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Albert Benjamin Skinner was born on May 13, 1919 in the small town of Cumberland, situated in Barron County, Wisconsin. Al was the third of seven children born to Marshall Otis and Alice (Fox) Skinner. It was springtime in the "Island City" located in scenic northwest Wisconsin when his mother, gave birth to him at their rural home located at 1065 First Avenue in the south part of town. "In those days, being born at home was the norm," Al explains, "because, hospitals were typically only located in large cities many miles away. Mother was lucky to have the help of Dr. Simon O. Lund and Minnie Nelson, a local midwife, during my delivery."
And it was lucky indeed, for Al because he was born a "blue baby." A lot of blue babies were, born in 1919 due to the flu epidemic. "I was born with a bluish tint to my skin due to a lack of oxygen during my delivery," Al reports. "Sometimes blue babies would be born with heart defects. Dr. Lund told my folks that he doubted I would live to be 21 years old. Well, here I sit-84 years old-and I always say that I've been living on borrowed time since I was 21!"
Al Skinner's military career began in much the same manner as most men of that day-he was drafted. "I got my draft notice in November, 1940," stated Al. "I remember putting it in a drawer and that was the last I thought of it till the day I was to report to Barron."
It was February 1941 and Al was driving a delivery truck for Dr. Pepper Sirianni Company when he was pulled over by the Barron County Sheriff's Department. "They said that I was being stopped for avoiding the draft! I had forgot all about reporting!" Al says with a hearty laugh. "So I went home, packed my clothes, and drove to Barron (WI). Next thing I knew, I was on my way to Milwaukee (WI) to enlist in the army with two of my friends, Fred Alfonse and Clifford Shortner."
When the three men arrived at Milwaukee, they were given physicals, sworn into service, and issued the standard Army gear. Then they were sent directly to Camp Grant, Illinois. It was a cold and rainy that dark, February night when Al and his friends arrived at Camp Grant. Exhausted from the long bus ride, they retreated to their tents to rest before the next phase of processing began early the next morning. The three friends were a long way from Cumberland, WI, but soon found out what just what a small world they lived in.
"At Camp Grant I was shocked to meet up with Percy Laking, my science teacher from high school. He was the one who had taught us how to make lead slugs when we were in school. Boy did we catch it for that stunt! He ended up getting fired as a teacher over that. I couldn't believe it. There he was, Percy Laking—a Brigadier General!"
General Laking asked his former students where they wanted to go to complete their basic training. Having the desire to escape the cold, snow-filled winters they had only known up to this point, and also wanting to make the most of their military life by "seeing the world," California was the logical answer. A short time later they were shipped to Camp Callan, California located in the hills near San Diego. They were assigned to the 155th Army Artillery Group. There, they completed their basic training, earning $21.00 per month. "By the time we paid for our laundry and PX tickets," Al recalled, "we didn't have much money left, but we still managed to go into San Diego once in a while."
After basic training, Al and his friends were shipped to Camp Roberts, California, to an infantry outfit. Camp Roberts was located near San Luis Obispo and San Miguel. After about four months, Alfonse and Shortner were shipped to Washington State, and Al was sent to Camp Cook near Santa Barbara, California just south of Camp Roberts.
"Camp Cook was a brand new campsite. There were no buildings or even a road into it," Al recalled, "so we had to actually build the camp." Cook was an armored division camp, and Al helped with the construction until the camp was completed. Then he was transferred to the motor pool.
"There was another kid there by the name of John Ferry. He was an Indian from Oklahoma. He had made it rich from oil wells found on Indian land. He was a real wonderful fellow, and we got along real well. Part of our job was directing traffic and doing maneuvers while riding motorcycles. We thought we had it made. After all, what could be more fun than riding motorcycles all day?"
Tragically, one night while they were riding, John hit the side of a tank and was killed. "That was enough for me," Al added sternly. "After John's death, I didn't want any more to do with motorcycles."
By that time, Al had achieved the rank of Technical Sergeant, and he was assigned to a unit that hauled material from the Mojave Desert up to Fort Lewis, Washington where his friends, Alfonse and Shortner, were stationed. "I saw them up there once," Al recalled with sadness in his voice, "and as it turned out, that was the last time I ever saw either of them."
Clifford Shortner was killed during the war while fighting in the Pacific Theatre, and Fred Alfonse died before he got back to Cumberland after the war. "They were good fellows-damn good fellows. They were my friends," Al added quietly. "We had a lot of fun. . . I sure miss them."
While at Camp Cook, Al had the chance to see his older brother, Herb. "He was a supervisor for American Bridge Company, and he was located near Redding, California. "When we were hauling supplies from the Mojave Desert to Washington, we went through Redding. I had some leave coming, so I spent some time with Herb and his wife, Goldie."
Herb's company was building a bridge across a ravine. "My god it was deep! It was really deep!" Al tells with excitement. "They were building a railroad track underneath and a car bridge above. Herb took me up onto the bridge, and asked if I wanted to walk out on it. I don't know what I was thinking, but I went along with him. I would swear the trusses were four feet wide. Maybe they weren't that wide, but I remember going out and looking down. Next thing I knew I went down to my hands and knees and was holding onto the edge for dear life! I was out pretty far and let me tell you, I was scared to death I was going to fall off! Thank God Herb came out and got me turned me around. Of course, he had to kick my hands to get me to break loose my grip from the truss," Al chuckles, able to laugh now from the safety of his own kitchen, as he recounts the terrifying incident. "Herb held onto me and had to lead me off that bridge every step of the way. I remember thinking what a job he had to have to do this sort of thing every day. He must of had nerves of steel. But you know, some time later Herb did fall from that bridge. He went through two safety nets before he was finally stopped! Thank God, he didn't get hurt, but that fall bothered him the rest of his life."
Back at Camp Cook, Al worked hard and diligently, and eventually he earned the rank of Master Sergeant and was offered the chance to go to Officer's Training School. He hesitated because Master Sergeants made more money than a second lieutenant, and he was close to being eligible for discharge. But all that changed on December 7, 1941 when Pearl Harbor was attacked by Japan.
"When we were drafted there was this popular song that went `be home in a year, little darling,' and that was my plan-go in, do my service, and get out. But when we entered the war after Pearl Harbor I knew I wasn't going home anytime soon, so I decided to go to Officer's Training School."
Al was sent to Fort Lee, Virginia to attend Quartermaster Officer's Training School. "I stayed there for quite a while and after finishing school I became the Adjutant to the Colonel at Camp Lee. Well, it ended up that we got into it over a requirement that every man being trained to shoot had to have an assistant standing next to him wearing a white armband. Only problem was, we didn't have any white armbands. Leave it to the army to come up with a regulation and then not provide the necessary equipment to do the job. So I had the men cut up sheets and use them instead."
Some would have called Al's solution quick thinking and a good way to improvise, but the Colonel at Camp Lee disagreed. As a result, Al was sent to Camp Schnagel, Pennsylvania to prepare to go overseas. Six weeks later he found himself on the New Jersey shore at the port of departure for troops preparing to embark to fight the war in Europe.
With the uncertainty of fighting a war on foreign soil lying ahead, Al's innate desire to seize every opportunity to enjoy life soon got the best of him. "Since we weren't going to leave for three days, me and three buddies went over the fence!" The AWOL fugitives made their way to New York City where the 23 year- old boy from rural northwest Wisconsin came face to face with some of the worlds tallest buildings in one of the world's largest and busiest cities.
"We went up in one of those tall buildings and had a bottle of Coke. It cost me $1.25 for a small bottle! Why, back home a six ounce bottle of Coke cost five cents, and I knew from driving truck for Sirianni's that it cost between three and four cents to make a case of soda pop and we sold each case for 80 cents. A buck twenty-five for a Coke! I couldn't believe it!" That was the only time Al was ever in New York, yet it was one adventure he never forgot. The `Big Apple' just has that effect on people.
Soon after they returned to New Jersey, the men were loaded onto the luxury liner, the Queen Elizabeth, for the next part of their journey. Al reports that about 14-15,000 soldiers boarded the ship bound for Scotland. The dangerous sea voyage took about four and half days. "I never doubted that we'd make it through," states Al. "That ship was so fast and so capable of taking evasive action, I don't think a Japanese torpedo would ever have been able to catch it. I remember the ship listing quickly from right to left as it snaked its way across the ocean. You'd be eating your meal and your tray would skirt all over the table top in the process! Now that was a challenge let me tell you!"
The ship of soldiers safely arrived in Scotland where they remained for about three days while the ship unloaded, and then they were transported to Liverpool, England where he was assigned as Adjutant to a man named Colonel Binger. "Colonel Binger was from Minnesota," Al notes, "and I later learned that he was the personnel manager for 3M Company." This acquaintance would prove to be an important one for Al following the war, as Colonel Binger eventually hired him to work at 3-M's Cumberland plant, where Al worked for over 30 years.
Al stayed in Liverpool until it was determined that the Allies were going to make a push into Europe. "I was sent with a company of men down to Milverton, England, which was about 100 miles from London. It was a small town; I would say the size of Turtle Lake (WI). We stayed in some old homes in the town, and there were about four pubs and a bunch of Quonset huts located a little way down below the church where the enlisted men stayed."
In May 1944 Al's unit was sent to Dartmouth, which was a base for the English Navy. "That's where we learned all about the LSTs, LCIs, and the big Rhino Ferries," he explained. "The LST is a landing craft for tanks, and after it was unloaded during an offensive, it was used as hospital space. The LCI is an infantry landing craft. The Rhinos were 42ft by 176 ft chunks of steel welded together, and powered by big outboard motors. They moved through the water very slowly, and during the invasion, we were to use them as docks so we wouldn't have to go into the water."
But before the invasion could take place the soldiers had to be trained. "We had some practice runs in the English Channel. We even got fired on one time by the Germans. Before the Allies could destroy the German attack boat, it managed to sink a couple of LSTs. "Man, did our big guns blow that German boat out of the water!"
Thankfully, no one was lost during that battle, but the attack during their maneuvers was just a hint of what lay ahead for the Allies set to land in Normandy, France. Al's engineering unit, TQM for the 3892 Quartermaster Truck Company, which was attached to the First U.S. Infantry Division for the assault on Continental Europe, was charged with the task of removing the railroad irons that were implanted along the shoreline at Omaha Beach so the boats could be brought in during the landing without ripping the bottoms out of them. They also had to lay out a plan to unload all of the equipment onto the shoreline and prepare the beach for the invasion by the Army Rangers.
5 JUNE 1944: D -MINUS 8 HOURS. . .
"Finally, things were set up and the unit I was assigned to was ordered to Omaha Beach in France. We landed D minus eight hours, meaning we landed eight hours before the main force." I was Adjutant to and under the command of Major John Richard. Turns out he was from Janesville, Wisconsin. He took a keen interest in me right away when he heard we were from the same state. We got to know each other pretty well after that. I remember him telling me about his young wife and that she had just given birth to their son. He had only seen his son's picture, though. He sure couldn't wait to get home to hold him in his arms for the first time."
Al's unit worked hard, and his skill and determination to accomplish the task at hand was recorded in the following except from a Memo dated 5 August 1944 recommending his "Battlefield Promotion."
(Due to 2nd Lt. Albert B. Skinner's efforts) ". . . loading space was so well planned that he was able to load two vehicles more than the original plan. The loading detail was so well organized that he accomplished the loading of 82 vehicles in less than three hours. On the eve of D-Day, Lt. Skinner demonstrated unusual leadership and courage in the face of hostile activity. About dusk, while in the process of loading the Rhino Barge with vehicles from the LST, enemy aircraft began an attack on ships in the Omaha Harbor. During the frequent strafing attack, Lt. Skinner continued the uninterrupted loading with the determination to get the barge loaded and ashore. Lt. Skinner assumed the duties of Unit TQM and executed them in an excellent manner with the ability equivalent to that of a 1st Lieutenant or higher grade."
"About dusk on the 8 June 1944, Lt. Skinner was assigned the mission to transport gasoline from the beach to the First US Infantry Division Quartermaster. While on the beach with his platoon, they were subjected to repeated enemy strafing. In spite of the hazardous duty, Lt. Skinner demonstrated unusual leadership and completed loading of the vehicles with essential gasoline and transported the maximum amount of gallons to the First Division Quartermaster."
What this memo fails to note, however, are some of the details of the events surrounding the above incidents that make Al's accomplishments that much more remarkable.
"We were told that no one would be there when we got to Omaha, and that the Germans didn't know we were coming, "Al recalls. "We got there shortly after midnight and about an hour or two later, the Germans stumbled upon us and started shooting. They were out on maneuvers and so they only had dumb-dumb (wooden) bullets. I got hit in the left leg, and it felt like a hundred slivers going in all directions!" Al remembers as he instinctively reaches down and rubs the spot on his left leg where he was wounded nearly 60 years earlier. "You know, slivers of wood kept coming out of my leg for years after I was shot. It reminded me of the time got that electrical shock and fell off the pickle sorting table when I was helping dad, and spent months picking slivers of fir wood out of my behind!"
Even though he was wounded Al stayed with his unit and it didn't take long for the Germans to reload with live ammunition and begin their deadly assault on the Allies. Taking their position in "pillboxes" in the Atlantic Wall, a fortification that the Germans had built overlooking the beachhead, the Germans were relentless in their attack on the Allies making their way across the beach below. "I remember looking at the big, tall cliff as we were going into Omaha Beach and wondering, `How in the hell are we going to take that!' The Germans had pretty good-sized artillery guns which I believe were 99's." Al explains. "They were about the size of our 155's. They were so accurate that if they missed you the first time, they would surely get you the second time. At least that's the way we felt, because they were doing a lot of damage."
Next to the German pillboxes were some French homes. Snipers were hiding in the upper rooms of these homes, firing on the soldiers below. "People were firing at us from those homes and that's . . . that's when I shot my first person." It took Al a long time to explain the circumstances around this incident. He was deeply affected by the event and reluctant to talk about it. "There was this sniper in an upper window. He had taken out four or five of my men. We all knew something had to be done, but the others sort of hesitated. I kept remembering my training_`kill or be killed' `kill or be killed!' Those words kept going through my head. It was him or me, and I wasn't going to be killed, so I took aim and fired. I remember seeing the body tumble out of the open window and fall dead to the ground below."
As Al and the rest of his unit made their way up to the home where the sniper, just moments before, had been firing upon them, he soon learned the horrors of war first hand. "When we got to the body, I seen. . . I realized. . . I had shot a woman—the first person I killed was a woman. That upset me for quite awhile. Not so much at first because when you're in war, like I said it was kill or be killed and boy, we weren't going to be killed if we could help it. But later on, when things quieted down . . . well, it's something that just sticks with a man, you know?"
The next morning when the invasion started, the LCIs came in full force with the Army infantry. "I remember those kids coming off of the landing ramps and getting shot. I can still see the floating bodies. They finally made it onto shore, then the tanks started landing from the LSTs. They dropped into the water and had trouble getting to shore, but finally we got the Rhinos I mentioned attached to the LST. And I'm not talking about one LST_we had maybe ten coming in to be attached to our Rhinos. Then we were able to unload the tanks and were doing a really good job."
Al recalls probably the toughest part of the unloading. "We had to move bodies out of the way of the tanks so we didn't run over them. You might say, `what's the difference they were dead anyway?' But you have to have respect for your fellow man whether he's alive or dead. We couldn't ignore them, so we would pull them to the side. We finally got the tanks landed, and then we had a chance to protect ourselves."
"But we weren't finished once the beach was landed. It was kind of a mess because the landing force got off to a poor start. The United States Navy was really a godsend when they sent the artillery shells in." In the meantime, the Army Rangers came into action. "The rangers took their ropes and grappling hooks and were climbing up the big cliff I was telling you about. Some guys got up so far and then they would get shot and fall down to the beach below. But there was always another man behind him on the rope who kept going till they reached the top. And by God, they took that cliff! Yes, sir! They took that cliff." As the invasion continued, Al's unit dug fox holes along the beach and began firing upon the enemy that, up to this point, seemed to have advantage over the Allies. As the number of casualties mounted, Al's unit began to move inland, and he soon found himself fighting next to Major Richard. "For a little while there was a break in the fighting," Al remembered. "I smoked a pipe back then and Major Richard smoked cigarettes. We both lit up, and then suddenly, he was hit with an artillery shell. It went right through him," Al described the assault by placing both of his hands over his stomach, "but it didn't explode. I was right next to him. Had it exploded, you and I wouldn't be talking today."
Major Richard never made it back to Janesville, WI to the welcoming embrace of his young bride. He never had the opportunity to cradle his son in his arms as an infant, or hoist him on his shoulders to watch a parade. In an instant, the chance to teach his son to throw a baseball or ride a bike was gone forever. He died there on the beach fighting for freedom. "That's the way war is," Al reasons, "one minute you're standing next to your friend and the next second he's dead. There's no rhyme or reason to it. It could have just as easily been me. I don't know why God took him and not me-that's just the way it was-I really can't explain it. I was just damn lucky to survive it all."
Living On Borrowed Time - Part I
An excerpt from the memoirs of Albert B. Skinner
By Jodi L. Severson