
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, June 5, 1994                   TAG: 9406070004
SECTION: THE GREAT CRUSADE                    PAGE: D-DAY5   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

'IT WAS MASS CONFUSION,' AND SIGNALMAN JOHN WILL CREASY HAD TO MAKE SENSE OF

JOHN WILL CREASY of Roanoke spent the month leading up to D-Day in an English port aboard the USS Ancon, watching and "quaking" as the German Luftwaffe bombed the port nightly.

On D-Day the Ancon was anchored roughly 12 miles off Omaha Beach. Creasy, a 21-year-old Army sergeant in charge of a message center for the 5230 Signal Radio Intelligence Company, was one of those responsible for receiving, unscrambling and relaying messages from troops to the ship's command center. Others in the company were to intercept and break the codes of German communications on shore.

Creasy watched as the assault troops moved by the ship in their landing craft and hours later as the craft brought the wounded back. The sky overhead was polka-dotted with allied airplanes headed for France.

"It was mass confusion," Creasy said. Troops on the beach were yelling for more fire power and artillery support because they were pinned down.

The situation was complicated because the landing troops lost many of their radios in the water. "I and my cohorts had to work with minimal information," Creasy said.

by CNB