June 6, 1944. D-Day. Omaha Beach.

The Great Crusade to liberate Fortress Europe was under way.
And Claude Hobbs of Carrizozo was there.
This is his story.

Claude Marion Hobbs was born on October 10 1920 in Ancho, New Mexico. His parents were George and Dona Hobbs, with Claude the oldest of 10 children.

"My Dad was a cowboy," Hobbs said. "I was born at the Cradle Stage stop in Ancho. The place had a good well, and it was where the stage team changed horses. Later it became a railroad stop."

Hobbs went to school in White Oaks, and recalls walking two or three miles to school every day, and then going home to chop wood and milk the cows.

"That’s what our life was like back in the Twenties and Thirties," Hobbs said. "There wasn’t a lot of time for sports and all that."

After finishing school in White Oaks, Hobbs turned to "cowboyin’’. He worked for John Blackshire, then dug ditches and trenches for J.E. Click in 1937 and 1938. He went to work for the White and Murphy Cattle Company, and found that Bronco riding and prank playing between the cowboys was to his liking.

Then came December 7, 1941.

"I didn’t know about Pearl Harbor until a few weeks later," Hobbs said. "I was working on a fence trying to prevent the cows from getting out, when my Dad rode up on his horse and told me that the Japs had bombed Pearl Harbor. He said ‘Well, it looks like we’ve got a war going on’ and he rode away.

"I knew it was only a matter of time and I would be in it."

Hobbs continued to work the cowboy way until he received his draft notice in the summer of 1942. Hobbs was inducted on August 12, 1942, and then reported for duty at Ft. Bliss on August 22, 1942. He went through basic training at Ft. Bliss, and then received additional training in 40- and 50-millimeter weapons. He was so good at weaponry that he was ordered to stay on as an instructor.

In February, 1943, Hobbes and the 477th Regiment were transferred to Yuma, Arizona. For the next year, the 477th practiced maneuvers in Arizona and in Death Valley, California. Then came the orders to move out, and the 477th was transferred to Camp Davis in North Carolina.

In February, 1944, the 477th left New Jersey on a transport ship headed for Liverpool, England. The journey lasted 14 days, and Hobbs remembers the weather as being especially treacherous.

"The weather was really rough, especially the further north we went," Hobbs said. "Everyone was getting sick and throwing up. The smell was awful. But I never got sick."

After landing in England, the 477th underwent more training. Then Hobbs "volunteered" for KP duty.

"One day the Sergeant looked around and said ‘We need volunteers to cook breakfast. Hobbs, you and Bevins just volunteered,’’’ Hobbs laughed. "We started cooking at 11 p.m. and continued all night. We had to cook breakfast for 14,000 men!"

Hobbs said he was on KP duty for two weeks when one day the Captain told him that he was done with KP, and was going back to machine guns.

"He was pretty sly, that guy," Hobbs smiled ruefully. "The next morning when I reported for duty at the ammo bank, I was told to load my gear.

"We were boarding the transports and the invasion was on."

Hobbs said that his unit was ready, but everyone was numb with the fear of going into battle.

"We didn’t know if we were going to be alive for five minutes or longer, so it just made me go numb all over," Hobbs said. "I don’t think I was terrified. I just prayed to God and told him I was going to do my best and the rest was in His hands. He knew if I was going to make it so I didn’t really worry about it."

So on the morning of June 6, 1944, Claude Hobbs was part of the greatest invasion in the history of mankind and warfare.

"All you could see in every direction were ships," Hobbs recalled. "We watched as the battlewagons and destroyers opened up and the sound was incredible.

"We watched the early waves of the 29th Division go in, and then it was our turn. We had to hurry, because our transport ship hit a mine, and was starting to list. We had to hustle over the side and get into the barge that took us, because the ship was starting to turn over. I noticed there were four or five bodies stacked in the barge that had come back to take us in.

"I knew I was in for it."

Hobbs and the 477th landed on F sector of Omaha Beach at 2 p.m. in the afternoon. Many of the German heavy guns had already been silenced, but there were over 3500 dead Americans already lying on the beach.

"We had to walk about a mile down the beach, because we had to flank the road that we were going to use to get off the beach and move inland," Hobbs said. "There were 105 men in my outfit, and we had to take out the German position with just rifles and grenades, because our machine guns and heavy equipment weren’t supposed to arrive until the next day.
"We took the position."

Hobbs is justifiably proud of his role in the Normandy invasion.
"I wasn’t too excited about it at the time," Hobbs laughed. "But we knew we had a job to do and we did it. I didn’t really think about dying; our training just took over and we attacked the position, threw a bunch of grenades, and wiped out a bunch of snipers.
"I had an A-3, which was a grenade launcher. I was really good on using it, and I used it a lot on June 6th."

Over the course of the next few days and weeks, Hobbs and the 477th fought their way into France.

"We had lots of firefights, and we were always on the frontline attacking crossroads because of our Bofors and Hellcats," Hobbs said. "When we got to the hedgerows, we were along side the 29th Division. Those boys had really been torn up on D-Day. When we attacked, we would leap frog. They would advance a ½ mile or so, and we would provide covering fire. Then they would dig in, and we would attack while they provided whatever covering fire they could provide. We did this until their outfit was so shot up that they were pulled out of the line and then they moved us to the 28th Division."

Hobbs said his outfit was always out front because of the heavy firepower.

"We fought 312 days on the frontline, with very few rests,’’ Hobbs said. "We fought our way through Northern France, and then got caught up in the Battle of the Bulge."

Hobbs and the 477th were attached to the 28th Division, which was responsible for a 24-mile sector of the line.

In December, 1944, Adolph Hitler and the German Army launched a desperate assault against the Allied Lines located in the Ardennes Forest, and overran the undermanned and undergunned American Army in that part of the line.

"Our Captain told everyone to get out, except eight of us," Hobbs recalled. "We had two guns, one on each side of the road. The Captain told the eight of us to stay and to give ‘em hell and fire all of our ammunition until we ran out.

"He said we would then be on our own."

And the German Army was coming.

Hobbs and his compatriots stayed and fired off all of their ammunition. The German artillery located the firing position that Hobbs and his men were in, and started zeroing in.

"We had two new guys who reported to our battery that day," Hobbs said. "I told them they were about to be initiated. Well, no sooner had I said that when the Krauts really let us have it. After the shelling stopped for a few minutes, we got out of our holes and this one new guy jumps up and says ‘If this is my initiation, I don’t want any more initiating."

Two men on the other gun were killed by German shell fire, but Hobbs and Jule Devins from Tennessee disabled the two guns, and then led the remaining soldiers on a mission they hoped would take them behind enemy lines so they could save themselves.

"We figured they would move past us, so we hid by day and moved by night," Hobbs said. "Some guys wanted to stay and wait for reinforcements, but I told ‘em I was leaving. Everyone followed me, and just as we moved down the road about 50 yards, the Germans hit the area we had just left. We all would have been killed."

After wandering for five days, Hobbs and his crew wandered into Nu Chateau, one of the outposts of Bastogne that had been surrounded by the Germans in the Battle of the Bulge.

"We got weapons, ammo and food, and then were put on a hill on the front line," Hobbs said. "It was the coldest winter on record, and we literally froze out there. Many of our men—especially the new guys—got Yellow Jaundice. We made powdered coffee out of frozen snow, so the old timers didn’t get it."

For two weeks, Hobbs and his outfit fought alongside the 101st Airborne and shot anything that moved. He said his most vivid memory was watching the 4th Armored Division of General George S. Patton’s Third Army roll down the mountain to relieve the siege of Bastogne.

"Oh, what a sight that was," Hobbs smiled. "Bevins asked me if I was happy to see Gen. Patton. I told him no, but I was sure glad to see what he brought with him!"

Hobbs was then "volunteered" to go and retrieve the guns they had left behind when the initial German onslaught began the Battle of the Bulge. He took five men, went behind enemy lines, and brought both guns back. For his action, he was awarded a Bronze Star for valor.

After the Bulge, Hobbs’ unit was sent to southern France to work alongside the Third Division, and then was transferred back to the 28th for the drive into Germany.

It was on the drive into Germany that Hobbs almost lost his life.

"We were told to take Coblentz—that it was lightly defended," Hobbs said. "Well, let’s just say it wasn’t. The Germans were there in force and they actually had us surrounded in a building. I was on the 4th floor, and I noticed the Rhine River flowed right outside. The Germans told us we had five minutes to surrender or they were going to blow up the building. The men on the first floor surrendered. One of the men I was with said he was going to find out how deep the river was and he jumped out the window.

"When I saw his head pop out of the river, I jumped in too."

Thirteen men leaped from the 4th floor, and they floated up river for a mile and then hid under a blasted out bridge. Hobbs led the men on an overnight trek that took him back to the 477th headquarters.

"The men there didn’t recognize us, and we wanted some coffee," Hobbs said. "Then the Captain saw me and said ‘Hobbs, I am sure glad to see you. You are the toughest soldier I’ve ever seen. Glad to see you made it."

Hobbs said he and his men kept pushing through Germany, but he knew the war was just about over.

"Some of my guys actually drank in a bar with some German soldiers before the war was over," Hobbs said. "They drank their beer, and then each went his own way."

Hobbs said he almost lost his life to friendly fire."

"We were watching a crossroads looking for German stragglers or snipers, " Hobbs said. "All of a sudden, we are being hit by artillery, and it was our guns!"

It turns out the artillery barrage was a 21-gun salute honoring the death of President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

After that, Hobbs said his outfit had relatively light duty until the war ended. He did a couple of months of occupation duty, and then returned home in the summer of 1945. Out of 160 men he trained with at Ft. Bliss, only 23 were together at the end of the war.
"I don’t think I realized I was home until I walked back into our house in Lincoln County," Hobbs said. "I wasn’t home until I was really home!"

Hobbs said it was difficult to readjust, and he had bad dreams about the war for decades. But he hasn’t had a nightmare in four of five years, and he thinks it’s time for his story to be told.

After he got home, he married Annie Hall from Ancho and they had three children, George, Dorothy (also known as sister) and Jack. Jack died in a car crash on Christmas Day, 1985, and Annie passed away on Christmas Eve, 1995.

Hobbs worked for the US Forest Service for 15 years, and then worked as manager of the Robert O. Anderson for eight years. Before retiring, he and Annie and the family trapped coyotes for area ranchers and the Mescaleros.

"I am proud of my service, but there aren’t a lot of us left," Hobbs said. "But being at Normandy and the Battle of the Bulge, well, that is the proudest moment of my life."

Hobbs won five stars for his five battle campaigns—Normandy, Northern France, Ardennes, Southern France, and Central Germany—which earned him a Silver Star. He won a Bronze Star for bravery, a good conduct medal, and numerous other service awards.

He lives in Carrizozo.