Charlie Lomax was born in January 1921 in East Spencer, North Carolina. He graduated from Wake Forest University [Annotator's Note: in Winston-Salem, North Carolina] and joined the Navy. He entered the Navy in Norfolk, Virginia and was then sent to Jacksonville [Annotator's Note: most likely Naval Air Station Jacksonville in Jacksonville, Florida]. From there he went to Northwestern [Annotator's Note: in Evanston, Illinois] for Midshipmen School. It was sort of a secret mission to go into the Amphibious Force [Annotator's Note: Naval Amphibious Forces] and he volunteered for it. He was then sent to Little Creek [Annotator's Note: Naval Amphibious Base Little Creek, now Joint Expeditionary Base-Little Creek in Virginia Beach, Virginia] to train with LCMs [Annotator's Note: Landing Craft, Mechanized] and LCVPs [Annotator's Note: Landing Craft Vehicle, Personnel or LCVP; also known as the Higgins boat]. He went to Saint Mawes [Annotator's Note: Saint Mawes, England] for training in the English Channel and the Atlantic Ocean. They had a casualty when an LCM that was being used to haul contaminated ammunition to the sea to dump exploded, killing the crew. That was after the invasion [Annotator's Note: D-Day; the Allied invasion of Normandy, France on 6 June 1944]. Lomax had joined the Navy because he took aviation training at home. He failed his Air Force exam due to being underweight. He decided to go in the Navy as an enlisted man. After he finished in Norfolk, Virginia, he went to Aviation Machinist school in Jacksonville [Annotator's Note: most likely Naval Air Station Jacksonville in Jacksonville, Florida]. They found out he had a degree and sent him to Northwestern, after which he joined the Amphibious Force. They trained at Little Creek for about three or four months. He was in an LCM. Then he went to England on the HMS Castle [Annotator's Note: unable to identify]. They went by train to Saint Mawes.

Charlie Lomax [Annotator's Note: a Naval officer in a special communications task force in the Naval Amphibious Forces] went from Liverpool [Annotator's Note: Liverpool, England] by train to Saint Mawes [Annotator's Note: Saint Mawes, England]. They went to HMS Poole [Annotator's Note: RM Poole, Royal Marines Base Poole, near Hamworthy, England], a British base. About three weeks before the invasion [Annotator's Note: D-Day; the Allied invasion of Normandy, France on 6 June 1944], a special task force was formed. Allied Headquarters decided there could be no communication by radio. The task force was made by nine ships given to them by the British. They were seaplane tenders [Annotator's Note: a boat or ship that supports the operation of seaplanes] and very small. They had about three weeks to train on them. They lost one vessel in England before the invasion. The eight followed a larger boat because they had no navigation devices. The English Channel was rough, and they took on a lot of water. They left England on 5 June [Annotator's Note: 5 June 1944] around two a.m. [Annotator's Note: in the morning] but were called back due to weather. On 6 June [Annotator's Note: 6 June 1944] they left at two a.m. The invasion started at five a.m. He was under the supervision of the USS Ancon [Annotator's Note: USS Ancon (AGC-4)]. Lomax's first mission was to take some communications from the admiral on the Ancon to a British admiral on the beach [Annotator's Note: he believes it was Juno Beach, the beach landed on by Canadian troops, in Normandy, France]. It was dark and Lomax had to return to Omaha Beach [Annotator's Note: one of the two American landing beaches in Normandy, France, the other being Utah Beach]. Most of the ships would not let him tie up to them. He tied to one and did not tell them. He went to Omaha Beach at daylight. He was in a life vest. Ensign Jones [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling; unable to identify] was dressed to go to the beach, so Lomax took him there. On another mission, he picked up an Army guy from a Duck [Annotator's Note: DUKW, six-wheel-drive amphibious truck] that was being swamped. Lomax had to go to the shore to find out what was going on and then would report back to the Ancon. The sea got so rough that they had to fly everything into France. During that storm, they lost all eight of their boats. They returned to LCVPs [Annotator's Note: Landing Craft Vehicle, Personnel or LCVP; also known as the Higgins boat] and LCMs [Annotator's Note: Landing Craft, Mechanized] to do more missions for about a month. Once Cherbourg [Annotator's Note: Cherbourg, France] was captured, Lomax was put on the admiral's staff and sent there. When they captured Le Havre [Annotator's Note: Le Havre, France], he went there. His old unit came through there on the way to cross the Rhine [Annotator's Note: Rhine River in Germany]. At Le Havre, they needed an aviation officer to take charge of the airport. He was selected and had German prisoners reporting to him. There were two fighter pilots who radioed him that they had to land because they were out of gasoline. One went into the muddy land, and one was turned upside down. The German prisoners dug him out and he was fine. Lomax was then sent to England to the air office in London. They monitored the passenger airlines and put mail on the planes.

Charlie Lomax [Annotator's Note: a Naval officer in a special communications task force in the Naval Amphibious Forces] and three others had to move communications and take messages [Annotator's Note: on D-Day; the Allied invasion of Normandy, France on 6 June 1944]. They also took people to the beach. Once, Ensign Jones [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling; unable to identify] and Lomax got fired upon. They jumped in a foxhole. The Germans were shelling with 88s [Annotator's Note: German 88mm multi-purpose artillery]. They hit an LCT [Annotator's Note: Landing Craft, Tank] that a friend of his was on. The USS Ancon (AGC-4), which the Germans knew was a communication ship, had many fighters [Annotator's Note: fighter aircraft] sent against it. One crashed into it and Lomax was aboard. It did very little damage. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks Lomax to describe the secrecy around his task force leading up to D-Day; the Allied invasion of Normandy, France on 6 June 1944.] His group was formed too late, and the other ships were not aware of their mission. They probably received friendly fire due to that. On the Ancon, they had to use rope ladders, which in the high waves was quite dangerous. The Ancon was about five miles out and Lomax had to go into the beach from there. After the invasion, the Army engineers built a wharf. On the beach, they would get stuck in the sand. Many of the soldiers had to swim to the beach. On the invasion, he could see a tremendous force. There were aircraft, battleships, Navy ships, rocket boats [Annotator's Note: Landing Craft Tank (Rocket)]. He was just a little, bitty part of it and did not know much about what was going on. On D plus 2 [Annotator's Note: two days after D-day or 8 June 1944], the Germans were still firing 88s at the beach.

Charlie Lomax [Annotator's Note: a Naval officer in a special communications task force in the Naval Amphibious Forces] went ashore at Omaha Beach [Annotator's Note: Omaha Beach, Normandy, France] on 6 June [Annotator's Note: D-Day; the Allied invasion of Normandy, France on 6 June 1944]. He did not know enough to be scared. The messages he was delivering were Top Secret and he did not know what they were. He did go ashore to see what was going on. They would talk to the Beachmasters [Annotator's Note: military officer in charge of the disembarkation phase of amphibious warfare] and take the information back to the admiral on the Ancon [Annotator's Note: USS Ancon (AGC-4)]. One of Lomax's missions was to pick up General Bradley [Annotator's Note: US Army General Omar Nelson Bradley] at Omaha Beach. Bradley boarded his boat because his PT-boat [Annotator's Note: patrol torpedo boat] had not arrived, but it came before Lomax had to take him anywhere. Bradley was very serious-looking and was concerned about how well the invasion was going. There were four stations at the Ancon to handle communications and four on Utah Beach [Annotator's Note: Utah Beach, Normandy, France]. He never saw the ones in Utah. The Ancon was a huge ship with all of the antennas. It handled all the communications back to the United States. One of his missions was to get film that would be sent back to England. [Annotator's Note: After Cherbourg, France was captured, Lomax was assigned to the admiral's staff.] He was in operations. The main thing he did was to determine what could be done. They were not there long before going to Le Havre [Annotator's Note: Le Havre, France]. He was an operations officer there too. They conducted flights of Navy aircraft and the ships. One ship had a crew they were taking from Cherbourg to Le Havre was sunk by a German u-boat [Annotator's Note: German for submarine]. Most of the crew got to shore.

Charlie Lomax [Annotator's Note: a Naval officer in a special communications task force in the Naval Amphibious Forces] saw rocket boats [Annotator's Note: Landing Craft Tank (Rocket)] but was not on one [Annotator's Note: on D-Day; the Allied invasion of Normandy, France on 6 June 1944]. He was on a British airplane tender [Annotator's Note: a boat or ship that supports the operation of seaplanes] and later worked at the airport [Annotator's Note: in Le Havre, France]. There were daily flights by the Army Air Corps, three or four a day. He did communications, serviced aircraft, and put cargo on them that was sent to other places. It was like being a flight controller. He started this about the time of the Bulge [Annotator's Note: Battle of the Bulge or German Ardennes Counter Offensive, 16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945]. He did not know what was going on. The Red Cross [Annotator's Note: Red Cross, an international non-profit humanitarian organization] and the newspaper kept them advised of what was going on. He got to take flights. A guy came to Le Havre and had some French money that was due to expire. Lomax and he flew to England, went to a bar, had a drink, exchanged their money to American dollars, and flew back to Le Havre all in one day. It was about 100 dollars, which was a lot of money then. Lomax returned to England. He was in London [Annotator's Note: London, England] for about nine months. The war ended and he went back to the United States in December 1945.

Charlie Lomax [Annotator's Note: a Naval officer in a special communications task force in the Naval Amphibious Forces] was in London [Annotator's Note: London, England] going to the Red Cross [Annotator's Note: Red Cross, an international non-profit humanitarian organization] to see his wife. He had been married in Rheims, France on the day the war ended. He could hardly move due to the people. He heard quite a few gunshots. London was quite different after the war was over. They had a beautiful officers' mess in London. Lomax stayed in the Navy. He retired as a commander. He was on active duty until around 1950. He got out of the Navy in 1954 and went in the Reserves. He was stationed in New Jersey. He did his duty at Floyd Bennett Field [Annotator's Note: now Floyd Field Historic District in Brooklyn, New York]. He was transferred to Alameda [Annotator's Note: Naval Air Station Alameda in Alameda, California] for two weeks each year. He retired in the early 1960s and went to work for Curtiss-Wright [Annotator's Note: Curtiss-Wright Corporation] engine company for about five years. A friend of his went to Lockheed [Annotator's Note: Lockheed Martin Corporation] and asked him to come to Sunnyvale [Annotator's Note: Sunnyvale, California]. Lomax accepted and stayed close to 25 years. He retired from them. Lomax did not talk about the war when he came home. He wanted to get rid of it. A lot of what he did was Secret or Top Secret. Later on his family got him talking about it. He has talked about it since. The war changed his life. He had graduated from Wake Forest [Annotator's Note: Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina] and was supposed to teach in North Carolina. Prior to going in the Navy, he worked for a Pontiac [Annotator's Note: American automobile brand] dealer for about six months.

Most people do not remember anything and it [Annotator's Note: World War 2] is foreign to them. Charlie Lomax does not think it is important to teach it to future generations. It was important to him, and he hopes there is never another. The fighting being done now is not something he is sure he agrees with it. He thinks the Museum [Annotator's Note: The National WWII Museum in New Orleans, Louisiana] is important and has been to the one in Washington [Annotator's Note: World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C.]. He thinks it is marvelous the museum was built where Higgins Industries was [Annotator's Note: Higgins Industries in New Orleans, Louisiana]. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer speaks to family off-camera about more stories.] During his training in Saint Mawes [Annotator's Note: Saint Mawes, England as a Naval officer in a special communications task force in the Naval Amphibious Forces], they cut the ramp out of ship and put a tank in it. The tank sunk the boat. The only real loss they had in England was when they were training in the Atlantic [Annotator's Note: Atlantic Ocean]. They put a tank on the boat, it shifted, and they lost the crew, boat, and tank. He did not take fire [Annotator's Note: enemy fire on Omaha Beach during D-Day; the Allied invasion of Normandy, France on 6 June 1944] when taking messages back and forth. There was so much firing going on that you just did what you had to, to survive. He carried a pistol [Annotator's Note: .45 caliber M1911 semi-automatic pistol] and a carbine [Annotator's Note: .30 caliber M1 semi-automatic carbine]. Some of the enlisted men who were interviewed thought they had .50 calibers [Annotator's Note: Browning M2 .50 caliber machine gun]. They did on the LCMs [Annotator's Note: Landing Craft, Mechanized], but not on the airplane tenders [Annotator's Note: a boat or ship that supports the operation of seaplanes]. The airplane tenders were 50-foot boats that were low in profile. They were the smallest boats to cross the English Channel [Annotator's Note: on D-Day]. They took on a lot of water and they all survived. He is not sure about the ones at Utah [Annotator's Note: Utah Beach in Normandy, France]. The Germans were still firing the 88s [Annotator's Note: German 88mm multi-purpose artillery] at D plus 2 [Annotator's Note: two days after D-day; in this case 8 June 1944]. The Army had a difficult time going ashore and got up the hill around D plus 2. A lot of ships were lost due to the firing.

Charlie Lomax was in the Reserves [Annotator's Note: US Naval Reserve] about eight years. That was mostly training one weekend a month and then did two weeks of active duty annually. He went to Hong Kong [Annotator's Note: now Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China]. He was stationed at Andrews [Annotator's Note: now Joint Base Andrews in Prince George's County, Maryland] when the Air Force and the Navy got a joint transport command. The air route to South America was opened, and Lomax was an admiral's aide at that time. At Alameda [Annotator's Note: Naval Air Station Alameda in Alameda, California], he went to the Philippines, Guam [Annotator's Note: Guam, Mariana Islands], and China. Lomax made j.g. [Annotator's Note: Lieutenant, junior grade] in Cherbourg [Annotator's Note: Cherbourg, France]. He made lieutenant when he was in Charleston [Annotator's Note: Charleston, South Carolina]. His first job when he came back from England was in Charleston shutting down a detachment. He got orders to Miami [Annotator's Note: Miami, Florida] and flew to their headquarters. There he was sent to Washington [Annotator's Note: Washington, D.C.], where he spent two years. He was promoted to commander at Alameda while he was in the Reserve.