Local Veteran returning to Normandy for 80th anniversary of D-Day
COMBINED LOCKS, Wis. (WFRV) – Eighty years ago, the largest amphibious attack in history turned the tide of World War II.
Soon, local Veteran Vaughn Collicott, who fought on D-Day, will be heading back to France to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the day.
“Well I wanted to do something, I didn’t want to sit home and watch everybody else do the work,” he said when asked why he wanted to join the military.
On June 6, 1944, Collicott was inside a Navy destroyer called the USS Meredith just off Utah Beach. He said the commanding officers had given them no indication of what they would be up against.
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While soldiers stormed the beach of Normandy under heavy fire, the sailors inside the USS Meredith tried to take out the German positions.
Collicott said his station was inside the interior of the boat so on that day he never got a view of what the scene on the beach looked like.
“He pulled the trigger again and guess what the army man came back and said ‘new target’ we obliterated it,” said Collicott recalling what it was like to take out one of the enemy’s positions.
In the early morning hours of June 7, the USS Meredith got hit. The history books say the ship stumbled upon an underwater mine. Collicott has a different memory of what happened though, saying it was actually a German plane that hit the ship with a bomb.
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“And then “zoom”the plane flew over the ship, the captain hollered fire but it was too late to fire anything because we got the bomb a couple seconds later,” he recalled.
Collicott said he remembers coming out from the interior of the ship after the attack to see men with severe burns and bleeding. He said he saw things that he didn’t want to see and that continued to impact him throughout his life.
He encourages Veterans with post traumatic stress disorder or other mental illness stemming from their service to seek help.
Seven people died and 50 were wounded or missing when the USS Meredith got hit. Another attack the next day further damaged the ship sinking it.
After surviving the attack, Collicott continued to serve in the Navy working on a ship that transported American reinforcements and casualties back and forth between the Pacific theater of the war and the United States.
He earned several medals and designations for his courageous service during World War 2.
Collicott remembers his time on the USS Meredith vicariously through a picture he painted of the ship. He said in the Navy you grow attached to the ships you spend time on and it’s always tough to see your ship get sunk.
He also wrote and published a book about his life and his time in the military. He’s 100 years old.
Next Thursday, he’s taking a once-in-a-lifetime trip back to the beaches of Normandy, France to commemorate the 80th anniversary of D-Day. He said he hasn’t been back to France since he was on Utah Beach fighting for his country on D-Day.
He will leave from the Appleton International Airport on Thursday and his granddaughter gets to come with him on the trip. We’re told he’ll spend nine days in France.
“I can’t really tell what’s it’s going to be like, but I know that it’s going to be different,” said Collicott who did say he’s excited for the trip. “This is going to be the first time that I put my feet on land in France.”
American Airlines is helping to make this trip possible by providing a chartered flight to France for the veterans. There’s about 70 veterans that are going.
Collicott joined the Navy in 1942. He said he’d previously wanted to join the Air Force and the Marines but his parents wouldn’t sign the papers giving him permission to do so. Many of his brothers and relatives also fought in World War 2.
He said his official job title on the USS Meredith was ‘fire control technician.’
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