Dave Mann grew up in Chelsea, Massachusetts, northeast of Boston. He was an only child, and although he didn’t have any big plans after graduating from high school, his parents convinced him to apply to college. He began studying at the University of New Hampshire in late 1943, but his college experience was short-lived.
“I was at a dance and I saw a couple of guys running towards me, one of them waving an envelope. So I opened up the envelope and that was the draft notice.”
Mann’s first assignment was basic training in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. He survived, and was eventually sent to France on a troop ship. He and his comrades were stationed in the city of Rouen on the Seine River, where they awaited orders.
“And shortly after that, the orders came down that we were going to be attached to the Third Army, Combat Engineers, and the head guy was blood and guts himself, George Patton.”
Mann was promoted to sargeant and assumed the command of a squad of 13 men. On April 2nd, 1944, he and his comrades were resting in a farmhouse in northern France when a soldier pulled up in a jeep with orders for the squad’s next assignment.
“And as he reached into his pocket to get the slip of paper, an 88 shell exploded. It hit the jeep that he was in. Direct hit. He immediately was dead.”
Mann doesn’t remember anything after that. He was knocked unconscious as the Germans continued their attack. By the time he came to, Mann was bloodied, but still alive. He slowly made his way around the farmhouse to check on his 13 comrades. What he saw has stayed with him to this day.
“Here were 13 bodies lying on the floor. I could not believe it. Every single one of them, they were all dead.”
Mann would go on to see action at Normandy and later, in the Battle of the Bulge. Upon returning to the United States, he received the Purple Heart and was honorably discharged from the Army. Mann says he’s since come to terms with the guilt he felt upon surviving the German attack in 1944. But the memory still persists.
“I will sit watching television or reading a book and something triggers it and I begin to think about it. But I just think about it for a little while. I always say to my wife Rona, ‘I’m the luckiest guy around. I’m lucky. Here I am.’”
In recent years, Mann has toured the country, sharing his war stories with rotary clubs and veterans groups. He’s now 94.
“My generation is dying at the rate of four to five-hundred a day. So the legacy I’d like to leave is to talk about World War 2 to whomever. Telling the story to somebody else will help it live a little bit longer.”
In that respect, Dave Mann is doing his part to keep himself and his legacy alive and well.
Joe Tasca can be reached at jtasca@ripr.org
