WWII Navy Veteran Recalls D-Day Invasion and Island Hopping by U.S.
Navy Max Lonzanida, Hampton Roads Naval Museum
September 1, 2019
Julius Shoulars is 94, and resides in a cozy second floor
apartment in a Virginia Beach retirement community.
During an oral
history interview, he recounted his service in the US Navy as a
coxswain during WWII with the 7th Naval Beach Battalion during the
D-Day invasion. He later went island hopping in the Pacific aboard
an attack transport; and returned to Norfolk after serving in both
theaters of war.
May 28, 2019 -
Sitting in the comfort of his apartment in Virginia Beach
... Julius Shoulars, a 94 year old U.S. Navy veteran, recalls his service
during World War II that included the D-Day invasion and
island hopping in the Pacific Ocean. (U.S. Navy photo by Max Lonzanida,
Hampton Roads Naval Museum)
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He started off with “well, I got a letter
from Uncle Sam saying to report to Richmond.” It was 1943, and the
Maury High School graduate reported for screening.
While
seated in a room with other recruits, he recalled that “they asked
for 30 volunteers for the Navy and I raised my hand. In the Navy,
you get three square meals, a clean bed to sleep in and water to
take a shower each day.” Training took him to Camp Sampson, New York
and Camp Bradford, Virginia. Bradford was on the Chesapeake Bay, and
he recalled mustering at the commandeered Nansemond Hotel in the
Ocean View section of Norfolk.
At Bradford, “we were
assigned to an experimental outfit called a Naval Beach Battalion.
We were issued paratrooper boots, Army jackets, Army pants, Army
helmets, and Navy underwear.”
His parents resided in
Norfolk, and he visited often. With a smile, he recalled that a
friend of his had joined the Army, and left his girlfriend, Ruby
back in Norfolk. He was instructed not to talk to her; “but by hell
I did, you had to be a fool not to.” This blossomed into a
relationship that endured.
By January 1944, they crossed the
Atlantic. In England, he recounted “you know the phrase over here,
over paid and over sexed; I think somebody made that up.”
At
the “end of May 1944, we were transported to ships taking part in
the invasion. We headed out on the 6th aboard anything that would
float, even fishing boats from England.” On the morning of June 6th,
1944 at H-hour, troops hit the “blood red” beaches of Normandy, in
an operation that liberated Europe.
While crossing the
English Channel he recalled that “some of the men were happy, some
were anxious, some were sad, some were scared to death. I felt it
was going to happen, and there was nothing I could do, so why cry or
be joyful; just take it.”
His unit was attached to the 29th
Infantry Division, who took Omaha Beach on June 6-7, 1944. Nearly a
month was spent there directing landing craft, clearing obstacles,
moving supplies, and clearing and burying the dead; a solemn task he
recalled with tears in his eyes.
His unit headed stateside,
and a period of leave was spent in Norfolk with his parents and
girlfriend, before joining the crew of the newly commissioned USS
Karnes (APA-175) on the West Coast.
He served 18 months on
the Karnes, “island hopping” in the Pacific for a total of 76,750
miles. This took him to Pearl Harbor, Midway, Guam, Tinian, Okinawa,
Eniwetok Atoll, Ulithi, Subic Bay and Lingayen Gulf, Philippines
among other ports of call while transporting cargo, evacuating the
wounded, and transporting service members.
After the
Japanese surrendered, the Karnes made its way back to San Francisco.
He boarded a train back to Norfolk and was discharged. One of the
first things he did was get married, and “eat a 30-cent hamburger at
Doumars.”
Doumars on Monticello Avenue was where he first met
Ruby. They didn’t want to get married during the war, for fear of
making Ruby a widow. They got married upon his return home and spent
66 years together before she passed in 2013.
As for the friend who
instructed him not to talk to her, Julius recalled ... “Well, me
and him never spoke again.”
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