Tom Derouen, Jason Theriot, Hewitt Theriot:

-Summer of 1941 graduated from Texas A&M with a masters
-Hired at A&M and taught till March 1942 when he was called into the service; had received a commission from LSU in 1939
-In the service took basic at Fort Benning, Georgia; was a second Lieutenant and the youngest there (in his 20s)
-Already assigned to the 90th Infantry Division at Camp Barkley, Texas; spent a year and half there
-Moved over to the deserts of California and Arizona for 6 months before going to Fort Dix, New Jersey; took 10 days on a troop train

-While at Camp Barkley they would leave Monday morning for maneuvers in the hills and stayed outside until Friday or Saturday
-Slept on the ground, made their own latrines, dug holes for garbage
-Had to march out 15-20 miles and back each time (1942)
-1943 went to Fort Dix and stayed till March 1944
-Was loaded onto ships to Europe; was sea sick the whole time

-Landed in England and prepared for an invasion
-Had practice invasions at Devonshire, the Slapton Sands; it was a disaster
-When Derouen’s regiment, the 357th landed, everything was fine but the next regiment (either 359th or 358th) never came in
-Germans had snuck in on PT boats in the waterways and sunk the regiments’ boats; lost over 600 men before the actual invasion
-It was kept quiet so the morale would stay up; learned of it 20 years later

(9:30) Invasion
-Loaded onto boats at Whales, Bathe England
-Kept them in a big compound for a week as they loaded up
-Derouen made the invasion; “it’s not a pretty thing….I don’t like to talk about it much”
-Thinks he landed at Utah beach
-Landed next to the 9th, 4th and 1st divisions; each country had their own beach
-Was just a platoon leader for a heavy weapons company; attached to K Company under Capt. Woodrow Allen from Texas
-Fought with rifles most of the time and not machine guns (only had 4)

-Got in skirmishes with the Germans all the time
-In the hedgerows in France they were close to each other; Germans were prepared already with 88 mm canons, heavy casualties on the Allies side
-Derouen stayed in France until May 1945
-Before the invasion General Patton and General Middleton spoke to them
-Took about 6 weeks for them to break out of Normandy; the 90th split and some went to Cherbourg and the rest to Paris
-Still attached to K Company
-Half the time they didn’t know where they were or what they were doing; the orders changed a lot
-Casualties were high; Captain Allen was promoted to Battalion Commander and was killed the next day
-The mind went haywire with all the killing and bombing; men dying left and right of you

(17:05) Going Across the English Channel
-On a big ship and then went down a net to a Higgins boat
-Planes were passing over them
-Thought he was ready for adventure but he was scared
-You shot in the bushes because you were scared and maybe you shot a German or maybe a civilian

(19:12) Living in England
-Didn’t see much of England; trained all the time
-Only the elderly, women and children were left as all the men went into service; they were bombed every night
-American soldiers however criticized them calling them backwards; caused a lot of fights

(22:49)
-Had to march everywhere
-Derouen did not last the whole campaign in Normandy; was wounded on July 10th, 1944
-Was on guard patrol in the morning and crossing a hedgerow and he slipped and fell and his carbine shot off into his leg
-Spent about 6 months in England in a hospital; was not able to go back into the 90th division
-Was put in charge of training a company of soldiers on how to shoot; trained 200 men for 4-6 weeks
-Worked with other officers and sometimes they were trouble and did not do what was ordered; Derouen was in charge

(29:00) Talking
-Hewitt Theriot telling of his experiences; Derouen and Theriot comparing
-Looking at a map that was drawn on a cricket bat that Derouen used while at the hospital; inscribed: “HMS Deminion Monarch, Gen. Collins, March 1944”
-The bombing of Sainte-Mère-Église
-Staying at the hospital and therapy
-Back at the states stayed at the Augusta George resort hotel hospital for another 6 months; very well taken care of there
-Didn’t like the French, too lazy; German POWs workers messed around a lot
-Teaching at Texas A&M in 1941; born in New Iberia
-While at war, in England, ran into Butch Kennedy from LSU (football), was a paratrooper (47:10)
-Knew Eddie Gatto (killed in Normandy) and he was a good friend of Hewitt Theriot; stories about him
-Also both knew an All American football palyer from LSU, Tim Cavanaugh
-Before going back to the states Derouen stayed at a ski lodge in Switzerland
-How he met his wife, Lela in July 1946; married a year later

Transcription Begins:

Tom Derouen
New Iberia, LA
Company K, 357th Regiment, 90th Infantry Division
Utah Beach
Interview conducted on July 15, 2001

In the summer of 1941, I graduated with a masters from Texas AM. They hired me to teach. I taught till March '42, when I was called into the service. I received my commission from LSU in 1939. I took basic at Frt. Benning Georgia. I went to school there with a bunch of officers, some were Col. and Lt. Col. I was a second Lt. Some of those Col.'s were 40, 50-years old. One time I was shaving in the bathroom, when one of these big Col.'s walked in and stood next to me. His face was all red, and I said " Good morning sir" and he said " Son that is a matter of opinion." He had been out the night before and he had a hang over. I was in my 20's.

I had already been assigned to the 90th Inf.Division. They were organizing the division at Camp Barkley TX, south of Abilene. I went there after basic and spent a year and a half there. From camp Barkley we moved to the desert of California and Arizona for 6 months. From there we went to Frt. Dix New Jersey on Christmas Day. The train ride there was a troop train and it took ten days and we never got off.

In the desert we would sleep outside in tents. We didn't have any buildings to live in. In the morning we would leave on maneuvers all day. I learned how to live outside. At Barkley we would leave on Monday morning and would stay till Friday or Saturday morning. We stayed out there and slept on the ground. We made our own latrine, to urinate and defecate. We dug another hole to bury the garbage. We had to march 15-20 miles out. This was 1942. We walked there and walked back. We didn't like that. In 1943 we came to Frt. Dix. We stayed till about March. (Mr. Derouen is having difficulty remembering the time-line of his training in the states. He pauses and excuses himself.) Let me go get something, it will help me remember.

(He comes back holding a thin piece of wood about a foot long and 3" wide.) I own 35 acres right here" (of cattle grazing land near Avery Isl. The piece of wood seems to refresh his memory. He sits back down, more confidant now, gently rubbing the piece with his thumb. He corrects his early mistake.)

Uh… We kept training at Fort Dix. It was cold as heck out there. There was snow and ice on the ground. We left on March 22, 1944, we loaded up on some ships to go to Europe. In Liverpool England we landed. I was so sick, so sea sick on that ship I hardly ate. But they had good food on there. They had eggs. You never get eggs in the United States, maybe powdered eggs, but anyhow we landed in England and prepared for the Invasion. I didn't know what it was. In May we had a practice invasion at Devonshire England at what they call Slapton Sands. It was somewhat similar to the beaches in Normandy. What happened at that practice invasion was a disaster. I didn't know it, but my regiment, the 357th made our landing with packs and everything OK, but the 359 or 358 had a disaster. The Germans, with small PT boats, snuck in there and the navy was supposed to be guarding that water-way, but they somehow got in. And they sunk some of those boats that the troops were in and we lost over 600 men…drowned…before the invasion. They kept it quiet. Gen. Ike ordered this to keep morale up, nothing was said about it until about 20 years after I got back, I read it in the paper. The people at Devonshire didn't know what was happening, but I saw what was going on. I could see the bombs, the splashing of the water and I thought that was just part of the excersise. We lost 600 men right there.

We loaded onto boats at Whales, Bathe England. They put us in a big compound for a week or so, until we could load up on ships to go make the invasion. I made the invasion. It's not a pretty thing. They talk about this movie (Saving Private Ryan.), something about uh… They thought I should go see that…I don't want to go see that. I was part of it and I don't need to go relive the misery! I don't like to talk about that much.

Utah Beach. I was next to the 9th divisions and the 4th and the 1st, the big red one. Americans had Omaha and Utah. The Canadians had a beach; the English had a beach. I was a platoon leader for a heavy weapons company, with machine guns. I was attached to an infantry company, K Company, under Capt. Woodrow Allen. He was a tall Texas AM man. I had just graduated from AM. He was a few years older than me, and he was the company commander. A dern good man. I was in support of him. I had 4 machine guns, water-cooled. Only one time we set up. Most of the time we fought with rifles. These men carried the tri-pod on their back; one man carried the barrel. You carried a carbine or a rifle to protect yourself. We got in skirmishes with the Germans all the time. In the hedgerows in France, we would be close to each other, about from here to my fence over there (He points toward an old wooden fence outside of his glass sliding door, about 20 yards away) sometimes even closer. The hedgerows had shrubbery growing, like lagustrums. It was a fence, for property line. The Germans would be right on the other side of that, we'd been marching and the Germans were all set up with 88 mm cannons, rapid-fire rifles, all kinds of stuff. So we had heavy casualties. We stayed till May of 1945.

Before the invasion, back in England, Gen. Patton, and Gen. Middleton talked to us about the invasion. Well, Patton he was a ruff-n-tuff sort of fellow. I remember one statement he made, "don't wait till you see the whites of their eyes, shoot the SOB's before that." Then Middleton spoke. He was a Corp Commander, Third Army.

It was about 6 weeks before we broke out of Normandy. Some of us (the 90th) went to Cherbourg; the rest of us went south, all the way to Paris. I didn't know what was going on. You didn't know where you were half the time. They changed the orders all the time. Casualties were high even in the higher-ranking. Col. Sheeggie, the Regimental Commander was killed. Your mind just goes haywire with all that killing and bombing, your losing your men right and left. Captain Allen was promoted to Battalion Commander and the next day he was killed.

(He goes back to the voyage across the English Channel.) We were on a big ship, and we would go down a net to the little Higgins boats, the boats made in New Orleans. Planes were passing over. At that time in my life I was very young and ready for adventure and excitement. It didn' t take long. But I was kinna scared myself, I WAS SCARED! I won't lie to you. Americans are strange people. They talk about if you shoot in the bushes, you might shoot some civilians, women and children, but hell you don't know what's in those bushes, you're scared as hell, and you have to protect yourself! I hear about that in the news media. News makes a big deal out of it. Hell I know that I shot in some bushes many a times, I don't know if I killed somebody or not, I probably have. I've seen some of my men kill some Germans right out. That still worries me, it stays on my mind.

Living in England, well we didn't get to see too much of England, we trained all the time. We'd march through the countryside 5 or 10 miles a day, for excersise. What was left in England was old people, women young and older who were left to do the work. I admired the British people, because all their young men were in the service, they were fighting in the war. Also, they were getting bombed almost every night, so they did the best they could. But the American soldiers criticized them; they are backwards, they don't know how to do anything. One time, after the V-E Day, in Salisbury England, a British Crack-fighting unit came home. The Americans were at this big dance hall partying. They had the biggest fight between the two, and they beat the tar out of the Americans. That made the newspaper.

On July 10, 1944 I was wounded crossing a hedgerow. I was on guard detail. I was going to check on that. It was kind of drizzling and it was early in the morning. I slipped and fell, I was carrying my carbine with the barrel down, to keep the water from getting into the gun. That gun went off and a bullet cracked the bone in my leg and I spent at least six months in England in a hospital. Till this day I wear support hoes, cause it swells up. After that, they put me training a company of soldiers who were going to Europe. We were doing what they called Liberty Service. I was with other officers and NCO's who had fought in Europe and who could return. I trained 200 men how to be disciplined and how to shoot a rifle, automatic machine guns. I trained them for 4-6 weeks and then they went off. I told them to write me letters and let me know how they were doing, and some of them did. They tell me they appreciate the misery that I put them through. (No doubt his tuff training help save some of their lives)

(The piece of wood is a cricket board. He played cricket in the hospital. On the back is a map and an inscription- HMS Deminion Monarch. Gen. Collins, March 1944. The map depicts his journey across the channel to Normandy and the little towns he must have traveled through during the breakout.) St. Mare Eglise was a town of about 5,000, it was completely destroyed, I mean just rubble. We went right through it.

(He gets up again, walks into the hallway and comes right back with a small prayer book and a picture of himself in uniform in April 1945.)

I went back to the States and they sent me to Augusta George, to a hospital there. It was a resort hotel that the Army made a hospital out of it. It was a good-time place, let's put it that way. While I was there they straightened out my leg. They had a golf coarse, swimming pool, a dinning hall, gymnasium, and a chapel. At night they would have a nightclub. The nurses would come. (The Army took care of him on the way out!)

(During his interview, Mr. Derouen describes his feelings toward the British; how he admires them and describes why, he also talks about the French people, who he doesn't care for very much. He says the French take two hours for lunch. He also talks about a situation involving German prisoners; we take it up from here…)

One time some German prisoners were supposed to put supplies on a train. They were working kinna slow and I saw what they were doing, and I said "Look, if y'all don't get that train straighten out I'll take you behind those bushes and I'll show you what I’ll do to you." I meant it-and I didn't mean it. But I think he understood what I meant. For the longest time I hated Germans, even after the war, but my youngest daughter Michelle married a German from Germany. I didn't like him for a long time, but he is a fine young fellow, he works, they got married and have three beautiful children. He has a Ph.D. from LSU in Geography.

December 1941 I was teaching at Texas AM, I graduated June 6 1941 from AM, June 6 1944 was the invasion. I got my commission from LSU in 1939. I was born in New Iberia, across from the Evangeline funeral home. We lived in several places in New Iberia.

(I asked Mr. Derouen if he had ever ran into anyone from this area while traveling during the war) I wanted to tell y'all. I ran into Butch Kennedy, he played football for LSU when I was there. He was a husky fellow. He was a paratrooper. He got wounded in his thigh. We met in England and spent time together. I asked him, being a paratrooper, "how come you paratroopers are so brave", cause right after we made the invasion a lot of those paratroops had been dropped, and a lot of them landed in St. Mare Eglise, they were hanging from trees, dead, probably shot or what. The ones that landed were hunting for Germans. Butch told me, he said " You know, before me make that jump up there, we don't know whether that parachute is going to open or not, so when we hit the ground we feel safe and we are ready to take on anything". Y'all know Eddie Gatto. (Just then, my grandfather, Hewitt Theriot says out loud, "Don't tell me you know Eddie Gatto.") I didn't know him very well, but I know he died in Normandy. (My grandfather stands up from across the room and walks over to Mr. Derouen very excitedly and very happy to know of someone who knew his friend. He begins to tell a story that I first heard weeks ago about Eddie Gatto.) Hewitt says, 'It so happens that Gatto was my fraternity brother at LSU, Catholic fraternity at LSU, and we got to be very friendly. Recently a story appeared in the Times Picayune about Eddie. I have a son in New Orleans who I asked to go find Eddie Gatto's Grave and he did, wait I gotta go back. Some time after the war we went to the Normandy beachhead and I know that Eddie had died there so I went to the custodian at the grave. He had a book and I asked him I he could tell me where the grave of Mr. Eddie Gatto was. He said that I am so happy to tell you that the body of your friend was returned to New Orleans a few years ago'-Hewitt Theriot.

I ran into a football player in London, he was a big fellow, he was an all-American Tightend. I can't remember, but if you called his name…(Mr. Theriot says, " It wouldn't be Cavenauh?") "CAVENAUH. TIM CAVENAUH!" Mr. Derouen says loudly. We talked a little while in London. (Mr. Theriot says, "Tim Cavenauh, I can see him right now on the football field.")

(Feeling comfortable talking with us now, Mr. Derouen continues, excitedly…)Let me tell y'all about another little incident that happened to me just before I was shipped back to the United States. I was able to get a week's trip to Switzerland and the Army paid for it. 35 soldiers and officers could go on it. So we went up to a skiing resort in the Alps. But I couldn't ski because of my leg. But the hotel where we stayed was a girls ski club. At night they had an orchestra that played music and we could dance. These girls were Swiss and could speak broken English, but we got along good with them. I made friends with the ski instructor, and uh I really…(In the middle of his sentence he looks over, at his wife, whom is sitting across from the room.) she's look'n here now. (As he gently points towards his wife).

(About his wife) If you want to know the truth, I knew her since we were children, and when I got back to New Iberia in July, 1946, she lived right across the street from me, so my mama told me " why doncha take Lela out, so I took her out, and that was the beginning of the romance and a year later we were married. And Louisiana Tech gave me a job, they came to see me in the hospital in Georgia, and we had a little apartment there in Ruston. In 1948, LSU gave me a job.

I went to school from 1935-39. As a graduate Assistant in '39, I was paid $50 a month from TX AM to go study animal science. Room, board, and laundry was $30 a month. The second year I got a $10 increase, $60 dollars a month. I was saving all that money, and getting rich. Then in June 1941, they hired me to teach, they paid me between $300-$400 a month. I bought me a suit to wear. My first suit since I left New Iberia.

(Lela Derouen speaks) I was working for selective service; I was responsible for sending the boys off. Everyone was issued a draft number and when it was time, the board would review the files and pick the numbers of persons who were to go. They would send a notice by mail to your address.

(I asked him if he was informed as to the situation developing in Europe while he was at TX AM before the war.) Yes I was reading about it, I even tried to go in before my time. I wrote the war department and asked to go, they wrote back and said, 'when we get ready and we need you we'll call you.' You see I was in the cadet Corp at LSU. I was commissioned a 2nd Lt. I was on the regimental staff. We were well informed.

I wore an olive green square with a T and an O. It stands for 'Tuff Ombrey'.