A Western Union message sent overseas to Richard Nelson from his wife, Tarry Nelson, sending love to her husband on the couple's anniversary. / Courtesy of Richard Nelson
RICHARD NELSON
Age: 87
Hometown: Santa Barbara
Residence: Palm Desert
Military branch: U.S. Army Air Corps; 937th Engineer Aviation Camouflage Battalion, attached to 9th Air Force.
Years served: September 1942- November 1945
Rank: T-5 (corporal)
Campaigns: Normandy, northern France, Ardennes, Rhineland, Central Europe
Family: Wife Tarry; two sons, Tarry and Brian, both of Santa Barbara; four grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.
About this series
Staff writer Denise Goolsby will profile desert veterans from World War II Wednesday through Sunday through the end of 2010 — the 65th anniversary of the end of the war. Contact her at (760) 778-4587 or via e-mail at denise.goolsby@thedesertsun.com
Coming tomorrow
U.S. Army veteran Donald Alexander of Palm Desert.
U.S. Army Air Corps engineers built airfields in France, Germany and Belgium using interlocking steel planks during World War II. / Courtesy Richard Nelson
More
U.S. Army Air Corps veteran Richard Nelson concealed weapons, supplies and strategic sites from enemy eyes as a member of the 937th Engineer Aviation Camouflage Battalion during World War II.
Later in the war, the men used their engineering talents to build and repair airfields.
Nelson, who was studying to become an architect when he left Santa Barbara State College — now the University of California, Santa Barbara — to join the military, put his mind to work with men from other construction-related backgrounds, including those involved in the performing — movie and stage — and industrial arts.
“We started out as a camouflage unit,” Nelson said. “We were very inventive. We were going to camouflage everything.”
The battalion arrived overseas in February 1944, when it embarked on an extensive camouflage operation in England, shielding stockpiles of supplies to be used in the invasion of Normandy, France, on June 6, 1944.
The battalion landed on Omaha Beach in Normandy on D-Day + 20 (days), following infantry and combat engineers who were creating temporary air strips and repairing French and German airfields.
The group's arrival got off to a rocky start.
“We were disembarking offshore on a pontoon pier with a ramp made of planks from our ship,” he said.
The battalion hurriedly made its way off the ship, but in its haste, a 2.5-ton truck with all of the group's supplies — including duffel bags containing clothing and personal items — missed the planking and got hung-up on the way out.
“So the driver was told to drive it off and into the water — there was no time to salvage the truck,” Nelson said.
The first night ashore, Nelson's platoon unwittingly found itself halfway between German and American lines.
“At 2 a.m. a couple of Military Police came by and said, ‘What are you guys doing up here?'” Nelson recalled.
The MPs got the men back to the U.S. side before the Germans discovered the misplaced platoon.
By the end of July, Allied troops were moving quickly, gaining the upper hand on the retreating Germans.
“After the breakthrough at St. Lô, it went fast,” Nelson said. “As fast as they could go.”
When Allied forces broke through the German lines at St. Lô, it opened the way for Gen. George Patton's Third Army to advance through Brittany and on to the Seine, where the German resistance in France eventually collapsed.
Among Nelson's camouflage projects was the creation of a fake airstrip.
Flying forward in a Piper Cub scout plane, Nelson discovered the perfect spot, between two valleys, to string runway lights.
“We turned the lights on and off,” at night, he said. “The Germans bombed it. Our purpose was for the enemy to waste ammunition, instead of dropping (bombs) on our airfields.”
The battalion did many similar operations in western France, but eventually, the group's focus shifted as the Allies advanced.
“‘Camouflage' became unnecessary as time went on, but repair and maintenance of runways was needed, so we took those jobs until the war's end,” Nelson said.
