Page 58 - Senior Link Magazine Fall 2018- Online Magazine

Roger Britt
“Go, Get ‘em!”

by Larry A. Williams

including one Medal
of Honor and three
Distinguished Service
Crosses. The unit
served 134 days in
combat and suffered
over 5,500 casualties.

Roger was born on
May 26, 1926 to D.L.
and Mary Britt. He boarded a “blackout train” to
had two brothers Southampton, England. From
and four sisters. One there they took a ship to France
brother also served to Camp Lucky Strike, one of
during WWII. Young several so-called “Cigarette
Roger attended school Camps”. (A Cigarette Camp
at Amherst; he did was one of several temporary
not finish, but he did U.S. Army “tent cities” situated
have a favorite subject principally around the French
- “recess”. He moved ports of Le Havre and Marseilles
to Burbank, California following their respective
where he helped build captures in the wake of the Allied
B-17 bombers from D-Day invasion in June 1944.) It
1943 to 1944. He also was January 1945, and as Roger
hese were the orders completed high school recalled, “It was very cold. We
issued to Roger L. Britt there by earning his G.E.D. The were loaded in box cars headed
Tin Northern France in the teenager was drafted into the for the front. It took 24 hours
winter of 1945. Roger was part Army on August 16, 1944 and to get to Metz, France where we
of the massive Allied push to trained as a combat replacement were loaded on trucks to go to
defeat the Germans near the at Camp Wolters near Mineral the front. We were told to get our
end of WWII. His unit, the 87th Wells, Texas. The famous affairs in order as we could get
Infantry Division, was assigned Audie Murphy, one of the most killed the first day (of combat).
to General decorated American They gave us our ammunition
George S. combat soldiers of WWII, and said, ‘Go, Get ‘em!’”
Patton’s Third also received his basic
U.S. Army. training there. Roger recounted his combat
The 87th was experience: “I didn’t get to
part of the After basic, Roger’s unit sleep in a bed for five weeks.
Third Army’s was sent to Washington, We would fight during the day
counter attack D.C., then on to Boston and dig fox holes at night. The
during the Harbor where they ground was so hard that we used
Battle of the boarded a converted axes to break up the ground and
Bulge. It troop ship carrying then used shovels to dig our
was a highly 6,000 men. After six foxholes. Once we walked 20
decorated days on the water with miles at night to hit the Germans
unit, with over their destroyer escorts, at dawn. I was issued a bazooka
1300 medals they landed in Northern and used it on a German half-
awarded, Scotland. The unit then track. (A half-track is a vehicle

58 Lubbock Senior Link