This is the second part of a two-part series on a Kirkland resident and World War II veteran. Some of the descriptions in these stories may not be suitable for younger readers.

Art Schladerman was the quintessential American GI during World War II. The 91-year-old Kirkland resident has captured his experiences in the war through drawing many of the harrowing experiences he had. In this second part of a two part series with the Kirkland Reporter, Schladerman tells of being the first out of his craft on D-Day.

On the early morning of June 6, 1944, Schladerman’s landing craft at last hit the beach. The first man up, he ran out the craft and down the ramp as it lowered. He was immediately plunged into the water, barely able to keep his head above the surface. To his horror, the weight of his gear, rifle and even his helmet were dragging him down. Desperate, he was forced to ditch all three. Swimming to the beach – the wrong one, as it turned out – he said he came upon a scene of death.

“The smell…well…it made you nauseous,” he said. “I remember how miserable I was. I had no feeling of being frightened or anything. My destiny had already been taken care of. I was just going with the flow.”

Using ropes to climb the seawall, Schladerman narrowly missed death when the man above him was shot and dropped to the ground. Reaching the top, he came across a group of GIs, including a sergeant. Handing Schladerman a rifle, he ordered him to remain put and help with the ammunition and supplies.

No GIs, he said, ever came up the seawall after him. Omaha Beach would later prove to be one of the deadliest assaulted by Allied troops on D-Day.

By the time his uniform had dried, he decided to join the GIs ahead of him, who had gone to a crater. There, he discovered they had all been killed. Later, elements of the 29th Divisions found him with the bodies. Officers from the platoon of the GIs killed then had Schladerman sent back to England to provide notes to their regiment for the killed men’s citations. Shipped back to France, his unit was attached to Task Force A in the Third Army under Patton, carrying out recon missions in Northern France. Operating the radio, he also manned his tank destroyer’s .50 caliber machine gun. Participating in action around Saint-Malo, he had yet another near-death experience when he was carrying a wounded comrade back to Allied lines after their tank destroyer was blown up. Attempting to reach a farmhouse, he was forced to play dead on the ground with the wounded soldier when several Germans pulled up in a vehicle. Assuming he was dead, the German soldiers kicked at him, but otherwise left him alone.

Schladerman was also a POW for a brief spell when he was later captured by a small group of German soldiers, only to be rescued shortly after by other GIs. He had to first show his dog tags to provide that underneath his mud-caked uniform he was an American.

Following their sweep across northern France, Schladerman was stationed on the Siegfried Line, a series of fortifications along the western border of Germany. Manning a .50 caliber machine gun in a dugout, Schladerman was wounded during an artillery duel between the British/Canadian and German forces. Taking shrapnel in his left arm, he still has the scars 70 years later.

During that time, Schladerman recalls the engineers, tasked with destroying German pillboxes with demolition charges, as “the bravest people I ever met.”

“They took the casualties, but I don’t think they got the credit for taking out those pillboxes,” he said.

Schladerman added that the 83rd Division, protecting their left flank, later pulled out to relive the 101st Division surrounded by the German army in the Belgium town of Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge.

“It left us with a very fragile line,” he said.

Following the end of operations, Schladerman acted as a guard for prisoners convicted of violent crimes. He was eventually shipped home and arrived in Pomona in the fall of 1945.

While other veterans struggled to transition from the war zone they had lived in for years to the relatively peaceful home environment, and despite the many traumatic things he had seen, Schladerman said it was not an issue for him. When he arrived back home, his hometown newspaper anticipated his homecoming with a write-up.

“Everybody knew I was a GI coming home, which I didn’t mind,” he said. “I was the first GI that came home early, so I had a choice of women.”

Unable to find a job in his hometown, he used the GI Bill first to go to junior college. He went on to earn a Bachelors of Science in advertising and art. While at college, he said, he continued to sketch out his wartime experiences.

Moving to Kirkland in 1966, he and his wife of 55-years, Donna, still own a home at Carillon Point.

Like many other World War II veterans, Schladerman has tried to maintain a low profile over the years and not seek the spotlight, but his war record has made that difficult, and he has received numerous write-ups in both magazines as well as his hometown newspaper.

During a high school class reunion years after the war, a classmate of his recalled finding a “Kilroy was here” graffiti in a French town after taking it from the Germans. Schladerman admitted that he had signed the graffiti and added Pomona, his hometown, to the wall.

“I told him I was an advertising artist,” he recalled, “and we both agreed it pays to advertise.”