Valor Friday

Longtime readers will know that I have a soft spot for military chaplains, and I’ve highlighted their bravery several times in the past. As I’m partaking in one of the largest classic car shows in the country this weekend, I’m going to have to keep this brief.

Lawrence Deery wasn’t your typical GI coming ashore on D-Day. He was 38 on 6 June 1944 when he came ashore, which means he was old enough to have fathered many of the men he served beside. Which is a bit ironic, because he was literally a Father. From Providence, Rhode Island, Deery had graduated Saint Mary’s University in Maryland and was ordained a Catholic priest in 1932. In December 1940, with the Second World War raging across four continents, he was commissioned a chaplain in the US Army Reserve. He was soon called to active duty as the US prepared to enter (and then ultimately did) the war.

Deery was a seasoned combat veteran by the time of D-Day. He’d been assigned to the 1st Infantry Division (“The Big Red One”). He’d made amphibious landings in North Africa during Operation Torch, then again at Sicily in Operation Husky. It was in Sicily that he first caught wind that the 1st Infantry Division would be part of taking Normandy. “We knew all along it would be the 1st Div,” He wrote years later.

Before Normandy, Deery was already a recipient of the country’s third highest award for gallantry, the Silver Star. His citation reads;

The President of the United States of America, authorized by Act of Congress July 9, 1918, takes pleasure in presenting the Silver Star to Captain (Chaplain’s Corps) Lawrence E. Deery (ASN: 0-401945), United States Army, for gallantry in action while serving with Headquarters, 16th Infantry Regiment, 1st Infantry Division, in action at Saint Cloud, Algeria, 9 November 1942. During the Oran offensive, despite heavy enemy machine gun and small arms fire, Chaplain Deery proceeded to the front lines and returned with two wounded soldiers, after crossing several fields covered by heavy enemy fire. Later, Chaplain Deery, on his own initiative and with unsurpassed bravery, proceeded through enemy lines and succeeded in carrying water to the men of the 3d Battalion, 16th Infantry Regiment. Chaplain Deery’s courage and heroism, displayed in the face of enemy fire, were an inspiring example to the officers and men of this battalion. His gallant actions and dedicated devotion to duty, without regard for his own life, were in keeping with the highest traditions of military service and reflect great credit upon himself and the United States Army.

Deery and the men of his flock landed in the first waves on Omaha Beach at Normandy in the early morning hours of 6 June, somewhere around 0600-0700.  Along the way, he noticed one of the British officers reading. He snuck over to his shoulder to see what the book that had him so interested was. He recognized the passage, in Latin, as Horace’s Odes (a collection of Roman poems from the first century BC in the style of the earlier Greek poems). In the hours before they started the crossing, Deery had spent his final few moments of quiet reading a biography on Leonardo Da Vinci.

Deery was the kind of priest that I think would have been well liked by his men. Many years after the war, when corresponding to a man writing about the D-Day invasion, Deery described the nausea-inducing ride on the landing craft. He said the combination of that of the two had ruined his appetite for the breakfast of an apple he was eating. “Lunch was in the bags” as they said, having packed the day’s food supply away. Where I think he became like his men, Deery described tossing his now unpalatable apple overboard, saying he “threw the G.D. apple away.” Not many padres are known for taking the Lord’s name in vain, even if just by abbreviation.

Boarding the landing craft, the rough seas caused many, if not most, of the men to get sick. As the boat passed in front of USS Texas, the mighty battleship opened fire on the beach. The guns (21 5″ and 10 14″) commenced firing about 0441 hours. At one point, the 14″ guns fired 255 shells in 34 minutes, a 7.5 rounds per minute rate of fire (Texas’s record pace during the war). The concussion from the massive guns threatened to knock the men in the landing craft out from just the shock waves.

Landing on the hotly contested Omaha Beach, Deery accompanied the men ashore. By noon he was on the top of a ridge looking back down at Omaha Beach. The morning’s action had been intense. Landing with the 16th Infantry was Life magazine combat photographer Robert Capa. Deery remembers Capa and his retinue of cameras as being a humorous moment on the beaches. Capa would take more than 100 photos that day, but an error in developing them in London led to the loss of all but 11 photos. These would become known as The Magnificent Eleven and are critical D-Day photos of the men on beach. It’s said they were an inspiration to Spielberg for the opening scene in Saving Private Ryan. That powerful and riveting piece of landmark cinematography is quite literally what Chaplain Deery was living through (for the third time in less than two years I might add).

Deery earned a second Silver Star for his actions at Omaha Beach. The citation is pretty simple, saying;

The President of the United States of America, authorized by Act of Congress July 9, 1918, takes pleasure in presenting a Bronze Oak Leaf Cluster in lieu of a Second Award of the Silver Star to Captain (Chaplain’s Corps) Lawrence E. Deery (ASN: 0-401945), United States Army, for gallantry in action while serving with Headquarters, 16th Infantry Regiment, 1st Infantry Division, in action against the enemy in Normandy, France, on 6 June 1944. His gallant actions and dedicated devotion to duty, without regard for his own life, were in keeping with the highest traditions of military service and reflect great credit upon himself and the United States Army.

While on the beaches, Deery relayed the story of a Major McKean who got promoted to a command position on the spot (most likely due to a casualty among the officers). McKean has lost his helmet, and Deery helped him by grabbing one of the loose helmets from the 29th Infantry Division who’d landed on Omaha with them. A testament to the number of casualties that empty helmets were freely available.

“Mac” as McKean said, in Deery’s presence, about the dire situation on the beach. “Look, there are two kinds of people on this beach – those that are dead, and those that are going to be dead – now let’s get the hell off here!” As he completed his moment of morose prose, the German mortars opened up on them. The Major said to Deery, “Padre, you have business here. In the meantime, round up all the stranglers and send them up.”

As they fought across 300 yards of open beach to the first bluffs, the men of the 1st Infantry Division suffered casualties as high as 30% in the first hour. Taking that first bluffs though certainly helped slow the bleeding. By the end of the day they had taken Formigny and Caumont. They participated in the Saint-Lô break-through and then the attack on Marigny, 27 July 1944.

On 28 July 1944, Deery got a third Silver Star for bravery in action. That citation is similarly light on details;

The President of the United States of America, authorized by Act of Congress July 9, 1918, takes pleasure in presenting a Second Bronze Oak Leaf Cluster in lieu of a Third Award of the Silver Star to Captain (Chaplain’s Corps) Lawrence E. Deery (ASN: 0-401945), United States Army, for gallantry in action while serving with as a Chaplain with Headquarters, 16th Infantry Regiment, 1st Infantry Division, in action against the enemy in Normandy, France, on 28 July 1944. His gallant actions and dedicated devotion to duty, without regard for his own life, were in keeping with the highest traditions of military service and reflect great credit upon himself and the United States Army.

The Big Red One fought through France and into Germany. They were some of the first artillery to fire into Germany in September 1944. They were rushed to the Ardennes during the Battle of the Bulge, then crossed the Ruhr in early 1945 and to the Rhine. They made it as far as Czechoslovakia by the time of VE Day in May.

By the end of the war, the 1st Infantry Division had been in combat for nearly 450 days. If I read the list right, in addition to his three Silver Stars, Deery was entitled to four Presidential Unit Citations (April ’43, July ’43, D-Day, and September ’44), as well as a host of service medals with attachments.

After the war, Deery returned to Rhode Island where he continued his career with the Catholic Church. It looks as if he may have remained on active duty for a time, but it’s more likely he returned to the Army Reserves. He was promoted to major in 1946 and to lieutenant Colonel in 1948. He ministered at Saint Joseph’s Rectory in Newport, Rhode Island. He passed away in 1979 at the age of 73. He’s buried in Pawtucket, Rhode Island.

Category: Army, Historical, Valor, We Remember, WWII