MARINE FORCES RESERVE, New Orleans -- “Tragic things happen, hilarious things happen, and absolutely absurd things happen in combat,” said Sgt. Clarence “Mac” Evans, a World War II veteran who landed on Omaha beach in Normandy with the 29th Infantry Regiment during D-Day.
Evans was 17 years old during “Operation Overlord,” the 1944 allied invasion of France. Now 83 years old, he came to share his story with Marines and sailors at MarForRes April 21. After being introduced by MarForRes logistics Marines, Evans and his two sons along with another Marine combat veteran took the stage as the crowd stood and applauded. They sat down, Evans was handed a microphone and the memories began.
Tragic
After landing on the beach, Evans cut off some of his excessive gear and rushed behind the cover of small stones piled up to three or four feet, he explained as he raised his left hand from his knee to above his head to show the height of the cover. Mortar fire from the Germans started raining upon the Allies’ position.
“A shell hit and a Navy corpsman was blown about 30 feet in the air,” he said to the silent audience. “It was like a slow motion movie, a terrible movie.”
“He went up and up in the air and you watched him. And after he was up in the air, his head blew off,” he described as his voice gradually grew from soft-spoken to a firmer tone.
As he spoke, heads that were leaning forward in the quiet audience subtly rocked upright as “oh’s” reverberated through the room.
“Its nightmarish and I’ll never forget it,” he said.
Hilarious
“It was quiet on the lines for about a day and a half,” Evans said. “The chow truck came up and it was about 200 yards behind the lines. We would go and get hot chow and bring it back up and eat it.”
“They were frying pork chops and the Germans, they either got mad because we were eating or they were hungry themselves,” he said. “So they decided on a little skirmish. Well, a mortar shell hit the chow truck.”
“There were pork chops flying everywhere,” he laughed remembering the scene as the crowd also erupted with laughter. “Everybody left their hole and started grabbing pork chops and putting them in their pockets.”
Absolutely absurd
“One of the absurd things was one of the commanding officers told the lieutenant, ‘clear that house out,” Evans said. “Well these Norman houses are like fortresses because they’re built by stones that were thick.”
“The lieutenant was new to the whole combat scene, so he calmed down, walked across the road and knocked on the door,” he said as the audience exploded with laughter. “The German sergeant came to the door and he [the lieutenant] said ‘my commanding officer said you all have to surrender and get the hell out of here.”
“He did!” Evans shouted as the crowd once again erupted with laughter. “When he was going across the road, his commander said ‘where the hell is he going?’ After it was over, he said ‘now that’s a way to fight a war.”
Evans said he found it oxymoronic to share stories about combat with Marines. Instead, he shared experiences which he found funny as the audience laughed through most of the event. After Evans was finished, the crowd stood and applauded his performance, and then he received a plaque as a token of appreciation from MarForRes. Marines and sailors gathered around him to shake his hand and thank him for sharing his memories.