(July 4 has marked a grim anniversary every year for Cazimess Boduch of West Akard St.)
I had a job as a valve inspector at Chapman Valve, inspecting valves going to the Navy. I got six deferments (from the draft). After a while, there were no more deferments, and I went into the Army.
I was with the 90th Infantry Division. Our regiment came ashore on D-Day on Omaha Beach. I went ashore with the first wave. I was a sharpshooter, which means they put me right up in front. I used to hang around with Alex Thompson, who later became the Ludlow police chief. He showed me how to shoot, and I became pretty good at it.
I waded ashore with water up to my chest. We had full field packs. I dropped mine. The Germans were shelling us. A lot of guys drowned, never made the shore. We saw a glider caught in the trees. Some guys were listed as MIA's (missing in action). A shell would hit them. There'd be nothing left of the body.
We had to climb over barbed wire in the water. We got off the beach as fast as we could. We took a lot of prisoners. The second day after the landing, I was in a detail that took eight prisoners back to the beach. On my way back to the front lines, I was hit by a sniper. They treated me. They returned me to duty the same night. When I got back to my company, I had to go on patrol. I was in the front lines 29 consecutive days.
I'm a Catholic. It bothers me. I did a lot of killing. I was in the front lines all the time. As soon as it was dark, the Germans would lay down a barrage -- 88's, Screaming Meemees. About 5:30 in the morning, they'd do the same thing. We had to keep digging foxholes. You had to have a foxhole at night, or you were out of luck.
Our advance was hedgerow to hedgerow, farmhouse to farmhouse. Every night we would go on patrol -- four, five, or six of us -- being careful not to stick too close together. We didn't take too much ammo with us because we might have to run back fast. I'd dropped my pack coming ashore. I never changed my socks or shoes all the time I was in the front lines.
There was a lot of strafing from the air. Two planes might be in a dogfight. The German would break off and make one scoop at us.
We took a lot of casualties. We were surrounded, and we escaped. We took over 400 prisoners in the hedgerows. I was in charge of one group of over 200 with my BAR (Browning automatic rifle). The orders were to shoot them if they tried to escape. A couple did try.
The Germans, they hated us. One day a bunch tried to surrender to three or four of us using white rags. One was a kid who looked about 14 years old. One had a machine gun strapped to his back. He flopped down. Another guy got off a few rounds before we shot them. The prisoners who kept their hands in the air, we didn't shoot at them. A lot were Italians or Polish. We'd take their rations. Their rations were better than ours. We got so much of that Spam that we got sick of it. We'd lost our mess gear. We'd use the cover to eat out of cans.
They used tunnels in haystacks for snipers. We'd shoot right through the haystacks. We found the snipers dug holes under the haystacks. When I was on patrol, we captured a lot of Germans in American uniforms. We had a countersign we changed every day.
I was a BAR man, but a guy got hit and I took over his machine gun. That got hit. After that I carried a rifle. There were also times I shot a bazooka. We'd go after the German tanks with grenades or a bazooka, try to knock a tread off. I used a lot of grenades. I had four grenades with me all the time. It took a while to get supplies to the front lines. If anybody got hit, you'd take his ammo right away, and his rations, and his grenades. You'd use grenades to try to get German machine guns.
We had a sergeant and a lieutenant get shot. We got a replacement lieutenant. The first thing we told him was, "Take your bars off." He wouldn't. The next minute he was shot by a sniper.
I got hit the second time on July 4. We were hitting a farmhouse. A German upstairs had a machine gun. I got hit in the stomach. They dragged me behind a tree. Half an hour later, a rifle shell fell in front of me. I said, "There's something up in the tree." They sprayed the tree and hit a sniper. He was tied up in the tree. He had a telescope rifle.
Then the Germans opened up with 88's. I got hit by shell fragments. I still have shrapnel in my legs, my face, my arm. Blood was pouring out of my arm like a faucet. I took my belt and made a tourniquet.
(The wounds that ended the war for Caz Boduch came in the fight for Hill 96, where the 90th Division was fighting on the flank of Francis Lamoureux's 508th.)
At the first aid station, there was a nice nurse who hugged me and kissed me on the cheek. She said she was from Maine. There were three tents. One was the operating room and where they dressed wounds. Then they took the wounded to one of the other two tents. Early in the morning, a shell came in and hit the operating room tent. It killed everybody in it, including the nurse from Maine.
They sent me to a hospital in England. I'd lost a lot of blood. Something was wrong with my heart. I felt as if my body was floating up in the air. I could hear arguing. An English nurse was giving holy hell to a doctor. Suddenly a face like an angel was telling me, "You'll be all right." They gave me blood. It felt like my body was coming down again.
They took me to a hospital in Scotland. I was operated on there. Three days later, I was supposed to fly back to the States on a stretcher plane. They asked me, "Do you want to go today or tomorrow?" I wasn't feeling well, so I put it off. That plane I would've been on went down in the ocean. The plane I did get on, we were halfway across the ocean, and the engine started skipping. We were ordered back to Scotland. Three or four hours later, they put me on another plane.
(Caz Boduch came home with the Bronze Star "for meritorious service in ground combat" and two Purple Hearts. His 90th Division lost 3,493 men killed in action during the war and had total casualties -- dead, wounded, and missing -- of 18,099.)
I underwent surgery 33 separate times. They told me at one place that I'd never walk again. I had shrapnel in my spine. I was numb from the waist down. But the shrapnel in the spine moved. I was able to walk. I still wear a brace on my arm. I had a brace on my leg for 2-1/2 years. I often use a mild sleeping pill to help me sleep.
(Rated 100 percent disabled. Caz Boduch over the years was one of the most active members of Ludlow's Chapter 94, Disabled American Veterans, and compiled a distinguished record of volunteer work at both the Veterans Administration Hospital in Northampton and the Holyoke Soldiers Home.)