Thomas L. "Red" Groot
Boatswain's Mate, 1st class,  USS Corry (DD-463)
 
(email: t l g 5 7 1 9 @ s h e n t e l . n e t ) 

"Boats' " Red Groot,  USS Corry Sailor

Tuesday June 6, 1944
The sinking of our great ship at the Normandy Invasion
 

     It actually started on June 5^th 1944 but the worst storm in 50 years hit the English Channel that night. General Eisenhower ordered a twenty-four hour delay in the invasion of Normandy and the whole Fleet of the invasion force was recalled back to England. The Corry was designated to proceed on toward France to turn back those ships that did not get the word of the postponement.

  The next morning very early, more like midnight, the Corry was under way again and we knew this would be “IT”. There was a lot a maneuvering and waiting crossing the channel and very carefully entering the narrow mine swept channels leading to Utah beach. The ship is at “G.Q.” (General Quarters), and in the darkness you can hear the planes by the hundreds flying over us. And shortly, the whole shoreline jumped into view from the exploding bombs dropped by the planes that continue flying over us. The flashing from so many bombs, like chain-lightning at night in the clouds of a thunder storm, lights up the shoreline for miles and silhouettes the clouds of smoke, making an unforgettable and horrible sight. And the thundering sound from it was shaking your clothing and you could even feel the sound waves on your face over the wind. This is my view from atop the gun mount as the ship is approaching its designated firing position off Utah Beach as Gun Captain of the Number 3  5-inch gun mount on the after deckhouse.

  The Gun Captain’s General Quarters station is a small stand in the rear of the gun mount with a hatch opening above it that allows the Gun Captain to stand waist high over the top of the mount. From this position the Gun Captain has control of firing the gun, locally, or by automatic settings from the main Director that directs the fire control of the 5"-38 Gun.

The Corry was slowly closing in on the beach. An island suddenly loomed in sight off to starboard (St. Marcouf Island). It is after 0530 and getting light enough to see the shoreline when the word was passed over my headphones to “Load, shift to automatic and stand by.” The crew reacted quickly, the word soon followed to “Commence firing”. And it was on. Like hell was breaking loose.

  My 5-inch gun crew is experienced and very good at what they do. My 5-inch-gun mount is firing in automatic, very rapid, controlled by C.I.C. [Combat Information Center] Still standing on my little platform head and shoulders above the mount watching the shore. It is about 0540, and still a mass of exploding shells and bombs are dropping on the shore from the planes and ships’ bombardment, unbelievable, the whole shoreline is a solid line of fire, as far as you can see of it in either direction, the mass of shelling from other ships, and the Corry adding to it. I cannot tell which ones are ours; some of ours were directed at predetermined inland targets. The battleship U.S.S. Nevada and several cruisers, one being the U.S.S. Quincy, are out of sight to seaward of us. The U.S.S. Nevada’s shells can be heard, a rapid swish-swish-swish going over my head. I can hear each salvo from atop the gun mount and mushrooming on shore adding to the booming thunder. The skies over the beaches are a mass of layered smoke clouds highlighted by the simultaneous bomb flashes, with some further flashes inland lighting up the back layers of clouds.  There are German anti-aircraft shells bursting over us, targeting the bombing planes coming in over them in the early dawn. I see one plane get hit and go down leaving a trail of smoke.

  Orders come over the phone to check fire. Our gun has fired about ninety rounds thus far. The gun crew has rotated in their loading positions. Over the shore I see another plane get hit and go down in flames. The ship has maneuvered back into firing position and commences rapid fire again. Scuttlebutt on the phones tells me that we have dropped anchor 1000 yards from shore. I hear over the phones, “Knock off the noise.” I believe that was the last chatter that came over the phones for some time.

  Many shell plumes of water and smoke from them hitting the water close by can be seen mixed with the whitecaps on the water caused by a brisk wind. A shell hit the water off the starboard quarter, maybe 75 yards, raising a large plume of water, followed by another one close to the starboard bow. Looking back to seaward a B-24 plane is laying a big smoke screen and silhouetting the Corry against it. Turning back toward the shore there is another plane laying one between the Corry and the beach. I am looking right at it when a German anti-aircraft shell made a direct hit on it. The plane blew up in a huge ball of fire and smoke. Nothing was left of the plane but a few small pieces that splashed down into the water, 50 yards off the starboard quarter. That really left the Corry a sitting duck with only the smoke screen to seaward of us. The bow of the ship took a direct hit. Shellfire raked the ship. The bridge also is hit with shellfire. There are numerous shells of different sizes dropping all around the Corry sending up plumes of water fountains where they land in the water.

One of the larger caliber shore batteries has found the Corry’s range and is zeroing in on us.  I see a very large shell hit the water just astern of us, the biggest shell plume I have seen so far. It caused me to duck my head down in the mount, but I was right back up in time to see another shell plume hit close to the bow, the same size large plume that hit astern seconds ago. Whoa! I was thinking they just straddled us and to get down in the mount. At the same time the ship shuddered, and seeing the foam from the screws kick up, I knew that full speed ahead had been rung up, and the anchor must be in sight.

Two near misses off
USS Corry bow on D-Day

I’m ducking down into the mount and shouting to my gun crew that we had been straddled by some big shellfire and to stand by for a hit. The top hatch was about closed and I was removing my left hand from the hatch combing when at the same time it hit. My helmet and phones went flying, This action shook me loose from the hatch I was holding onto and threw me across the inside of the mount, landing on top of the hot shellman The ship seemed to turn upside down. Seawater came squirting in from all the openings around the mount, and poured in the hot shell discharge opening in the bottom of the mount to practically fill the mount with water. It poured in clear seawater, lit up with daylight that fell toward the top rear in the mount. As this is happening I can't hear a thing, not a sound from the men. A strange feeling, It's as though I was deaf. I was floating in air facing the top of the gun mount. The mount is violently swinging around, and hit the stops on the other side of the ship and ended up facing the ship’s port quarter. Thanks to hot shellman breaking my fall, I ended up with only a small knot on my head and my right arm wrenched from trying to hang on to the hatch cover. The ship finally turned upright and the water drained out of the mount down into the handling room and soaking every thing in it. We were all shaken up from that action of the shelling and the mount swinging around and putting the gun out of commission. But we all managed to get out of the gun mount in fair condition. Looking back into the mount there is a 5-inch shell laying in water down in the elevation well and a 5-inch powder casing, with the safety cap off, crushed, laying next to the shell with the powder spilled all over the deck of the mount. Luckily, the powder was wet. My gun trainer tells me the gun cannot be trained in either direction and the pointer says his control won't elevate up or down even in the manual position. I cannot help noticing the barrel of my 5-inch gun; it was depressed almost touching the deck. The liner in the barrel from the heat and friction of firing was extended out four to five inches. We had fired about 130 rounds (my count) during the shore bombardment.

USS Corry hit amidships

  The ship was going around in a circle. Men are scrambling around the after steering hold, trying manually to steer the ship. She then went dead in the water and was beginning to buckle in the middle, between the after stack and the after deckhouse My crew went down off the deckhouse to check out the handling room and magazine to see if the men in them were all out.

  Word is being passed by mouth to abandon ship. Several of the men are releasing the life float from the port side of the after deckhouse. This is our abandon ship station. The ship is taking shellfire from the shore, I can hear them zip by. Making my way down the port side ladder from the deckhouse, I went in to check the handling room. There are several mashed and mangled open powder cans with powder spilled all over the deck, several are mashed still jammed under the shell hoist. Fear wells up in me to see it, knowing what could have happened if it weren't wet. Going down into the magazine it is dark, I hollered to see if anyone is left in there. Nothing. No one answers. Upon coming up out of the magazine hatch, Captain Hoffman enters the handling room with the question “What are you doing in here?” I tell him, "Checking it out sir". He asked me what I thought hit the ship to cause that much force to split it in half and sink it? I tell him my thoughts about the big shell splashes straddling us and said I thought it was shellfire from the larger guns from the shore that hit us. The Captain said it must have been something bigger than that. “Probably a mine,” he says. Then he tells me to abandon ship. “Aye sir” I say, and he was gone.

   My abandon ship station was just outside, to port of the deckhouse. The men, too many of them, were already in the water around a raft. They were urging me to hurry and jump. As I jumped it was only about two feet from the water. Once in the water, squeezing my May West (life jacket) I came up gasping for air from the cold water and reaching for the raft, before being able to see well, I grabbed a man’s sheath knife blade as he was cutting a line holding the raft to the ship. He hollered at me to let go, several times, to let go of the knife, he still would not pull the knife out of my hand, till I let go of it, so he could finish cutting the line. My left hand was cut pretty bad, judging by the sting of the salt water. Despite the cut, I managed to tie myself to the raft. The men on the raft tell me when I came up out of the water that a shell came right through the deckhouse where I was standing the instant after I had jumped into the water.

   The Corry was sinking. Water was rushing across the mid-ship deck from port to starboard, and it was trying to take our raft with it. Men were shouting to swim, and we were desperately swimming to get away from the ship fearing it would take us down with it, and at the time not knowing how deep the water was, or if she would blow up. To no avail. The rushing water with the incoming tide took us right across the ship and toward shore, just what we were trying to prevent from happening. That silhouetted us right out in plan sight for the shore batteries to shoot at, with the smoke screen to seaward of us. The life raft was overcrowded and just under water. We are all tied to it with lifelines. We agreed to stop swimming; it was getting us now where in our struggle. We were completely exhausted from swimming and dragging the life raft with us.

USS Corry sinking on D-Day

  Shells are hitting in the water around us. Some men are staying afloat with powder canisters under their arms. There are white phosphorus shells bursting just above the water and toward the shore, very close to the raft. Still other shells from shore are landing close by, one hit so close that water completely covered the raft. I feel the convulsion in my guts. One man across the raft from me is stretching himself up above the raft “to see what was going on”, he said. Several of us told him to keep his head down. Too late. He fell with his face down in the raft water when flack from an exploding shell close by caught the top of his head. We cut him loose with his life jacket knowing he would be picked up later. The men are quiet now and the cold water is getting to us.

  The shelling has considerably slowed down. It’s sometime later, and I’m feeling a little dazed and weak. The USS Fitch, another destroyer that had been next to the USS Corry in bombarding the shore, pulled up to our raft with cargo nets thrown over the side, and commenced pulling us on board. Being unable to move to save myself, two men came down on the life raft and pulled me out of the water. I can still hear the Captain of the USS Fitch yelling down from the bridge to “Get that man on board, we have to get underway.” The men literally pulled me up the net and on board, then took me to the casualty area where my clothes were cut off of me.

Corry survivors climbing aboard
USS Fitch (DD-462)

I had trouble keeping them from cutting through my belt I had my hand clamped around it where I had $400 in it. With some hot coffee and a sandwich, feeling a little better, sitting there with a blanket and a pair of khaki pants on. I motioned to an officer’s steward who had just come in with some bottles of Bourbon on a tray, he came over and holding my cup up he poured it half full. That was the best I’d ever remembered drinking, and I thanked him for another. He said, “You’re welcome, sir.” He never suspected the difference; he thought I was an officer. After being on my feet again, a Boatswain’s mate from the USS Fitch whom I’d met several times before, took me back to the crews quarters and gave me some of his dungarees and I flopped onto a bunk. After a good rest I went back to the Ward Room, casualty area, and sorted through the pile of clothing with some help and luckily I found my belt with the money in it. For my well being this day. Thank you Lord.

  The Corry’s survivors who were on board the USS Fitch were transferred at about 1100 hours to the USS Barnett; a troop transport that was headed back to Portsmouth, England. From there we were all, including our captain, Lt. Comdr. George D. Hoffman, transported by railway to Glasgow, Scotland, for a 30-day stay in a rest camp in Edinburgh Scotland. Then back to the U.S.A. via the Queen Elizabeth in July 1944.

  Given the choice, I applied for a deep-sea Diving School and it was granted. A new class was forming in the US navy yard, Washington DC.  On September 19, 1945 I was honorably discharged. I finished my regular Navy career as a First Class, Boatswains Mate and first class Deep-sea Diver. 

      Thomas L. Groot 
           USS Corry DD 463 

© 2002 T. L. Groot

Following is a brief account -- this article was published on the National Geographic website for the 60th Anniversary of the Normandy Invasion.

Reminiscence of D-Day Tuesday June 6, 1944
by Thomas L. Groot BM 1/c

        The Sinking of the USS Corry DD-463 at Utah Beach

As the gun captain of No. 3 gun a 5" 38 cal. mount on the after deck house of the USS Corry, going to the assigned fire support area at 0530 Utah Beach, June 6 1944. I have a good all around view of the Normandy Invasion action at my "General Quarters" station above the gun mount. It's still real dark. The planes can be heard flying over the ship by the hundreds, on the way to bomb the troop landing areas and artillery positions on the beach. And shortly, the whole shoreline jumps into view from the planes’ bombardment. The shoreline, far as you can see in either direction is lit up with exploding bombs. The ship is steaming along very slowly toward the landing beaches – still too dark to see any assigned targets on the shore. The sound is like a continuously rolling thunder, flashes from the bombs going off, flickering through the smoke clouds from the bombs. It's awesome to watch.

As it is getting lighter the Corry is closing in on the beach. I have a visual on the land now and the bombing on the shore has slacked off and I see a few shells splash in the water a short distance ahead. Then I hear control say over the phone that we may be fired upon, that perks my ears up. Then word comes over the phones for "Action starboard" I tell the men to "Load" and to shift to automatic. There is a short wait, and I'm back out the top of my mount. There is a small stand and a hatch in the back of the gun mount for the gun captain to stand on waist high above the gun mount. Then BLAM the gun fires, I duck down in the mount to tell them to reload, and they have already reloaded. There were several more salvos fired from the ship to some target on shore that was firing at us.  Word comes over the head phones that we silenced it. Then I get a "Cease fire," and the gun trains in, still loaded. Hey I'm thinking, This is going to be a snap.
Corry proceeded to its assigned firing position and started firing at selected targets on shore. All hell has broke loose. Shellfire from the German shore batteries is dropping all around the ship. It's light now.  One shell hit amidships injuring a man’s shoulder. Another shell hit the bow. Some very large gun on shore is zeroing in on us, I can tell by the plumes of the shell splashes the Corry is now silhouetted alone against a smoke screen. The anchor is hauled in and the Captain orders flank speed ahead and full left rudder. Our guns are still in rapid fire; the shore batteries have found their target though. As the ship lunges ahead a salvo from the big guns hit amidships in the engineering rooms severing the keel and practically cutting the ship in half. With the rudder jammed the ship made a circle before it ran out of steam and commenced to sink. "Abandon ship" was given. Hours in the cold Channel water and the continued shelling at the USS Corry and the men in the water from the German shore batteries after the ship settled on the shallow bottom added to the fatalities and casualties. There were 24 KIA and an unknown number of wounded.

Survivor, USS Corry (DD-463)
Thomas L. Groot- BM1/c

© 2002 T. L. Groot