65 years later, invasion is a vivid memory for Calimesa veteran

Gonzales started the invasion with Tank Destroyer Battalion 821, then was quickly transferred to the 29th Mechanized Calvary Reconnaissance Squadron.

"That's the same one as (in) 'Saving Private Ryan,'" he said proudly.

Gonzales witnessed the real version the carnage depicted in Spielberg's blockbuster.

"There were so many dead bodies I don't even know how many - hundreds," he said. "They were all over the beaches and floating in the water. You'd see an arm here, a leg there, guys cut in half. You had to get used to it and go on."

Gonzales made it past the bombs and bullets onto the beach. His job was to knock out enemy pillboxes, which were concrete bunkers filled with German soldiers firing machine guns.

"Planes were dropping 500-pounders - bombs - but they couldn't knock them out," he said. "Then I saw these Canadian soldiers. They were attacking the pillboxes with flame-throwers, and I went over to help them."

Germans fled the pillboxes, some engulfed in flames, with their hands up.

"I told the lieutenant, 'They're trying to surrender,'" Gonzales remembered. "But he told us to shoot them. He said if the situation was reversed they'd shoot you. So we shot them."

After surviving the invasion, Gonzales met up with his squad and pushed farther into France. He would fight in three more campaigns and dozens of skirmishes along the way.

His job as a reconnaissance soldier was to go behind enemy lines and scout the location, number and variety of German artillery.

Gonzales told of one mission in which nine reconnaissance soldiers went out but only three came back.

"We were in jeeps, three men to a jeep," he began. "I saw these two tanks coming at us. I thought they were American - they turned out to be German. They started shooting at us and hit us."

Gonzales crawled out from the wreckage. He and another soldier hid in the basement of an abandoned home until Allied troops came to their aid three days later.

Gonzales recalled another mission in which he and two other reconnaissance soldiers were deep behind enemy lines.

"I heard someone crying," he said. "When I went to look to see who it was, I found it was an American soldier with his leg blown off. I picked up his dog tag and looked at his name - Beverick. I'll never forget his name - Beverick."

Gonzales wrapped the stump of the wounded man's leg in his shirt and carried him from harm's way. By the time he reached an American unit, Gonzales was drenched in the soldier's blood.

"I gave him to a lieutenant who said we'd get a medal for what we'd done," he said. "But I never heard from Beverick or that lieutenant again. I think they were probably killed."

Gonzales also shared a bitter memory of being with his squad on patrol while a German plane shot at them.

"We saw this barn and ran for cover," he said. "When we stepped inside, the ground was very soft. We moved the hay and found so many dead bodies. I think they were Jews.

Gonzales made it home without ever suffering a serious wound or injury.

"But I came close many, many times," he said.

His wife, Anita, believes it might have had something to do with the power of prayer.

"My friends used to tell me, 'You must have been praying very hard,' and I'd tell them, 'I was,'" she said.

The couple, who will celebrate their 66th wedding anniversary July 28, were married one day before Gonzales reported for duty.

When he got home, Gonzales became a butcher for a grocery chain. He and Anita raised five children and enjoy many grandchildren, great-grandchildren and even a few great-great-grandchildren.

It's been a good and happy life, he said, but he can never forget about his war years.

"I think about these days and all the friends I lost," he said. "They would tell us not to get too attached to our friends, but we did. I just don't want this generation to have to go through what we did. I don't wish that for them.

"In Normandy, on those beaches, there were just too many dead bodies."

diana.sholley@inlandnewspapers.com
(909) 483-9381