Note: this story contains descriptions of the Holocaust.
Loud As The Rolling Sea is WYSO's series that began with a community oral history project in Yellow Springs over a decade ago. It highlights the stories of Black people in Yellow Springs born in the 1920s and 30s.
In honor of Black History Month, we air a new episode of Loud as the Rolling Sea every Friday this month.
Today’s episode takes us back to June 6, 1944, when the D-Day invasion unfolded. It remains the largest seaborne assault in history and marked a pivotal moment in World War II, leading to the liberation of France and Western Europe from Nazi control. Series producer Kevin McGruder shares a firsthand account from Charles Benning, a Black man from Yellow Springs, who was there and had a front-row seat to history.
Charles Benning
Kevin McGruder: When World War Two began, Charles Benning was anxious to enlist along with his brothers and friends.
Charles Benning: When I was going to Bryan High School, the war had broke out, and all the friends that I had and everything went to the Army, and I didn't get to go out because I wasn't old enough. And I tell you what, I was really, really upset. I quit school trying to get in the Army.
McGruder: Benning didn't finish high school, but he eventually was drafted and participated in basic training at Camp Atterbury in Indiana in the segregated Army of World War Two. Black men were primarily assigned to support duties rather than infantry or tank corps. Charles Benning was assigned to the 589th Ambulance Company, where he participated in the D-Day invasion in northern France.
How far away from the invasion itself were you? Where did you pick up casualties from?
Benning: We were in the area where the shells were whistling around us and everything.
McGruder: Near the beach?
Benning: Yeah, right, when it first started out. And we were on LSTs. You can only put two ambulances on an LST.
McGruder: LST stands for landing ship, tank. They were large boats that could carry the ambulances.
Benning: The big LSTs, you could put all the ambulances in them, but we were on one where if they needed us to come in closer [to the shore], they would give us a signal, and then we would go in, and put the casualties in.
I cried. I was 19 years old and I saw people piled up with no clothes on—men and women—four feet high.Charles Benning recalling what it was like liberating Nazi concentration camps during WWII
We couldn't leave them in France. We had to take them to England, about 62 or 63 miles away.
McGruder: After D-Day, Benning went to Germany, where he joined troops liberating Nazi concentration camps.
Do you remember the names of any of the camps?
Benning: Dachau is the only one that I remember, and that was the biggest one. People don't realize Germany was building factories to kill people.
And you'd see young little kids all popeyed starving to death. We took them to where they could get food. The Germans didn't feed them. Most of the kitchens and prison camps were run by the SS.
And I'm going to tell you that those were some pretty rough people in Germany. They didn't give a damn about who you were or what you were.
And I'm going to tell you I cried. I was 19 years old, and I saw people piled up with no clothes on—men and women—four feet high.
McGruder: After returning home, Charles Benning worked as a civilian at Wright-Patterson, mainly dealing with surplus property. He married twice and raised three children: Patricia, Vernon, and Danny. In retirement, he became a master woodworker, putting his skills to work at his church, Central Chapel A.M.E. in Yellow Springs. In 2015, Benning finally received his high school diploma. He lived to be 97 years old.
Support for Loud As The Rolling Sea comes from the Yellow Springs Community Foundation. Loud As The Rolling Sea is produced at the Eichelberger Center for Community Voices at WYSO.
