Earl James Erion grew up in Waubun, Minnesota. He was a high school student and young farm boy before he went into the service. He joined the Navy because he did not want to march in the mud. His basic training was in Farragut, Idaho. He turned 17 years old right after the start of basic. After basic, he volunteered for submarine duty and was sent to motor machinist training. He thought it would be quite an experience. He went to Champaign-Urbana, Illinois for the training. His breathing was not adequate for the submarine service due to his adenoids so he went into amphibious service. After Champaign, he went to Little Creek, Virginia for amphibious training. He trained on LCVP(R) rocket boats then shipped out to England prior to D-Day. Erion sailed on his rocket boat from Little Creek to Boston and then to Halifax. The boat's destination in England was Plymouth. It was a long journey with rough seas. The amphibious training was very intensive, but he was in good shape to handle it. While in high school, he ran two miles roundtrip every day to and from the bus stop. That had prepared him physically for his military training. He spent three months in training then shipped out for overseas. He arrived in England in late spring around March or April [Annotator's Note: of 1944]. They trained on the English Channel for rocket firing coordination with invasion assault landings. His was a Higgins Boat with rockets on both sides. They were to go in with the first wave to fire on enemy beach positions. Before the invasion, Erion was transferred to dispatch boats. His dispatch boat was a 35 foot seaplane tender that carried messages between ships as well as to the beach while there was radio silence during the invasion. The boat was speedy and could make 30 knots. The draft of the dispatch boat prevented it from being beached. There was an ensign with a four man crew onboard. The crew included a coxswain, motor machinist, gunner's mate and signal man. Erion was rated motor machinist on the dispatch boat but became the acting coxswain. There was constant training prior to D-Day. Erion's dispatch boat was misidentified as an E Boat [Annotator's Note: the German counterpart to the American PT Boat] because of its speed and the phosphorescent wake behind it at night. The dispatch boat would occasionally draw friendly fire at night. Allied ships would challenge the dispatch boat. The proper response signal had to be given to prevent being considered the enemy. There was no liberty or leave after the D-Day training. Although Erion had broken a bone in his ankle before D-Day, he was told to wear an Ace bandage so he could stay with the crew. He was needed for the action. The men had no idea of when or what was going on prior to D-Day. They had secret orders before the assault. The weather was bad the night before the original invasion date so the dispatch boat returned to port. The first night out, the boat had a broken fuel line. Erion begged other vessels for help and finally he was able to get some tools to repair his boat. The windshield was broken and water came into the vessel.

Earl Erion observed heavy activity on the morning of 6 June [Annotator's Note: 6 June 1944 during the D-Day invasion of Normandy, France]. There were ships shelling the beaches, landing craft being loaded, aircraft flying overhead and full-bore activity everywhere. Battleships fired over the tops of all the ships. It was a grand show. Erion's dispatch boat was used for communication and operated off the flagship USS Ancon (AGC-4). They were close to the beach landings. Being 500 to 600 yards off Omaha Beach, they were busy doing their duty to the point that they could not observe much of the action on the beach. They had to deliver communiques between vessels and later that night to troops on the beach. The dispatch boat could not go directly onto the beach because of its draft. Late during the first evening, a communication officer had to swim to the beach and was to return with messages. The dispatch boat was drawing fire so it pulled back from the beach after the officer left. There was heavy enemy fire. The dispatch boat returned a few times to attempt to locate the officer but could not find him. The attempts were discontinued. There was a lot of overhead aircraft activity. The next day, the dispatch boat went to the beach and the men attempted to get some rest. The boat was crushed and sunk by a CB [Annotator's Note: Naval Construction Battalion] barge. The men were given permission to go aboard some old freighters that had been purposely scuttled in order to form a breakwater. The men had gone 60 or 70 hours without rest. When their boat was crushed, they only had time to jump off with a pair of dungarees and a .45 [Annotator's Note: M1911 .45 caliber pistol]. At mid morning, they flagged a landing craft to pick them up. Erion and the crew stayed on Omaha Beach for a couple of days and then made their way back to the USS Ancon (AGC-4). From there, they were sent to England.

Earl Erion was at a rehabilitation camp in England after D-Day. That was prior to being sent to Glasgow for his trip back to the United States on the Queen Mary. His dad had not heard from him for weeks. Erion managed to get home for his father's birthday. After retraining in the States, he sailed to the South Pacific in time to see the end of the Okinawa campaign. He was assigned to salvage work on the E.C. Stanton [Annotator's Note: USS Elizabeth C. Stanton (AP-69)] which was a troopship. His retraining involved heavy equipment including a vehicle for hoisting and transporting landing craft to a repair facility. His training in the United States was brief. It was intended that they would aid in the final efforts on Okinawa. Erion was 12 miles off the coast of Hiroshima when the big one was dropped. They had to sail around the fallout zone. There was nothing left of the city. It looked like a prairie. Erion and the Stanton had brought troops, nurses and supplies to Okinawa prior to reaching Hiroshima. Kamikazes were working on the ships. One hit a nearby ship but did little damage. A typhoon hit and the Stanton had to head out to sea to stay out of danger. The best that could be done was to head into the wind. The ship was expected to survive a 45 degree roll. The ship was actually seeing a 41 degree roll so they were pretty close. Erion was on throttle watch at the time. The men were skating back and forth on the slippery decks as the vessel rocked. It was a scary situation, particularly when they sustained a severe roll. It was not fun at that time even though the men were seasoned veterans. A new officer came aboard and wanted the men to don helmets when he first heard gunfire. The veteran crewmen refused at first but then accommodated him. The ship's captain was Jack Frost. No more information was available about him since the enlisted men did not communicate much with the ranking officers. Most of the fighting on Okinawa was ending when Erion reached there. From Okinawa, the Stanton sailed as the first unescorted ship into Sasebo Harbor in Japan. Everything was going so fast after the bomb was dropped, that the troops were advancing so quickly that supplies could not keep up with them. Erion's ship dropped off supplies and headed back to San Diego with very little for the crew to eat. They picked up new supplies and headed back to the Pacific. They made Magic Carpet [Annotator's Note: Operation Magic Carpet ships brought troops back from the war zones to the United States after the enemy surrendered] runs back and forth. It was about a seven day voyage back and forth. They would bring wounded and high point personnel back. The last trip was to take German prisoners back to Europe from San Diego. The Stanton blew a boiler on the way back. It took awhile to get the steam back up to power the ship. There were about five or six trips between Japan and San Diego. There were also deliveries of supplies to the Mariana Islands during that time. The last trip with the German prisoners had France as the destination. Returning to Bayonne, New Jersey, the ship went into drydock. Erion went to Fort Stallings, Minnesota to be discharged. That was in spring 1946. He had served in the Navy for 34 months.

Earl Erion fell in love and got married after his discharge from the Navy. He was back in Northern Minnesota. World War 2 broadened his horizons and made him wiser and more confident than he was as a younger man. The youthful military servicemen were ready to defend the country and were happy to do so. Upon reentry into civilian life, they began to scratch out a living. Some used the GI Bill. Erion received his GED but did not go further with his education. The National WWII Museum is important to better understand democracy and the need for world peace. The prior generations before Erion were ethnic people who came to the United States to become Americans. He does not see that today. People come to America now to be in a good country but not to be Americans. If those individuals came to the Museum, they could see the cost of being an American. Erion and his black gang [Annotator's Note: the crew in the engine room of ships at the time was referred to as the black gang] crewmates confiscated the officers' liquor and managed to hide it where they never would find it. The lower bowels of the ship was black gang territory. The officers who lost the liquor were not Navy people. They could not find their liquor no matter how many locker searches they did or how angry they became. The men below had good parties with the illicit liquor. The crew even confiscated an Army jeep for the ship's captain to use. He did not look for the liquor so much after the jeep was given to him. The ship had .30 caliber tripod mounted machine guns to sit on top of the engine covers on each side of the boat. A young gunner's mate had to clean the Cosmoline off the guns. There were rough seas and the man was throwing up while cleaning the guns. It was a mess. The officer had ordered an inspection of the guns after they were cleaned. The first gun washed over the side. The officer told the sick sailor that he might as well throw the other one over the side. That he did to the surprise of the officer. That was probably lucky because if the crew had ever attempted to return fire with that weapon, they would have been taken out for sure. It was an ineffective and useless weapon to use on a ship in an invasion. About the only thing it was useful for was shooting at sharks. It seemed like fun at the time. Sharks would enjoy a feast if they caught a person swimming. There were quite a few sharks in the Channel. Heading toward the big party, they created fun whenever they could. Some played cards but Erion did not do so very much. Lights were out for the most part due to black out requirements. Not much light was allowed after dark. At Plymouth, England they could see the dramatic effects of the enemy bombing. In the United States, there were no conditions similar to that.