Leland J. Kennedy Memoir - University of Illinois Springfield

A: A port of embarkation or for supplies and them. I think troops landed there after we
had a foothold. I think they brought in . . .
Q: It might have took a while to take Cherbourg. It was held down for quite a while.
A: Yes. Yes. Yes. We were in Cherbourg, yes. And then, wasn't Utah Beach closer to
Cherbourg than Omaha, wouldn't that be right?
Q: I've forgotten which is which. It seems to me it was, yes.
A: I believe one of those was. I don't know how far apart they were. There were several
beaches, Omaha was the important beach. I think Utah was the next important to the
American. And there was several British beachheads I think.
Q: Off to the east.
A: Whether they were six miles long or how long the channel or peninsula is there 1 don't
know. But Cherbourg, sure. That's a fairly large port, and it was a pretty rough city. It
had been beat up too. It had been bombed.
Q: Did you get in to Cherbourg then itself?
A: I think we did, yes. I think we did, but of course you'd recall being to Paris. Like I
recall being to Coventry, England. I never got to London as I said.
Q: Well Paris would have come a bit later
A: Yes. Yes, Paris fell in August, didn't it?
Q: Yes. Someplace along in there, yes sir
A: Yes. Well, Paris would have been later, would have been later. I know that we were
there soon after it fell, this lieutenant and I. We weren't on official duties I guess, we'd
as I said run the line. I was supposed to drive his jeep I guess, but he didn't think I was
too good of a driver and he'd drive it. They had set up field kitchens on corners in
Paris. We saw Eiffel Tower and Notre Dame Cathedral and of course there's a lot more
to see in Paris than those two, but we saw the Arch de Triomphe. And they had kitchens
there, cafeteria - we couldn't call them a cafeteria, places to eat. Field set up on a corner
or on the streets or - where GI's who came into Paris could go, you know, to get a
meal. All you had to have on was a suit. You didn't have to show any identification or
nothing, you know. And I was in Notre Dame Cathedral and saw the Arch. Hell, if you
were there six hours - you would kind of snuck off from duty and go.
Q: Were there services in the Cathedral or you just . . .
A: Not at that time. I'm sure there was, but I didn't attend any services there. I attended
church in England, attended a church in England, and I don't recall whether they had field
masses. Field services overseas in France and you went to those, but I don't recall going
to any church in France. In fact after I got hurt and was back off the continent in the British
Isles, why, we never got to church. They had a chaplain there but they had services maybe
on the grounds some place, they had a mass, a midnight mass Christmas, 1944. I went to
that, but it was just in like a dormitory or something like that. I was hack in England
then though.
Q: When the unit moved forward and on up toward Germany, now, did you get into Belgium
for example?