Lloyd Berard; Jason Theriot; Hewitt Theriot; Mrs. Lloyd Berard

-Berard had a deferment and worked on a dredge boat in Panama
-Stationed in Morgan City and every week had to go to Lafayette for a checkup for the draft board
-decided to just join instead of waiting (1942)
-Put him on limited duty at Camp Beauregard and the officer in charge tore up the papers and got him new orders
-Camp Claiborne for basic training for 13 weeks and (physically) built up that camp as the 372nd Engineers
-assigned to the engineers because of past experience (as a tug boat captain?)
-Went to Fort Belvor, Virginia; his crew was almost as good as the 331st Engineer Regiment
-Crossed on the Queen Mary to Birmingham, England and then hitched hiked 150 miles (a week) to South Wales
-England didn’t have the resources to spare to transport them

-They were there to build concrete barges; 2 feet thick, 40 feet high, 150 feet long, 80 feet wide
-Broke big rock themselves and ground it up into concrete with the machinery
-Berard drove the dump truck with the crushed rocks to where they ground them up
-They’d have 5-6 holes in the barges with valves; a barge for either side of ship
-Once in position the valves would open and water would sink it and the ships were then able to land
-They were building these for the landing at the worst place—Omaha beach
-Used tug boats to bring the barges from South Wales to Omaha beach, took 2 ½ days
-Berard was on the position of opening a valve for one of them; they had 8 barges

-Once the barge was sunk they came to England/South Wales and waited around
-Built hospitals, schools, and churches for the English as they were being bombed all the time
-In France they did the same there; whatever was needed to be done the engineers were called, they did plumbing, carpentry work, building Niesent huts

“Mud Barges” (17:22)
-Above water the barge was 8-10 feet, it didn’t need to be above water so much as it needed to be below the water about 5 feet
-It would break the waves in the channel so the ships could land and still maneuver themselves
-Before D-Day (June 6) they brought the first barge in at the end of May to the beach
-The Germans did not think the Allied forces could land there so it was not being watched
-They pulled in right into the bank and dropped the barges and went back to England before the invasion

When Berard was hurt in February 1945 (21:43)
-They were in Briey, France building hospitals and acting as an interpreter for the army
-Berard had 2 truck drivers, 2 helpers and 2 French people to flag traffic for a flat tire on their truck
-They had a German halftrack come to help but the French didn’t know how to drive it; instead of stopping they accidently sped up
-some of the French were against them so Berard never knew who was a friend or not—they could have been inexperienced driving or purposely drove forward
-Berard starting running to the front of the truck (the one with a flat) to catch the side mirror and swing over so they didn’t run him over, but the halftrack caught him before he did that
-The halftrack was coming in slow at first and they thought it was stopping but then they sped up
-the 2 helpers were still fixing the tire and Berard and a driver were by the road
-It crushed his left foot, right hip, right hand and both arms
-he was told that he was the only one hurt and later found out the other 3 men were killed
-All 3 of these men had been with Berard since Camp Claiborne
-Going back to the States he went from England to Camp Shank, New York and then to Tennessee

Speaking French (31:58)
-In one place they were in at France, he had to go to a hardware store frequently
-Berard had become friendly to the owner and he was invited to their house for dinner sometimes
-One day on a visit to him, Berard had gotten a letter with photos of his 2 nieces and showed the man

-“And I said, in French, like I would at home, “Me chichnes.” (my lil nieces)” (the old way of saying it)
-“So he called his wife and said to me, “dis come ta dis” (say it like you said it)
-But then I tried to say it in real French. “No, no,” he said, “say it like you said it.” So he tells his wife, “They talk just like us. They speak the same patois”
(talking about the French language 35:30)

Translating (38:27)
-Berard would go to the lumberyard to find pieces of wood (2x2)
-However French were on the metric system so it was more like a 3x3
-In one town a Frenchman told Berard that there was a cheese factory and as an American he could have as much cheese as he wanted but the French were rationed
-he was asked to get some cheese for the this man
-Got 10-12 blocks of cheese and the Frenchman wanted to hide the cheese; but it was Lambo cheese so it smelled

Recovery Back Home (41:40)
-Came back home on crutches and in a boot
-Had a month leave in New Orleans where he met his wife
-Most of his family was in New Orleans working in the shipyards and she was staying with his sister
-That night they threw a party for him and they danced all night long
-They danced the whole month when they could

-Went to Memphis, Tennessee and then shipped him out to Texas
-Never did get a purple heart

Talking about family history and family members (45:25)

Transcription:

Lloyd Berard
Coteau Holmes
372nd Engineers
ETO

I had a deferment from the service. I was working on a dredge boat in Panama. When the job was over I went to Morgan City. The dredging company had a yard over there in Morgan City. Every week I had to come to Lafayette for a check up with the draft board. I decided that instead of coming to Lafayette every week, I just a soon join. That was 1942.

I had asthma, so I was supposed to be a 4F. They put me on limited duty. I went to Camp Beureguard and gave the officer in charge of recruits my papers and told him, “I’m under limited service.” He said, “Yeah! Unlimited Service!” And he tore up my papers and said he would get me some new orders.

Then we went to Camp Claiborne. There were camps all over Louisiana: Beureguard, Polk, Claiborne, and Barksdale. Claiborne was probably the biggest. We took our basic training there: 13 weeks. We built that camp up, the 372nd Engineers. After 13 weeks we went to Arkansas and worked on the levee. Then, we came back to Claiborne. From there we went to repair the levee in Mississippi that had broke.

I was assigned to the engineers because of my experience before the war. When we came back from Mississippi, we went to Fort Belvor, Virginia. The 331st Engineer Regiment was the top engineers in the Army, all the way back to WWI. And we were almost as good as they were. In fact, when it came to laying mats for landing airplanes in the swamp, we beat them. So, we had a pretty good working crew.

We crossed the Atlantic on the Queen Mary. It took us nine days because there were German torpedo boats all over the ocean. We landed in Birmingham, England. We had to walk to South Wales. England was really down n out; there was no transportation. They couldn’t transport us to South Wales, so we marched. That was about 150 miles. It took us a week. We had a full field pack and a lot of equipment. At night we’d take over a little field or a little town, like as if we passed through Coteau Holmes and just took it over. Let’s face it; we had priority. But the British were glad that we had come there.

We were sent to South Wales to build these concrete barges—mud barges we called them (Code name Phoenix). They were big, bigger than a house. The thickness of the walls was a little over two feet. That thing was about 60-foot high, 150-foot long and 80-foot wide—a big block of iron rods and concrete.

We broke the rocks ourselves. We took big rocks and crushed them with our big machinery. I was driving a dump truck. They’d load me up with crushed rock and I’d go dump them where they would make the concrete.

We had five or six holes, eight inches in diameter, with valves. When you got the thing where you wanted it, you opened the valves and the water would come in and it would sink. You’d sink one here and one here where a ship could come in to be able to land. This place where we were supposed to be landing—Omaha beach—was the worst place to land.

The Germans were sure that was one place that we could not land. So they weren’t watching that place. When they decided to land there, I heard, Eisenhower asked all the other generals where was the worst place to land. And they said Normandy. They said there was no way you can land there. Well he said, “Well that’s where we landing.”

Once it was sunk the barge stood a few feet above water. Actually, you didn’t need to have it above water, just so had it sunk. It could five or ten feet below water. The ships would come in between two barges. The idea was to break the waves for the ships to come in and land. When a ship is out in the open, it can maneuver, but when it gets in close to the beach against the waves—not like coming in at the harbor in New York or the port in New Orleans—the ship becomes too big to handle.

I only went over the Channel with one of them. We built it on like a dry dock. When it was finished, we opened the valves to let water in and then we moved it by tugboat. We took it from South Wales, England to the coast of Normandy. It took us about two-and-a-half days. We got right to the beach. I was on the barge tending one of the valves to open it and sink it. I think we built about eight of them. After we sunk the barge, we came back to South Wales and passed the invasion fleet heading to the beach. We waited around in England building hospitals, schools, little churches. The British had it rough; they were bombarded everyday by the buzz bombs.

Then we crossed the Channel into Normandy. Once we got to France we built buildings and bridges and all kinds of things. Whatever needed to be done, they called the engineers to do it. Some things we couldn’t do, but we tried. We did plumbing and carpentry work and built Niesent huts to use as schools and hospitals. They still have a few Niesent huts in Shreveport, built halfway underground with grass growing over it.

We were in Briey, France, building hospitals. I was an interpreter for the army. When we were building things they needed someone who could speak the language. For instance, when I’m working, I may need 14 two-by-fours. But there are no two-by-fours in France. It’s close, but not two-by-fours. So I’d go to the hardware store and say that I needed 20 pieces like this. Their two-by-four had a measurement that was pretty close. Their two-by-four was closer to a three-by-three. So we had to figure out how to use a three-by-three. So I communicated to the man running the lumberyard.

One day we needed go to this little town about 50 miles away to pick up something and this Frenchman tells me that there is a cheese factory up there. He said, “I can only buy so much, but you can buy all you want.” Because I was an American, I could buy 20 times as much cheese as he could. I told him that I didn’t want any cheese, but he wanted me to buy some for him. I said okay. So we over there and I tell this ole Frenchman selling cheese that I needed quite a bit of that stuff; ten or twelve blocks. So I paid. This old Frenchman put the package in the top of his truck and said, “We need to hide this.” I said, “Hide it, they can smell it.” He said, “If they catch us I’ll tell them it’s for you.” I said, “Yeah, but if they want to catch us all they have to do is smell.” That was lambo cheese.

We moved along the countryside and there were these mountains. Them Yankees called them hills, but to a Cajun, I called them mountains. I didn’t speak French that well, but I could get by. I was buying some supplies from this hardware store. I became friendly with the old man who was running the place. He told me, “Any time to want to eat something and drink some wine, come to my house.” He told me where he lived and said I could come by any time. So I was leaving my barracks when the mailman came and gave me a letter. I went to this old man’s house and was sitting with him on the porch. I opened the letter and there were pictures of my two nieces. They had grown quite a bit in two years. And I said, in French, like I would at home, “Me chichnes.” [my lil nieces] So he called his wife and said to me, “dis come ta dis” [say it like you said it]. But then I tried to say it in real French. “No, no,” he said, “say it like you said it.” So he tells his wife, “They talk just like us. They speak the same patois.” I always tried to speak real French while I was there, but when I got excited, I spoke like we speak at home, which is the ancient French. This old man and his wife spoke the same way. Our French hadn’t changed much.

My mother could write French, in fact she taught school.

On February 16, 1945, I got hurt. I had two truck drivers and two helpers to help fix a flat tire. I had two French people flagging down traffic. We had given the French a captured German halftrack. Evidentially, they didn’t know how to operate that thing. So they were coming and the flagmen flagged them down. They slowed and almost stopped. But when they got a few yards away it looked like they stepped on it. I don’t think that they did it on purpose, but some of those French people were against us. They said that they weren’t used to operating the track.

So I started running towards the front of the truck with intentions of catching the side mirror and swing over the hood of the truck. But they caught me before I got to that. I figured that they might pass over my head and I had my helmet to protect me. But then I figured that the halftrack would have crushed that helmet. So it had to pass over the tire, because they tell me that the halftrack cut two of them boys into three pieces. It had to be that it passed over the wheel before it passed over me.

It crushed my left foot, my right hip, my right hand, and I broke both of my arms. The other three boys were killed. I was in a field hospital in France. I was out for a few days. This lieutenant and this captain came to see me in the hospital. I asked them how the other boys were and they said they were okay. When I got back to the States this lieutenant and I wrote to each other. He told me in a letter that three of them boys were killed. These were three guys who I knew real well. We had been together since Camp Claiborne. I guess the army didn’t want to make things worse by telling me.

From France I went to England, and then I flew to Camp Shank, New York. I stayed in a hospital overnight. The next day I came to Tennessee and stayed at a hospital there.

I came back home on crutches. I had a foot with a shoe that long. And my arm had healed up. So I went on leave for a month in New Orleans and that’s when I met my wife. I had written to her. She was living at my sister’s house while she was working in New Orleans. Almost everybody from here (Coteau Holmes) was working in the shipyards.

That night they had a party for me. And you know the Berard family likes to have parties. So I’m sitting on one side of the room and she was sitting on the other side. I asked her to come, but she didn’t want to come. So I took my crutches and walked across to her. I said, “We’ll dance.” She said, “You can’t walk.” I said, “I can’t walk, but I can dance.” So we danced, danced all night. The next day went out in town to dance. The next day—same thing. That went on the whole month. When I got back to Memphis, Tennessee, in June, the doctor said, “I don’t know what happened, but whatever you did, you did alright.” He said, “We never saw a man so broken, heal so fast.”

We got married on July 18. I never did get a purple heart.