His shirt was a bright red emblazened, "I was at D-Day, June 6, 1944". I whirled around on that rare, shopping venture in Wal-Mart to meet the veteran. Les Colley agreed to an interview, about No. 500 of the veterans whose stories I've gotten and published.

Les grew up in Tampa, FL, participating in the numerous water activities, like spearing a 500 lb. fish. He and his friends graduated in 1943 and joined the Navy, hoping to stay together. Les got his basic training at Bainbridge, MD, followed by training in landing crafts at Fort Pierce, FL, near Miami. These 36-feet long boats may have been Higgins' creation. Within six months of wearing the blues, whites, and denims, Les went home on leave, the usual prelude to shipping out.

"We went to New York harbor for gunnery school, then put on a transport ship one night." The convoy was zigzagging on a course to the British Isles but left Les' ship dead in the water on the third day, subject to the menacing German submarines. Problems were corrected, so the ship traveled alone and caught up with the convoy. It was nine days of seasickness as they traversed the North Atlantic route in an ice-coated vessel.

"One morning we woke up, and water looked smooth as glass: we were in the Azores." They continued to Glasgow, Scotland, and boarded a train in the middle of the night. "We traveled about 24 hours and reached our destination near Kingswear across the Dart River from Dartmouth, England, near Land's End. We ferried across the river, while an air-raid sounded, to Royal Naval College up on the side of a mountain." This entire area of Devon was pre-emptied of native residents, with all their stock, early in 1943 so American troops could train there." Lights went out during every air raid.

Reaching their training destination before their sea bags found them in freezing January; bunks had no mattresses and without Navy pea coats, newspapers became the ultimate insulator.

"Our landing craft/LCI (landing craft infantry) was in the river, waiting for the five­-man crew: Coxswain, Signalman (sole communication), two gunners and a motor mechanic. The gunners were positioned on the back comers of the craft." All training was in preparation for D-Day landing in Normandy in early June (1944).

"We went down to Slapton Sands for training. TIGER exercise began there on April 27, 1944; an inadequately escorted convoy, bringing a second wave of troops to the beach, was penetrated overnight by three German E-boats. They fired their torpe­does sinking three LSTs (Landing Ship Tanks) and damaging nine more; 749 were killed and many more injured. We picked them up and buried them in mass graves." The event remained Top Secret for decades. Anyone involved, including an Army nurse at the closest hospital, was cautioned to not mention the tragic event. It wasn't until the 1980s that questions persisted about this tragedy, where more were killed than at Utah Beach, D-Day. Proper documenting was missing, and some men were included as perishing at D-Day. (Colley was totally affected by this calamity)

Years of secret, cooperative planning went into the D-Day invasion. Drawing upon Stephen E. Ambrose's D-DAY, troops who had trained up to two years in the British Isles were brought down near the southern ports of England. They were locked down in compounds, bored to no end; baseball equipment relieved the boredom taking time

From  letter writing, daydreaming, and poker. Those strategic plans for successful landing, taking roads, villages, and firmly establishing their presence depended upon a break in the weather, i.e., hurricane-force storms and the tides.

First, the Air Force bombed the beach areas extensively, then the Pathfinders went in an hour before the 82nd and 101 st Airborne Infantry were to drop. The Pathfinders were to mark the drop zones with automatic direction-finder radios, Eureka sets and lights formed into T's on the ground. A cloud bank forced pilots to either climb above it or go below it causing them to take evasive action, so the Pathfinders jumped too high or low an altitude, in almost solid anti-aircraft fire. As a consequence, of the 18 teams, only one landed where it was supposed to, one landed in the Channel, resulting in chaos for the oncoming paratroopers. The pilots of Troop Carrier Command were on their first combat mission, first night flying, first solid flak, and bad weather.

Utah Beach was eastern-most on the Cotentin peninsula; Omaha Beach lay between Utah and Gold and Sword beaches, on the Normandy coast.

Unforgiving weather held sway, until General Dwight D. Eisenhower paced the meeting room till 1 :00 pm when he decided "Let's Go" during the brief window apparently open on June 6. A gigantic air armada was assembled waiting for command to go: :432 C-47s to carry the 101st and like number for 82nd. Flying in V-formation, they stretched out 300 miles long and nine planes wide in radio silence, following the blue dots on the tails of planes ahead...an extremely tight formation.

The largest naval armada in history began the route to the Normandy coast with 255 minesweepers going first to clear a path of mines on the bottom and above. The

armada followed routing through the Z zone, or like a "Mae West" pattern; LCTs with tanks, jeeps, and trailers of ammunition followed; six battleships, cruisers, destroyers, and thousands of smaller vessel … over 5,000.

Colley described preparation from his location. "They took all of our clothes and gave us impregnated clothes including shoes and socks. Regular uniforms were stored in our duffel bags put in a warehouse. We went across the Channel empty in a convoy of LCMs, destroyers, LCIs, etc. (at night, absolutely no lights). We looked up, and there was a destroyer with no lights; no one had radar. We followed by seeing a 50-foot rope covered with phosphorous hanging on the back of each boat/ship. Nearer the coast, LCIs went in circles of five or six, waiting to come alongside the ship to receive our troops. Our Signalman received the signal to load up, 30 to 36 infantrymen who climbed down the rope netting with their equipment and weapons from a ship bobbing wildly into our LCI, bobbing wildly. There were accidents and fatalities. Then we headed for Utah Beach. "

"On our first trip in to the beach, we (all boats) missed it by a mile and a half for our directional boat got all shot up, and we had no signals. President Teddy Roosevelt's son, General James, oldest officer, was our beach master, and we were signaled where we were to come in. The landing beach was less fired upon, and troops began the march to their missions.. The Germans waited for us in the original location. We were under fire a little, but not like the massacre on Omaha Beach. We were picking up from the ship and carrying them in all day long and for another week or two. Later, we carried jeeps, trucks, ammunition, tanks which fit inside that 50-foot boat.

"We had to beg for food and water-lO-in-l rations were thrown down to us or tie up to a ship for a meal. We had no way to take a bath or get clean clothing for three weeks, so we stole some from the army. We had no officer; don't know where he went, for we never saw him. They didn't know we were there: we stayed with two or three other crews three and a half months on that beach enduring three or four bad storms; there were no tents or shelter. Improvising for heat as many troops and POWs did, a gallon can filled partly with sand and fuel was lighted.

"We just ran our boat up on the beach, bursting a hole under it. The tide dropped 31 feet every six or seven hours so bulldozers pulled us out to the water. There was no command ship in the harbor so we'd be the runner to tell them where to unload (massive supplies and equipment). We often got information about how the movement was going."

"We saw the paratroopers marching German prisoners back to the beach to load on the ships. The Rangers and paratroopers poked them with bayonets; but the Germans were probably glad to be captured. (Many prisoners were impressed from countries Germany had taken over.) Finally, orders came to get on an LST, operated by the English and go to Sandwich for 30-day R&R."

Getting back our clothes, we obeyed three orders: roll call, calisthenics, and running a mile. I spent every night in town dancing with girlfriend Myrtle. Finally we went on a Coast Guard transport guarding 2,000 German prisoners to Boston. There we were de­-loused. After leave, I caught a cargo/assault ship, loaded ammunition in Bayonne, NJ, and with LCMs and LCPs escorted by a destroyer, we went through the Panama Canal on to Hawaii and headed for the invasion of Okinawa.

We took supplies into Shima Beach on the third day and to battleships and cruisers. The kamikazes were frightful, so we anchored out at night only to find a bunch tied up beside us. When the typhoon hit Okinawa, we got out of the harbor and went on to Saipan to unload aviation gasoline, then to Guadacanal and unloaded equipment. I was a Ship Fitter l/C. In August the atomic bombs were dropped, which ended the war. Duty continued: took a load of Marines to Korea for occupational duty; then to Hong Kong when we picked up a load of Chinese soldiers and took them to north China. A makeshift toilet, complete with sanded seats, was improvised on top deck, and they loved that! Then we went to Sasebo, Japan, a major port, and on home.

"I spent three days in the airport waiting for a flight home. My wife and I had a son and a daughter."

Colley's experiences and awards were highly publicized. Thank you, Les, for serving our country.