Norris Waddill was born in Coryell County in Ireland, Texas in 1922 and grew up on his grandfather's ranch. He had a foot operation at the age of two years old because one foot was shorter than the other. His father gave him a colt at the age of four so he did not do much walking on the ranch. His home was three miles from school. He rode his horse to school. He had long summers to work around the farm and ranch. He mainly worked with the cattle because of his bad foot and the fact that he rode a horse more than anybody in the family. That was his way of life until he got out of high school. He was 19 years old when the attack on Pearl Harbor took place. He remembers the day. He was in San Antonio working at Kelly Field. A friend bought a newspaper and the news of the attack was the headline. The next day everyone seemed to be in the enlistment line. He got in line for the Army but mistakenly was in the enlistment line for the Navy. He did not want to serve in that branch so he attempted to get in the line for the Army but it was closed. By the time he could return to the Army enlistment line, he was drafted and called to serve in the Army.

After induction into the Army, Norris Waddill went to Camp Crowder, Missouri for his basic training. Basic training was normal for Waddill except he did not do the 12 mile hike because of his feet. Instead, Waddill managed to do KP [Annotator's Note: kitchen patrol or kitchen police] for not making his bed correctly. Waddill was trained to be a truck driver because he had indicated that he drove a truck on his family's ranch before induction. He got a job at the motor pool. He qualified as a sharpshooter on the rifle range. He went on learn to shoot a Tommy gun [Annotator's Note: Thompson submachine gun] from the hip. His uncle had taught him how to shoot accurately as a youngster. He qualified as an expert with the Tommy gun after successfully hitting ten targets. That resulted in him being assigned as a messenger armed with a Tommy gun. After basic training, he went to motor pool and was told that he would be there for the duration of the war. His job would be to drive officers around. Waddill felt that the officers had little concern for his vehicle. They would spit their chewing tobacco juice on the side of the jeep or car for him to clean up. He did not like that assignment and wrote home complaining to his family that he wanted out of the motor pool. He said that he wanted to go overseas and that a WAC [Annotator's Note: a member of the Womens’ Army Corps] could do the motor pool duty. Since Generals Eisenhower [Annotator's Note: General Dwight D. Eisenhower] and MacArthur [Annotator's Note: General Douglas MacArthur] were both asking for more men, Waddill got his wish and was assigned to go overseas. WACs were transferred into stateside duty replacing men who were transferred overseas. Waddill was given a five day leave to go home. When he reported back, he was shipped overseas on the Capetown Castle, which was the ship before the Queen Mary. The voyage from New York to Liverpool was very smooth. A convoy of escorting ships was all around their ship. The departure was at night so no one knew they had left port. The Statue of Liberty was not even visible. There was a concern about German submarines. The voyage took 21 days. As he got on the train at Camp Crowder to ship out, a T/5 [Annotator’s Note: Technician 5th Grade] came up behind him with no barracks bag, only shaving equipment. The T/5 was in a tailored uniform. He called Waddill by the nickname of Tex and was with him all the way. It turned out the man was a colonel in the secret service. After his arrival in England, he was admonished by his first sergeant to not write anymore letters home. Waddill complied.

Norris Waddill was selected with two other men to go into the D-Day invasion. He was to accompany the 1st Infantry Division for the landing. He had a master sergeant who was 34 years old. They were on an LST [Annotator's Note: Landing Ship, Tank] when they got the message that they would be going in the next morning. They read a message from Eisenhower [Annotator's Note: General Dwight D. Eisenhower] about the invasion. The Air Force had set their front line to be 50 miles inland. The 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions would be dropped behind enemy lines. The Engineers were to clear mines and obstacles at 5:30 with the first landing of the 1st Division to occur at six and the first landing of vehicles to be 30 minutes later. Waddill was to land with the vehicles. Waddill was with the Signal Corps at this time. His unit had two jeeps and a weapons carrier. Captain Burke [Annotator's Note: unsure of spelling] was in charge of communications. The same individual that Waddill had met at Camp Crowder went over the side of the transport ship with the infantry that was headed to shore. He was a general who had helped in the planning of the invasion. Waddill had to be at the loading area prior to the ship sailing for the assault beaches by 3:30 in the morning. He was the designated driver for his jeep. The jeep was waterproofed to allow for driving underwater as long as the accelerator was not released. Without acceleration, the exhaust would let in water that would choke the engine. Many of the engine components were made waterproof in order to facilitate this ability. A .30 caliber machine gun was mounted on the jeep. A captain, a colonel and a correspondent attached to Waddill's unit loaded out on an LCI, Landing Craft, Infantry, at 1:30. They went in with the infantry. At daylight, a Seabee [Annotator's Note: member of a naval construction battalion] told him that one man and his jeep had already been lost because the waves were 14 feet high. The Seabee told Waddill to follow his instructions. Waddill landed at four in the morning. [Annotator's Note: times are according to Waddill's memory of events.] The LCIs left at one in the morning. At daylight, Waddill's barge went around the cliff on the Normandy beach and the battleship Texas [Annotator's Note: USS Texas (BB35)]. The Navy had been out of sight because the German observers had not spotted them. They managed to get their assault ships close into the beach before being seen. Waddill saw the engineers and the first wave of the assault. Many of the landing craft did not return to the loading ships for more troops. Waddill observed two Me-109 fighters fly over. He saw one shot down and another crippled. The crippled plane headed toward the battleship Texas, but he attempted to hit Waddill's ship instead. He never saw him again. By the time Waddill went ashore, opposition was not that strong. The destroyer Doyle [Annotator's Note: USS Doyle (DD-494)] was shooting machine guns and other weapons toward shore. The ship was hit and rose up out of the water, but got back into the fight. The Seabees started Waddill's unit into the shore. His barge had two 50 horsepower motors powering it. Waddill's barge with its jeeps mounting machine guns was ordered in. They landed close to the cliff. They were among the last of the vehicles to offload from their barge.

Norris Waddill drove off the barge at Normandy and had a dry landing. He saw dead Seabees [Annotator's Note: members of naval consttruction battalions] and a horribly maimed, deceased staff sergeant. Waddill remembered an aerial photograph of the local roadways and decided to not take the main road off the beach. A lieutenant was sitting near the road selected by Waddill. He carried a carbine. He walked over to the jeep and asked Waddill if he was Tex. Waddill confirmed. The officer said he was his new platoon commander. Lieutenant Neagle [Annotator's Note: unsure of spelling] would soon become the company commander. The lieutenant said that Waddill should follow the other vehicles. Waddill explained about the road he remembered from the photographs. As a result, they proceeded on. Soon they came upon some infantry that was hunched down behind bushes and in ditches. One of the men recognized Tex, as Waddill was nicknamed. That was the same squad that he had been assigned to in the marshalling area before load out. Some of the men loaded up on the jeep. The jeep was special because it had wire cutters for clearing enemy barbed wire. The whole squad made it to the farmhouse. Some Germans were cornered in the nearby barn. They were all taken prisoner except for the officer. The German officer had a Mauser rifle with a fixed bayonet. The officer threw the rifle to the sergeant who had been telling him to surrender. Waddill was distracted but then looked again and saw the German officer had been impaled on the rifle with the bayonet.

During the Battle of the Bulge, Norris Waddill was serving as a messenger. He came upon a sergeant he had met before who had just had his 35th birthday. The sergeant had chosen not to reenlist. He was about to go home. Instead, Waddill saw his body in a body bag. The NCO [Annotator's Note: non-commissioned officer] had been going home but had ridden over a mine and was killed as a result. Waddill was wounded during this time frame. He was carrying a bazooka in the rear of the jeep he was a passenger in. When the jeep had to yield to heavy trucks on the road, the bazooka hit a telephone pole and then the spare tire and struck Waddill in the back of the head. It knocked him out and required seven stitches because it was bleeding so profusely. After being treated, Waddill was asked if he wanted to sign up for the Purple Heart. He refused. At the time, he could not see the need to do so. In subsequent years, he felt it might have been a good idea to do so for the veteran's benefits. Despite the injury, his hearing is good even though he is 92 years old. After the Battle of the Bulge, the Americans were in a static and rebuilding position. Even entertainers were coming by due to the relaxed situation. V Corps Headquarters was in a nice location. The code truck was close to the front door of a mansion. There was a tent for additional protection. Waddill was with the 2nd Division at the time. There were four divisions holding the right flank line. There were the 98th and 78th Infantry Divisions. A railroad came out of where they were camped. Waddill saw a buzz bomb [Annotator's Note: German V1 flying bomb] that was said to be headed to London. About 15 minutes later, he got the word that the Germans had attacked. He felt the buzz bomb was the signal to attack. Waddill attempted to get to 2nd Division Headquarters but was held up because of the danger. He passed the mail saddlebag to a tanker attached to the 2nd Division Headquarters. Waddill kept the second saddlebag which he kept loaded with grenades and white lightning. The tanker told Waddill that it was a mess up forward. With the loss of MPs [Annotator's Note: military police], a general was up front trying to sort out traffic. The 99th Infantry Division fell apart but the 78th held. The 2nd Division pulled its flank over to cover where the front had fallen apart. That saved that portion of the Battle of the Bulge and commendations were given for that action. Jack Benny was ready for some golf but was quickly removed from the danger. Eisenhower [Annotator's Note: General Dwight D. Eisenhower] gave the order to regroup 50 miles back. The 2nd Division did not fall back. Because Waddill had a .30 caliber machine gun, he drove all day and night to deliver all the messages and returned to Spa, Belgium. Everything had been done by daylight. At Spa, he saw a hotel with a café. He stopped and brought in a can of gasoline. With a can of gasoline, he could get practically anything he wanted. He had a great breakfast. When he returned to the bar, there were two bottles of cognac. Another can of gasoline got him those bottles of liquor. After leaving Spa, he took a shortcut away from the village of Malmedy. That decision was made on the same morning of the Malmedy Massacre. He was lucky and protected by his guardian angel.

Norris Waddill crossed the Rhine River about a month after Christmas [Annotator's Note: in early 1945]. Engineers were spanning the river with a bridge. The river was about 100 yards wide with a current running at 14 knots. The engineers were under enemy small arms fire. Waddill delivered the mail to them. He came upon a winery that had six barrels of wine. Each of the barrels was about 12 feet high. A sergeant had opened all the spigots and was wading through about a foot of wine. He was totally drunk. Waddill left the location and told an MP [Annotator's Note: military police] about the situation. After the bridge was built, Captain Burke [Annotator's Note: unsure of spelling] and Waddill followed the code truck wherever it went. That was the way it was throughout France, Belgium and Germany. When Hitler took the pill, Waddill and his outfit were headed to Berlin. They were diverted to southern Germany and ended up in Czechoslovakia. The Americans met the Russians on the other side of Pilsen, Czechoslovakia. The unit traveled with a jeep with a .30 caliber machine gun in the front of the column and one in the rear. It was there that Waddill's friend Ritter had learned to fly a L5 plane by first flying a German Storch [Annotator's Note: light observation planes]. While flying the German plane, Ritter was fired upon by friendly troops who mistook him for an enemy pilot. Waddill moved between those firing on the plane and told them to stand-down. It was only his stupid buddy flying the German plane. The war ended for Waddill while he was in Czechoslovakia. He was shipped home and discharged in San Antonio, Texas.

Norris Waddill returned to Texas after the war. He spent three years touring the country before he settled down and got married. Today, he sees a difference in the Army. Roosevelt had Eisenhower and MacArthur as leaders [Annotator's Note: President Franklin D. Roosevelt had General Dwight D. Eisenhower commanding troops in Europe and General Douglas MacArthur commanding troops in the Pacific. Admiral Chester Nimitz also commanded the military operations in the Pacific and General George Marshall was overall commander of all theaters]. The orders that were given to Waddill and his unit were to avoid being captured at all cost because of his knowledge of the secret code information. Waddill has never revealed that secret information.