Information Sheet
R DeField, Edward Clyde, 1918-
681
“Remembrance of World War
II,” 1996.
One folder,
photocopies.
This is a memoir
of World War Two by a native of Mississippi
County, Missouri. DeField was a member of the 397th
Antiaircraft Battalion. He served in Wales, Normandy,
France, Belgium, and Germany, and in the Allied
occupation force.
Ed DeField is a
native of Charleston, Mississippi
County, Missouri. He was born on a farm near Bertrand on 20
June 1918. Prior to World War Two,
DeField served in the 140th Infantry regiment of the Missouri
National Guard. He won election as
Mississippi County Assessor in 1940. He
enlisted in the Army in 1942, and took basic training at Camp Sheridan, Illinois. Assigned to the 397th
Antiaircraft Artillery Battalion, DeField was soon promoted to corporal, then
sergeant. The unit underwent additional
training and duty at Long Island, New York, and Camp
Edwards, Massachusetts,
before shipping overseas on 29 February 1944 to Llandmartin, Wales. Before D-Day, the 397th Antiaircraft
Battalion was assigned aboard one of the concrete caissons known as
“Phoenixes,” which comprised part of two artificial harbors towed by the Allies
across the English Channel and assembled off the coast of Normandy.
DeField’s Phoenix
lasted thirteen days until the artificial harbor was largely destroyed by a
gale and the antiaircraft gunners nearly washed overboard in the storm. DeField had an opportunity to examine the
German defenses at Normandy before his unit
moved farther up the coast toward the port city of Cherbourg.
He was stationed next at Paris and Versailles, where the
battalion served in the security force at Allied headquarters. From Versailles,
the unit moved to a captured German airfield at Le Gulet,
Belgium. DeField enjoyed leave in Brussels before Germans began their offensive in the Ardennes in December 1944. The 397th guarded Allied airfields
in Belgium during the Battle of the Bulge, and was stationed at Dusseldorf, Germany,
when the war ended. After occupation
duty in the American sector at Kaufbeuren, Germany, DeField returned home via Camp Twenty
Grand at Le Havre, France,
the Port of New
York, Camp Kilmer, New Jersey, and Jefferson Barracks, Missouri, where he was discharged.
This 33-page
memoir is a candid reminiscence concerning the 397th Antiaircraft
Battalion and its men. DeField mentions
other soldiers in the unit, particularly those from Mississippi County, the
mutual antipathy between DeField and one of his lieutenants, near disaster on
the Phoenix off the coast of Normandy, cold and starving times in Belgium,
encounters with the German populace, and narrow escapes from the military
police for various shenanigans. DeField
has also supplied some revisions to his reminiscence, as well as additional
information concerning his wartime career, which are filed in front of the
“Remembrance.”
DeField returned
to home after his discharge to take up his career as Mississippi County
assessor. Including the war years, De
Field held the position for over 55 years.
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