743rd Tank Battalion D-Day Invasion, Northern France, Belgium, Netherlands, Germany.   Joel Dykstra

Fort Knox, Kentucky

Camp Laguna was about 30 miles north of Yuma, where he trained for desert warfare. It was here that he joined the 743rd Tank Battalion.  This unit had been formed at Ft. Lewis, Washington. Before coming to Arizona desert, it had been on maneuvers in the intense heat of Death Valley in California. The plan was that the unit would be going to North Africa. Joel camped out in tents in the desert at Camp Laguna They had no electricity, just a little generator that they used to show movies. Although it was hot in the daytime, at night it was cold. "You couldn't get enough blankets to keep warm."

They took a troop train from Arizona to Camp Shanks, a staging area in New York City.  "It was dark and everything was blacked out and we didn't even know we were near the ship. We were just marching from Camp Shanks during the night and all at once we walked right into the side of the ship. They had a piece taken out...a door on the side of the ship. We just walked right in there. We didn't even know we were on a ship until we got into the place where we were going to stay."

They were on the Aquitania, a British luxury liner that had been converted into a troop ship. The ship was carrying 11,000 men though it had originally been made for only 7000 passengers. It was terribly overcrowded and every available space was used. There also was barbed wire in parts of the ship. The ocean liner had been used to transport German POWs to the United States and troops back over to Europe.

Zigzagging across the Atlantic in November was rough and they did go through a storm. "They always said that the ship was 90 feet down to the waterline. Sometimes it would splash over the top. We couldn't even be on the deck one day. To make matters worse, Joel's bunk was near the propeller on G Deck, where there was little ventilation. Some of the soldiers were so sick by the time they reached land that they had to be carried off the ship.

In V-Mails back home, he would describe the countryside and especially the tractors that he saw in the fields such as McCormick Deering. Many of the tractors in England were exports from the U.S. such as Massey Ferguson.

Joel did get a pass to go into London one weekend. German bombers dropped bombs on the city nearly every night and that weekend was no exception. He didn't have to go into a bomb shelter when the sirens went off. They took refuge in the hotel center corridor. The hotel was not hit but the next day they could see the fire down the street where the bomb had struck.

They didn't know when the D-Day invasion was to take place until it actually began. One of their last training areas was at Bournemouth, right on the English Channel and normally a resort town. "We could see what was going on. I mean, we couldn't see the invasion, that was too far away but the whole channel was full of ships anchored out there ready to go. The next day they were all gone."

Back home in Iowa, Joel's family anxiously listened to the WNAX radio station in Yankton, South Dakota. There was no electricity on the farm. A few years before, Joel and his brother, Donald, had picked corn by hand to raise money to purchase this combination wet cell/dry cell battery operated radio. The family could not afford a daily newspaper. Joel's brother, Leroy, and both his sisters, Elizabeth and Marlene, recall listening all day to the war news. They assumed Joel was part of this invasion force.

Joel commented, "The beaches had already been cleaned up pretty well. I didn't see any bodies." There also had been a storm in the area after the D-Day invasion but before Joel Dykstra came ashore on June 19, 1944. He could tell, however, that something had happened.  There were burned out tanks and trucks littering the beach.

Joel's platoon was reunited with the rest of the 743rd near Isigny. The town was mostly rubble by this time "but it still had a name."  They camped out in the field and ate supper from their own kitchen trucks. He was standing in line when the Germans began shelling them.  They were still under artillery range. "Everybody just hit the dirt." Because their unit was beat up pretty bad in the invasion, they remained at Isigny for a few days waiting for new tanks and a bunch of replacements.

He noted the local French population. "Some of those who were farmers felt they had to take care of the livestock. There were dead cows and horses."  The smell was bad. One day they were trying to buy some eggs from a French farmer's daughter. They were having problems with the French language. Suddenly she said in English, "Oh, you want to buy some eggs?" Unfortunately for the soldiers, all they had for currency was Military scrip, which the French would not take.

Joel first ran into combat around the beginning of July in the Vire River crossing. Joel's company had its first casualty the day they crossed the river. Their platoon sergeant was killed. Joel did not know how he died. It was rather unusual. 

Joel was in a mortar platoon. Their platoon's job was to support the tank battalion. "In the battalion they had three halftracks with 81 mm mortars. They used them for firing smoke shells up ahead of the tanks when they had to make an attack in open country." On July 7, the Vire River attack started and lasted for 11 days and nights.  This battle was around the town of St. Jean de Daye. It was a very fierce battle and they advanced only 7 miles in 11 days.

Other towns in the area were Hebecrevon, Mortain, and St. Lo. On July 24, a breakthrough was planned and the mortar platoon mission was to fire the smoke shells that were to be the markers for the bombers. By the time that the 1800 planes arrived, the smoke had drifted over the American lines and the bombs fell on American troops.  No one from the 743rd had any casualties but the infantry was almost wiped out.

The 743rd had around 1000 men, full strength. There were other tough battles around Tessy and Mortain that lasted six days. Throughout the war, the 743rd Tank Battalion would be attached to different units such as the 1st Infantry Division, the 29th Infantry Division and the Rangers. By August, when the Stars & Stripes article by Earl Mago was published, they were with the 30th Infantry Division. Mago wrote, "The 743rd received the Presidential Citation for subsequent operations and since has (rested) altogether about 5 days. A regular hell-for-thunder outfit which has developed tank operations in support of doughboys to a fine art." 

It is interesting to note the term doughboys in reference to these soldiers. This word was a WWI term for GI's and it is obvious that this was Earl Mago's frame of reference when he was writing the news article.