I’m a soldier now

When Pearl Harbor was attacked, and the second world war broke out, Burlin Wilson and his family were living on a farm in Eubank, just north of Shelby County Kentucky.

Farming produced very little income during the depression years and jobs were scarce, so with six children to care for, Burlin and his wife, Maggie decided to go to Cincinnati to work, while their two oldest, Norma and Charlie stayed on the farm.

“Times were tough, and we were barely making a living during those depression years. Mother and dad talked to my older sister Norma and me about staying here on the farm with the little ones while they went to Cincinnati to work in a defense factory,” Charlie Wilson said. “While my sister took care of the housework and the cooking, I helped her milk the cows, feed the chickens and gather wood. I made sure the little ones went to school with me. Mother and dad would work all week then come home on the weekends. They did that for about two years.”

Just as he was about to start his last year of high school, Charlie’s life was about to take a dramatic turn.

Sometime around the middle of August, Charlie Wilson had received notice that he had been drafted by United States Army.

“They took me out of school when I was a senior. I had to go to Louisville for a physical. On my birthday, Aug. 25, 1943, I had joined the Army. After I had registered, I went home, and I had the paper in my pocket that said I’m a soldier of the United States Army now.”

After he spent a few days saying goodbye to family and friends, Charlie boarded a train to join thousands of other young men who had also been called to serve their country. Charlie was about to become a soldier with the 4th Infantry Division,42nd Regiment of Artillery, Battery C.

“I took a train to go to Fort Thomas where we received our uniforms. Then suddenly, we were back on a train headed south along the Ohio river and down to Memphis, then to Arkansas, where I saw things I had never seen before like big oil wells right in the front of people’s yards. Finally, we arrived in Oklahoma, the train stopped at Fort Sill. We got settled. While I was at Fort Sill I would have given anything to go home. I had never been away from home before. But after a little while we began to adjust. Training was tough, we went through endurance hikes and was taught how to be mean and tough. We learned to quickly move through an obstacle course and how to maneuver gas chambers. After we graduated I went to Fort Meade Maryland for more training. After about three weeks, we were sent to an army base just outside of Boston Harbor, where we had swamp training. One day we decided we would get familiar with the ship we would be on and while we were checking out the bottom deck, the ship started moving out and we were headed to England. We unloaded at Liverpool, a convoy of trucks took us to southern England.”

Charlie said he will forever remember the day his troops landed at Utah Beach on June 6, 1944.

“I was scared, I was an 18-year-old farm boy, I was scared to death, my legs were shaking, and I didn’t know if we would live or die. When our tanks landed on the beach there was shooting all around us, but we did what we had to do to clear the area so the 101st Airborne Division could complete their mission. After some fighting in Sainte-Mere-Eglise, we made our way toward Cherbourg where we had to clear the town of some of the occupying forces who refused to give in. We had to take some young kids prisoner that had been indoctrinated in Hitler’s camps. Nine days later, the Navy Frogmen cleared the harbor of mines so that supply ships could come in. Then it was on to liberate Saint-Lo where we had to fight in the earthworks and hedgerows of the Bocage. This is where our tank driver had gotten both his legs blown off and I had to take over driving the tank. I drove it for the remainder of the war, through the battle of Hurtgen Forest, Luxemburg, the Rhine and the Battle of the Bulge,” Charlie said.

On his 29th birthday Charlie’s unit was given orders to liberate Paris.

“The day after my birthday we drove our tanks into the outskirts of the capital after we had liberated Paris. We didn’t have to fire a single shot, and we stayed there for four days and danced in the streets with the locals,” Charlie said, then laughed when he added, “We thought we were going to get to march in the parade, but our Lieutenant told us we were too dirty. Well, we still had on the very same clothes that we had on when we landed.”

Just a few months later, Charlie drove his tank down Hitler Highway, and took a turn to the left toward a small village where his unit accidently stumbled upon a horrible sight, a scene that has stayed in his mind for 73 years.

“Near the end of April we came up on a town where we smelled the worst stench we had ever smelled. I’m a farm boy and recognized the odor of dead animals, but there were no farms around. The closer we got the stronger the smell got. The odor seemed to be coming from my right, so I stopped my tank radioed to my commandant and told him there is something awful up here that needs immediate attention,” Charlie said.

With tear filled eyes and a moment needed to regain his composure Charlie went on to explain what he and his comrades had witnessed.

“When we came to some old ruined buildings I stopped my tank, and someone radioed to ask why I wasn’t moving. I told them something terrible had happened here. There were human corpses, naked, piled on top of each other, there must have been thousands of them. When I climbed out of the tank I looked around and saw some prisoners walking towards us, they were near starved and could barely walk, too weak to even hold up their heads, but they were alive. Three more tanks arrived, and I was again asked why I had stopped. I said I will not budge until someone comes to deal with this horror. Had we not held our ground, no one would have known about the Dachau concentration camp. One of the women that we helped save that day was the mother of Senator Lieberman’s wife.”

Through the horrors of war, Charlie said it was the little things that helped them keep up their morale.

“The simple things kept us going, like being able to sleep in a wheat shock in a farmer’s field, or getting to taste salt when someone shared a meal of that wonderful Spam. Or the time after we had not received mail for about 18 months and on Christmas Day, they gave us our mail and mine was a box my mother had sent. In that box was a turkey she had taken to the cannery in Carlisle, so she could mail me a canned Christmas turkey. I shared that gift with my unit that day,” Charlie recalled.

Something else that helped provide a sense of security was the little bible that Charlie’s sister Norma had sent him with an inscription that read, “Although you may be sent far away and none of us are allowed to come along, there is one who can go with you all of the way! Take this little book with you, someday you may be glad that I sent it. May God Bless You Always.”

On July 2, 1945 Charlie Wilson sailed from Le Havre back to the United States, where after the war he returned to school on the G.I. Bill. He married and had three children, Sandra, Sally and Sam. He became a school teacher and a principal with the Nicholas County Board of Education.

Today, at the young age of 92, Charlie Wilson spends his time as a volunteer at many events throughout the year where he speaks to the younger generation to help them understand why he feels it is so important to honor our veterans and to respect the American flag.

One of his proudest moments has been the opportunity to go back and visit the country he helped liberate.

Lydia Wilson Kohler, a Carlisle native and a teacher at Clark County, was in search of a local WWII veteran who had been among the American Soldiers to help liberate Paris. She was about to give up on her search when her mother, who is also a retired Nicholas County teacher, told her about Charlie. Kohler and her students would accompany Charlie on his trip to France.

Seventy years after he landed on Utah Beach as a young and scared soldier, Charlie Wilson, stood on that sandy shore once again. But this time he was there to receive a medal of honor from the French Government and to share the story with the grandchildren of the people he had helped liberate.

To those students, Charlie Wilson is history in the flesh.

As for Charlie, he will quickly tell you that all veterans are his heroes and he is proud to say, “I am officially a World War II Veteran now.”

D-Day June 6, 1944 Team—This was the crew all the way through the war minus a few of them that were killed or wounded. Pictured are Joseph Tolan of Pa.; Charles Wilson of Carlisle, Ky.; Grady Pye of Ga.; Shelton Norton of Tenn.; William D. Hagen of Ala.; back row, Howard Freeland of NY; Orlanda Gabriel of NY; Frank Smith of Ohio; Wallace Tracy of W.Va.; and Donald Stevens of Ohio.