From Utah Beach to VE Day: The Path of Basil Kimball

Shirl's late father, Basil Kimball, grew up on the Kimball Farm in then-rural Westborough, Maswsachusetts. During the 1930s, he earned a degree in electrical engineering from Worcester Polytechnic Institute.  Before Pearl Harbor, but when he knew he'd likely soon be drafted, Basil volunteered for service in the U.S. Army. After basic training and Officer's Candidate School, he was commissioned a 2nd Lieutenant in the U. S. Army.

You'd think that such a man would be placed in the Army Engineers, but since Basil's records showed that he was familiar with horses, he was assigned to the 10th Mountain Division, and sent to train in the mountains of North Carolina in charge of a team of Army mules.

Shortly after Pearl Harbor, Basil and his beloved girlfriend from home, Barbara Landon, got married, guessing that Basil would soon be sent overseas.  As it happened, that event had to wait a couple of years.  During those years, the Army finally recognized Basil's engineering talents, and transferred him into the 13th Field Artillery Observation Battalion, where he led a unit that operated sound-ranging equipment to pinpoint the location of enemy artillery pieces.

The 13th Field Artillery fought in the Pacific, in several campaigns, including the reconquest of The Philippines.  But Basil was not there with them, because his group within their Observation Battalion was detached, and sent to England to take part in Operation Overlord (the code name of the invasion of Normandy that was to establish a Western Front in the war against Hitler's Nazi Germany).  Thus it was that my father-in-law landed on Utah Beach on D-Day +1, at about 2:00 in the afternoon.

I only talked with Basil once about the war.  But, born in 1943, I have always been fascinated by WWII history, so I listened intently that day.

Basil said that at that afternoon hour on June 7th, 1944, they did not have to fight their way ashore. He later stayed in Europe, as he put it, "with Ike, but Ike was usually 20 miles behind us," until the end of the war in Europe, VE Day, 8 May, 1945.

My wife Shirley Kimball McDougall, our son Alex, and I are presently planning to go to Utah Beach in May, before  the area becomes overcrowded with 70th Anniversary visitors in early June.  We then hope to trace as much of the path across France of the 13th Field Artillery Observation Battalion as we can.  It is our way of honoring her dad, and his service to our country.  Hence, I am presently trying to learn as much as I can about that path.  Any leads you can give me will be much appreciated.  Please e-mail your suggestions to oldridernh@gmail.com.

This Morning on Skype with Daniel Rusu

[9:52:44 AM] Duncan McDougall: Hello from Cherbourg, Normndie, France
[9:54:59 AM] Daniel Rusu: Wow, now that's a greeting :)
[9:55:05 AM] Daniel Rusu: how are you friends?
[9:56:20 AM] Duncan McDougall: Foarte bine, mulțumesc!
[9:56:23 AM] Duncan McDougall: Și tu?
[9:56:56 AM] Duncan McDougall: Frankly, I can't wait to get out of the Eurozone!
[9:57:06 AM] Duncan McDougall: (rofl)
[9:58:59 AM] Daniel Rusu: (rofl)
[10:00:20 AM] Daniel Rusu: can't be that bad... there's so many  people trying to  go there
[10:00:31 AM] Daniel Rusu: but are you having fun?
[10:01:44 AM] Duncan McDougall: Visiting the graves of 9000 American soldiers, sailors and airmen?  Only fun in Săpănța.
[10:02:33 AM] Duncan McDougall: Omaha Beach and Pointe du Hoc are terrifying.  D-Day was an enormous undertaking.
[10:03:35 AM] Duncan McDougall: Utah Beach is less so, because it was less well-defended, and was a quite successful debarkation point.

(More news in the posts that will follow.)

The Path is Found!

With the help of our good folks at the Research Desk in Lamson Learning Commons at Plymouth State University, I identified in January a book with a title that promised to deliver exactly the sort of information needed to carry out our planned mission in honor of my wife Shirley Kimball McDougall's late father.

That title was 13th Field Artillery Observation Battalion, April 1942 - March 1946.  Its author was listed as Larry Hough.

I ordered this book under the Inter-Library Loan (ILLiad) program, but found that the book exists in only three libraries, and is not circulated by them.  So, earlier this month, on our way to Florida, Shirl, son Alex and I drove to Carlisle, Pennsylvania, visited the U. S. Army Heritage and Education Center library, and found the book.

The book was written in 1979 by Cpl. Larry Hough based on the oral and documentary history provided to him by surviving members of the battalion.  It describes in considerable detail the unit's World War II activity.  It follows them from their founding as a unit and early training at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, to Fort Sill, Oklahoma, and to Fort Dix, New Jersey, among other training camps.  It describes their crossing on a troopship to England.  It accounts their experiences in England, and with their English hosts, as they were preparing for the D-Day invasion, which turned out to be in Normandy.  It tells of their channel-crossing from Southampton, and their unopposed landing at Utah Beach on June 7, 1944.  It includes an account of all their attachments to infantry and field artillery units from the battles on the Cotentin Peninsula to the breakout from the Normandy beachhead, to their campaign across France and Belgium, and past the Siegfried line into Germany.  And then came the last great Nazi offensive, known as The Battle of the Bulge, which brought the unit back southwest and again into Belgium late in December or 1944.

American forces cross the Ludendorff Bridge at Remagen (Wikipedia.)

Finally, the book tells of the unit's role in the Battle of Remagen in March, 1945, and of their rapid advance across Germnay in support of the 1st Infantry Division in VII Corps, following their crossing of the River Rhine on a pontoon bridge erected by the Army Engineers at Remagen, Germany.

In short, that book is exactly what we had hoped to find.  My eyes actually teared-up as I went through it at the Carlisle library.   I had hoped to be able to find such a detailed guide for our upcoming trip to honor my children's wonderful, gentle, soft-spoken, kind-hearted grandfather, who had served our country so faithfully in that terrible time, almost 70 years ago. 

For a substantial fee, the library has made us a copy of this book, which includes maps of all the unit's tactical campigns.  Alex, Shirl and I now know where we must go to visit the villages her father saw.  We have only to go and see, and if I have my way, seek out folks in their eighties, with whom to share a beer, or a glass of wine, and their memories of a time long ago, but still of profound importance.

RIP, 1st Lt. Basil Kimball.  Your family all love, remember, and respect you.