D. Clarke Evans Photographer

Norm Riggsby

Corporal, U S Army
1943–1946

Cpl. Norman Riggsby
Germany, 1945

I was 18 on D-Day, June 6th, 1944. I was just hoping to turn 19, which was three days later on June 9th. I was in the third wave on Omaha Beach.

I was born in 1925 and grew up in Taylor, Michigan outside of Detroit. As a teenager I had a 20-mile route delivering newspapers. I remember that Sunday, December 7th, 1941, I had delivered my morning route. When I got back, my bosses were waiting for me. I had to run the route again with the “EXTRA PEARL HARBOR BOMBED!” I was drafted in 1943 as a 17-year-old senior in high school and went to boot camp in Mississippi. Oh man that was different—a Yankee in Mississippi! They gave all us Yankees a bad time.

I shipped out to Camp Gilmore in Glasgow, Scotland in early 1944. We were training all over the British Isles: Ireland, Scotland, Wales. Then we shipped out of Hamilton, England for the invasion. We knew there was going to be an invasion, but we did not know when. Boarded ship on June 4th, 1944. We waited out at sea with 10,000 ships. I was 18 on D-Day, June 6th, 1944. I was just hoping to turn 19, which was three days later on June 9th. I was in the third wave on Omaha Beach.

We had no idea what we were getting into. The Battleship Texas was firing over our heads into those bunkers on the beach while we were waiting to disembark. Man, was it noisy! Utah Beach was on our right with the U.S. 4th Division, and on our left, Gold Beach with Canadian and British troops. The worst part was scaling those cliffs. We were on the beach most of the day. I got hit with shrapnel and spent three days in one of those abandoned bunkers they had made into an aid station. I went back up into battle, fighting all the way to the hedgerows and the Battle of St. Lô.

In St. Lô, I was wounded again, this time badly. I woke up in a hospital and was told I had been in a coma for three weeks. They didn’t think I was going to make it. Later I saw the telegram that the War Department sent to my folks saying I was seriously wounded and they would keep them informed of my progress. I had almost been cut in two from a Tiger tank shell and had a severe concussion.

I was lucky. I survived. When I got out of the hospital, like many other soldiers who were wounded and couldn’t return to the front, I was made a special MP (Military Police). We were assigned to round up Nazis before they could escape France. We also maintained the highways. I rode the Autobahn on a Harley. This was 1945. I was at the Battle of the Bulge and later the Nuremberg Trialsas an MP. I left Berlin in 1946.

After the war, I came down to Houston to be with my then wife. I got a job with Schlumberger Engineering. I was there for 30 years before I retired at 50. They treated me real well. I bought a big camper and we drove through all the states, even to Alaska four times. I like to camp. I’m a Mason, a Shriner, a Shriner Clown. Always been a doer. Even played semi-pro baseball a little.

Currently, I have a short wave radio program from 7-8 every morning. I call a bunch of hams from all over the world; we talk about everything. Moved to this Hill Country house 40 years ago; bought a corner of a big ranch. In the 70s, we would come out on the weekend and camp. Designed this house and built it myself on weekends. {06-11-2015 • Medina, TX}