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From Omaha Beach to the Nuremberg trials, veteran lived history

Daily News - 8/14/2017

At just 17 years old, Charles E. Adams Sr. got his his first taste of war on the shores of Normandy at Omaha Beach during World War II.

As a U.S. Army combat engineer, his division was to be among the first to enter Omaha Beach on D-Day, June 6, 1944. But not much went as planned that day for American troops when strong waves in the English Channel swallowed up his division's equipment barge, causing it and the Sherman tanks on it to sink.

"We were scheduled to go in the first wave," Adams said. "But we didn't because of the equipment loss."

He estimates that about six hours later, he and other engineers entered the beach under heavy fire from German troops.

"There was quite a bit of red, American blood floating in the water when we got there and that was six hours later," he said.

The shore was covered in bodies, he said.

Under the command of Lt. Gen. Omar Bradley, Adams said the orders were to go in fighting and try to stay alive. While he witnessed hundreds of deaths all around him, Adams managed to survive. More than 2,000 Americans lost their lives at Omaha that day, he said.

In the days following D-Day, Adams and other engineers cleared paths for equipment and soldiers to move through the area. Adams remained at Omaha until Gen. George Patton ordered a combat engineer battalion to join him.

Adams describes Patton as "one helluva good soldier.

"He's one of the finest people I ever served under," Adams said. "He done what he said he would do and led you so you could do it, too. He didn't take all of the credit.

"I remember his pearl handled pistol. He always had that with him. At that time he had his dog with him," Adams said.

The dog, an English bull terrier, was named Willie.

Five months after surviving Omaha Beach, Adams was part of Patton's Third Army in Bastogne where he was shot in the thigh during the Battle of the Bulge.

Adams was out in the front of a group of other engineers when he was struck by German fire. At first he didn't realize he'd been shot until another soldier told him he was bleeding.

Adams sought treatment from a medic who told him the bullet went straight through his leg and was "just a flesh wound." He got bandaged up and headed back out into battle.

Adams was awarded a Purple Heart after getting shot.

During the Battle of the Bulge, Adams spent 11 days and 10 nights alone in a subfreezing foxhole with only his Gideons Bible in his front shirt pocket and prayers for comfort. He prayed every single day as he fought off the cold to stay alive. Adams still has the Bible he carried with him during the war.

"It was hell," Adams said. "You couldn't breathe. You couldn't do nothing. They had snipers all around us."

On the 11th day in the foxhole, he was told to come out. But his feet and legs up to his knees were frozen in a block of ice.

Other soldiers had to take a bayonet to chop off the ice block around his feet.

He can't remember the name of the condition that a doctor in England told him he had.

"It wasn't frostbite," he said. "It was a helluva lot more than frostbite."

On three separate occasions over a six-month period of hospitalization, doctors wanted to amputate his feet and legs up to his knees. But he eventually regained feeling and was able to walk with the help of crutches. To this day his feet up to his knees are colder than the rest of his body and he takes two different medications for the pain but other than that he doesn't have any health problems, he said.

After the war ended and Adams had been released from the hospital, he was given light-duty work as a gate guard with one of those locations in Nuremberg during the Nuremberg trials.

It was during his gate duty that he distinctly remembers checking in Nazi leader Hermann Goring, who was sentenced to death at the trials but committed suicide before his execution.

Two years passed after being chopped away from the ice in his foxhole before Adams was able to walk without crutches, he said. He remained in the military until 1949.

Adams, who was born and raised in Bowling Green, returned after the war and opened a gas station that he sold many years ago. He shares a home with his only son.

In his living room, just behind the sofa, sits a framed photo of Patton that Adams took as Patton stood at the Aube River in France. Above the photo is a shadow box with his military service ribbons and medals including his Purple Heart.

The nonagenarian said even at his current age, he would go back into battle for his country.

"We're still fighting for freedom."