John C. Umlauf

John C. Umlauf in his west Allentown home in May 2003 (Frank Wiese/Morning Call file photo)

John C. Umlauf grew up in Ashland and got an athletic scholarship to Muhlenberg College in Allentown, where he wrestled, played football and studied business administration.

After graduating in 1940, he worked at Bethlehem Steel Corp.

The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor spurred him to get a pilot's license, but faulty vision in one eye kept him out of military flight programs. Instead, he joined the Navy in 1943 and went to Officer Candidate School at Cornell University, where he was commissioned an ensign.

On D-Day, June 6, 1944, he was second in command of a gunboat off the Normandy coast. Fifty-nine years later, he remembers his role in the Allied invasion of Nazi-occupied Europe.

Umlauf is 84 and lives in west Allentown. This account, which he wrote for his family, was augmented with an interview.


Minutes before dawn, we were half a mile from Utah Beach.

It was quiet. Lots of us said a prayer. "God, please help me get through this."

Our British-built gunboat had two 5-inch guns, plus anti- aircraft guns. Just a few days earlier, it was tied up in southern England with eight other gunboats, between buoys in the middle of Salcombe harbor.

We filed out of the harbor early on June 4, with Salcombe's residents somberly lining the hillside, paying simple tribute for our being there to help defend their little island.

Harry Golden from Detroit, commanding officer of one of the other gunboats, broke the tension. He grabbed his bullhorn on the bridge and yelled to the crowd on shore, "Hi ho Silver, away!" Before the war, Harry was the radio announcer for "The Lone Ranger" radio show.

We were to join about 5,000 other Allied ships, all heading for the English Channel assembly area code-named Piccadilly Circus.

Our boat was second in line behind the pilot ship of our column, because we had been specially prepared to sweep the landing area of mines known to have been planted by the Nazis.

Before we left England, the ship was degaussed to neutralize the magnetic field surrounding it, so we could safely go over mines.

And it was fitted with paravanes, torpedo-shaped devices attached to our bow and towed underwater on either side. They were equipped with sharp teeth for cutting the moorings of submerged mines so they'd float to the surface, where our ships could destroy them.

After the invasion was delayed a day by bad weather, we went in ahead of the small boatloads of troops scheduled to be the first to hit the beach.

About a thousand yards from shore, the pilot boat turned back, wishing us well. It was our job to lead the column to within 200 yards of the beach, then run parallel to the shore, protecting our flanks.

Suddenly, the sky ahead of us erupted in a gigantic burst of flame. The brightness was a perfectly timed run by our planes bombing the coastline immediately ahead of us. But it was also some bombers getting hit and exploding in the air. The Nazis were knocking them down.

We, too, were discovered by the Germans. Everyone opened their guns. Night turned to day. Unbelievable noise. Acrid smell of burnt gunpowder. Dirt flying up ashore. Water splashing around us.