On D-day, Stanton flew to Normandy in a plane with the rest of the company headquarters men, including Thomas Meehan, then the Easy Company commander. It was the lead plane. Winters notes that the plane was hit with antiaircraft fire near the drop zone. Bullets came up through the plane’s undersides and threw sparks out the top. After being hit, the plane’s landing lights came on, as if it was going to land, then it did a slow wingover to the right as it approached the ground. It appeared they were going to make it, but then the plane hit a hedgerow and exploded, killing everybody on board.
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Easy Company member Pat Christenson wrote about the experience in his journal:
D-Day, June 6, 1944. Company E Headquarters plane was carrying a lot of explosives and when hit by antiaircraft fire a chain reaction may have taken place causing the plane to disintegrate killing everyone in the airplane. The airplane was piloted by Harold A. Cappelluto, its identification No. 66.
Forty-four years later the dog tags of 1st Sergeant William Evans and PFC William T. McGonigal were found in Normandy, France, by a farmer.
Family members don’t remember the specifics of when or how the family was notified about the plane crash, but the news came as a shock. My grandmother, Melba, Stanton’s sister-in-law, was pregnant at the time, and when they heard the news, it was so upsetting that she went into labor prematurely. Fortunately, the contractions stopped, and her baby, my dad, was born a few months later. He was the one named in honor of his uncle. Records show that the family was notified that Stanton was missing in action soon after D-day, and a telegram confirming his death arrived on November 11, 1944.
Margie said that, of the three Evans sons in the service, their mother feared the most for Stanton, in part because being a paratrooper was so new back then. Margie said her father took his son’s death hard, but that his mother took it really bad. His mother kept thinking her son was still alive someplace and would turn up again one day. It took her years to accept his death.
I received Stanton’s Army Individual Deceased Personnel File and it mentioned only that his personal effects were returned. His effects consisted of an envelope with letters, photographs, and a billfold. The rest of the file consisted of dental records and numerous correspondences back and forth between Stanton’s father and the Army about the return of his remains. Apparently, Army regulations stipulated that all bodies involved in group burials be returned to the U.S. and buried in whichever National Cemetery was most central to all the families involved. Since the plane held soldiers from all over the country, the bodies from Plane 66 were buried in St. Louis, considered a central location of the United States.
To Help His Men
How would I want people to remember him?
I asked this question of my grandmother and Stanton’s sister. Melba said simply that he was a good guy and was always willing to help anybody.
Margie, his sister, said she would want people to know that she loved him very much, and that he was someone who really wanted to serve his country and do the right thing. She said he was probably mean as hell, but was that way only to help his men.
Sergeant William Stanton Evans was my great-uncle, a cherished part of our family. I wish I had known him. I thank him for his role in preserving our freedom.
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TERRENCE “SALTY” HARRIS
Interview with Brady Turner, nephew
I never met my uncle. Growing up, we always knew that my mom, Annette Harris Turner, had a brother in WWII, that he was a paratrooper, and that he was killed in Normandy. For years, that’s about all I ever knew about Terrence “Salty” Harris.
After my mom passed away, I thought, “Well shoot, it’s a shame if I never find out more information about my uncle.” So I started to search for his name. It’s about all I had to go on at first. His name led me to information about the Colville American Cemetery and Memorial in Normandy. It listed his unit. I sent an e-mail to Tom Potter, son of George Potter, one of the original Band of Brothers, and information started pouring in. It was jaw-dropping. Letters and e-mails and notes came back, parts of journals and diaries. I live in Alaska and traveled down to California to poke around in my parents’ old cedar chest. My uncle had also grown up in Santa Monica. I found this old photo album I had never seen before. It had pictures of Mom at UC-Berkeley, where she attended in the war years, of her brother in a paratrooper uniform, and of him in Europe. There were letters, too, which provided a wealth of information. I ended up flying out to the Atlanta Easy Company reunion. A few of the vets brought photos of Salty Harris that they passed around.
This is what I found out about my uncle’s life:
The Sobel Mutiny
My uncle had been in Annapolis, the United States Naval Academy, prior to the Army, but resigned from Annapolis under the pressure of accumulated demerits. Starting off as a Navy man is how he got the nickname Salty.
After the Naval Academy, he was refused admission to the Air Force and flight training because of his Annapolis record. He made several trips to Australia as a merchant seaman before enlisting in the army and volunteering for parachute duty.
As a paratrooper, he was one of the original Toccoa men. When they were first putting Easy Company together, my uncle was a private, then quickly became one of their earliest staff sergeants. He was a noncom in the 3rd Platoon and was known as a good sergeant.
He ran his platoon in the army on naval terms—he told his men to go “starboard” instead of right, or to “swab the deck” instead of “mop the floors.” Apparently he was quite a character. Shifty Powers told me that they used to ship these guys by railroad to a training area, and Salty got incredible joy out of tormenting his men by repeatedly singing Navy songs. I’m not sure what the songs were, but apparently he sung them over and over until the men were all sick of them.
The big story about Salty is how he was one of the instigators in leading the mutiny against company commander Captain Herbert Sobel. Mike Ranney was one of Salty’s closest friends and also involved in the mutiny. In his journal, Ranney describes Salty as “a broad-faced delightful Irishman with whom I had many adventures.” Ranney also writes extensively about the mutiny:
Salty Harris and I had been concerned for some time about the capabilities of Captain Sobel, the Black Swan. He was a well-meaning man, but not quite the sort to instill much confidence about combat. Naïve innocents that we were, Salty and I organized a mutiny. Essentially, we got all the non-commissioned officers to threaten to resign unless Sobel was removed. The only exception in our ranks was the first sergeant, [Bill] Evans. Several of the company’s officers were aware of the plan and gave tacit, if not overt, approval. In fact, Lt. Dick Winters, our company executive officer, sat in on our final planning meeting. I was in charge.
The next morning, Salty and I were arrested by military police and taken under guard to the regimental headquarters. Colonel Sink outlined the situation tersely and succinctly:
“I don’t know who in the hell you two bastards think you are, but you obviously don’t realize the seriousness of the situation you have created. I could have you shot for mutiny in a war zone. But this regiment is going into combat and I don’t want any disturbances just now. Plus, you both have had good records and we may be able to salvage something of the investment we have in your training. So I’m just going to bust both of you in the rank of private, transfer you out of Easy Company in separate directions, and keep an eye on you so that you can’t cause any more problems.”
Salty was transferred to A Company in the First Battalion. I went to I Company in the Third Battalion. We were separated immediately and not permitted to return to the Easy Company area to get our bags, which caught up with us a few days later.
Ranney explains how, after the transfer, he was recruited by Lieutenant Walter Moore for special assignment. Lieutenant Moore had been the men’s platoon commander right at the start of training in Toccoa. Ranney agreed to the assignment and was shipped to special duty to an airbase near Nottingham, where he reconnected with my uncle. There, Moore explained the assignment more fully. Ranney continues:
The airborne command had decided that existing navigation systems weren’t entirely adequate to assure that airborne parachute units could be landed in the right spots. We were going to invade France and probably jump at night. Our special group was to jump slightly ahead of the rest of the airborne units, put up special navigational aids (electronic homing beacons), so that the planes carrying the main body of troops could hone in on those beacons. The task was considered essential to the success of the invasion. We were called Pathfinders. And, oh yes, Salty was already there along with Carl Fenstermaker and Dick Wright of Easy Company. I headed for the barracks to see Salty. We were together again.
There were about 80 men and officers in the Pathfinder group from throughout the 101st division. Most were malcontents or busted non-coms. [Charlie] Malley [from F Company], ended up as first sergeant of the detachment, Salty as leader of a sub-unit, and I became supply sergeant.
Ranney was later able to transfer back into Easy Company before the Normandy jump, but my uncle stayed with the pathfinders for D-day. Being a pathfinder was not an easy job. It meant being out in front of the pack and facing most of the German army head-on and alone, thus being in a dangerous and costly position. When he jumped as a pathfinder, it wasn’t just security detail either, or setting up lights on the ground. Along with Holophane lights and brightly colored panels to help guide in the vast armadas of C-47s carrying paratroopers and gliders to their drop zones, one pathfinder in each stick also carried radar transmitters called Eureka beacons, top-secret technology back then, that were to be guarded at all cost. A radio receiver in the aircraft honed in on the beacon on the ground. Only one guy in each stick jumped with a beacon, and in his stick, that was entrusted to Salty Harris. So he was an important guy. I got that information from the Ranney family, and it’s also listed in a book by George Koskimaki.
Killed Instantly
My uncle’s gravestone in Europe reads that he was killed June 18, 1944. But that is probably a little late. The battle for Carentan happened between the tenth and fourteenth of June. Burr Smith and Mike Ranney both indicate in letters that my uncle was killed in the same action in which he was wounded, which would have placed his death slightly earlier than recorded.
Ranney writes to my mother on July 25, 1944:
Dear Annette:
. . . You’ve probably gotten by now a crudely written letter concerning Salty. You see, Annette, I guess I liked him better than I ever have anyone else—he was that kind of a guy. He was the sort of a leader whose men would do anything for him. I’m not, and because of that I guess I make him my example. I tried to do as he did. And I’m trying now.
. . . If he could have known what was ahead, he’d have asked that you take it in stride and go on just the same. Maybe all this sounds strange to you, but I think that’s what he’d want. Annette, there’s a bunch of guys in this company who feel as you do—“it just doesn’t seem possible he’s really gone,” but it won’t stop them from doing their job, don’t let it stop you.
Ranney writes my mom again, a short time later, apparently after receiving a letter back from her:
Dear Annette:
. . . I found out all possible information.
Salty was killed instantly by a sniper within our lines during the fighting near Carentan in Normandy. I’m sorry I haven’t been able as yet to find out where he’s buried. As soon as I do, I’ll let you know. At the time, he was with [a different] company—so I wasn’t with him.
. . . Take this the way he would want you to, Annette. He believed in a fate—most of us do now—the kind of fate that has little regard for race, color, or creed. If he could have known what was in store, it wouldn’t have changed his actions. It came the way he’d want it to—he didn’t suffer.
Burr Smith writes to my mother on September 7, 1944, from a field hospital in England. This is one of the letters I found in my parents’ trunk. Burr’s letter is written on that really thin paper they used back then.
Dear Annette,
I don’t know if Salty ever mentioned me in his letters to you or not, but I’ve been his friend for nearly two years, ever since the first day at Toccoa. At any rate, I feel that I should drop you a line to let you know how sorry I am. . . . If it was in my power to do so, I’d have taken his place, and I say that in all sincerity. I was wounded the same day he was hit, and I didn’t know [he was dead] until I was released from the hospital. You’ll never know how I felt when Red Wright told me.
The last time I saw T.C. he came trudging down a dusty lane—all smiles—and I was so glad to see him that I cried—actually cried with relief to see him. I thought he was gone D-Day, and to see him was heaven on earth.
. . . I hope I haven’t made you feel worse. We all miss him like mad. [He was] one of the grandest people God ever placed on this rotten earth. . . . The only course open is to pledge myself to the cause of making sure that the things he died for are not forgotten.
There’s a picture that’s circulated on the Internet that shows fellow E Company veteran Forrest Guth visiting my uncle’s grave over in Europe. Paul Woodage, who runs a company called Battlebus that tours the D-day beaches and battlefields of Normandy, accompanied fellow E/506th veteran Paul Rogers to Salty’s grave in 2007 and notes that both Rogers and Guth shed a few tears over their lost friend. For me, to see the emotional effect of visiting a friend killed six decades earlier is moving beyond words. These men truly were a Band of Brothers.