Sam Riddle Photo
"Sometimes it’s sad and sometimes it’s happy when you go to Washington. It’s sad when you look out and see all those graves.”
John Riddle
WW II Veteran
Photo Submitted
John Riddle, left, and his son, Sammy, in Washington, D.C.
Jim Fair
John Riddle has a letter written to him from his brother, Leon, during WW II. The letters were censored before mailed.
John Riddle enlisted in the U.S. Navy, at 16, and was at D-Day, June 6, 1944, for the invasion of the beaches at Normandy, France.
He reasoned there was nothing more there for him to see he hadn’t seen 10 years ago at Arlington National Cemetery: granite monuments and memorials of World War II, Korean War and Vietnam veterans.
“I said this before and will say it again,” Riddle said, “sometimes it’s sad and sometimes it’s happy when you go to Washington. It’s sad when you look out and see all those graves.”
As far as Riddle’s eyes could see last Tuesday were endless graves – on plush green grass, with American flags waving everywhere. Whether attached to flag poles or hands waving them, some from elementary school children, the flags were to honor Riddle, 90, and other veterans.
Riddle doesn’t talk much about being in the war as a sailor aboard a Landing Ship, Tank (LST) that was a support vehicle to carry cargo and land troops directly into an unimproved shore.
He was there for D-Day, June 6, 1944, for the invasion of the beaches at Normandy, France. “The sight of all those ships, it was like 4,000, as far as the eye could see.”
How Riddle got to the warfront is a story of a teenager who had seen his brother, Leon, drafted at age 21 and decided he would enlist. As a 16-year-old Riddle needed his mother to sign for him to enter the service before his 17th birthday.
“I begged my mother to sign the papers,” Riddle said. “I didn’t know what was going on, I just wanted to get in there and help. I wasn’t in there long when I said, ‘Momma, come get me,’” he said with a smile.
Sammy Riddle, John’s son who took the Honor Flight with him, just shook his head and said, “I would have never done that to one of my kids.”
Riddle’s clothing consisted of three each of dungarees, T-shirts and shorts and three sets of dressed blues and whites. Anything else was paid out of pocket. “Sometimes you dress in the blues for inspections. It all depended on what ‘the man’ said.”
“We never knew where we were going,” Riddle said. “We knew when we left Canada, and went to England, we knew we were going to an invasion somewhere.
Riddle said the 40-ship convoy, carrying food, supplies, equipment and vehicles across the Atlantic was treacherous. “We had about 126 people on a LST. My sleeping quarters had ammunition stored under our bunks. I would never sleep in there,” Riddle said.
The Germans had submarines in the Atlantic trying to pick off ships in the convoy,” Riddle said. “If one ship falls back out, the Germans would pick them off. That’s the reason everybody had to stay close together.
“We would be so close to another, I could stand on the side, look over the rails and touch the other one.”
Riddle said there was no reason to complain about the food (MREs, meals-ready-to-eat). “I would always get them ten in one rations. We called the two crackers dog biscuits. A can of cheese was like potted meat. You could throw that cheese down and I remember it would bounce right back up to you.”
Receiving mail during WW II was precious. The Honor Flight emulated that feeling with letters written by elementary students to the veterans. “The letters thanked me for my service, and one little girl asked me if I would write back, and I will,” Riddle said.
“We got what you call V Mail (victory mail) in those days,” Riddle said. “You may get a letter every two or three months.” Soldiers were provided one sheet of paper to write, front only.
The military hired censors to redact information they thought favorable to the enemy. “My mother got one and said it looked like a jigsaw puzzle. She said it almost only read, “ your name and you loved me.”
Riddle said he and his brother almost figured out where each other were by the words used in the letter. “See this one, written July 8, 1944 … Leon was in New Guinea.”
Riddle’s granddaughter, April Staggs, and great grandson, Carter, wrote a letter delivered to him by Sammy on the plane to Washington. “It was real sweet and with pictures. They remembered how we used to do some things together and go to McDonald’s.”
The Honor Flight afforded people to say thank you to what is considered the country’s “Greatest Generation.”
“I enjoyed watching how everybody appreciated them,” Sammy said of the Honor Flight. “Some of them said they had never met a WWII hero before.”
“When we were at the National Airport in D.C., people who were ready to get on the plane, dropped their luggage and wanted to shake their hands and clap.
“People visiting Arlington just started lining up and clapping and wanted to shake his hand.
“Daddy had his hat on and they would ask, ‘Are you a veteran’. They would say ‘I just want to shake your hand. An Asian came up and told daddy how much he appreciated him and wanted his picture made.
“It’s like he said, when you go up there and people treat you like that, you think, too bad, with all the stuff going on in the world, you wouldn’t think there was any bad people.”
“We’re finding out a little bit more as daddy is talking about it now,” Sammy said.
“All them American flags were interesting. We would go down the halls, and both sides, people had them little flags. It was interesting. It was heartwarming.”
Riddle was in a New York City Hospital when it was announced the war was over. “I had been hurt in the hand and leg and couldn’t make it out of the hospital to Times Square,” he said. “Everybody had heard,’ The war is over.”
Along the way, Riddle took advantage of the military’s “52-20 club”, drawing $20 a week up to 52 weeks instead of finding work, immediately after the war.
He took a job at Greer Mill and met his wife and married on Thanksgiving in 1947. “She’s been thankful ever since,” Riddle said with a smile, as his wife, Lurene, listened.
Sammy said the “Greatest Generation” is appropriate for the WWII veterans. “These fellas have seen a lot,” Sammy said. “We’ll probably never see the changes in the world they’ve seen. If my grandmother would come back now, she would think she was on a different planet.”
Riddle’s roots go back to the origin of Greer. James Manning Greer, the city’s founder, is Riddle’s great, great, great grandfather.
The non-profit Honor Flight Upstate is a volunteer based organization honoring WWII and Korean War veterans with all-expense trips to D.C. to visit the war memorials.
The Honor Flight left Greenville-Spartanburg International Airport in the morning and returned about 9 p.m. Veterans were accompanied with a guardian during the trip. Many veterans had family members make the trip with them.
Families and friends waving signs and cheering, military in their dress uniforms and members of the Patriot Guard greeted the vets on their return. GSP police and upstate law enforcement officers escorted veterans down the escalator or elevator to the waiting crowd.