October 22, 2025 • 35 mins
Vaughn Collicott spent the first year of his life traveling in a covered wagon. Before he was 21 years old, he was helping to fire the guns of a Navy destroyer at German positions on the coast of Normandy. The very same day, his ship was hit and sunk in the English Channel.
In this edition of Veterans Chronicles, Collicott takes us from the frigid confines of training at Great Lakes, Illinois, to D-Day, to serving in the Pacific during the final months of the war.
Collicott tells us about going though fire control training and then being assigned to the brand new USS Meredith. He explains what the Meredith's role was on D-Day and how it targeted and destroyed a troublesome German pillbox the next day.
But just hour later, the Meredith was struck and it slowly sunk. Collicott walks us through that harrowing experience in detail, including why he survived the blast, what he did immediately afterwards, the injuries he saw that day, and the moments that still haunt him.
Collicott then shares his experiences in Pacific aboard the USS Lanier, including the new jobs that he had and how he almost got left behind in Guam as the Lanier was pulling out of port.
Finally, he details his efforts later in life to correct the official history of the USS Meredith.
In this edition of Veterans Chronicles, Collicott takes us from the frigid confines of training at Great Lakes, Illinois, to D-Day, to serving in the Pacific during the final months of the war.
Collicott tells us about going though fire control training and then being assigned to the brand new USS Meredith. He explains what the Meredith's role was on D-Day and how it targeted and destroyed a troublesome German pillbox the next day.
But just hour later, the Meredith was struck and it slowly sunk. Collicott walks us through that harrowing experience in detail, including why he survived the blast, what he did immediately afterwards, the injuries he saw that day, and the moments that still haunt him.
Collicott then shares his experiences in Pacific aboard the USS Lanier, including the new jobs that he had and how he almost got left behind in Guam as the Lanier was pulling out of port.
Finally, he details his efforts later in life to correct the official history of the USS Meredith.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
Welcome to Veterans Chronicles. I'm Greg Corumbus. Our guest in
this edition is Vaughn Collicott. He's a US Navy veteran
of World War Two. He served aboard the destroyer USS
Meredith off the Normandy Coast on d Day. The next
day he survived the sinking of the Meredith. Later he
would serve in the Pacific Theater. Von Collicott's life started
(00:33):
in October of nineteen twenty three in a way that
seems impossible to most of us today.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
I was born in College View, Nebraska. It's a suburb
of Lincoln, and I spent my first year in my
life aboard a covered wagon because my parents went from
Nebraska to Arkansas. I'm from Arkansas to Wisconsin and they
arrived at Wisconsin at Walworth County, and I've been to
(01:03):
Wisconsin ever since.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
Colliicott was eighteen years old on December seventh, nineteen forty one,
when he learned about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
He vividly remembers what he was doing and the shock
then he and others felt at the news.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
Where was I I was employe Wisconsin. I was a
Sunday afternoon. One of my friends, Groage, and I had
the radio on because I was simonizing his car, and
as soon as I heard it on the radio that
they were a bombing Pearl Harbor and Btan at the
same time, I went in the house and told him.
(01:40):
They were all shocked. They couldn't believe it.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
And for the Collicott family, Vaughn and all of his
older brothers ended up in the service.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
Yeah. I had a brother that was he was in
the arm Guard, Melvine, the oldest one, and he left
that just before they went but Tan and they got slaughtered.
He left her just before that. Then later he tried
to get into service because he had nine children. And
(02:11):
they said, well, you wanted to get in the Navy,
brother Vaughn, and they looked at his record. He said, well,
you got four years of experience of driving a take.
We don't want you in the maybe we want you
in the Army. So that's where you wound up in
the Army. Another brother was in the Army, Donald he
was next to me, and Marlon was in the Air Force.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
As you heard, the brothers went different directions when choosing
branches of service. Vaughan, of course chose the Navy, but
the reason might surprise you.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
I would have been drafted, but I enlisted to to
get what I wanted. Why do I want the Navy
because I don't like things tighter around my neck. Now
that sounds crazy, but that's the truth. I got the
necker chief, oh and nothing tighter on my That's what
I wanted, and that's what I got.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
Basic training for Calliicott meant making the short trip from
his home in Wisconsin to Great Lakes, Illinois. He says
being there in the winter was cold enough, but the
conditions there made things even colder.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
In Great Lakes, Illinois boot camp in December of all places,
marching on that ice and snow, cold weather, and it
was so new. They didn't have any They didn't have
any hot water systems. Everybody was taking showers in cold water.
And we want a fellow that wouldn't do it. They
(03:36):
wouldn't have it to him, don't you. Before we left there,
they put him in the shower clothes it all. There
was a scrub brush on him.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
After basic training, Collicott was assigned to the USS Henry
Gibbons and later the USS Henry Foot. The Gibbons was
an Army troop transport that made two trips across the Atlantic.
The Foot was a cargo freighter delivering tanks and airplanes
to England and made many more sorties across the ocean.
While serving on the Foot, Callicott spent some time in England,
(04:05):
and while he was there he learned a very important lesson,
the eleven second rule, which is how long you have
before an enemy plane goes from the horizon to potentially
dropping a bomb on your ship.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
On the first trip across the Atlantic on the Foot,
we went to Plymouth, England, where they have a forty
foot tide and we went to gunnery school there and
they had the British Marines as instructors, and he specified
(04:41):
eleven seconds and he told us that if you allow
a plane to come over the horizon and that the
intaken care of the way it should have, it's going
to get you.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
After leaving the Foot, Colliicott's next stop would be on
board a destroyer, but before he got assigned to a ship,
he went through the training he would need in preparation
for D Day.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
They sent me to a rest camp in DeLand, Florida
for two weeks and after I left there. They sent
me to Norfolk, Virginia, that's the destroyer base. So I
got there and I went to fire control school. The
Mark one computer Master Gyro stable element all coincided through
(05:31):
gears that's controlled by the Master Gyrol. That's that tickler.
And believe you me, they're accurate. They are accurate.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
That destroyer would be the USS. Meredith and von Collicott
would be among the first crew members to meet her.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
And they sent a group of us from Boston to
bath Maine to bring the destroyer down to Boston because
it hadn't got there yet. I was one of the
arm reguards that they sent up from Boston to bath
mate to bring the destroyer down. So I was on
it before most people with I'd say maybe there was
(06:11):
fifteen or twenty of it did that. And so it
was commissioned on March fourteenth, nineteen forty four by Robert Montgomery,
a movie star. He was the one that commissioned it
in Boston. So then we loaded the ammunition, a box
(06:33):
car load of armor piercing a box car load of
an aircraft. All five inch projectiles fifteen to two and
a half pounds apiece had to be put on the ship,
and they had me in the middle of the ladder.
I was getting it here and let that go down here.
For about two weeks later, I couldn't even bend over
(06:55):
to pick up a pencil. That was the truth. I
was still, what I mean, really stiff.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
As Collicott got acquainted with the Meredith, he also got
to know her weapons, including the big guns which would
be needed in the invasion of Normandy.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
Five inch thirty eighth six of them, two on the
vow in the front and one on the start.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
The brand new destroyer looked great, but she still needed
to be tested before entering combat. Collicott explains how shakedown
went for the Meredith, and he tells us why the
ship got a bit of a late start in heading
across the Atlantic.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
I went to Bermuda for a shakedown. I test everything.
We fired torpedoes four of the other ships and they
fired torpedoes at us, all set at forty feet. You
could tell whether you was a direct hit or not.
Fired all the guns forty milimeter, twenty millimeter five inch guns.
Everything worked fine, nothing wrong with any of it. Perfect.
(07:55):
Now we went back to Boston. Then we got delete
orders to be the convoy two hundred miles off the
coast from Boston, you are to the conn the United States.
It was three miles. We tried to make that, but
we didn't. We left Boston and we found out that
(08:15):
way we had a bad bearing and one of the shafts.
We had to go back to Boston and not to
find New York to send a new bearing up. So
it took five and a half hours for that to
be fixed, and so we crossed the Atlantic all by herself.
(08:36):
Had the word are you supposedly caught the convoy north
of Ireland? We caught up with it just before it
got to north of Ireland. It's unbelievable full steam. Man, Well,
it's supposed to be one thirty eight, not something like that.
Out of sixty miles an hour speed. I said, that's
(08:57):
that's faster for that much. Forty two hundred done. I
was surprised that it even floated.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
Finally, in early June of nineteen forty four, Calliicott and
the other crew members of the Meredith got their marching
orders and joined the largest amphibious landing in world history.
The Meredith itself stayed in the English Channel, but it
successfully shepherded many smaller boats to their rendezvous points.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
Right before d D I was at Plymouth, England, and
that's where I was when we got our orders for
the invasion of Normandy at five thirty am in the
morning June sixth as Win it all started and we
were in charge. We were down around the southern coast
(09:45):
of England and we were in charge of twelve LSTs
crossing the channel and we had no problem. We succeeded
in doing that.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
The next day American forces needed some extra help against
a German position in Normandy west of Utah Beach. Collicott
and the crew of the Meredith immediately swung into action.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
We got a call from one of the army scouts
on the shore. He said, there's a German German pill
box giving us trouble and we have to get it out.
We have to knock it out, and so he gave
us the range and what he thought was a deflection,
and we fired the first Soul, all six guns at
(10:30):
one time from the icy room because all the people
in the gun mounts had their firing pins locked, so
that means that the icy room stable element can fire
the guns from the icy room and that's exactly what happened.
(10:51):
And he said, well, you're right on in range, but
he said, you're two hundred yards off to the right
and fully to the left. And so I watched the
guy standing next to me, Robert Springer, second glass fire controlman.
He put a two hundred right spotted into the computer
(11:13):
and the dials changed as soon as they stopped. He
nodded his head and the guy at the stable element
pulled a trigger a second time. Now we waited. He
came back in and he said what he said, new target,
abolished it. You can imagine what six of those armorers
(11:34):
armor piercing chills would due to a concrete bunker. They
would tear it apart.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
That's Von Collicott, a veteran of the US Navy in
World War Two. He served aboard the USS Meredith off
the Normandy Coast on D Day. In just a moment,
Collicott tells us how the Meredith was hit and sunk.
All of that is straight ahead. I'm Greg Corumbus, and
this is Veterans Chronicles sixty seconds of Service.
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Speaker 1 (13:00):
This says Veterans Chronicles. I'm Greg Corumbus. Our guest in
this addition is Vaughn Collicott. He's a US Navy veteran
of World War Two, serving aboard the Navy destroyer USS
Meredith as part of D Day operations off the Normandy Coast.
The next day, the Meredith obliterated a German pillbox on
the Normandy Coast, but the euphoria was short lived. Later
(13:22):
that night, the Meredith suffered a fatal explosion, and Collicott
remembers it, well.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
Somebody from the out side says, here comes a plane. Well,
I was standing right next to the computer. My job
was to operate the transfer switch on the computer, and
I was in charge of the sound powered telepondes twitchboard.
(13:51):
I was the one that took care of it. So
as soon as I heard somebody say, here comes a plane,
I turned that switch to designate the people in the
gun mounts put on the aircraft shells in the guns.
Which it happened. And that was the only thing that
was offensively done, because after it comes a plane, somebody
(14:17):
else says that plane does not have an IFF. That's
the radar man. IFF means isn't out of the aircraft
and don't have any identificaate. And then somebody said I
hear a whistle, Well you know what the whistle was
or you could imagine what it was, but I know
what it was. That whistle was the fins of the
(14:39):
bomb had been longstery and I was on the way
eleven seconds. Now, how much is that eleven seconds is left?
Not very much, okay, a zoo. I heard the plane
fly over the ship and then momentarily boom. The bomb followed,
(15:04):
and that's exactly what happened. Number one engine room. There
was a hole in the side of that destroyer sixty
feet wide.
Speaker 1 (15:13):
Khalikot also remembers the immediate confusion and chaos aboard the
Meredith after being hit. He says it was a pitch
black night and the sounds of sailors in the water
pleading for help still haunt him.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
There was nine of us in the I room Icy room.
Only three of us were awake. The other six were sleeping,
and when that bomb hit, it blew them right up
on their feet and they all hit that water tight
door immediately they left. Then the captain called the Icy room.
(15:48):
I wanted to know how many's left in the plot room,
and I had the captain's phones on my ears. I said, well,
if there are three of us, the Springer, White and
Kaliko God, and he said, get the hell out of there.
So that's where I left. I got up on the
top side was night. I didn't know it. I didn't
(16:09):
know what it was. Dere night. I really didn't. With
Dirk and people screaming for help in the water, I
couldn't see him. I had ample education and training to
help anybody at that time, but you couldn't tell where
(16:29):
they were. Now, that's a different kind of grieving. When
you're a grieving about something that you can't deal with,
that's something else, that's really something else. That's what I
went through. That bothers me yet today because I've passed
my Senior Life Shaving test and Camp Beulah Salvation Army
(16:54):
Camp and East Troy, Wisconsin when I was twelve years
years old. So I knew I had the capability of
doing what I wanted to do, save somebody, take break
two people apart, and save one of them whatever whatever
(17:14):
happened to be. I was capable of doing that, but
I never had the opportunity.
Speaker 1 (17:20):
In fact, kylie Kott says he only remembers one tiny
light on board the Meredith that night, and it was
already being used to minister to dying men.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
Well, there was a light. One of the sailors had
a red flashlight and he was reading the Bible, because
there was four or five people there were screaming an
hour and they were burnt black and bleeding, and he
was reading the Bible bent over those group of people.
(17:53):
So after I'd seen that, that's when I walked forward
to the bow and jumped down to the back end
of the d. And the first thing I got when
I got to the d the USS Baits. I got
a hot meal for the first one in four days.
What happened to her, what happened to our galley didn't exist?
(18:15):
That was another pull at the captain made.
Speaker 1 (18:17):
The opportunity to abandon ship arrived. When the destroyer escort
USS Baits came alongside the Meredith.
Speaker 2 (18:24):
He backed into the bow. I'll shay, maybe not over
four or five feet. I was at six feet. It
was less than six feet. And I wasn't the only
one that did that. Chevrol did got on the beach.
Speaker 1 (18:39):
That's von Kollcott. He's a US Navy veteran of World
War Two in both the Atlantic and the Pacific theaters.
He was aboard the USS Meredith off the coast of
Normandy during the D Day landings, but the Meredith was
sunk late on June seventh. In a moment, Collicott goes
back on board the Meredith the next day and discovers
the grid reality of American losses. He also goes to
(19:03):
the Pacific and later fights to correct the record on
the fate of the Meredith. I'm Greg Corumbus, and this
is Veterans' Chronicles. This is Veterans Chronicles. I'm Greg Corumbus.
Our guest in this edition is von Collicott. He's a
US Navy veteran of World War Two, in which he
served aboard the USS Meredith during D Day and later
(19:27):
the USS Laneer in the Pacific. We paused Collicott's story
as he jumped off the sinking USS Meredith and onto
the USS Baits along with other survivors. One hundred and
sixty three lives were saved, but getting off the Meredith
did not mean everyone was okay. Collicott remembers one conversation
with a badly injured man.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
Then the people that I talked to on the baits.
One fellow was walking around talking to everybody. He said
don't truch me, He said, my skin comes off. So
he was burnt from a steam because when that bomb hit,
the border blew up, so you had a bath of
(20:11):
steam water that went over the whole ship. So a
lot of guys got burned from the steam steam. He
was one of them. He said, don't trust me, My
skin comes off. Can you imagine what what do you
give a person like that a shot for pain? I'll
(20:31):
tell you Where's there some spot on his body that's
not burnt. The only place that wasn't burned was his tongue.
Speaker 1 (20:40):
Just a few hours after leaping to safety aboard the Bates,
Koliicott was headed right back onto the Meredith.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
So the captain said, I want volunteers to go back
to the ship and get the bodies and help get
ammunition that we can get off of it. And I
had a group of people went back. So I went
to board the second time. While I was being towed
towards Frand and I went around the quarterdeck. You know
(21:10):
you were off where you walked through from one side
to the other where it's open. Just after that, as
well as all globe was gone, there was nothing there.
There was no bottom to it. I looked that old
There was no bottom to that ship at that area
that was gone completely. So the only thing old together
(21:32):
was the starboard side. That was all was holding it together.
Speaker 1 (21:37):
As Karliicot said, the job was to gather ammunition and
especially to recover the bodies of the fallen. He remembers
finding one friend in particular, and the grizzly fate of
many others.
Speaker 2 (21:49):
And then I talked to a korman that was at
the quarter deck and he ain't alive yet when the
plane flew over, and there was the second class boats
named Bro with him. And Bro took his hat off
and threw it down on the deck and he swore,
(22:12):
and he said, I've seen everything now because he knew,
he knew the wasp going to happen. And he walked
into that watertight compartment right above the icy room and
that was adjacent to the park that got blew out.
The concussion killed him. He was one of the whole
(22:32):
bodies that we found him and Richard Alexandra, piece of
the border place landed on top of him, about a
piece of steel about it as big as a car motor,
come right down on his head, smashed him to the deck.
There was only two bodies that we found. There were
(22:54):
a whole rushed for pieces.
Speaker 1 (22:56):
Calliecott remained on board the Meredith as it was towed
near the French Coat. Then he had to find a
ride back to England. And what a sight it was
after all he had been through.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
After being towed, they stopped towing it at Tarran Bay.
It's about two hundred yards from the shore French Coast.
I got off of it the second time and I
changed ships six different times trying to find one going
back to England. Now here I am all alone, nobody
(23:31):
to tell me what to do. I knew what I
had to do. I kept changing ships to ships. I
went to six different ships before I finally got on
one since her going back to England. And so as
soon as it started a maneuver over to cross the
channel the other way towards England. As soon as I
(23:52):
seen the White Cliffs are over for the first time,
I knew it wouldn't belong. I'll be back on the
land again.
Speaker 1 (24:01):
Meredith says that whole experience left him with post traumatic stress,
but it would not be diagnosed for another sixty years.
Speaker 2 (24:09):
Thirty five lost or drownded whatever and fifty wounded, and
I wasn't considered injured till fifty eight years later when
they decided I had post traumatic stress, and that was
two thousand and five. The government has been paying me
(24:31):
ever since.
Speaker 1 (24:32):
After thirty days of leave back home, Calliicott found himself
training for service in the Pacific and for a completely
different job for the rest of the war.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
And after I had left home and went back to
New York, they sent me to a cargo handling school
in Williamsburg, Virginia, and they teach her the yard and
stay riggan. With their cables, you can can load and
unload ship. And then they had one there was twin
(25:07):
one person could operate both of them, and there was
only two people knew how to do it. I was
one of them. You got the yard and stay rigged
electric electric winches ready to catch me out. It really
worked beautiful. There wasn't nothing that I couldn't pick up.
We picked up jeeps, put them in the whole anything
(25:30):
anything you want me to pick up, I'll pick it up.
And worked off fine.
Speaker 1 (25:35):
He was assigned to an attack transport called the USS
laneer winch Man was his job when things were calm,
but he had other responsibilities if the Lanier was engaged
in combat.
Speaker 2 (25:45):
And then I was the first first loader on a
twin forty millimeter machine gun, and that was the other
part of it too.
Speaker 1 (25:54):
Collicott still has great admiration for USS Laneer Captain Benjamin
Cloud and cloud desire to take the fight to the enemy.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
When I was in the Pacific, he sent our seas
and I didn't know anything about it. He went to Guam,
So the Lanaire was what they called the magic carpet.
We took casualties to the States and brought replacements back
to the war zone. Six times. We crossed the International
(26:26):
daylight six times, we dropped back a whole day, and
we get them back, going back until the last time.
We had casualties from Okinawa and we started to leave
to go to the States, and we've got orders changed
because the captain of my ship was named Benjamin Cloud.
(26:50):
It was six foot six three dwenty pounds and they
wanted him to take care of the invasion of Japan.
So the captain of my ship took these two thousand
marines aboard at Guam. We took the casualties off and
(27:12):
put the marines aboard, and then were left there and
we were with Halsey's third fleet at the time. They
were giving him chance to give up, but they didn't.
So what happened They dropped the second bomb, then they
decided to give up. Well, then my captain put the
(27:34):
first Division Marine in the Yokosuka Naval Base and Japan
had the number one the first forces to go ashore
in Japan after the war. And it was all Benjamin
Cloud that did it. There was a full fledged captain,
and he had visited the navy twenty three years prior
(27:56):
to this time, so he knew what he was doing.
Speaker 1 (27:59):
Kellycott found himself in a major quandary on Guam near
the end of the war. He was determined to see
his brother, who was serving on another part of the island,
but the clock was not on his side.
Speaker 2 (28:11):
My ship was at the dock in Guam while they
were changing taking the casualties off and putting marines aboard,
and my brother heard that I was supposed to be
coming there, and he had the chapel's jeep and he
was there looking for me. Well, he found me. As
soon as he found me. I went twenty seven miles
(28:33):
inland with him and ate dinner with him. I didn't
have any liberty, nothing. I wasn't supposed to be gone. Well.
I knew that the ship was going to leave at
one o'clock, and about twelve thirty or even a little
before that, we decided we better start going. And Marlon
(28:57):
got as far as the gate and they said, this
is far as you're going, soldier. They wouldn't let him
leave because he was afraid to a good beer, a riot.
Because the war ended August fifteenth, nineteen forty five. That's
what happened. So there I was walking down the road
(29:17):
twenty seven miles from god knows where. I didn't know
anything until here coming jeep with an army officer in it.
He picked me up. I don't even know who it was.
I never didn't know his name. He went down right
directly to the dock where my ship was. The lines
(29:39):
were off of it, the ship was moving away, and
the only thing between me and the ship with that
Jacob's ladder. It's a rope ladder with wooden runners. And
I jumped from a buff from me to you, and
I got ahold of that ladder and went on board
(30:00):
and they didn't miss me.
Speaker 1 (30:01):
In his later years, Collicott worked hard to correct what
he believes is an inaccurate official record when it comes
to the sinking of the Meredith.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
The official history, the Meredith book that was formed by
an officer from I think of New Hampshire. The name
was Wiley, and the captain says that we hit a
mine was what caused the damage to the destroyer. Well,
(30:33):
a mine would never have cause that much damage. And
they've had deep seat detectives go down and look at
this the ball section trying to decide what happened to it,
and they couldn't decide either. They could not decide what
(30:53):
happened to it by the damage, and the stern part
was already gone. Selvish company took that. So all there
is there is the bow section, so this way with
the bow sticking up. So if I was in icy room,
that I'd be at the bottom, be at the bottom
(31:15):
of it. All I can say is the walls of
the icy room must have been pretty thick because it
stood that bomb. Because above it it got brawl and
below it aft there was nothing blew it out completely.
(31:35):
So they put that together in sections. On that section
was what I would say would be the number one
engine room. That's what it hit. So the border blew
up at the same time. That made it worse.
Speaker 1 (31:52):
Calcott was also critical of the Meredith captain for the
condition of his men at the time of the sinking
on June seventh. He says, the men had been working
on little or no sleep for days and it may
have cost lives.
Speaker 2 (32:05):
We were at general quarters continually seventy two hours. That's
a long time with no sleep. Ain't nobody can live.
Nobody can stay awake that much. He didn't have his Wait,
you're supposed to have your system like four hours on,
four hours off, or four hours on and eight hours off.
(32:29):
That was the reason we lost it, because there was
too many people sleeping. The guy that pulled the trigger
of the day before sound asleep at the stable element.
Speaker 1 (32:39):
Kulicott picked up momentum for his efforts after reconnecting with
veterans of the Meredith decades after his service ended.
Speaker 2 (32:46):
I had a neighbor that had a computer. I didn't
have one, and she said, bon, she said, there's Emeredith
association that's been formed from all the ship. Said were
the name who named USS Meredith? Mine? Was the third one,
and so the people from all these ships formed an
(33:10):
association called the Meredith Associated And she said they have
a reunion every year. And I said, when is the
next one? And she said, well, it's coming up pretty quick.
So you what I did. I took my wife and
we went and got on an aircraft, got on a
(33:31):
plane and went to San Diego. That's when I met
for the first time. Fifty eight years later, I met
Ernie Graham. He was the number one, number three gun
mount captain. I said, Ernie, I said, what kind of
shells did you have in your guns when we got
(33:51):
the bomb? And he said, and aircraft. Remember I told
you I turned that switch. That was the only thing
towards done. And those shells are still in there. They
are probably still in here today yet never fired.
Speaker 1 (34:09):
For now, the official record remains unchanged, but Collicott's testimony
was accepted for review whenever the fate of the Meredith
is considered again. Von Collicott is a US Navy veteran
of World War Two. He served on the USS Meredith
on D Day and survived at sinking the next night.
He also served aboard the USS Lamier in the Pacific
(34:32):
I'm Greg Corumbus and this is Veterans Chronicles. Hi. This
is Greg Corumbus and thanks for listening to Veterans Chronicles,
a presentation of the American Veterans Center. For more information,
(34:54):
please visit American Veteranscenter dot org. You can also follow
the ma con Veterans Center on Facebook and on Twitter.
We're at AVC update. Subscribe to the American Veterans Center
YouTube channel for full oral histories and special features, and
of course, please subscribe to the Veterans Chronicles podcast wherever
(35:15):
you get your podcasts. Thanks again for listening and please
join us next time for Veterans Chronicles
Welcome to Veterans Chronicles. I'm Greg Corumbus. Our guest in
this edition is Vaughn Collicott. He's a US Navy veteran
of World War Two. He served aboard the destroyer USS
Meredith off the Normandy Coast on d Day. The next
day he survived the sinking of the Meredith. Later he
would serve in the Pacific Theater. Von Collicott's life started
(00:33):
in October of nineteen twenty three in a way that
seems impossible to most of us today.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
I was born in College View, Nebraska. It's a suburb
of Lincoln, and I spent my first year in my
life aboard a covered wagon because my parents went from
Nebraska to Arkansas. I'm from Arkansas to Wisconsin and they
arrived at Wisconsin at Walworth County, and I've been to
(01:03):
Wisconsin ever since.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
Colliicott was eighteen years old on December seventh, nineteen forty one,
when he learned about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
He vividly remembers what he was doing and the shock
then he and others felt at the news.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
Where was I I was employe Wisconsin. I was a
Sunday afternoon. One of my friends, Groage, and I had
the radio on because I was simonizing his car, and
as soon as I heard it on the radio that
they were a bombing Pearl Harbor and Btan at the
same time, I went in the house and told him.
(01:40):
They were all shocked. They couldn't believe it.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
And for the Collicott family, Vaughn and all of his
older brothers ended up in the service.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
Yeah. I had a brother that was he was in
the arm Guard, Melvine, the oldest one, and he left
that just before they went but Tan and they got slaughtered.
He left her just before that. Then later he tried
to get into service because he had nine children. And
(02:11):
they said, well, you wanted to get in the Navy,
brother Vaughn, and they looked at his record. He said, well,
you got four years of experience of driving a take.
We don't want you in the maybe we want you
in the Army. So that's where you wound up in
the Army. Another brother was in the Army, Donald he
was next to me, and Marlon was in the Air Force.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
As you heard, the brothers went different directions when choosing
branches of service. Vaughan, of course chose the Navy, but
the reason might surprise you.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
I would have been drafted, but I enlisted to to
get what I wanted. Why do I want the Navy
because I don't like things tighter around my neck. Now
that sounds crazy, but that's the truth. I got the
necker chief, oh and nothing tighter on my That's what
I wanted, and that's what I got.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
Basic training for Calliicott meant making the short trip from
his home in Wisconsin to Great Lakes, Illinois. He says
being there in the winter was cold enough, but the
conditions there made things even colder.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
In Great Lakes, Illinois boot camp in December of all places,
marching on that ice and snow, cold weather, and it
was so new. They didn't have any They didn't have
any hot water systems. Everybody was taking showers in cold water.
And we want a fellow that wouldn't do it. They
(03:36):
wouldn't have it to him, don't you. Before we left there,
they put him in the shower clothes it all. There
was a scrub brush on him.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
After basic training, Collicott was assigned to the USS Henry
Gibbons and later the USS Henry Foot. The Gibbons was
an Army troop transport that made two trips across the Atlantic.
The Foot was a cargo freighter delivering tanks and airplanes
to England and made many more sorties across the ocean.
While serving on the Foot, Callicott spent some time in England,
(04:05):
and while he was there he learned a very important lesson,
the eleven second rule, which is how long you have
before an enemy plane goes from the horizon to potentially
dropping a bomb on your ship.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
On the first trip across the Atlantic on the Foot,
we went to Plymouth, England, where they have a forty
foot tide and we went to gunnery school there and
they had the British Marines as instructors, and he specified
(04:41):
eleven seconds and he told us that if you allow
a plane to come over the horizon and that the
intaken care of the way it should have, it's going
to get you.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
After leaving the Foot, Colliicott's next stop would be on
board a destroyer, but before he got assigned to a ship,
he went through the training he would need in preparation
for D Day.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
They sent me to a rest camp in DeLand, Florida
for two weeks and after I left there. They sent
me to Norfolk, Virginia, that's the destroyer base. So I
got there and I went to fire control school. The
Mark one computer Master Gyro stable element all coincided through
(05:31):
gears that's controlled by the Master Gyrol. That's that tickler.
And believe you me, they're accurate. They are accurate.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
That destroyer would be the USS. Meredith and von Collicott
would be among the first crew members to meet her.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
And they sent a group of us from Boston to
bath Maine to bring the destroyer down to Boston because
it hadn't got there yet. I was one of the
arm reguards that they sent up from Boston to bath
mate to bring the destroyer down. So I was on
it before most people with I'd say maybe there was
(06:11):
fifteen or twenty of it did that. And so it
was commissioned on March fourteenth, nineteen forty four by Robert Montgomery,
a movie star. He was the one that commissioned it
in Boston. So then we loaded the ammunition, a box
(06:33):
car load of armor piercing a box car load of
an aircraft. All five inch projectiles fifteen to two and
a half pounds apiece had to be put on the ship,
and they had me in the middle of the ladder.
I was getting it here and let that go down here.
For about two weeks later, I couldn't even bend over
(06:55):
to pick up a pencil. That was the truth. I
was still, what I mean, really stiff.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
As Collicott got acquainted with the Meredith, he also got
to know her weapons, including the big guns which would
be needed in the invasion of Normandy.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
Five inch thirty eighth six of them, two on the
vow in the front and one on the start.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
The brand new destroyer looked great, but she still needed
to be tested before entering combat. Collicott explains how shakedown
went for the Meredith, and he tells us why the
ship got a bit of a late start in heading
across the Atlantic.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
I went to Bermuda for a shakedown. I test everything.
We fired torpedoes four of the other ships and they
fired torpedoes at us, all set at forty feet. You
could tell whether you was a direct hit or not.
Fired all the guns forty milimeter, twenty millimeter five inch guns.
Everything worked fine, nothing wrong with any of it. Perfect.
(07:55):
Now we went back to Boston. Then we got delete
orders to be the convoy two hundred miles off the
coast from Boston, you are to the conn the United States.
It was three miles. We tried to make that, but
we didn't. We left Boston and we found out that
(08:15):
way we had a bad bearing and one of the shafts.
We had to go back to Boston and not to
find New York to send a new bearing up. So
it took five and a half hours for that to
be fixed, and so we crossed the Atlantic all by herself.
(08:36):
Had the word are you supposedly caught the convoy north
of Ireland? We caught up with it just before it
got to north of Ireland. It's unbelievable full steam. Man, Well,
it's supposed to be one thirty eight, not something like that.
Out of sixty miles an hour speed. I said, that's
(08:57):
that's faster for that much. Forty two hundred done. I
was surprised that it even floated.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
Finally, in early June of nineteen forty four, Calliicott and
the other crew members of the Meredith got their marching
orders and joined the largest amphibious landing in world history.
The Meredith itself stayed in the English Channel, but it
successfully shepherded many smaller boats to their rendezvous points.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
Right before d D I was at Plymouth, England, and
that's where I was when we got our orders for
the invasion of Normandy at five thirty am in the
morning June sixth as Win it all started and we
were in charge. We were down around the southern coast
(09:45):
of England and we were in charge of twelve LSTs
crossing the channel and we had no problem. We succeeded
in doing that.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
The next day American forces needed some extra help against
a German position in Normandy west of Utah Beach. Collicott
and the crew of the Meredith immediately swung into action.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
We got a call from one of the army scouts
on the shore. He said, there's a German German pill
box giving us trouble and we have to get it out.
We have to knock it out, and so he gave
us the range and what he thought was a deflection,
and we fired the first Soul, all six guns at
(10:30):
one time from the icy room because all the people
in the gun mounts had their firing pins locked, so
that means that the icy room stable element can fire
the guns from the icy room and that's exactly what happened.
(10:51):
And he said, well, you're right on in range, but
he said, you're two hundred yards off to the right
and fully to the left. And so I watched the
guy standing next to me, Robert Springer, second glass fire controlman.
He put a two hundred right spotted into the computer
(11:13):
and the dials changed as soon as they stopped. He
nodded his head and the guy at the stable element
pulled a trigger a second time. Now we waited. He
came back in and he said what he said, new target,
abolished it. You can imagine what six of those armorers
(11:34):
armor piercing chills would due to a concrete bunker. They
would tear it apart.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
That's Von Collicott, a veteran of the US Navy in
World War Two. He served aboard the USS Meredith off
the Normandy Coast on D Day. In just a moment,
Collicott tells us how the Meredith was hit and sunk.
All of that is straight ahead. I'm Greg Corumbus, and
this is Veterans Chronicles sixty seconds of Service.
Speaker 3 (12:00):
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Speaker 1 (13:00):
This says Veterans Chronicles. I'm Greg Corumbus. Our guest in
this addition is Vaughn Collicott. He's a US Navy veteran
of World War Two, serving aboard the Navy destroyer USS
Meredith as part of D Day operations off the Normandy Coast.
The next day, the Meredith obliterated a German pillbox on
the Normandy Coast, but the euphoria was short lived. Later
(13:22):
that night, the Meredith suffered a fatal explosion, and Collicott
remembers it, well.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
Somebody from the out side says, here comes a plane. Well,
I was standing right next to the computer. My job
was to operate the transfer switch on the computer, and
I was in charge of the sound powered telepondes twitchboard.
(13:51):
I was the one that took care of it. So
as soon as I heard somebody say, here comes a plane,
I turned that switch to designate the people in the
gun mounts put on the aircraft shells in the guns.
Which it happened. And that was the only thing that
was offensively done, because after it comes a plane, somebody
(14:17):
else says that plane does not have an IFF. That's
the radar man. IFF means isn't out of the aircraft
and don't have any identificaate. And then somebody said I
hear a whistle, Well you know what the whistle was
or you could imagine what it was, but I know
what it was. That whistle was the fins of the
(14:39):
bomb had been longstery and I was on the way
eleven seconds. Now, how much is that eleven seconds is left?
Not very much, okay, a zoo. I heard the plane
fly over the ship and then momentarily boom. The bomb followed,
(15:04):
and that's exactly what happened. Number one engine room. There
was a hole in the side of that destroyer sixty
feet wide.
Speaker 1 (15:13):
Khalikot also remembers the immediate confusion and chaos aboard the
Meredith after being hit. He says it was a pitch
black night and the sounds of sailors in the water
pleading for help still haunt him.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
There was nine of us in the I room Icy room.
Only three of us were awake. The other six were sleeping,
and when that bomb hit, it blew them right up
on their feet and they all hit that water tight
door immediately they left. Then the captain called the Icy room.
(15:48):
I wanted to know how many's left in the plot room,
and I had the captain's phones on my ears. I said, well,
if there are three of us, the Springer, White and
Kaliko God, and he said, get the hell out of there.
So that's where I left. I got up on the
top side was night. I didn't know it. I didn't
(16:09):
know what it was. Dere night. I really didn't. With
Dirk and people screaming for help in the water, I
couldn't see him. I had ample education and training to
help anybody at that time, but you couldn't tell where
(16:29):
they were. Now, that's a different kind of grieving. When
you're a grieving about something that you can't deal with,
that's something else, that's really something else. That's what I
went through. That bothers me yet today because I've passed
my Senior Life Shaving test and Camp Beulah Salvation Army
(16:54):
Camp and East Troy, Wisconsin when I was twelve years
years old. So I knew I had the capability of
doing what I wanted to do, save somebody, take break
two people apart, and save one of them whatever whatever
(17:14):
happened to be. I was capable of doing that, but
I never had the opportunity.
Speaker 1 (17:20):
In fact, kylie Kott says he only remembers one tiny
light on board the Meredith that night, and it was
already being used to minister to dying men.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
Well, there was a light. One of the sailors had
a red flashlight and he was reading the Bible, because
there was four or five people there were screaming an
hour and they were burnt black and bleeding, and he
was reading the Bible bent over those group of people.
(17:53):
So after I'd seen that, that's when I walked forward
to the bow and jumped down to the back end
of the d. And the first thing I got when
I got to the d the USS Baits. I got
a hot meal for the first one in four days.
What happened to her, what happened to our galley didn't exist?
(18:15):
That was another pull at the captain made.
Speaker 1 (18:17):
The opportunity to abandon ship arrived. When the destroyer escort
USS Baits came alongside the Meredith.
Speaker 2 (18:24):
He backed into the bow. I'll shay, maybe not over
four or five feet. I was at six feet. It
was less than six feet. And I wasn't the only
one that did that. Chevrol did got on the beach.
Speaker 1 (18:39):
That's von Kollcott. He's a US Navy veteran of World
War Two in both the Atlantic and the Pacific theaters.
He was aboard the USS Meredith off the coast of
Normandy during the D Day landings, but the Meredith was
sunk late on June seventh. In a moment, Collicott goes
back on board the Meredith the next day and discovers
the grid reality of American losses. He also goes to
(19:03):
the Pacific and later fights to correct the record on
the fate of the Meredith. I'm Greg Corumbus, and this
is Veterans' Chronicles. This is Veterans Chronicles. I'm Greg Corumbus.
Our guest in this edition is von Collicott. He's a
US Navy veteran of World War Two, in which he
served aboard the USS Meredith during D Day and later
(19:27):
the USS Laneer in the Pacific. We paused Collicott's story
as he jumped off the sinking USS Meredith and onto
the USS Baits along with other survivors. One hundred and
sixty three lives were saved, but getting off the Meredith
did not mean everyone was okay. Collicott remembers one conversation
with a badly injured man.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
Then the people that I talked to on the baits.
One fellow was walking around talking to everybody. He said
don't truch me, He said, my skin comes off. So
he was burnt from a steam because when that bomb hit,
the border blew up, so you had a bath of
(20:11):
steam water that went over the whole ship. So a
lot of guys got burned from the steam steam. He
was one of them. He said, don't trust me, My
skin comes off. Can you imagine what what do you
give a person like that a shot for pain? I'll
(20:31):
tell you Where's there some spot on his body that's
not burnt. The only place that wasn't burned was his tongue.
Speaker 1 (20:40):
Just a few hours after leaping to safety aboard the Bates,
Koliicott was headed right back onto the Meredith.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
So the captain said, I want volunteers to go back
to the ship and get the bodies and help get
ammunition that we can get off of it. And I
had a group of people went back. So I went
to board the second time. While I was being towed
towards Frand and I went around the quarterdeck. You know
(21:10):
you were off where you walked through from one side
to the other where it's open. Just after that, as
well as all globe was gone, there was nothing there.
There was no bottom to it. I looked that old
There was no bottom to that ship at that area
that was gone completely. So the only thing old together
(21:32):
was the starboard side. That was all was holding it together.
Speaker 1 (21:37):
As Karliicot said, the job was to gather ammunition and
especially to recover the bodies of the fallen. He remembers
finding one friend in particular, and the grizzly fate of
many others.
Speaker 2 (21:49):
And then I talked to a korman that was at
the quarter deck and he ain't alive yet when the
plane flew over, and there was the second class boats
named Bro with him. And Bro took his hat off
and threw it down on the deck and he swore,
(22:12):
and he said, I've seen everything now because he knew,
he knew the wasp going to happen. And he walked
into that watertight compartment right above the icy room and
that was adjacent to the park that got blew out.
The concussion killed him. He was one of the whole
(22:32):
bodies that we found him and Richard Alexandra, piece of
the border place landed on top of him, about a
piece of steel about it as big as a car motor,
come right down on his head, smashed him to the deck.
There was only two bodies that we found. There were
(22:54):
a whole rushed for pieces.
Speaker 1 (22:56):
Calliecott remained on board the Meredith as it was towed
near the French Coat. Then he had to find a
ride back to England. And what a sight it was
after all he had been through.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
After being towed, they stopped towing it at Tarran Bay.
It's about two hundred yards from the shore French Coast.
I got off of it the second time and I
changed ships six different times trying to find one going
back to England. Now here I am all alone, nobody
(23:31):
to tell me what to do. I knew what I
had to do. I kept changing ships to ships. I
went to six different ships before I finally got on
one since her going back to England. And so as
soon as it started a maneuver over to cross the
channel the other way towards England. As soon as I
(23:52):
seen the White Cliffs are over for the first time,
I knew it wouldn't belong. I'll be back on the
land again.
Speaker 1 (24:01):
Meredith says that whole experience left him with post traumatic stress,
but it would not be diagnosed for another sixty years.
Speaker 2 (24:09):
Thirty five lost or drownded whatever and fifty wounded, and
I wasn't considered injured till fifty eight years later when
they decided I had post traumatic stress, and that was
two thousand and five. The government has been paying me
(24:31):
ever since.
Speaker 1 (24:32):
After thirty days of leave back home, Calliicott found himself
training for service in the Pacific and for a completely
different job for the rest of the war.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
And after I had left home and went back to
New York, they sent me to a cargo handling school
in Williamsburg, Virginia, and they teach her the yard and
stay riggan. With their cables, you can can load and
unload ship. And then they had one there was twin
(25:07):
one person could operate both of them, and there was
only two people knew how to do it. I was
one of them. You got the yard and stay rigged
electric electric winches ready to catch me out. It really
worked beautiful. There wasn't nothing that I couldn't pick up.
We picked up jeeps, put them in the whole anything
(25:30):
anything you want me to pick up, I'll pick it up.
And worked off fine.
Speaker 1 (25:35):
He was assigned to an attack transport called the USS
laneer winch Man was his job when things were calm,
but he had other responsibilities if the Lanier was engaged
in combat.
Speaker 2 (25:45):
And then I was the first first loader on a
twin forty millimeter machine gun, and that was the other
part of it too.
Speaker 1 (25:54):
Collicott still has great admiration for USS Laneer Captain Benjamin
Cloud and cloud desire to take the fight to the enemy.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
When I was in the Pacific, he sent our seas
and I didn't know anything about it. He went to Guam,
So the Lanaire was what they called the magic carpet.
We took casualties to the States and brought replacements back
to the war zone. Six times. We crossed the International
(26:26):
daylight six times, we dropped back a whole day, and
we get them back, going back until the last time.
We had casualties from Okinawa and we started to leave
to go to the States, and we've got orders changed
because the captain of my ship was named Benjamin Cloud.
(26:50):
It was six foot six three dwenty pounds and they
wanted him to take care of the invasion of Japan.
So the captain of my ship took these two thousand
marines aboard at Guam. We took the casualties off and
(27:12):
put the marines aboard, and then were left there and
we were with Halsey's third fleet at the time. They
were giving him chance to give up, but they didn't.
So what happened They dropped the second bomb, then they
decided to give up. Well, then my captain put the
(27:34):
first Division Marine in the Yokosuka Naval Base and Japan
had the number one the first forces to go ashore
in Japan after the war. And it was all Benjamin
Cloud that did it. There was a full fledged captain,
and he had visited the navy twenty three years prior
(27:56):
to this time, so he knew what he was doing.
Speaker 1 (27:59):
Kellycott found himself in a major quandary on Guam near
the end of the war. He was determined to see
his brother, who was serving on another part of the island,
but the clock was not on his side.
Speaker 2 (28:11):
My ship was at the dock in Guam while they
were changing taking the casualties off and putting marines aboard,
and my brother heard that I was supposed to be
coming there, and he had the chapel's jeep and he
was there looking for me. Well, he found me. As
soon as he found me. I went twenty seven miles
(28:33):
inland with him and ate dinner with him. I didn't
have any liberty, nothing. I wasn't supposed to be gone. Well.
I knew that the ship was going to leave at
one o'clock, and about twelve thirty or even a little
before that, we decided we better start going. And Marlon
(28:57):
got as far as the gate and they said, this
is far as you're going, soldier. They wouldn't let him
leave because he was afraid to a good beer, a riot.
Because the war ended August fifteenth, nineteen forty five. That's
what happened. So there I was walking down the road
(29:17):
twenty seven miles from god knows where. I didn't know
anything until here coming jeep with an army officer in it.
He picked me up. I don't even know who it was.
I never didn't know his name. He went down right
directly to the dock where my ship was. The lines
(29:39):
were off of it, the ship was moving away, and
the only thing between me and the ship with that
Jacob's ladder. It's a rope ladder with wooden runners. And
I jumped from a buff from me to you, and
I got ahold of that ladder and went on board
(30:00):
and they didn't miss me.
Speaker 1 (30:01):
In his later years, Collicott worked hard to correct what
he believes is an inaccurate official record when it comes
to the sinking of the Meredith.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
The official history, the Meredith book that was formed by
an officer from I think of New Hampshire. The name
was Wiley, and the captain says that we hit a
mine was what caused the damage to the destroyer. Well,
(30:33):
a mine would never have cause that much damage. And
they've had deep seat detectives go down and look at
this the ball section trying to decide what happened to it,
and they couldn't decide either. They could not decide what
(30:53):
happened to it by the damage, and the stern part
was already gone. Selvish company took that. So all there
is there is the bow section, so this way with
the bow sticking up. So if I was in icy room,
that I'd be at the bottom, be at the bottom
(31:15):
of it. All I can say is the walls of
the icy room must have been pretty thick because it
stood that bomb. Because above it it got brawl and
below it aft there was nothing blew it out completely.
(31:35):
So they put that together in sections. On that section
was what I would say would be the number one
engine room. That's what it hit. So the border blew
up at the same time. That made it worse.
Speaker 1 (31:52):
Calcott was also critical of the Meredith captain for the
condition of his men at the time of the sinking
on June seventh. He says, the men had been working
on little or no sleep for days and it may
have cost lives.
Speaker 2 (32:05):
We were at general quarters continually seventy two hours. That's
a long time with no sleep. Ain't nobody can live.
Nobody can stay awake that much. He didn't have his Wait,
you're supposed to have your system like four hours on,
four hours off, or four hours on and eight hours off.
(32:29):
That was the reason we lost it, because there was
too many people sleeping. The guy that pulled the trigger
of the day before sound asleep at the stable element.
Speaker 1 (32:39):
Kulicott picked up momentum for his efforts after reconnecting with
veterans of the Meredith decades after his service ended.
Speaker 2 (32:46):
I had a neighbor that had a computer. I didn't
have one, and she said, bon, she said, there's Emeredith
association that's been formed from all the ship. Said were
the name who named USS Meredith? Mine? Was the third one,
and so the people from all these ships formed an
(33:10):
association called the Meredith Associated And she said they have
a reunion every year. And I said, when is the
next one? And she said, well, it's coming up pretty quick.
So you what I did. I took my wife and
we went and got on an aircraft, got on a
(33:31):
plane and went to San Diego. That's when I met
for the first time. Fifty eight years later, I met
Ernie Graham. He was the number one, number three gun
mount captain. I said, Ernie, I said, what kind of
shells did you have in your guns when we got
(33:51):
the bomb? And he said, and aircraft. Remember I told
you I turned that switch. That was the only thing
towards done. And those shells are still in there. They
are probably still in here today yet never fired.
Speaker 1 (34:09):
For now, the official record remains unchanged, but Collicott's testimony
was accepted for review whenever the fate of the Meredith
is considered again. Von Collicott is a US Navy veteran
of World War Two. He served on the USS Meredith
on D Day and survived at sinking the next night.
He also served aboard the USS Lamier in the Pacific
(34:32):
I'm Greg Corumbus and this is Veterans Chronicles. Hi. This
is Greg Corumbus and thanks for listening to Veterans Chronicles,
a presentation of the American Veterans Center. For more information,
(34:54):
please visit American Veteranscenter dot org. You can also follow
the ma con Veterans Center on Facebook and on Twitter.
We're at AVC update. Subscribe to the American Veterans Center
YouTube channel for full oral histories and special features, and
of course, please subscribe to the Veterans Chronicles podcast wherever
(35:15):
you get your podcasts. Thanks again for listening and please
join us next time for Veterans Chronicles
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