By Judy Seifert (Contact / Staff Bio)
November 10, 2009 - 01:31 p.m. EST

CARO — The bombing of Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941 ignited not just America but a then recent Caro High School graduate, Francis Cottrell. Deferred for three years because he needed to work on the family farm, the 20-year-old Cottrell went to his father one last time that December and asked for permission to join the fight.

“I wanted to go. My father and grandfather had served in World War I and I felt that I needed to do the same, serve my country,” Francis said. “When the Japanese attacked us I went to my dad again and he finally said okay, ‘I’ll make out the best I can while you’re gone, you do the same’. Six months later, I was in Europe.”

Francis didn’t know that history would find him when he landed in the port city of Le Harve. But it did. Over the next two years, the young man from Caro, Michigan would find himself in the midst of extraordinary moments, a witness to events that scholars only imagine.

When he crossed the English Channel around Thanksgiving of 1944, it was as an infantry rifleman serving in General Patton’s 7th Army, Company D, 7th Battalion, First Platoon.

“We landed to the south and just moved north. Those first weeks were tough on us, we were replacements and were told that we’d be lucky to be alive after 24 hours,” Francis said. “We were also called the Bastard Unit because we were made up of guys who were kind of thrown together – different ages, different amounts of experience, a real hodge-podge.”

His corps was put together to fight wherever the need was, and Francis said most of the time he didn’t know from one day to the next where he would wake up.

“I didn’t get mail for months. Our APO changed so often the mail couldn’t keep up with us. I bet I still have letters floating around Europe to this day.”

He also wasn’t sure what army he was in from time to time. For awhile he was a part of the 7th, then he was part of the 3rd.

“It made it hard to make friends. So many died so quickly,” he explained. “We were the fresh bodies thrown in to relieve men who had been on the fronts too long. We were the bodies thrown in to fill the gaps left by the dead or injured.”

His brush with history started when he landed in France. Transported by the S.S. Leopoldville, the Belgium troopship was sunk by a German U-boat just weeks after Cottrell’s arrival.

“I heard about it. Nearly 800 men died that day. I thought how strange it was that I had been on that ship,” he said. “Those men were reinforcements needed to fight the Battle of the Bulge. I fought in that battle, too.”

The truth about the ship’s sinking was hidden from the public until 1996, when the British government finally declassified its documents.

“A lot of Americans died that day for nothing. It was botched up. They died in that water waiting to be rescued,” he said.

Survivors were told not to talk about what happened that day.

“Us soldiers were told many a time not to talk. I’m not even sure that I should be telling you the things I know even now, but I will,” Francis said. “It’s time to talk. We’re losing what, 1,500 World War II veterans every day? We all have stories that need to be told, now is the time to tell them... before we’re all gone and no one remembers us or the war any more.”

Francis, urged by his family, had the opportunity to return to Europe recently. For 14 days, he walked the paths he’d taken as a young man. He returned to the sites of all the battles he had fought in, he visited the cemeteries.

Now 87-years-old, Francis said his recent visit to France, Luxembourg, Belgium and Germany helped make up his mind.

“My family didn’t know what I’d seen, where I’d been. When I came home after the war, all I wanted to do was put the whole thing behind me, I didn’t want to remember what I’d seen. It was too horrible. But now is the time to remember. Now is the time for me to tell them my story.”