AFN Radio Transcript 1945
(from the National Archives)

Three years ago, on the 1st of Sep. 1942, the 455th Antiaircraft Artillery, Automatic Weapons Battalion, Mobile, was activated at Camp Stewart, Georgia. Most of its personnel were drawn from the reception centers of the South. The Battalion completed its mobilisation training during the fall and winter of 1942 and moved to Fort Benning, Georgia, early in 1943. There it was attached to the 10th Armored Division. When the 10th Armored moved off to the Tennessee Maneuvers that summer, the 455th AAA found itself detached and in the throes of "preparation for overseas movement". The staff of Camp Shanks completed the processing of the Battalion, and its embarkation with such deadly efficiency that a fair-well view of the skyline of Manhattan was all of New York that the Battalion was able to see.

After the convoy had wandered over the Atlantic for four days or so, the transport carrying the Battalion developed some internal trouble. Dropping out of the convoy, it headed for the nearest port, Halifax. In Halifax a neat trade resulted in the Battalion transfering to the Queen Elizabeth for the balance of the trip to England.

In the fall of 1943 England was packed with supplies and SOS troops, and was just beginning to receive throngs of troops, which were to stage there for the Normandy Invasion. The 455th found itself assigned to the protection of two of the airfields of the 8th Air Force. Stationed at Watton and Snetterton Heath in East Anglia near the town of Norwich, the Battalion spent eight months on long night alerts as the German Luftwaffe flared into sporadic activity. Construction of camp sites, roads, Nissen huts and hardstands at the various gun installations occupied the daylight hours. Anglo-American relationships flourished. Whole gun crews were exchanged with British Ack Ack units stationed along the North Sea coast. This exchange served to cement British friendships, and gave the men of the Battalion the opportunity to learn from men of the British Army who had fought the Luftwaffe from Malta, Egypt, Crete, and the sands of Dunkirk.

A final intensive training period brought the Battalion to a high pitch of anticipation just before D-Day broke on an expectant world. However, it was not until the first days of July that the Battalion finally landed on Utah Beach.

Their first assignment was with the VIII Corps under the US First Army. In the vicinity of La Haye Du Puits they provided AA protection for the Artillery of the VIII Corps, while the little French town was pounded by artillery and finally taken by the 90th and 79th Divisions. During the build-up for Operation "Cobra", which resulted in the Saint Lo breakthrough, the Luftwaffe was only sporadically active. However, once the Armored columns knifed these (...) and engulfed the important road of Avaranches, the Luftwaffe birst forth in full fury. The Germans, recognising the importance of Avaranches, concentrated both their ground and air forces against it in an attempt to sever the narrow supply corridor passing through this town at the base oif the Brest peninsula, from which the the columns of the 4th and 6th Armored Divisions were fanning out over the Brittany countryside. From 31 July to 4 August 1944, the VIII Corps funneled its two armored and 4 Infantry Divisions through this highly vulnerable and extremely important bottleneck. During this period the German Air Force flew 700 sorties, attacking the towns and our convoys with bombs, rockets, cannons, and machine gun fire by day and by night. The Ack Ack battalions of the VIII Corps claimed to have shot down over 90 planes during this period, 12 of these claims have been credited to the Battalion of the 455th.

Following the liberation of the Brittany peninsula, the Battalion left the vicinity fortress of St Malo and swung east to its new assignment with the 3rd US Army, and it was attached to the 3rd Amry's spearheading XX Corps. The 3rd Army's dash across France found the 455th in the columns of the 7th Armored Division and the 5th Infantry Division.

During the balance of 1944 the Luftwaffe made very few attacks against 3rd Army troops - conserving its strength, evidently, for the svage aerial attacks theat were unleashed with the German counter-offensive in December.

The 455th was deployed in the Saarlautern area during the winter along with the 5th, 90th, 95th, 94th and 65th and 26th Divisions, which were shifted in and out of the area, as the Battle of the Bulge to the north flared and subsided.

In the Saarlautern area there was a quicking of activity on the part of the Luftwaffe on Christmas Day. This served as a prelude for the all-out attack made by the German AIr Force against ground installations along the entire western front on New Year's Day 1945. The Luftwaffe threw the book at the area between Metz and Saarlautern - FW 190s, Me 109s, Ju 88s and 188s, and Me 110s were engaged by the 455th between 9 and 10 o'clock that New Year's Day. A total of 79 planes were engaged by the 455th during that single hour. The planes came in to strafe the field artillery installations from all directions at a variety of altitudes. It was the biggest day of firing the gun crews had experioenced since the landing in Normandy. An Me 109 with its motor conked out by cal. .50 fire landed intact within 500 yards of a 40 mm Bofor's position. The pilot, unhurt by the landing, climbed out of his plae and made a break for some nearby woods. There were no troops in the immediate area to capture the escaping pilot, but he wqas soon halted by a 40 mm shell bursting just ahead of him, cutting off his escape path. A second burst from the 40 mm gun convinced the German pilot, and he sat down on the ground to await the leisurely arrival of his captors. Two of his companions, buzzing the scene where their comrade had landed, were both promptly shot down. This confirmed claims resulting from this single hour's activity gave the Battalion credit for the destruction or probable destruction of more than 21 German aircraft.

As the pace of the war quickened and the months of March and April saw the Armored thrusts of the 3rd Army slashing ever deeper into Germany, gun sections of the 455th found themselves with the advanced columns of the XX COrps during the race down the Autobahns. There, forward columns were under constant harrassing attacks by the Luftwaffe. It was during the latter months of the war in Europe that the bulk of the planes credited to the Battalion were destroyed.

In one section along the Autobahn, between Gera and Chemnitz, the Motor Sergeant of "C" Battery was helping the battery cooks change a tire on the mess truck which had fallen out of a 4th Armored Division supportiung column. Looking up from his work, when one of the cooks hollered "Take cover", the Motor Sergeant saw five German planes winging their way down the Autobahn at an altitude of less than 250 feet. Hastily manning the single caliber .50 machine gun, mounted onhis wrecker, he brought the leading plane under fire, hitting its motor and causing it to crash in flame 300 yards down the Autobahn. The pilot of the next plane was hit by the second burst from the sergeant's gun, and it crashed a hundred yards or so beyond the first plane, which was now blazing on the ground. The third plane was hit in the motor and winged over to crash in a wooded area about one kilometer from the Autobahn. The fourth plane veered off from the stream of lead from this single cal. .50 machine gun. Its motor was hit and smoke poured from its cowling, but it was lost from view behind an intervening wood and can only be listed as probable. The pilot of the fifth plane, seeing the fate of his companions, managed to pull up out of range of the machine gun, and escaped unscratched. The motor sergeant, S/Sgt. James R Brown, from North Carolina, received a cluster to his Bronze Star and a personal commendation from the AA Officer of the 3rd Army for his remarkable and heroic feat of single-handedly destroying 3 German planes and probably destroying an additional one in one brief engagement, with an expenditure of less than 250 rounds of cal. .50 ammunition.

When VE Day came, the 455th AAA was in position along the Austrian-German border, defending the Inn river from Braunau to Passau There it destroyed its last German plane a brief four hours prior to the cessation of hostilities in Europe. During its march across France and Germany from the Normandy beachhead to the Austrian border, the 455th AAA AW Bn was in forward area combat with the Luftwaffe for 306 days without relief. In ground skirmishes it had captured over 950 POWs. In the performance of its primary mission of providing AA protection for ground troops and installations, it had destroyed more than 80 German aircraft and is credited with the probable destruction of 31 additional aircraft - a record unsurpassed by any other 40 mm AA unit for operations on the Continent. Of every 4 enemy planes engaged, one was shot down.

We salute the 455th AAA Automatic Weapons Battalion on the occasion of its Third Anniversary, and for the job it has done with the 3rd US Army, here in the ETO.