Robert Jagers was born in Chicago, Illinois in July 1922. His father passed away when he was 11 and he and his mother moved to her hometown of Grand Rapids, Michigan. He attended school there, including two years of college before volunteering for the Navy. He had one brother. His sister died when she was very young. His mother raised his younger brother and him. His brother served in the Army. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks Jagers what life was like during The Great Depression, a global economic depression that lasted from 1929 through 1945.] It was not very comfortable and there were times when they did not have food. He played a lot of baseball, was good in school, and loved math. At 11 years old, he became the head of the family. It was a difficult time, but his mother raised them well. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks Jagers where he was and what he was doing when he heard of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941.] He was listening to the radio with his mother. He knew then that somewhere down the line, he would join the service. He did not want to dig foxholes and also figured the food would be better in the Navy than in the Army. He had been in the Sea Scouts too [Annotator's Note: international Scouting movement with an emphasis on water-based activities]. His father had been in the Army in World War 1. Jagers went to enlist in March 1942. They let him finish school and then called him in June 1942. America had suffered a few defeats at that time, but they did not tread the newspapers much. He was not listening to much news on the radio but knew we [Annotator's Note: the United States] was doing pretty badly. The Doolittle Raid [Annotator's Note: bombing attack on the Japanese mainland on 18 April 1942 carried out by 16 North American B-25 Mitchell medium bombers launched from the aircraft carrier USS Hornet (CV-8) and named for the raid's commander, then US Army Air Forces Colonel, later US Air Force General, James H. Doolittle] raised a lot of confidence. He did not understand what was happening at Midway [Annotator's Note: Battle of Midway, 4 to 7 June 1942, Midway Atoll] and the Coral Sea [Annotator's Note: Battle of the Coral Sea, 4 to 8 May 1942, Coral Sea Islands]. He learned about them later on.

Robert Jagers went to boot camp at Great Lakes Naval Training Center [Annotator's Note: Naval Station Great Lakes in Lake County, Illinois]. They did a lot of running, marching, and obstacle course work. They had rope climbing contests. Jagers only weighed 130 pounds and it was easy to get to the top of the rope. Bill Belichick's [Annotator's Note: William Stephen Belichick, American professional football coach] father, Steve Belichick [Annotator's Note: Stephen Nickolas Belichick, born Stephen Biličić, American veteran, professional football player and coach], was Jagers' company commander in boot camp. They had very little rifle range training. He fired a .45 automatic [Annotator's Note: .45 caliber M1911 semi-automatic pistol] and a Thompson machine gun [Annotator's Note: .45-caliber Thompson submachine gun] as well as an .03 rifle [Annotator's Note: .30 caliber Model 1903, or M1903, Springfield bolt action rifle]. Boot camp was the first time he had been away from the family. Jagers went to Quartermaster Signaling School for a number of weeks at Great Lakes. He told them he wanted to be on submarines and took the tests. He was number 21 on the list and could only get in if any of the 20 ahead of him fell out. The next thing he knew, he was on a train headed for Solomons, Maryland [Annotator's Note: US Naval Amphibious Training Base in Solomons, Maryland]. He arrived in the Fall of 1942 and went to more extensive gunnery school. They decided he should be a Signalman and not a Quartermaster, so he wound up as a Signalman 3rd Class (SM3c). At gunnery school, they had to take apart a 20mm [Annotator's Note: Oerlikon 20mm antiaircraft automatic cannon] and put it back together blindfolded in case they had to do it in the dark. The place had a foot of mud, and he had a hard time keeping his uniforms clean. He got a three-day leave [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time] to go home for Christmas [Annotator's Note: 25 December 1942] but had no money. The chaplain of the post gave him money for a railroad ticket to Detroit [Annotator's Note: Detroit, Michigan]. He then hitchhiked home to Grand Rapids [Annotator's Note: Grand Rapids, Michigan]. Every car he rode in did not have a heater. It took him five or six rides to get home. He hitchhiked back [Annotator's Note: to Detroit] and took the train back to Maryland. They boarded a training ship, the LST-327 [Annotator's Note: the USS LST-327, a Landing Ship, Tank]. One man got very sick and was put on an LCVP [Annotator's Note: Higgins boat; landing craft, vehicle, personnel] and taken to shore. They found he had spinal meningitis [Annotator's Note: inflammation of brain and spinal cord membranes typically caused by an infection] and then a second man became sick. They got a second LCVP and formed a boat crew. Jagers was picked as the signalman. The officer decided to take a shortcut across Chesapeake Bay [Annotator's Note: the largest estuary in the United States in the Mid-Atlantic region], and they got lost. They stopped at a farmhouse and an ambulance was called. The corpsman [Annotator's Note: enlisted medical specialist in the US Navy who may also serve in the US Marine Corps], the officer, and the sick man got in the ambulance. The boat crew and Jagers were left to themselves. They went to the Patuxent Naval Airbase [Annotator's Note: Naval Air Station Patuxent River, or NAS Pax River, in Saint Mary's County, Maryland] and spent the night. They returned to the ship that was taken into cold dock in Quantico [Annotator's Note: Quantico, Virginia] under quarantine and doctors were brought in. While there, their garbage had to be taken and burned. One day, somebody forgot to put in the pins for the elevator [Annotator's Note: cargo elevator] and it fell with 15 to 20 men onboard. There were a lot of bruises and broken bones. Due to the quarantine, they could not get mail. Nobody got sick other than those two men. The quarantine cut their training period short.

Around February or March 1943, Robert Jagers was told to report to LST-351 [Annotator's Note: the USS LST-351, a Landing Ship, Tank]. They sailed out of Solomons [Annotator's Note: Solomons, Maryland] to New York City [Annotator's Note: New York, New York] for their shakedown cruise [Annotator's Note: a cruise to evaluate the performance of a naval vessel and its crew]. He is glad he ended up in the amphibs now [Annotator's Note: amphibious ships after requesting to be on submarines]. "LST" stands for "Landing Ship, Tanks" but it was also called "Long, Slow, Target" due to its maximum speed being about ten knots [Annotator's Note: unit of speed equal to one nautical mile per hour]. It has a flat bottom. The sailors called it "Lotta Shit and Trouble". It is ocean-going, 328 feet long with a 55-foot beam [Annotator's Note: the width at the widest point]. The main purpose was to carry anything with wheels onto the beach. They carried tanks on the tank deck. On the top deck, they carried six-by-sixes Annotator's Note: two and a half ton, six by six truck, also known as deuce and a half], anti-aircraft units, and occasionally the long guns like 105s [Annotator's Note: M2A1 105mm howitzer; standard light field howitzer] and 155s [Annotator's Note: M1 155mm towed howitzer, nicknamed Long Tom]. They sailed from New York to Bermuda to Gibraltar [Annotator's Note: Gibraltar, British Overseas Territory] and entered the Mediterranean Sea. It took 35 days to get to Gibraltar. A convoy can only go as fast as the slowest ship. Jagers was a signalman on the bridge [Annotator's Note: a room or platform on a ship from which the ship can be commanded] from 12 to four every night across the ocean. He wanted something to do to keep from going crazy. He loved mathematics and decided to deal with problems related to the number "five". He developed a way of coming up with the square [Annotator's Note: square root] of any number ending in five. He had no one to talk to and nothing to see while sitting for four hours in total darkness. He just had to be sure ships were not wandering into the convoy, and the ships were maintaining distances apart. In case there was a signal in an emergency, he would have been able to take a message. His trip across the Atlantic was the month that the most ships were sunk by German submarines. They arrived in Gibraltar around the middle of April [Annotator's Note: April 1943].

From Gibraltar [Annotator's Note: Gibraltar, British Overseas Territory], Robert Jagers and his ship [Annotator's Note: the USS LST-351] went to Arzew [Annotator's Note: Arzew, Algeria] to train landing on beaches. They had six LCVPs [Annotator's Note: Higgins boat; landing craft, vehicle, personnel] onboard their ship, so they always carried 200 or 210 first-wave troops. They then went to Oran [Annotator's Note: Oran, Algeria]. The end of the battle in North Africa [Annotator's Note: North Africa Campaign, 10 June 1940 to 13 May 1943] had not been completed yet. The Germans surrendered on 13 May [Annotator's Note: 13 May 1943]. Jagers' ship was being delayed because Lake Bizerte [Annotator's Note: in Bizerte, Tunisia], where they were headed, was only 50 miles from Cape Bon [Annotator's Note: Cape Bon peninsula in Tunisia] where the Germans surrendered. When they were sailing east in the Mediterranean, they passed a British carrier headed west. His ship had just sailed past a mine [Annotator's Note: stationary explosive device triggered by physical contact] that had broken loose when Jagers was the signalman on duty. He signaled the aircraft carrier about it. He was looking back and saw the mine explode. They must have used a sharpshooter to explode it. When a mine explodes, you get a sense of the power of it by the amount of water that goes into the air. The mines at Normandy [Annotator's Note: Normandy, France] were five to ten times stronger than what he saw in the Mediterranean. Jagers started getting a pain in his side. LSTs [Annotator's Note: Landing Ship, Tank] do not have doctors onboard, only Pharmacist's Mates. He told Jagers he thought he had appendicitis [Annotator's Note: inflammation of the appendix]. They wired ahead and went to Bougie [Annotator's Note: Bougie, Algeria or Béjaïa, Algeria] where a jeep was sent for him. He went into a British field hospital that had 3,000 patients. They had to operate on him five days after the Germans had surrendered at Bon. They moved him into a tent and a nurse told him his operation was being delayed because the doctor was having tea. The British lost the battle for North Africa because they took time out for tea. They were giving him ether [Annotator's Note: an anesthetic] and stopped. He sat up so they gave him more. The doctor was Leftenant [Annotator's Note: British pronunciation of lieutenant, or leader of a platoon] Colonel Butcher. Jagers spent almost five weeks in the hospital. They were bombed by Stukas [Annotator's Note: German Junkers Ju 87 Stuka dive bomber] at least once a week. Bea Lillie [Annotator's Note: Beatrice Gladys Lillie, Canadian-born British actress, singer, and comedian] came to the hospital. The British soldiers told her he was American, so she came and sang to him. Vivian Leigh [Annotator's Note: born Vivian Mary Hartley, later known as Lady Olivier, British actress] was there. She was beautiful but did not get along with the troops. Her husband did though. While Jagers was there, an American soldier came with 75 to 80 percent of his body covered with burns. A doctor started serving him beer and the guy lived on that a long time. He was always high. Jagers was asked to talk to him when he could. It was around 1 June [Annotator's Note: 1 June 1943] when Jagers was discharged [Annotator's Note: from the hospital]. He got a short-sleeved tan jumper [Annotator's Note: knitted garment worn over a shirt] from a British Army man. He was told not to lift anything for a few weeks and was given supplies and food. He was put on a train to Le Reunion [Annotator's Note: unable to identify]. He rode with ducks, chickens, goats and other things that did not smell very good. He traded some hardtack [Annotator's Note: hard dry bread or biscuit] for some eggs. He made a fire and was cooking the eggs in his helmet. MPs [Annotator's Note: military police] thought he was AWOL [Annotator's Note: absent without leave] and took him to a camp. The captain of the camp gave him pineapple and pork and beans, which was like a gourmet meal compared to the British food. He got back on the train and went to Algiers [Annotator's Note: Algiers, Algeria]. He looked and looked for the road transportation officer. One night he heard there was an LST at the docks. He went down and asked to go aboard. They got orders to sail, and he had to get off. He slept in a park that night. He found a guard and asked how to get to Oran. He hitchhiked and got on a convoy of German prisoners. It was a 360-mile trip. About 50 miles out, they were told to report to Casablanca [Annotator's Note: Casablanca, Morocco]. They dropped him off in place where he could see nothing but sand. SPs [Annotator's Note: shore patrol] picked him up as being AWOL and took him to Oran. They established he was who he said he was and put him on an LST to Lake Bizerte where he found his ship. He asked if he had any mail and was told it was all sent back. His mother would send him the newspaper every night.

In the middle of June [Annotator's Note: June 1943], Robert Jagers and the other crewman [Annotator's Note: aboard the USS LST-351] started getting a lot of shots for malaria [Annotator's Note: mosquito-borne disease caused by a parasite], yellow fever [Annotator's Note: disease caused by a virus spread by mosquitoes], and others. They knew this was not normal and something was happening. In July they took off for Alicata, Sicily [Annotator's Note: now Licata, Sicily]. The day before they landed [Annotator's Note: for the invasion of Sicily, Operation Husky, 9 July to 17 August 1943, Sicily, Italy], there were about 100 ships in the convoy and a battlecruiser was in front of them. An Fw-190 [Annotator's Note: Focke-Wulf Fw 190 fighter aircraft] came in and started firing at the convoy. They had a barrage balloon [Annotator's Note: large, tethered kite balloon used to defend ground targets against aircraft attack] up. As the fighter came down, Jagers jumped from the signal bridge [Annotator's Note: a room or platform of a ship from which the ship can be commanded] to the wing [Annotator's Note: of the ship]. The plane banked to avoid the balloon. Jagers cocked the .50 caliber machine gun [Annotator's Note: Browning M2 .50 caliber machine gun] and lead him like he was taught. He could see the pilot's face. He never got the order to fire. In the Navy, you cannot fire unless ordered to by an officer, unlike in the Army. He flew away. There was a program of deceit to indicate that their landing place was to be Sardinia [Annotator's Note: Sardinia, Italy] and not Sicily. That night there was a terrible storm, and every soldier was seasick and asking off the ship. They were told to drop anchor. Their captain had had too much to drink and kept going in. The control ship left them. They dropped anchor. One LCVP [Annotator's Note: Landing Craft Vehicle, Personnel or LCVP; also known as the Higgins boat] was loose and banging against the davit [Annotator's Note: small crane on board a ship]. Jagers and the crew had to lash it down. He was standing on the ammunition box of the 40mm [Annotator's Note: Bofors 40mm antiaircraft automatic cannon] when the boat lurched. Someone was holding onto his belt and kept him from being thrown into the Mediterranean [Annotator's Note: Mediterranean Sea]. They got it lashed down. They knew they would have trouble raising their bow anchor. They had a man with an acetylene torch ready to cut it the next morning. That night he could see C-47s [Annotator's Note: Douglas C-47 Skytrain cargo aircraft] being shot down by friendly fire. This was the first action for many of the men and they were nervous and excited. He could also see the outline of a hill and saw a German tank come up it. One of the cruisers blew up the tank and then another tank came up. They blew up three of them. The captain came on the bridge smoking a cigar. They were supposed to have lights out. A young man next to him had been pretty seasick, but he put a clip in his carbine [Annotator's Note: .30 caliber M1 semi-automatic carbine] and lined up on the cigar. Jagers told him not to fire because he would ruin his life. He backed off. When dawn broke, they were three-quarters of a mile off the beach, and they were supposed to be four miles off. A battery of 88s [Annotator's Note: German 88mm multi-purpose artillery] opened up on them. The officer of the deck said to get out of there. They cut the anchor. Shrapnel hit his helmet. They backed off before they were hit.

LSTs [Annotator's Note: Landing Ship, Tank] do not normally land on a beach unless the beach is secure. Robert Jagers and his ship [Annotator's Note: the USS LST-351] had to wait for a certain tide. They normally landed for an hour after high tide so they could get back off. They unloaded, took aboard some casualties, and a few prisoners and headed back to North Africa. While they were anchored in Bizerte [Annotator's Note: Bizerte, Tunisia] before the Sicily invasion [Annotator's Note: Operation Husky, 9 July to 17 August 1943, Sicily, Italy], the Germans had a bombing raid on them. Jagers was on guard duty that night alone. Shrapnel cut his left hand. He dressed it and used sulfa powder [Annotator's Note: group of synthetic drugs used to treat bacterial infections] on it. An LCI [Annotator's Note: Landing Craft, Infantry] was moving across the bow and a bomb dropped down the stack [Annotator's Note: smokestack]. There were a lot of casualties they were picking up out of the water. One of the worst things you can see is a man who has been badly burned and in salt water because they are so bloated. They picked up the survivors. The next day, Jagers had his hand looked at and told not to worry about it. He was so busy; he did not make a record of it. He does have a Purple Heart [Annotator's Note: the Purple Heart Medal is award bestowed upon a United States service member who has been wounded as a result of combat actions against an armed enemy]. They tried to take it away from him, but he fought to keep it. This was July 1943, and he was not even 21 yet. He was afraid. It is the unknown, but you are trained to a job. Doing the job, you forget about what is happening. You think about it later. Anyone who says they were never afraid, is lying. You are always afraid, but you shove it aside. Jagers' general quarters station was up by the bow as the communications between the officer on the bow and the bridge. An LST is designed to be run up onto the beach. Hopefully the tanks come out onto dry land, but most of the time it is not. In some cases, they actually sank.

Robert Jagers' ship [Annotator's Note: the USS LST-351] had no defensive weapons. They started out with three-inch 50s [Annotator's Note: three-inch, .50 caliber naval gun] in the stern but traded them out for twin 40s [Annotator's Note: Bofors 40mm antiaircraft automatic cannon]. They had two twin 40s on the bow and .50 caliber machine guns [Annotator's Note: Browning M2 .50 caliber machine gun] on the wings [Annotator's Note: narrow walkway extending from both sides of a ship to allow personnel a full view to aid in maneuvering]. The only defense they had was against a craft coming in from the beach or aircraft. Whenever they landed, almost everybody got an opportunity to put their foot on the beach if only for five minutes. At Sicily [Annotator's Note: during the invasion of Sicily, Operation Husky, 9 July to 17 August 1943, Sicily, Italy], he did not get an opportunity to go into town until they landed at Palermo [Annotator's Note: Palermo, Italy]. From North Africa to Sicily, they made six or seven trips and one was to Palermo after it was taken. Patton [Annotator's Note: US Army Lieutenant General George S. Patton, Jr.] was in his race with Montgomery [Annotator's Note: British Field Marshal Sir Bernard Law Montgomery] to get to Messina [Annotator's Note: Messina, Italy] first. They usually carried tanks then would generally bring back prisoners and/or casualties. One thing Jagers did not like was when officers would come onboard and go on a trip with them to get credit for being on the invasion. There was too much of that. It made him sick [Annotator's Note: slang for angry]. Between the Anzio [Annotator's Note: Battle of Anzio, 22 January 1944 to 5 June 1944, Anzio, Italy] and Sicily landings, Jagers landed at Salerno [Annotator's Note: Operation Avalanche, 9 to 16 September 1943, Salerno, Italy]. Everything there seemed to be going along fine until they had to get off the beach and could not. They had twin diesel engines and managed to get off. The tide was not high enough and even shifting the ballast to the stern did not help. They kept making trips back and forth. One afternoon, they had orders to go into Naples [Annotator's Note: Naples, Italy]. As they went into the harbor, the first ship got orders that the Germans still had control and made a right turn. Jagers' ship followed. As they went down the coast, a battery of 88s [Annotator's Note: German 88mm multi-purpose artillery] opened up. British troops were aboard. A British captain was on the bridge, and he said not to worry because the Germans did not know how to shoot. Right then the Germans fired at them, and the captain tried to dig a foxhole in the steel deck. The 400 or 500 men roared themselves silly [Annotator's Note: laughing]. After Naples was captured, they landed on an island, either Ischia [Annotator's Note: Ischia, Italy] or Procida [Annotator's Note: Procida, Italy] near Pozzuoli [Annotator's Note: Pozzuoli, Italy]. They then made several trips back and forth for Salerno and then headed for Rome [Annotator's Note: Rome, Italy], passing Anzio in the daylight so the Germans could see them. It was a deception. After dark, they came back and landed at Anzio. His convoy landed on the northernmost beach at Anzio.

At the time of Robert Jagers' landing [Annotator's Note: aboard the USS LST-351] at Anzio [Annotator's Note: Battle of Anzio, 22 January 1944 to 5 June 1944, Anzio, Italy], the General in charge was Lucas [Annotator's Note: US Army Major General John Porter Lucas]. He did not want what happened at Salerno [Annotator's Note: Operation Avalanche, 9 to 16 September 1943, Salerno, Italy] to happen at Anzio. At Salerno, the Germans buried themselves in haystacks, in houses, and underground. They practically wiped out the first wave that came in. Lucas wanted to establish a beachhead before they moved out. This was against the purpose of Anzio, which was to relieve the bottleneck at Cassino [Annotator's Note: Battle of Monte Cassino, also called Battle for Rome, 19 January to 18 May 1944]. When Kesselring [Annotator's Note: German Luftwaffe General Field Marshall Albert "Smiling Albert" Kesselring] heard of the landing, he did not want to get trapped and moved 55,000 German troops out of Cassino, past Anzio, and went to outside of Rome [Annotator's Note: Rome, Italy]. General Truscott [Annotator's Note: US Army General Lucian King Truscott, Junior] was then put in charge. At Anzio, a man in a rubber raft was guiding people in and told them they caught the Germans by surprise. They were still not able to move out of Anzio until May [Annotator's Note: May 1944] because of the mistake of Lucas. When they landed at Ischia [Annotator's Note: Ischia, Italy], he had liberty [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time] and went into Naples [Annotator's Note: Naples, Italy]. He went to Pozzuoli [Annotator's Note: Pozzuoli, Italy] where there was an orphanage. Whenever he got liberty, he would take things to the kids and nuns there. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks Jagers to explain why. Jagers gets emotional]. Jagers does not drink, did not care for women, and there was not much to see. He has been tutoring children for 26 years [Annotator's Note: at the time of this interview]. After Anzio, he was at Naples. Darby's [Annotator's Note: US Army Colonel, later posthumous Brigadier General, William O. Darby] Rangers [Annotator's Note: 6615th Ranger Force (Provisional)], had been practically wiped out at Anzio. Jagers saw one of the survivors there. He should have been locked up and put in a hospital. He was shaking, could hardly talk, and did not understand what was said to him. Jagers did not know about those Rangers until later research.

Operation Tiger [Annotator's Note: Exercise Tiger, or Operation Tiger, rehearsal for invasion of Normandy, Slapton Sands, Devon, England, April 1944] is why Robert Jagers, and his ship [Annotator's Note: the USS LST-351], were pulled out of the trips to Anzio [Annotator's Note: Anzio, Italy during Battle of Anzio, 22 January 1944 to 5 June 1944] for Normandy [Annotator's Note: Normandy, France]. They were really scheduled for Southern France. They ended up going to Swansea, Wales [Annotator's Note: in the United Kingdom] for a couple of days. On the way to Plymouth, England, they passed a freighter. A loose line caught onto one of the LCVPs [Annotator's Note: Landing Craft Vehicle, Personnel or LCVP; also known as the Higgins boat]. It started to sing [Annotator's Note: slang for the noise a tightening rope makes] it was so tight. He knew it was going to whip really quick. He cut it loose and ducked in order to not get hit but injured his leg. It bothers him to this day. They landed in Plymouth, England and he went to the USO [Annotator's Note: United Service Organizations, Inc.]. He taught the British soldiers the Virginia Reel [Annotator's Note: American folk dance]. The USO did not really interest him. He was Catholic and went to church one day. He asked to speak to the priest. He said he was looking for something to do. A nun said to come to his house to get something to eat. She invited him every time he was ashore. On one trip, he was introduced to a woman who said her mother was in Ireland and had difficulty getting tea. Jagers wrote his mother and asked her to send that lady some tea, which she did. [Annotator's Note: Jagers gets emotional.] The nuns suggested he go see the Buckfast Abbey [Annotator's Note: a Benedictine monastery near Buckfastleigh, England]. He did and was met by the abbot [Annotator's Note: male of a monastery]. He spent the weekend there. A young monk was in charge of beekeeping and introduced Jagers to it. He had his first taste of dandelion wine there. It was joyful. 55 years later, he saw a picture on television of this same monk. His ship moved out of Plymouth to Falmouth [Annotator's Note: Falmouth, England] and loaded up. They shoved out after getting word that the invasion [Annotator's Note: D-Day; the Allied invasion of Normandy, France on 6 June 1944] had been delayed a day. They did not know where it was happening until they were in the middle of the English Channel.

Robert Jagers and his ship [Annotator's Note: the USS LST-351] moved out, anchored, and unloaded their first wave troops [Annotator's Note: on D-Day; the Allied invasion of Normandy, France on 6 June 1944]. The Texas [Annotator's Note: USS Texas (BB-35)] was on the outside of them and whenever she fired over them, it was like freight trains flying over. They saw the fireworks of all the shooting and the rocket [Annotator's Note: LCS(s), Landing Craft, Support (Small), also called Rocket Boats] LCIs [Annotator's Note: Landing Craft, Infantry] off the beach. It was organized chaos. He had his job on the bow. A Rhino [Annotator's Note: Rhino ferry] is hundreds of 55 gallon drums welded together with a matting and outboard motor onboard. They started to unload onto the Rhinos to be taken into shore. They were able to get on the beach when it was secure enough and the tide was right at about five-thirty in the afternoon. Before this, someone got the bright idea that one ship would be designated for bringing back prisoners and one for bringing back casualties. Each ship would carry two or three doctors and three to six extra corpsmen [Annotator's Note: enlisted medical specialists in the US Navy who may also serve in the US Marine Corps]. The hospital ship would get extra medial personnel. They took aboard 1,000 prisoners. Jagers was the signalman on watch, and he got a message to be prepared to take aboard 250 casualties. The captain okayed it because the casualties were already on the way. They had to bring them in past the prisoners. Jagers' schedule for the next three-plus days was to stand watch for four hours, guard the prisoners for four hours, take care of casualties for four hours, and then start over. He could give out morphine [Annotator's Note: narcotic used to treat pain] and was instructed as to how to give blood plasma for those in shock. He would bandage them or clean their dressings. Guarding the prisoners, he had a rifle, three clips, and a bayonet. There were two guards and behind them were two men with .45 caliber submachine guns [Annotator's Note: either .45 caliber Thompson submachine gun or M3 .45 caliber submachine gun ]. They drew a yellow line on the deck and the prisoners were told in German not to cross it. One man would keep crossing the line, and Jagers would push him back. It made Jagers mad, and he asked what he could about it. He then jabbed the German in the butt with his bayonet. He never bothered him again.

Robert Jagers landed on Utah Beach [Annotator's Note: Utah Beach, Normandy, France aboard the USS LST-351 on D-Day; the Allied invasion of Normandy, France on 6 June 1944]. Fortunately for him, Utah was one of the better ones and he did not see a lot of dead floating in the water. He did see a lot of blood from the casualties they took onboard. Most of them were paratroopers and glider troopers. The man in Jagers' bunk was not shot, but his parachute and he were overloaded, and he came down faster than he should have. Holes were shot in his chute, causing him to come down even faster, and he crushed both ankles. Some of the men were bandaged and could not use their arms. Jagers would give them a cigarette or feed them. They had to write the time and date they gave them morphine [Annotator's Note: narcotic used to treat pain] to keep them from getting addicted. If they were in shock, they were given blood plasma and kept warm. Jagers did that duty every third shift. He received a commendation for his work with the wounded. When Jagers saw the landing at Omaha [Annotator's Note: Omaha Beach, Normandy France], he could not imagine why anybody would do a landing there. It seemed like complete suicide. The destroyers were the ones who saved the day at Normandy. They went in real close. One grounded itself. They could fire point blank with five-inch guns [Annotator's Note: five-inch naval guns]. Later on, Jagers was amazed at what happened at Pointe du Hoc [Annotator's Note: La Pointe du Hoc, a promontory on the coast of Normandy, France], 220 feet of pure scaling and only 67 men out of 220 survived. Jagers could see the destroyers moving in. They dropped anchor 11 miles out. The LCVPs [Annotator's Note: Landing Craft Vehicle, Personnel or LCVP; also known as the Higgins boat] took two and a half hours to reach the beach making many men seasick. Some actually sunk after their bilges filled up. Jagers took the 29th Infantry [Annotator's Note: 29th Infantry Division] in. When he finally went ashore, he saw a sign that said "mine" [Annotator's Note: stationary explosive device triggered by physical contact]. They stayed away from there. He put his foot on the ground, walked around about five feet, and went back. That is all he did.

Robert Jagers' daily routine [Annotator's Note: aboard the USS LST-351] consisted of standing a four-hour watch, called a dog watch, from four to six [Annotator's Note: o'clock], and six to eight [Annotator's Note: o'clock]. When they crossed the Atlantic, the dog watch was eliminated and Jagers had watch from four to midnight every day. Bells were rung to announce watch changes. The PA [Annotator's Note: public address] system would announce general quarters. He was a sound sleeper and would not always hear it. He had someone to wake him up then. They had a small sleeping space with two to four men high. His was only two. They did a lot of reading in the Bluejacket's Manual [Annotator's Note: the basic handbook for United States Navy personnel]. He wanted to advance, and you had to read to do that. He wanted to be a Quartermaster [Annotator's Note: watch assistant to Officer of the Deck and Navigator; perform ship control, navigation, and watch duties]. They had to keep their clothes clean and packed away. Some of them tried to wash them in the propellor wash but it just wore them out. There was never enough time at a clothes washer, which they had two of for each 100 men, so they had to do it by hand. Because he was a signalman, he did not have many routine jobs to do like chipping paint like the regular seaman did. He rarely went below decks where the Black Gang [Annotator's Note: members of a ship's crew who work in the fire and engine rooms] was. When they were in training in Chesapeake Bay [Annotator's Note: the largest estuary in the United States in the Mid-Atlantic region], powdered milk came in cans. The storekeeper got their manifest to get powdered milk in New York. He did not think that their ten cans would be enough, so he changed it to 100 cans. It came in big drums then. They had to take it. Every empty space had cans of powdered milk. He heard a story that he believes. One LST [Annotator's Note: Landing Ship, Tank] captain said he never wanted to run out of toilet paper. The amount they got was delivered by a semi-truck. In Europe, they were tied up to another LST. That crew asked if they had any extra toilet paper. They traded the toilet paper for a bosun [Annotator's Note: a non-commissioned officer in charge of supervising personnel in a ship's maintenance duties]. One time, Jager's crew stole an Army jeep and made it look like a Navy jeep. When they went ashore, they had a deal that the officers would take it off ship one day and the enlisted men would get it the next day. In Tunis [Annotator's Note: Tunis, Tunisia], an officer took the jeep on the enlisted men's day. The men found the jeep and then made or procured half-round blocks to hold the wheels of the jeep off the ground. The officer got upset and went to the police who then confiscated the jeep. Somewhere in Italy after Salerno [Annotator's Note: Operation Avalanche, 9 to 16 September 1943, Salerno, Italy], they acquired a young man they named George. He was maybe ten or 11 years old whose parents had been killed. They made him a uniform. Whenever they went ashore, he would bargain and translate for them. They kept him until they were going to Anzio [Annotator's Note: Battle of Anzio, 22 January 1944 to 5 June 1944, Anzio, Italy]. Jagers does not know what happened to him after that. Three LSTs landed behind the lines with troops for Patton's [Annotator's Note: US Army Lieutenant General George S. Patton, Jr.] Army at San Michele [Annotator's Note: San Michele, Italy; unable to identify which town named this], not the one where the monastery is. After they unloaded, an American soldier was brought aboard under armed guard. At Normandy, and particularly at Malmedy [Annotator's Note: Malmedy, Belgium], many German soldiers acquired American uniforms. This soldier apparently went up to somebody and asked a question. Based on the reply, he either shot him or let him go. They think he was not able to distinguish between the Americans and Germans and shot eight to ten people that the guards knew of. They took him back under guard to England for court-martial.

Robert Jagers probably made 25 to 30 trips across the Channel [Annotator's Note: the English Channel aboard the USS LST-351] from all of the Southern ports [Annotator's Note: in England]. They very seldom got liberty [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time] between runs other than four to six hours, seldom eight hours. They landed once at Tilbury [Annotator's Note: Tilbury, England], and he went into London [Annotator's Note: London, England] on liberty. When he got back, his ship was gone, and he was legally AWOL [Annotator's Note: absent without leave]. He was arrested five times for being AWOL when he was not. When he was in the British field hospital [Annotator's Note: for surgery, which he discusses in the clip titled "Hospital Stay in North Africa" of this interview], there were 11 British soldiers in there too. He obtained all of their addresses. He visited some of them when he got back. His favorite was Bromley-Kent [Annotator's Note: Bromley, England], a suburb of London. He visited the family of one of the men five or six times. In Southampton [Annotator's Note: Southampton, England], he only had a few hours. Liberty is divided either in halves or thirds. They do not send the whole ship on liberty at the same time. He was only in Falmouth [Annotator's Note: Falmouth, England] once and they were not given liberty. The British love their tea and are hard to understand, but the people are okay. He did not care much for the British soldiers. Jagers played chess with everybody he could and could never beat a German. A German showed him a four-move-checkmate. He could beat the French and the British. He played one Pole [Annotator's Note: person from Poland] and thinks it was a draw. He played chess with German POWs [Annotator's Note: prisoners of war]. They are humans just like he is. They had orders just like he did. The officers were a little bit different and stayed off to themselves. They acted completely different and very superior to the enlisted men. On the trips from Anzio [Annotator's Note: during the Battle of Anzio, 22 January 1944 to 5 June 1944, Anzio, Italy] and Salerno [Annotator's Note: during Operation Avalanche, 9 to 16 September 1943, Salerno, Italy], they only had eight to ten prisoners they were taking back so it was easy to play chess with them. In Normandy, they had 1,000 with one s.o.b. [Annotator's Note: stands for son of a bitch].

Sicily [Annotator's Note: Operation Husky, 9 July to 17 August 1943, Sicily, Italy] was the most difficult invasion without question for Robert Jagers [Annotator's Note: aboard the USS LST-351]. They [Annotator's Note: the Germans] knew they were coming, there was a storm at night, an LCVP [Annotator's Note: Landing Craft Vehicle, Personnel or LCVP; also known as the Higgins boat] broke loose, their captain was drunk, and they were fired at by 88s [Annotator's Note: German 88mm multi-purpose artillery]. He could pick pieces of shrapnel off the deck and that made it personal. At Salerno [Annotator's Note: Operation Avalanche, 9 to 16 September 1943, Salerno, Italy], they knew what was coming and nothing was shooting at them. At Anzio [Annotator's Note: Battle of Anzio, 22 January 1944 to 5 June 1944, Anzio, Italy], they [Annotator's Note: the Germans] could hit anything on the beach with the 275mm guns [Annotator's Note: Krupp K5 283mm heavy railway guns used by the Germans during the Battle of Anzio, Italy]. One hit their stern and he brought home fragments of it. He has fragments from the one that hit him, from Sicily, and from Anzio. At Anzio, they [Annotator's Note: the Germans] had a spotter on the beach. It took anywhere from half an hour to 45 minutes to fire one round from the big railway gun. He saw it in Maryland [Annotator's Note: after the war], and it is twice the size of his house. They had two and they were called Anzio Annie and The Anzio Express. They were not too worried about the smaller pieces of artillery. In 2000, he took his family to three of the beaches. They went past the cave where the two cannons had been. The rail gun shells were 11 inches around. After 25 to 30 trips across the Channel [Annotator's Note: the English Channel], they were sent past Ireland to Roseneath, Scotland. The ship was to be decommissioned and turned over to the British. Jagers took the last battle flag from the ship, and he still has it. He takes it to school and shows the children. They do not notice it only has 48 stars. The flag that was raised at Iwo Jima [Annotator's Note: United States flag raised on Mount Suribachi, Iwo Jima, Japan, 23 February 1943] that Rosenthal [Annotator's Note: Joseph John Rosenthal, American photographer] photographed was taken from an LST [Annotator's Note: Landing Ship, Tank]. The first flag was raised and confiscated by an officer immediately. He did not get the second flag. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer tells Jagers that the Secretary of the Navy was offshore and wanted the second flag.] The ship was decommissioned in December 1944 or January 1945. He thinks he spent Christmas at sea that year [Annotator's Note: 1944]. He was then put on a train to Liverpool [Annotator's Note: Liverpool, England], got on a ship, the USS Washington [Annotator's Note: the SS George Washington], and sailed back to New York. The Washington was a former cruise ship. There were 6,000 men on board. He saw the Statue of Liberty [Annotator's Note: in New York, New York], and someone threw their gas mask and helmet into the water. 6,000 men followed suit. Jagers had scratched the names of every place he had been on his helmet.

Robert Jagers wrote a lot of letters home [Annotator's Note: while aboard the USS LST-351]. He would say things in code. It all went through but the recipients did not understand why he was getting numbers wrong. His uncle, an old sailor, said he thought Jagers was sending them messages. He figured out the code. Jagers has copies of the messages in his book [Annotator's Note: Whales of World II: Military Life of Robert Jagers, June 1942 to October 1945, by Robert B. Jagers, published January 2000]. He was not censored. They sent stamped mail before V-mail [Annotator's Note: Victory Mail; postal system put into place during the war to drastically reduce the space needed to transport mail]. They would use the stamps to send clues. Jagers landed in New York and went to Great Lakes Training Center [Annotator's Note: Naval Station Great Lakes in Lake County, Illinois] to be in charge of a company of boots [Annotator's Note: men in boot camp]. He had 137 men and graduated them. He was playing ball in the meantime. He taught the men songs to sing while marching. He taught them a plain version and a risqué version. One day, they went into the risqué version while marching past the commandant's office. Jagers was called before the commandant. He told him not to let them do that where he could hear it. When he graduated the boots, he did not have much to do. A recruit came into camp who played baseball whose name was Tommy Upton [Annotator's Note: Thomas Herbert "Muscles" Upton, American professional baseball player]. Bob Feller [Annotator's Note: Robert William Andrew Feller, American professional baseball player] was the manager of the Great Lakes baseball time. Every day, Jagers had to chaperone Tommy from boot camp to baseball practice. Jagers practiced with the team at second base. The manager from Kansas City [Annotator's Note: Kansas City, Missouri] came in and said he was a man short and needed a player. Jagers played. When Feller pitched, Jagers got two out of four hits off him. A few days later, Feller heard Jagers was shipping out. Jagers asked him if he could have a baseball and asked him to sign it. Feller did not have time to. Jagers saw him again 55 years later and Feller remembered and signed it.

Robert Jagers' orders were to report to Columbia University [Annotator's Note: Columbia University in New York, New York] for officer training [Annotator's Note: after serving aboard the USS LST-351]. He thought he was going into the V-5 program [Annotator's Note: V-5 US Navy Aviation Cadet Program, 1939 to 1943]. He wanted to be an engineer. En route, the rules were changed from V-5 to V-12 [Annotator's Note: V-12 US Navy College Training Program, 1943 to 1946]. The first day of football practice, he reported to Lou Little [Annotator's Note: Luigi "Lou Little" Piccolo, American football player and coach] who told him he was too small for football. He got on the team and was a kicker. He got into one game. One practice, he had a blister on his foot. The trainer did something to it. That Sunday, he had liberty [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time]. His buddy and him went to Central Park [Annotator's Note: in New York, New York] with two girls. He was limping. One girl was a nurse who told him he had blood poisoning and it was serious. He reported to the medical facility. They soaked his foot for three or four days. He was told he had been AWOL [Annotator's Note: absent without leave]. That is when the war ended [Annotator's Note: in Japan]. He was in Chicago [Annotator's Note: Chicago, Illinois] when the war ended in Europe. They let him finish his term at Columbia but told him if he wanted to be an officer he would have to serve longer. He said no thanks. He had enough points [Annotator's Note: a point system was devised based on a number of factors that determined when American servicemen serving overseas could return home] for a discharge. He was told he was entitled to a Purple Heart [Annotator's Note: the Purple Heart Medal is award bestowed upon a United States service member who has been wounded as a result of combat actions against an armed enemy]. He said it was just a scratch but he got his Purple Heart anyway. Later he was told that he would not receive his other medals unless he returned his Purple Heart, which he felt he was entitled to, so he kept it. He never got the rest of his medals. He was discharged in October 1945 from Great Lakes [Annotator's Note: Naval Station Great Lakes in Lake County, Illinois] as a Signalman 3rd Class (SM3c). He did not sign up for Reserve duty as he was in the Reserve Navy. If he had been in the regular Navy, he would have had to serve six years.

Robert Jagers used the G.I. Bill [Annotator's Note: the G.I. Bill, or Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944, was enacted by the United States Congress to aid United States veterans of World War 2 in transitioning back to civilian life and included financial aid for education, mortgages, business starts and unemployment] to go to the University of Loyola in Chicago [Annotator's Note: Loyola University Chicago in Chicago, Illinois] for a semester. He got married while there. He wanted to be an engineer. All he knew of was civil engineering. He took a two-day test, and he was told he would be better at chemical engineering. He signed up for that at the University of Detroit [Annotator's Note: University of Detroit Mercy in Detroit, Michigan] because they had a co-op program of work and study. That way he could get practical experience. He went in 1946 and got his degree in 1950. He worked at Dodge [Annotator's Note: brand of American automobile] on the assembly line and tried to find an engineering job. He got a job with Carboloy [Annotator's Note: Carboloy Incorporated], a department of General Electric [Annotator's Note: General Electric Company] as a spectroscopist [Annotator's Note: a person trained in spectroscopy]. After three years, he asked to transfer to get a raise. At General Electric the rules were that you had to quit your current job and then apply for the other job. His boss said he should just find another job. He got a job with Chrysler [Annotator's Note: brand of American automobile] and spent 27 years with them. He semi-retired after that. He had not real trouble transitioning to civilian life. He worked for the Post Office [Annotator's Note: United States Postal Service] before he went to school. He worked for Chrysler in ten different countries.

Robert Jagers has two memorable experiences of World War 2. Once when coming back from Sicily, [Annotator's Note: Sicily, Italy aboard the USS LST-351] he was walking along the deck when he saw a German torpedo coming right at them. They were empty. The German submarine did not realize they were flat-bottomed and empty and only drawing about six feet [Annotator's Note: of water depth]. Most torpedoes are set for 15 feet, so it went right under them. He does not know if anyone else saw it. In Ischia [Annotator's Note: Ischia, Italy] at night, he was asked to take a message with a specialized blinker light that you can only see if it is pointed right at you. Normally a signalman has somebody to take the message down, but he had nobody to do it. He took the message, and an officer was reading it along with him. He had gotten it correct and it told them to sail immediately and not wait until morning. Those memories are two of his proudest moments. Jager fought because of patriotism. He knew from learning about World War 1 that somebody had to do it. He did not know he could have been exempted due to his engineering training. The war turned him from a boy to a man overnight. It was a great adventure, but he would not want to do it again. [Annotator's Note: Jagers gets emotional.] What his service means to him, is hard to describe. It meant a lot to him for what he was able to do. He talks to people in schools. For 25 years, he could not speak about it. The more he spoke about it the easier it became. He remembers quite a bit of it.