( Editor’s Note: This article was originally published in November, 2008 )
James Gabaree a few weeks ago sat in his Newburyport home, a cap perched on his head, as his wife Shirley set his newest medal on the dining room table. It was the Legion of Honor Medal, awarded to him in July by the French government for his “personal, precious contribution to the United States’ decisive role in the liberation of our country during World War II.”
Gabaree wore his Army Rangers cap because just days before he accepted the award in Boston, he underwent brain surgery. The same determination to accept the medal on behalf of his fellow Rangers was what brought Gabaree out of France 64 years ago. He was 19 years old, it was his first mission – and it was D-Day.
On June 6, 1944, he wrote in an account for his family, “It was my belief that the war would be won or lost on the success or failure of the Normandy invasion… This day would change my life forever, if I lived to survive it. My youth would be sacrificed.”
Gabaree was a Bangalore torpedo man. One lucky bullet fired by the Germans at the torpedo, which was filled with dynamite, would have blown him apart. His job was to precede the troops landing on the beach behind him and blast a clear passage through.
“Once the invasion started,” he says, “everything went wrong … growing up, I became very religious – Catholic – but I lost my religion when I saw men being blown apart… to me it was a great loss.” Realizing they had nowhere to go except back to the sea, he and 22 others were running for shelter when he was shot. His comrades pulled him into a cleft in a cliff, but they had to leave him. “You didn’t stop to help your pal or that would be two casualties,” he says. “There were not that many Rangers.”
Bandaging himself as best as he could, he began to crawl back towards the beach. He was lucky – one sniper let him get away as he crawled through a field full of mint. To this day, he says, the memory returns whenever he tastes or smells mint. “Not all Germans are bad guys,” he wrote.
He was not so lucky with the next sniper, but neither was the German. Gabaree, “pretty well out of my head having had no food or water for days and I had lost a lot of blood,” fired his weapon and killed the sniper.
He dove into the foxhole where the dead German lay and there he found rations, black bread and oleo. “I was a lover of Goofy and Mickey Mouse,” he recalls. He began seeing the two characters in front of him, in full color. He put the muzzle of his rifle in his mouth and decided to wait one half hour. “I was startled when I heard someone say ‘Son of a bitch.’” A patrol of Americans had stumbled upon the foxhole. “I had cheated the grim reaper.”
After rehab, Gabaree insisted on returning to the fight overseas. He was wounded at the Battle of the Bulge, recovered, and headed once more to Europe. This time the war was over and he was part of a group searching for SS and Gestapo who had fled into the Alps.
James and Shirley Gabaree of Newburyport. Photos by Kevin Harkins
And then he was back home in Massachusetts. For many years, he held three jobs, including being a lieutenant in the Boston Fire Department. This enabled him to buy property in Quincy and Medford. He managed and leased his properties as low- and reduced-income housing to pay back some of what he felt he owed society, he says.
One night he went out on a double date and met the love of his life. “I wasn’t too enthused,” Shirley says, laughing. Jim looks at her affectionately. “She was dating an engineer at MIT.” Shirley says she eventually became enthused about her husband of 61 years because he never gave up. The couple lived the American dream. A man who began life as an orphan, who taught himself to read, who dropped out of school at age 16, made good because he followed his intuition and was persistent.
Gabaree also received a Purple Heart, a Bronze Star and “dozens of other medals” from the United States. But he feels the Rangers got short shrift in American history. In contrast, “The French never forget,” he says.
He and Shirley have done some “fabulous things” together, including returning to Omaha Beach. “Went back on the 60th anniversary,” he says. “I went up into the woods and had a good cry to myself and then I was okay. One thing I learned in the Rangers – you can bend me, but you can’t break me.”
James Gabaree – For Love and Country
James Gabaree a few weeks ago sat in his Newburyport home, a cap perched on his head, as his wife Shirley set his newest medal on the dining room table. It was the Legion of Honor Medal, awarded to him in July by the French government for his “personal, precious contribution to the United States’ decisive role in the liberation of our country during World War II.”
Gabaree wore his Army Rangers cap because just days before he accepted the award in Boston, he underwent brain surgery. The same determination to accept the medal on behalf of his fellow Rangers was what brought Gabaree out of France 64 years ago. He was 19 years old, it was his first mission – and it was D-Day.
On June 6, 1944, he wrote in an account for his family, “It was my belief that the war would be won or lost on the success or failure of the Normandy invasion… This day would change my life forever, if I lived to survive it. My youth would be sacrificed.”
Gabaree was a Bangalore torpedo man. One lucky bullet fired by the Germans at the torpedo, which was filled with dynamite, would have blown him apart. His job was to precede the troops landing on the beach behind him and blast a clear passage through.
“Once the invasion started,” he says, “everything went wrong … growing up, I became very religious – Catholic – but I lost my religion when I saw men being blown apart… to me it was a great loss.” Realizing they had nowhere to go except back to the sea, he and 22 others were running for shelter when he was shot. His comrades pulled him into a cleft in a cliff, but they had to leave him. “You didn’t stop to help your pal or that would be two casualties,” he says. “There were not that many Rangers.”
Bandaging himself as best as he could, he began to crawl back towards the beach. He was lucky – one sniper let him get away as he crawled through a field full of mint. To this day, he says, the memory returns whenever he tastes or smells mint. “Not all Germans are bad guys,” he wrote.
He was not so lucky with the next sniper, but neither was the German. Gabaree, “pretty well out of my head having had no food or water for days and I had lost a lot of blood,” fired his weapon and killed the sniper.
He dove into the foxhole where the dead German lay and there he found rations, black bread and oleo. “I was a lover of Goofy and Mickey Mouse,” he recalls. He began seeing the two characters in front of him, in full color. He put the muzzle of his rifle in his mouth and decided to wait one half hour. “I was startled when I heard someone say ‘Son of a bitch.’” A patrol of Americans had stumbled upon the foxhole. “I had cheated the grim reaper.”
After rehab, Gabaree insisted on returning to the fight overseas. He was wounded at the Battle of the Bulge, recovered, and headed once more to Europe. This time the war was over and he was part of a group searching for SS and Gestapo who had fled into the Alps.
James and Shirley Gabaree of Newburyport. Photos by Kevin Harkins
And then he was back home in Massachusetts. For many years, he held three jobs, including being a lieutenant in the Boston Fire Department. This enabled him to buy property in Quincy and Medford. He managed and leased his properties as low- and reduced-income housing to pay back some of what he felt he owed society, he says.
One night he went out on a double date and met the love of his life. “I wasn’t too enthused,” Shirley says, laughing. Jim looks at her affectionately. “She was dating an engineer at MIT.” Shirley says she eventually became enthused about her husband of 61 years because he never gave up. The couple lived the American dream. A man who began life as an orphan, who taught himself to read, who dropped out of school at age 16, made good because he followed his intuition and was persistent.
Gabaree also received a Purple Heart, a Bronze Star and “dozens of other medals” from the United States. But he feels the Rangers got short shrift in American history. In contrast, “The French never forget,” he says.
He and Shirley have done some “fabulous things” together, including returning to Omaha Beach. “Went back on the 60th anniversary,” he says. “I went up into the woods and had a good cry to myself and then I was okay. One thing I learned in the Rangers – you can bend me, but you can’t break me.”