D-Day 101st Airborne veteran remembers

Antipodean Andy · Aug 18, 2008

Central Ohio - www.centralohio.com - Central Ohio, OH

MANSFIELD -- Kenneth Potter, 84, of Robinson Road, was with the 101st Airborne Division at Normandy on D-Day.

This is what he remembers: "There were 19 of us to a C-47 and everything else was equipment," Potter said. "We were so heavy we almost couldn't lift off the runway.

"We jumped at 1:37 a.m. It only took 19 seconds for 19 men to get out the door. It seemed like I no sooner jumped than I hit the ground. I think we went out at 500 feet."

"The first thing you do is get rid of that chute. Then we got out our crickets. Three clicks meant you were an American. But everybody was clicking. Everybody was scared. There was so much fighting and shooting going on.
"I headed for a ditch and as I went in I saw a pair of boots and grabbed them. It was a German. My buddy behind me shot him. It was the first time I ever saw a man killed.

"I had my M-1, but I didn't use it much that night. Not too much."

Asked if he had ever killed a man, Potter's smile faded. He leaned back and a look of pain came into his eyes.

After a time he simply said: "I hate war."

Pvt. Potter, better known as "Pottsie " to his buddies, had a very short war in Normandy. After just seven days, on June 13, he was hit in the lower left leg by shrapnel. He carries an ugly scar to this day.

He does remember the ferocity of the fighting and the real fear that the 101st might be driven back to the beaches should the men on Omaha Beach fail to break out and join them.

He remembers that nobody seemed to land in the right jump zone on the morning of June 6.

He recalls one of his captains landed on a cow and broke his back. The two later met in a hospital in England.

But he best remembers the spirit of the 101st.

"We were close," he said. "Officers and men knew each other well.

"We were young and a little crazy, but we took orders well. We didn't look very far ahead. We would go in wherever things were the toughest. They expected a lot out of airborne. I remember our colonel, name of Johnson, who gave us a talk before we took off on D-Day. He shook hands with every man and told us, 'Go ahead and raise all the Hell you want. Nobody's going to call you on it.' He was on the lead plane. I never saw him again."

He said there were 103 men in a parachute company and his company D of the 501st Parachute Regiment, lost 70 percent of its men to death, wounds or capture before the D-Day Invasion was over.

After he was hit, Potter was treated by a field medic and somehow transported back to Omaha Beach, where he was shipped back to England.

While in the 150th General Hospital, he met an uncle who was stationed there.

After several months of recovery, Potter was given the option of returning to the United States or rejoining his unit.

"I was young. I was airborne," he said. So he went back into battle at a place called Bastogne.

He was there when the German army struck back at the Americans in what would be called The Battle of the Bulge.

"We were surrounded. It was cold and there was a lot of fighting," Potter said.

He said that the men of the 101st knew they were in trouble and that surrender was a possibility. But most, he said, would have agreed with their commanding general, Anthony McAuliffe, whose reply to a German request for surrender was "Nuts."

Potter was hit again while manning a roadblock. His right ankle was broken and he spent his first night in agony, lying on a blanket on a chill floor after basic treatment.

He wasn't shipped out to a field hospital until the battle was over and the Germans had pulled back.

This time Pvt. Potter's war was over. He got back to his unit just as the war was coming to an end.

When he left the army, he had several ribbons, including a Combat Infantry Badge and two Purple Hearts.

To this day he can barely tolerate cold and has an aversion to guns.

"I just don't hunt," he said.

A native of Elkhorn City, Ky., he joined the Army in the spring of 1943. Before he went in, he married his first wife, Agnes Martin. She died in 1966 and a few years later he married his present wife, Pearl, who had been widowed.

Potter said he had four boys and a girl by his first marriage and inherited two girls and a boy in his second.

After the war, he moved to Michigan to work for General Motors and came to Mansfield in 1957 when the new GM plant was built in Ontario.

He and his family lived for many years on Park Avenue West in Ontario near Chambers Road. He worked 37 years for General Motors.

He is best remembered as the owner and operator of Potter's Carry Out on North Trimble Road at Hahn Road. He was there for 26 years.

Several years ago, he and Pearl sold their Ontario home. They now live in a hilltop home surrounded by woods on Robinson Road, where Potter's friendly dogs can run free.

Despite multiple wounds during his service, Potter said he has been very lucky when it comes to health.

"I think the only time I ever have to see a doctor is when I visit my dentist," he said.
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Kyt · Aug 18, 2008

The Colonel Johnson mentioned in the article sounds like this one:

Howard Ravenscroft Johnson, Colonel, United States Army

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