WWII veteran Q&A: 'I was scared like everybody else'

He was assigned to a heavy machine gun unit. He served in France, the Netherlands and Germany. He underwent heavy artillery fire and being targeted by snipers. He even suffered a collapsed lung.

By COLLIN BREAUX
News Herald Reporter
@PCNHCollinB

PANAMA CITY — Luck was on Charles Humphries’ side during World War II.

He was assigned to a heavy machine gun unit. He served in France, the Netherlands and Germany. He underwent heavy artillery fire and being targeted by snipers. He even suffered a collapsed lung.

But in the end, he escaped with no major injuries.

Humphries served in the Army for about 2½ years, from 1943 to 1945. He began his career with a machine gun unit in the 104th Division. His first brush with death came the day after he was removed from his machine gun post after suffering a collapsed lung. The man put in his place died the next day.

It would be among more than 5,000 casualties in the 104th before the war’s end.

At times, the division had the opposite problem, battling monotony as they sat in the orchards in Normandy for six weeks doing nothing.

After the war ended and he returned home to Hollywood, Florida, Humphries became a clinical psychologist, conducting tests and treatment plans, mostly in mental hospitals.

He moved to Panama City in 2013 to be near his daughter and her husband. They help Humphries care for his wife, who has Alzheimer’s and is living in a nursing home. The News Herald recently caught up with Humphries to ask him about his World War II experiences and what he now thinks about the war.

The News Herald: So tell me a little about your World War II experiences.

Humphries: Well, it was a very strange career. I was drafted in April of 1943. I lived in Hollywood, Florida, and went up into the induction center, stayed there two days. I didn’t know when I’d ever see my family again. Two days I was back in Miami Beach in the Air Corps, and I stayed there for a couple of months doing basic.

I became a buck private in the infantry, and I was sent to the 104th Division. I was assigned to a heavy machine gun unit, and I did that for about a month. And then I got a severe pain in my chest, couldn’t breathe. It was a collapsed lung. And so I quit training with the machine gun, and so instead I began to help out with (a) personnel clerk. When we went overseas, they put me back in the machine gun unit. Well, they didn’t want me because I didn’t have any training, so they made me a company runner.

NH: This whole time, how did you feel?

Humphries: I was scared like everybody else. It was a tough battle. The Germans did not want to lose, but we did it. I was under artillery fire, I was under mortar fire, sniped at. Got shelled (laughs). Everything missed. … We moved into Germany and began capturing one German town after another. I personally never had a chance to shoot at anybody. I did my job.

NH: When did you return home?

Humphries: We returned home within two weeks after the war was over in Germany. We were all set to go to Japan. They gave us a furlough, and then we had to go to California, which we did, and at that point the war ended when they dropped the atomic bomb.

NH: What was it like for you returning home?

Humphries: It was really kind of funny. When I was discharged in December of 1945. they gave me $250 to fly to Hollywood, but I bought a bus ticket for $50.

It took me a week to get home. I called up my home. My mother answered, and she said, “Who is this?”

And I said, “This is Charles.”

She said “Charles who?” That was my greeting coming home.

I said, “I’m your son.” I tell people I wouldn’t do it again for a million dollars.

Charles Creighton Humphries