Camp Kilmer, Scotland, Clairborne England

After the West Virginia mountain maneuvers, Simon was transferred to Camp Kilmer, New Jersey to prepare for the trip overseas.  On May 12, 1944, three ships left the harbor carrying the entire division.  Simon was on the SS General A.E. Anderson, a relatively small but excellent Navy vessel.  Simon felt that it was a good ship because it was smooth and no one ever got sick on it.  The soldiers weren't crowded, they slept in hammocks and everyone got along.  When they first started the journey, the temperature started to get warm, but soon thereafter it started to get colder and colder and colder.  The soldiers assumed they traveled in a big circle to avoid enemy submarines.  It took them 14 days to reach Scotland, and they simply pulled into port and stayed on the ship.  They were not allowed to disembark at that point because they had to wait for the ports to clear.  The other ships were coming in so fast there was not enough room in the ports.  They eventually disembarked and were bivouacked in Pendarves and Clowance Estates in Clairborne.  On July 2nd , the 134th was ordered to the Plymouth area, and eventually ended up at Land's End in England.  That's the point furthest west on the English coast.  (The official record has the locations as Okehampton and Tavistock). They remained bivouacked in houses (50 or 60 troops to a house) until they went across the Channel on July 5, 1944.

Within the 134th, there were individual companies and  I Company was the company Simon was assigned to when he left Lincoln.  Eventually Simon was transferred to the Third Battalion, which was comprised of I Company (Lincoln), L Company (Omaha), K Company (Omaha), and M Company (Seward).  Simon stayed with the Third Battalion until the end of the war.  (Click to see the full structure of the Sante FE.)

While in England, the soldiers tried to swim in the ocean, but it was really too cold to be enjoyable.  Simon wasn't a very good a swimmer, so using his ingenuity, he would use the real heavy Army mattress covers that were placed on single beds, fill them up with air, tie them up, and use them as water mattresses.  For some reason, these covers survived the wet and the cold for a long time before they would get soaked and sink.  It was a way to pass the time and have a lot of fun even if you got drenched and cold in the end.

Simon had an opportunity to see some of the countryside when he drove on the nearby streets to get supplies and run errands but he couldn’t go very far not knowing when they would be called back to the ship.  Also, other opportunities for seeing more of England happened because he was responsible for driving the company commander.  Whenever the company commander wanted to go someplace, Simon would usually take him where he wanted to go. 

One of the problems for the Americans was driving on the left-hand side of the road.  This worked okay with the steering wheel on the eft (wrong) side for the smaller vehicles such as the Jeeps because they were narrow, but if a weapons carrier or a six-by were involved, it was much harder to judge where the right side of the vehicle was in relationship to the other vehicles you were passing.  Simon wondered why there weren’t more wrecks than there were given that the roads were really narrow and they curved and twisted throughout the countryside. 

News of the States or the war was very limited.  There weren’t any radios or any other news sources to keep the troops up to date on what was happing in the war.  Each company was limited to their own little area and whatever gossip you could share with each other.  Also, because the troops were stationed so far from London, it was impossible to know that London was being bombed at the same time that they were there.  Simon was sure that if the Germans had enough fuel, they would have attacked their ocation, but they just had enough fuel to make it to London and some of the other cities near London.  The buzz bombs were aimed at the big cities.  Simon actually saw a couple of buzz bombs, but he did not see any of the rockets.  Later in the war he actually saw some B2 rockets but they were deactivated--the Americans had already captured them. 

One of the activities that the drivers were required to do was waterproof their vehicles. They worked hard for about a week making sure everything electrical was sealed.  Just when they thought they had everything sealed, they were ordered to "Go over it again.  Seal it again."  Everything was sealed with cosmolene, a material with the consistency of plumber’s putty or Play Dough.  They would wrap cosmolene around ignition wires, spark plugs, plug wires, brake lights, tail lights, head lights, and all the wires going to anything electrical.  The exhaust pipe and the breather had long pipes that went up above the windshield.  These pipes were then tied to the windshields for reinforcement.  If the driver stood up in the Jeep, the pipes would be at eye level.  In order to drive, it was necessary to sit on the back of the seat and reach as far as you could to step on the accelerator.  This didn’t always produce a Jeep that could be driven under water, but more on that later.

Finally it was time to move.  It was a month after D-Day and the order came to load everything back on the ships.