119th Anti-Aircraft Artillery Gun Battalion (Mobile)

A Brief History of the 119th
by Howard Simon

The 119th AAA Gun Bn. (Mobile) was formed in April 1943 at Camp Hahn, Riverside, CA, with inductees from the Western United States; California, Washington, Oregon, Utah, Idaho, etc. The battalion consisted of a Headquarters' battery, and four gun batteries A, B, C, and D. Each of the gun batteries had four 90 mm anti-aircraft guns. Our training began at Camp Hahn, then back and forth to the firing range at Camp Irwin in the Mojave Desert thirty-five miles out of Barstow towards Death Valley (115 to 125 degrees in the summer of '43).

As we finalized our training, we went to various locations in Southern and Central California. Our last training assignment was Camp Cooke at Lompoc, which is now Vandenberg Air Force Base. We left from there on March 18 on a troop train for the East Coast. We arrived at Camp Shanks, NY, where we stayed for about a week getting our final physical and medical shots. Our battalion was then ferried down the Hudson River to New York Harbor where we boarded the British ocean liner the S.S. MAURITANIA. We departed March 31, 1944, crossing the Atlantic alone, without a convoy. We arrived in Liverpool, England, on April 8 safe and sound and a new experience for a bunch of young soldiers still in their teens and early twenties. Upon

arrival we took a train to Wales for our first stop, and then spent the next three months moving around Wales and England for further training and preparation for the planned invasion. We were in the Manchester area of England when we learned that D-day was on. The next thirty days we moved closer to the Southern part of England finally arriving on
July 6. Our battalion was then loaded on four LST's the next day for our journey across the English Channel to France. We arrived at Utah Beach in Normandy without incident on July 8, thirty-two days after D-day.

The 119th then went into active combat assigned to Patton's Third Army as an anti-aircraft and field artillery battalion. During the next eleven months,
from France, Belgium, and into Germany, the 119th participated in five major campaigns; Normandy, Northern France, Ardennes, Rhineland and Central Europe. In May 1945, when the war ended, we were in the vicinity of Munich, Germany. The battalion was then moved back to Metz, France, where we remained until November and then shipped home in December for our eventual discharge.

As for me, I just turned twenty-one on my way home from the war. Quite an experience.

required to strip down and walk through a long room. If they came to the end of the room and were able to "AH', they passed. Our battery was in such fine physical condition that we passed 100 percent. On the morning of 30 March 1944, we boarded a Hudson River Ferryboat and steamed majestically down stream to the New York Harbor where, to the strains of martial music furnished by a WAC band, we boarded the former luxury liner RMS MAURETANIA. The next morning, 31 March 1944 at 0600, we sailed out of the harbor and got our last look at the "OLD LADY" with the torch through the morning mist.
.....Finally after nine days and ten nights, March 31 to April 8 1944, an American tug and a British Pilot Boat loomed out of the fog, and we guided into Liverpool Docks. We got our first look at the English girls as they sailed by in ferry boats. They seemed to be just as shy and retiring as our orientation talks had led us to believe. They seemed to be very conscious of the fact because each one had a panting GI at her side to give her instructions for mending her ways. We were of course very much impressed by our first sight of England, appearing very majestically from the upper decks of the RMS MAURETANIA. After that sea voyage any land would look majestic. We staggered off the ship at 0200 Easter Morning, carrying all of our equipment, which included a full field pack, an over-stuffed bag, complete with rifle, steel helmet and overcoat. Some of the unfortunates were dragging battalion records behind them. In spite of the early hour of the morning we were treated to a little touch of America in the form of American Red Cross girls who served coffee and doughnuts. We boarded a dehydrated something which in England passes for a public conveyance, and known to us as a train. It was so small it took considerable squeezing and wiggling to get into our compartments with our equipment on. Then came the task of removing our packs and making ourselves comfortable for our train trip.