Chet Graham [Annotator's Note: Chester Earl Graham] was born in Oakland, California in March 1918, and moved around within the state during his childhood and adolescence. He attended the University of California, graduating in 1939, and while attending law school he served as a reserve infantry officer. In 1940, Graham was stationed at Camp Roberts in California where he stayed roughly a year. His infantry training took place at Fort Benning, Georgia. During his stay at Camp Roberts, he got married. Graham was transferred to the 807th Tank Destroyer Unit [Annotator's Note: 807th Tank Destroyer Unit, 83rd Infantry Division] at Camp Cooke [Annotator's Note: now Vandenberg Air Force Base, Lompoc, California] in California, and in September he volunteered for service with the paratroopers. He was sent to Camp Blanding [Annotator's Note: now Camp Blanding Joint Training Center, Clay County, Florida] at Starke, Florida to join the 508th Parachute Unit [Annotator's Note: Company F, 2nd Battalion, 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division]. Of the 5,800 people who tried out, 2000 were selected; of the 400 officers who applied, 80 were selected. The five top commanders were all West Pointers [Annotator's Note: graduates of the United States Military Academy, West Point, New York]. After thirteen weeks training in Florida, he went to Fort Benning, Georgia for four weeks of jump school. After qualifying, Graham went to Camp Mackall in North Carolina. [Annotator's Note: At this point in the interview, Graham gives names and descriptions of some of the men he served with during this phase of his military career.] The battalion went on maneuvers in Tennessee in 1942, where they did more jumps, then returned to quarters in North Carolina. From there they went to Camp Shanks in New York, and, just after Christmas [Annotator's Note: 29 December 1943], they shipped to Northern Ireland. While he was in training in North Carolina, Graham was a First lieutenant and executive officer of F Company, then he was transferred to Battalion S-3 and made captain. The battalion landed in Port Stewart, on the Atlantic coast of Ireland. Graham says it was a delightful place warmed by the Gulf Stream. He stayed there from early January through March [Annotator's Note: of 1944]. Although it rained every day, the nights were clear, and the battalion went out on night maneuvers. Their camp was ten miles from the Bushmills Distillery [Annotator's Note: Old Bushmills Distillery, Country Antrim, Northern Ireland], and Graham said he and a friend spent a few weekends drinking whiskey there. He noted that the lord mayor of Port Stewart issued a letter that addressed fraternization between the soldiers and the young ladies of the town.

Chet Graham [Annotator's Note: Chester Earl Graham] was in Wollaton Park near Nottingham, England where the townspeople accepted them as their regiment. They had a lot of training, but no jumping there, and were eventually moved to various airfields for combat assignments. Graham said they learned French rapidly and were outfitted for battle. The paratroopers saw sand table [Annotator's Note: small-scale map for military planning and training] illustrations of the areas into which they would be going, learning the hills by number. They were given information on what the inhabitants were like. He knew the people were living under occupation and hated the Germans. At his staging airfield, Market Harborough [Annotator's Note: Market Harborough, England], all the planes were ready to go on the fifth [Annotator's Note: 5 June 1944]. The mission was scrubbed that day because of bad weather. It was launched the next day. They crossed the channel [Annotator's Note: English Channel] and approached [Annotator's Note: the Normandy region of France] from the Atlantic beaches. Graham says he could see the waves coming in on the beach as they flew in between Barneville [Annotator's Note: Barneville-Carteret, France] and Mont-Saint-Michel [Annotator's Note: Le Mont-Saint-Michel, France]. They hit a wall of fog, but with the help of instrumentation and a signal from people on the ground, the paratroopers from his plane dropped right on their target. He said that only the lead plane of nine had that electronic device, and the other planes were flying all over. Some people were dropped 25 miles away, but Graham landed three miles from where he was supposed to be, on Hill 30 [Annotator's Note: in Capponet, France], at about 2:30 in the morning. The Germans had searchlights up, which silhouetted the American aircraft, making them easy targets. Graham saw four planes go down. He landed in an apple orchard near a field of farm animals bordered by a dirt road. He hid in blackberry bushes as a German patrol went by. Two of the soldiers walked out into the field. Graham says he had two hand grenades and his .45 [Annotator's Note: .45 caliber M1911 semi-automatic pistol] ready, but they did not approach his hiding place. He remembers that, like many of his compatriots, a medication he had taken to stay awake had the opposite effect on him, and he fell asleep. After a half-hour's nap, the noise of two cows woke him. Around 4:30 he went out to the road, proceeded toward Hill 30, and met about 30 more soldiers who were waiting to see what happened. They moved down to a small development, where Graham met a little boy, who helped him with directions. Thirty years later Graham returned to the town and was reunited with that man.

When he got up to Hill 30 [Annotator's Note: in Capponet, France], Chet Graham [Annotator's Note: Chester Earl Graham] says other soldiers were streaming in, and they began organizing. They set up a perimeter defense, but because the bundles were not dropped near them, they had no heavy weapons. They heard firing to the north, and two men from the 1st Battalion [Annotator's Note: 1st Battalion, 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division] came in to say that some of their men were trapped in a gulley. Graham took eight men and circled the enemy's location. They fired into the rear of about 40 Germans, distracting them from the gully and allowing the trapped unit to escape. When the Germans began machine gunfire, Graham and his men left the scene. They picked up the road to Hill 30 but came under mortar fire. Through his field glasses, Graham spotted the source of the fire which was a church steeple about two miles away. He radioed for artillery, and after a few corrections in coordinates, the steeple exploded, putting an end to the resistance. When they caught up with their unit, it was being held up by German 88s [Annotator's Note: German 88mm multi-purpose artillery]. They pulled back, reorganized into two units that moved around the obstacles, and were able to move back to Hill 30. At one point, Graham and a buddy left the unit to relieve themselves, and when they returned his buddy was hit in the groin by friendly fire. Bleeding too badly to be moved, they left him behind and picked him up two days later. Happily, the soldier lived to father five children. Altogether, Graham's battalion [Annotator's Note: 2nd Battalion, 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division] spent five days on Hill 30, supplementing their Army rations with steaks from executed cows. Unfortunately, a soldier with buck fever killed a farmer who approached the unit to sell livestock. In spite of the tragedy, the farmer's family allowed them to get water from their hand pump. Graham says the unit had a few BARs [Annotator's Note: Browning Automatic Rifles], two light machine guns for which they had no ammunition, and two 60mm mortars [Annotator's Note: M2 60-millimeter Lightweight Mortar] with ammo; the rest of their arsenal consisted of all hand carried equipment. Graham describes the strategic significance of Hill 30: it stood atop a triangle bordered by rivers on its east and south, and a highway leading to the sea where the 4th Division [Annotator's Note: 4th Infantry Division] was landing. The 508th thwarted five attempts by the Germans to cross that highway, including one reinforced tank battalion and a regiment of infantry, stopping their advance with sniper fire and anti-tank grenades. Their unit has been credited with the success of the Allied landing force at Utah Beach.

Chet Graham [Annotator's Note: Chester Earl Graham] addresses the defense of the causeway to Chef-du-Pont [Annotator’s Note: Chef-du-Pont, France] by other units, including the 507th [Annotator's Note; 507th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 17th Airborne Division] and 505th [Annotator's Note: 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division]. He described the action between Etienville [Annotator's Note: Etienville, France] and Chef-du-Pont involving Lieutenant Polette [Annotator’s Note: First Lieutenant Lloyd L. Polette, Jr.], who was awarded a Silver Star [Annotator's Note: the Silver Star Medal is the third-highest award a United States service member can receive for a heroic or meritorious deed performed in a conflict with an armed enemy] for that action. An expected artillery barrage did not materialize, but the attack was carried out anyway, securing the crossings, and preventing the Germans from sending down an armored column. Graham remembers playing cribbage while waiting for his battalion to enter into the action. As Executive Officer of F Company [Annotator's Note: Company F, 2nd Battalion, 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division], Graham served with Lieutenant Polette. [Annotator's Note: Graham names and describes other soldiers of note from his company]. The average age of the men in F Company was just over 19, and they performed exceptionally well in Normandy, but they suffered heavy losses there, and Graham says the backbone of the battalion was shattered.

Chet Graham [Annotator's Note: Chester Earl Graham] went to Baupte [Annotator's Note: Baupte , France], one of the few places where the 2nd Battalion [Annotator's Note: 2nd Battalion, 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division] made an attack on the Germans with fixed bayonets. The Germans fled. Baupte was a German supply depot for Carentan [Annotator's Note: Carentan, France]. After the attack, the battalion liberated enough liquor for each man to have a bottle. Next, the battalion fought for a little while at Saint-Sauveur-le-Vicomte [Annotator's Note: Saint-Sauveur-le-Vicomte, France]. Graham, as Battalion Executive, watched a regiment of the 6th [Annotator's Note: 6th Infantry Division] come by, and its commander marveled that Graham's men weren't complaining about having to move from one side of the road to the other. The 6th's men were older and lacked the esprit de corps and comradeship the 2nd Battalion enjoyed. Graham says his nickname among the enlisted men was Apple Cheeks. The commander of the 6th mentioned that ten of his officers had been shot in 4 days. The battalion spent two or three days blocking German movement toward Carentan, and advanced to within six miles of the ocean, where they attacked a town and then passed through some woods. Colonel Mark Alexander [Annotator's Note: Colonel Mark James Alexander] replaced Colonel Lindquist [Annotator's Note: Major General Roy Ernest Lindquist] as head of the 508th Regiment. Graham says the staff officers resented Alexander's coming in, and the changes he insisted upon. On 3 July [Annotator's Note: 1944], Graham left to get field orders, and when he returned, he learned that Alexander had been injured and hospitalized. Graham took charge of the battalion. The field orders he received called for an attack straight down an open field. Graham objected bitterly but was told he had to do it. One third of the battalion was lost as they came under direct artillery fire. While Graham was talking to his radio operator, the man was killed. The battalion went on toward Hill 95 [Annotator's Note: near La Blanchelande, France] and met the 505th [Annotator's Note: 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division] on the road. Their scout had been shot, and the aide that went to treat him was machine gunned as well. Graham sent men around and behind the Germans, captured them, and turned them over. When he got back on the road, the German prisoners they had just taken were dead on the street. The 505th commander said he didn't tolerate the shooting of the aide men. When the battalion reached the target hill, they were enveloped on two sides, and Graham pulled F Company [Annotator's Note: Company F, 2nd Battalion, 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division] back because it was exposed on the right. His commander told him they do not give up ground they have taken. Graham demanded that he come down here and look, but the commander said he didn't care and ordered the men put back in the attack at the apex of the hill. When Graham argued, his commandant relieved him of duty. That was the end of his combat experience with 2nd Battalion. Reminded that it was Polette [Annotator's Note: First Lieutenant Lloyd L. Polette, Jr.] who came up and told him there were problems, Graham says Polette called the plan a mistake. He told Polette to pull his men back, and he would cover for him. Graham describes Polette as a damned good soldier who got along well with and had the respect of his men.

Chet Graham [Annotator's Note: Chester Earl Graham] recalls when his battalion left Hill 30 [Annotator's Note: in Capponet, France] on 13 June [Annotator's Note: 13 June 1944] and reorganized at Beuzeville-la-Bastille [Annotator's Note: Beuzeville-la-Bastille, France]. At the Douve River. Some men had crossed the Douve River by bridge, but others were crossing in rowboats manned by Frenchmen who had agreed to help. Germans were on the opposite shore, shooting at them, but the battalion had set up a strong point on the other side. Eventually more men were able to cross by bridge. Graham said they had a small problem with French civilians who decided the men should have a little liquid refreshment of Calvados [Annotator's Note: apple or pear brandy from Normandy, France], and some soldiers were intoxicated. There were mixed reports on the combat. Graham acknowledged that he did not witness but had heard of the feats of Lieutenant Polette [Annotator's Note: First Lieutenant Lloyd L. Polette, Jr.] who took care of two tanks with a bazooka [Annotator's Note: man-portable recoilless anti-tank weapon], for which he was awarded his second Silver Star [Annotator's Note: the Silver Star Medal is the third-highest award a United States service member can receive for a heroic or meritorious deed performed in a conflict with an armed enemy]. Graham says Polette was their John Wayne [Annotator's Note: Marion Michael Morrison, American actor]. At this point in the interview, Graham and the interviewer discussed incidents in connection with Colonel Shandly [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling, unable to identify], a man Graham called a one-man gang. On 3 July, Shandly stepped on a land mine and was killed on the road during the attack on Hill 131. Returning to Polette, Graham said he knew him from the time when the two men were in training, and said he was an amazing person. Polette had the best-trained platoon.

Chet Graham [Annotator's Note: Chester Earl Graham] says he became the Regimental Liaison Officer, which is a glorified messenger boy, and it was a wonderful job. In Holland he played rugby. The battalion was attached to a British division six miles from a German air base. The German planes would come over and waggle their wings at the Allied troops. While he was there, he ran into two phantoms, trained radio operators and observers who went where the fighting was taking place to report back immediately to Montgomery [Annotator's Note: Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery]. After the Bulge [Annotator's Note: Battle of the Bulge or German Ardennes Counter Offensive, 16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945] broke, Graham went to Bastogne [Annotator's Note: Bastogne, Belgium] and reported to Gavin [Annotator's Note: Lieutenant General James Maurice "Jumpin' Jim" Gavin]. At Gavin's orders, he diverted the division as directed, then went to breakfast with some of the British phantoms. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks Graham if he was with First Lieutenant Lloyd L. Polette, Jr. in Holland when he died.] Graham was not, although he did visit the field hospital where Polette was being treated, as many of his comrades were there.