Vaughn Collicott spent the first year of his life traveling in a covered wagon. Before he was 21 years old, he was helping to fire the guns of a Navy destroyer at German positions on the coast of Normandy. The very same day, his ship was hit and sunk in the English Channel.
In this edition of Veterans Chronicles, Collicott takes us from the frigid confines of training at Great Lakes, Illinois, to D-Day, to serving in the Pacific during the final months of the war.
Collicott tells us about going though fire control training and then being assigned to the brand new USS Meredith. He explains what the Meredith's role was on D-Day and how it targeted and destroyed a troublesome German pillbox the next day.
But just hour later, the Meredith was struck and it slowly sunk. Collicott walks us through that harrowing experience in detail, including why he survived the blast, what he did immediately afterwards, the injuries he saw that day, and the moments that still haunt him.
Collicott then shares his experiences in Pacific aboard the USS Lanier, including the new jobs that he had and how he almost got left behind in Guam as the Lanier was pulling out of port.
Finally, he details his efforts later in life to correct the official history of the USS Meredith.