"A few more months at camp McCoy then back on a troop train headed for the east coast, like Camp Shanks New York. Where we were stuffed into an old Liberty Ship named Hawaiian Shipper and headed for Belfast Ireland. That was anything but a vacation cruise. The cargo space was dull of bunks at least four high and barely enough room to walk between the rows and it got pretty stuffy down there. I surmised that nothing could survive down there but GI's and rats. We then went on a zig zag course across the Atlantic in a convoy. The zig zag course was not to go in one direction long enough for the German U Boats, submarines, to be able to get a bead on our ships with a torpedo. Having a German torpedo come into your bunk house wasn't really a pleasant thing to look forward to either. They also warned us to be careful while up on deck, because if you got washed overboard that no one would pick you up and in the North Atlantic water you would only live for a few minutes. We welcomed the fresh air so we went up on deck when ever we could."
"I think it took us about twelve or thirteen days to get there as I remember we were about thirty miles from Belfast Ireland. We were next to a small village there but I can not remember the name of it. By this time it must have been late nineteen forty three or probably nineteen forty four and we were still training and waiting for D Day which was sure coming but no one knew when. About a month before D Day we headed out, the whole Division I guess took off and convoyed to some port in Wales where we kept a pretty low profile and got everything ready and loaded for the big invasion of Europe. As I recall the weather was miserable rainy and chilly there. I do not remember for sure how long we left before D Day anyway the morning of June sixth we were off the shore of Omaha Beach in Normandy France. I didn't land until June seventh."
~Caroline