet.
A chance to throw gates to German-occupied Europe wide open.
Soldiers, sailors, and airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Force,
you are about to embark upon the Great Crusade.
I have full confidence in your courage, devotion to duty,
and skill in battle. We will accept nothing less than full victory.
I drove the Higgins boat in a couple of times.
We were told, “Don’t try to help anybody. Don’t bring anybody back to the ship.
Get back here as fast as you can to get another load. We’ve got to get manpower on the beach.”
I was on the first wave, and not a man survived out of that.
We had over a hundred feet of clear beach -
maybe close to two hundred - before you could get any shelter.
And the Germans were up on the hills, bombarding us.
For at least ten feet, the water was just blood red. Bodies all over.
We even dropped the gate down on bodies. We couldn’t help it.
There was quite a few injured that we couldn’t
bring back because we had to get manpower on the beach.
There was one young boy - he couldn’t have been over seventeen.
When we dropped off the load he said, “I want my momma.”
We couldn’t stop to help him or bring him back or anything.
It was mean. That was the worst battle I was in.
The Invasion of Normandy was a success, and the Allies were finally on the offensive
in western Europe, but the war was not over for Sherwin.
In August of 1944, news reached Sherwin concerning his brother Richard,
a fighter pilot stationed in another part of the world.
My brother was flying P-38’s over China, and his plane went down. They never did locate it.
They do have a memorial there, set in the ground for him.
Despite the loss of his brother, Sherwin continued his service until the war’s end.
In the years since the Second World War, Sherwin has frequented
schools and veterans events, sharing his story as a reminder of the cost of freedom.
At the time of our interview, he was eagerly awaiting a trip back
to Normandy for the 75th anniversary of D-Day.
I’m going back there in June. That’s going to be a wonderful trip.