GLASGOW — Kenneth Nuckols’ boat arrived before daylight in the rough waters
of Normandy on a famous day in June of 1944.
He and 130 other naval soldiers stood on the USS LST 49, a 300-foot land and sea
vessel that was in the first wave of the invasion of the French beaches during
World War II. As a signalman, Nuckols watched from a tall tower on the boat,
checking for wounded and communicating through Morse code and flags to those
bringing tanks and guns to the battle. Paratroopers were shot down like pigeons,
Nuckols said.
The second and third waves came through and the LST 49 came up from behind to
retrieve the injured and bring them back to England.
“I can’t explain it to you, what happened that day,” Nuckols said. “I’ve never
seen fireworks like that.”
The soldiers, from states all over the U.S., including Arizona, Michigan,
Indiana, Pennsylvania and two from Kentucky, made eight or nine trips across the
English Channel during the effort. Several months after Normandy, the ship
eventually traveled to southern France, the Mediterranean, through the Panama
Canal and into the battle of Okinawa before Nuckols’ service ended in 1946. He
had crossed the Atlantic and the Pacific oceans with his fellow soldiers,
avoiding German patrol torpedo boats sinking ships around them and Japanese
kamikaze fighters throughout their time on the ship.
“I saw a kamikaze fighter shoot at another boat in front of us and the
[ammunition] didn’t explode so he just flew right into the ship, right in front
of us,” he said. “I mean, they were something else.”
The closest Nuckols came to being injured was when an ammunition shell exploded
and the shrapnel spread across the ship’s deck, but he still stayed alert and
wary of danger.
“When you lay down to sleep, you’d wonder where you were going to be the next
morning, you just never knew,” he said.
Nuckols was a sophomore at Austin Tracy High School when the war began, but when
he got out of the service, instead of getting a job, he decided he wanted to go
back to school, when he was almost 21.
He finished his schooling at Austin Tracy and moved on to Western Kentucky
University when he was 23, majoring in math. His experience in navigation,
plotting stars to find the ship’s position, made him interested in taking on
math as a career.
Nuckols went on to teach math at Barren County schools for 22 years and Allen
County for five years. While he taught, he obtained various academic
accomplishments, including his master’s degree and an administrator’s
certificate. He used that certificate when he became principal at Scottsville
High School shortly before it merged with Allen County.
He remained in the schools until 1983 when he retired from academics. Not to be
thrown into average retirement, he became a crop adjuster after another
future teacher taught him how.
“I said ‘you teach me how to be a crop adjuster’ and you can have my job [at the
school],” he said.
In October, Nuckols finished his 29th year as a crop adjuster and finally
retired to his home in Barren County. He has a fresh mind about his experiences
in the war, which is primarily how he remembers the war since his uniform was
lost after the war. But his proudest memories are not all about being a soldier.
“I’m proud of my Navy experience, but I’m just as proud of my 33 years in
education.”
He still keeps in touch with the surviving solders from the USS LST 49, with
whom he performed his service to his country as a necessary duty. The ship
celebrated its 23rd reunion in Pleasant Hill, Iowa, earlier this year. There are
fewer than 30 still alive, but 10 of them were able to meet and discuss
memories, including why they were devoted to their service.
“If we hadn’t won World War II, I don’t think you all would be here,” he said.
“I still think it’s the greatest thing I’ve done in my life.”
When he thinks of the men and women of the current military, he gives them the
same advice that drove him while he served his country.
“They can’t forget why they’re there, and it’s better that they be fighting them
over there than to have [those with whom the U.S. is at war] over here fighting
on our land,” he said.”