Remembering Jim Teeters on D-Day
by Bob Brail
June 6, 2019, will mark the 75th anniversary of D-Day, the Allied assault on the beaches of Normandy. Jim Teeters, a twenty-six year old unmarried, unskilled construction worker from Matson, who worked on the Missouri River, was killed that day on Omaha Beach.
Teeters was born in Boone County, Missouri, in 1916. He moved with his family to Matson in the early 1930's and began to earn a reputation as a amateur baseball pitcher, playing for the Defiance team in the Eastern Missouri League at least as early as 1937 until he was entered the Army in 1942. He enlisted at Jefferson Barracks and was sent to Fort Bliss, Texas.
On June 6, 1944, Corporal James L. Teeters was a machine gunner in the 197th Anti-Aircraft Artillery (Automatic Weapons) Battalion. That group was to support the 16th Infantry Regiment as it assaulted the eastern portion of Omaha Beach in the initial stages of the attack at 6:30 am. After landing, the unit reverted to the role of infantry and helped the 16th achieve a foothold on Omaha Beach.
One member of Teeters' outfit remembered the slaughter on Omaha Beach this way: “I nearly drowned. I cannot swim and the landing craft could not reach Omaha Beach. I walked with water up to my chin and my hands up in the air to carry my M-1 rifle way over my head and clear from the salt water. The shore was littered with dead and injured Gis, most of the equipment located on the bach had been hit by German gun shells. I took cover behind a busted tank, and quickly realized that we would all be killed if we stayed on the beach.”
Sometime during the day, most likely early in the assault, Jim Teeters was killed. He was buried in the American cemetery at Colleville-sur-mer in Plot I, Row 9, Grave 33. On August 5, 1944, a memorial service was held for Teeters back home in Matson in the town hall.
Most of the readers of this article were not even alive on D-Day, and most of those readers who were alive on that date were too young to have any memories of it. However, today we take a moment to remember the sacrifice of Jim Teeters, who was killed on Omaha Beach.
Sources: Criba.be/fr/stories/detail/a-brief-story-about-edward-o-asselin-114-1; D-Day: Normandy Landing Beaches (Tonie and Valmai Holt); St. Charles Daily Cosmos-Monitor (youranswerplace.org).
Teeters in 1939