100-Year-Old Veteran Recalls Landing on Utah Beach and Losing His Best Friend to German Shellfire

Joe Picard, 100, lives in a retirement community in Rhode Island near where he grew up. 5 percent of the more than 16 million Americans who served in World War II remain alive. Picard graduated from Woonsocket High School on his 18th birthday, June 25, 1943, and registered for the draft the same day.

He received a letter signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordering him to report for duty and joined the 552nd Field Artillery Battalion at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. The 552nd’s signature weapon was the 240-mm Howitzer M1, nicknamed the Black Dragon.

The gun could hurl 360-pound shells as far as 14 miles and took as many as eight hours to set up. Picard trained as a lanyard man on the weapon. When the battery clerk went AWOL, Picard, who had taken typing lessons, became the unit’s clerk and de facto historian.

He compiled the daily Morning Report ledger that recorded shells fired, promotions, and the names of the dead. Picard boarded a liner in New York bound for England and was stationed at a seaside resort in Bournemouth on England’s south coast before D-Day. D-Day occurred on June 6, 1944.

The 552nd landed on Utah Beach a little more than three weeks later. A more experienced soldier drove a truck into an unmarked minefield on Utah Beach and was killed. The 552nd supported the First Army through Normandy and northern France.

By the end of August 1944 the battalion settled in a small community on the outskirts of Paris. Picard negotiated with an elderly French couple for use of a large hunting estate and château outside Paris. The couple allowed Picard and his captain to stay in the château three days before the rest of the unit arrived.

Picard crossed the German border and saw Aachen in Allied hands. In November 1944 he was camped with his battery south of Aachen. Raymond Bolduc, Picard’s best friend, was killed instantly by shrapnel from a German air-burst shell.

Bolduc’s tentmate lost both legs at the knee and later died from his injuries. Picard typed the details of Bolduc’s death into the Morning Report the next day. S. government sent Bolduc’s wife a telegram with an incorrect date of death.

The Battle of the Bulge was launched in mid-December 1944. American forces held out until reinforcements drove the Germans back in late January 1945. Picard spent his last days in the Army working in a film library in France.

His ship landed in Newport News, Virginia, on Christmas Eve 1945. He was discharged on New Year’s Day 1946. Through the GI Bill he earned a degree in accounting and worked in a Rhode Island bank for more than 30 years.

In 2014 Picard met Raymond Bolduc’s nephew during an Honor Flight trip. Approximately 70 years after Bolduc’s death, Picard met with the Bolduc family in New Hampshire.