Interview with Sam Burns, August 10, 1991
Project: American Veterans: World War Two Oral History Project
Interview Summary
Sam Burns joined the Kentucky National Guard at age 16 and served during World War II with Battery C of the 106th Coast Artillery Battalion. In this interview, he discusses his background in Washington County, Kentucky before his military service. He talks about landing in North Africa on November 8, 1942. Burns describes his thoughts and feelings as he was going into his first combat experience. He describes his first combat experience from landing on the beach, to setting up their guns, and then firing upon the enemy planes. He describes the experience of being under fire. Bush describes in detail a particular bombing that he experienced in "Stuka Valley" when a bomb detonated very close to him, knocking him and the gun out of the foxhole. Burns was briefly knocked unconscious and upon waking, believed he had been mortally wounded. Burns describes in detail the skirmish that earned him the Distinguished Service Cross: shooting down enemy planes at Sidi Bouzid, Tunisia. He talks about the deaths of two of his battalion-mates due to friendly fire in Salerno, Italy. Burns talks about waterproofing their vehicles to go ashore at Anzio, Italy on D-Day. He describes living at Anzio for weeks before being sent home from the war on points. He talks about his education, career, and family after returning from the war.Interview Accession
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Interviews may be reproduced with permission from Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History, Special Collections, University of Kentucky Libraries.Restriction
Interviews may be reproduced with permission from Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History, Special Collections, University of Kentucky Libraries.
All rights to the interviews, including but not restricted to legal title, copyrights and literary property rights, have been transferred to the University of Kentucky Libraries.
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Burns, Sam Interview by Arthur L. Kelly. 10 Aug. 1991. Lexington, KY: Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History, University of Kentucky Libraries.
Burns, S. (1991, August 10). Interview by A. L. Kelly. American Veterans: World War Two Oral History Project. Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History, University of Kentucky Libraries, Lexington.
Burns, Sam, interview by Arthur L. Kelly. August 10, 1991, American Veterans: World War Two Oral History Project, Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History, University of Kentucky Libraries.
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Persistent Link for this Record: https://kentuckyoralhistory.org/ark:/16417/xt7g1j97988h