The other person I tried to look up during that trip to London was my brother Ray, who was an officer stationed somewhere in England. But even with Hank Wales's pull, I couldn't locate Ray. Everything was so goddamned top secret.
General Huebner assembled the entire outfit one night in late May. He congratulated us on our training and discretion. Not once had a careless slip of the tongue by any soldier revealed that the Big Red One was in England. The general told us we were ready for the biggest challenge of our military careers. Exactly where and when we'd go into action, however, wasn't mentioned.
"Soon you'll paint the Big Red One back on your helmets and put your patches back on your uniforms," said the general. "But tonight, there's a big dance in town. You are off duty. You cannot discuss the military situation, but you can have fun."
The men's cheers rose mightily as one. General Huebner waited for us to quiet down.
"Pay attention to one song tonight: `I Can't Give You Anything but Love.' When you hear that tune, wherever you are or whatever you are doing, you will leave that instant and return to base camp."
My meeting with Alfred Hitchcock at the Claridge Hotel was a comedy of errors that we both remembered fondly.
Late that night, we were in a noisy pub in Bridgeport drinking everything in sight when that song came on the radio. It was the first time in seven months they'd played it. We looked at each other and instantly got the hell out of there. The place was teeming with dogfaces one moment and empty the next. When we got back to camp, they told us to start preparing our gear to move out. Still, we had no idea where we were going. They loaded us onto trucks in the middle of the night and took us to a marshaling area near Long Bredy, in Dorset.
Where or when Operation Overlord would take place was the best-kept secret of the war. There were six hundred miles of coast from Holland to Spain, and even high-ranking army officials didn't know the beachhead. Forget about war movies you've seen with handsome actors in uniforms discussing D day before the invasion. Bullshit! When we finally got down to final preparations, real places in Overlord were never mentioned, only code names that were attached to unspecified landing areas: Utah, Sword, Juno, Fox Green, Easy Red, Omaha.
The first time I heard the word "Omaha"-three syllables that would be part of my very being for the rest of my life-I was in a crowded tent erected on Dorset's muddy red earth while a captain showed us big mockups of an unnamed beachhead. Tiny white flags identified assault teams. The first village we were to liberate was called Colleville-sur-Mer. Then, and only then, did we know that the attack was aimed at the French coast.
We were invading Normandy for the same reason that William the Conqueror had done it nine hundred years before: it was the shortest distance across the Channel. This time, two million soldiers, five thousand ships, and two thousand airplanes had to cross that narrow waterway to breach Hitler's European citadel. Normandy was supposed to have fewer and less motivated Nazi troops. We'd find out the truth about that lie soon enough. Field Marshal von Rundstedt and our old foe General Rommel would make sure that every foot of those goddamned beaches would be bathed in Allied blood. The deception of an invasion at Calais, directly across from the cliffs of Dover, had been created with dummy troop and supply movements along with a diversionary bombing campaign. Thanks to that ruse, General von Rundstedt didn't pull out his Fifteenth Army and send them into Normandy until it was too late. Still, we'd have our hands full with the Nazis' Seventh Army and a dozen Panzer divisions.
Every dogface in our outfit studied the mockup of Colleville-sur-Mer round the clock until we knew the place so well it seemed we'd been born there. The left section of Omaha Beach was Easy Red, and the right, Fox Green. Omaha was two hundred yards from low water to high, loaded with barbed wire, tank traps, and mines. Then came the bluffs, a draw, a small stone house, a marsh, pillboxes atop the cliff, the village itself, a hill called Mount Cauvin. Next to the mockup were aerial photographs of where the beach was mined. American bombs were supposed to leave craters in the sand where we could take cover.
Over and over and over, our sergeant drilled assignments into our heads. Touch down at 0630 on Easy Red, exit the beach at E-i, pass the small stone house, work our way up the draw to the top of the cliff, bypass Colleville-sur-Mer, and, within an hour, take Mount Cauvin in order to report on enemy tank movements from Bayeux. The Schnell battalions stationed in the town were supposed to be combat rejects, soft and fat after sitting on their asses for years fraternizing with the locals. Intelligence assured us that they'd cave in after navy artillery and air force bombing runs had softened them up.
"By the time your squad is halfway up Mount Cauvin," the captain told us, "those Schnell battalions will be dead or retreating. Intelligence says you don't have to sweat them."
"What if they're wrong?" somebody asked.
"We'll sue 'em!" cracked the sergeant.
Just before we were moved to Weymouth to board the ships that would spit us out on the beaches of Normandy, Eisenhower himself visited the First Division. Our helmets and uniforms again brandished the Big Red One. Eisenhower walked among us and spoke in that calm, reassuring voice. We listened to him and found strength in his words about sailing out on a great crusade. He spoke truly when he told us, "The eyes of the world are upon you." I'd find out later he was less than frank when he said, "You establish a beachhead, and we'll carry the ball from there."
H hour was approaching, so we were put in a marshaling area ringed by barbed wire and machine guns. I was doing last-minute checks on our outfit's rifles when a lieutenant came over to me.
"You got a brother?" he said.
"Yeah," I said, amazed he was bugging me with questions about my family on the brink of the biggest invasion in history. "I got more than one brother. So what?"
"One of them's here."
"You're nuts!"
I looked up, and there was my kid brother, Ray, trotting toward me in a dark green officer's uniform. His shoes were covered with mud, but he didn't give a damn. I jumped up and threw my arms around him.
"How in the hell did you get in here, Ray?"
"I have a map of the loading area," he said.
"A map?" I laughed. "We get dog tags, not maps! This place is off-limits to everyone!"
"I've got orders signed by Ike himself. I told your CO I had to see you before the big show."
"Colonel Taylor?"
"Yeah," said Ray. "We talked about you. He's the one who gave me the map. If I don't return it, they'll shoot me!"
"What are you, Eisenhower's personal assistant?"
"No," laughed Ray. "I'm with psychological warfare. But I pulled a few strings to drop in on you. Where are they sending you?"
"I can't talk about it, even with my own brother. I don't even care where it is. If they order us to go fight on the goddamned moon, then I'm there."
My brother couldn't understand my cynicism. Why should he? He hadn't been through two invasions or trained the last seven months for an operation that meant certain death for half of us. Ray was just wonderful to come see me before the invasion. He stayed a couple hours, until they took us away to the troopships. We talked about Mama and our futures. I was so thrilled to see my brother that I almost forgot where I was and what I was about to do. His appearance was proof there was still love in that war-torn world. The big knot in the pit of my stomach started churning, because I wasn't sure if I'd live to see Ray or the rest of my family again. Neither Ray's SHAEF (Supreme Headquarters Allied Expedition Forces) card nor Eisenhower's signature could get him anywhere near the loading ramps, even though he insisted on accompanying me. What he didn't know then was that he'd be kept under virtual house arrest for days to prevent any indiscretions about Overlord.
My brother Ray with my mother in March 1944 during his last regular leave. By June 1944, there was a good chance I'd never see them again.
We boarded the troopships, First Battalion on the USS Samuel Chase, my outfit as part of the Second on the USS He
nrico, and the Third, on the HMS Empire Anvil. As soon as we pushed off, they called us all down to a hall in the ship's belly. They'd set up that model of Omaha with the little flags. Easy Red. Fox Green. Colleville-sur-Mer. We knew it like we knew our cocks in the dark. Again, Colonel Taylor calmly ran through each facet of the assault. He called on various soldiers to explain their assignments in the invasion.
"You've been rehearsing hard for this operation," said Colonel Taylor. "You know your jobs by heart. When we hit that beach, there'll be eight hundred Nazis of the 726th-the Schnell Battalion-defending it. They have to be killed immediately. They aren't battle hardened. There has been no war in Normandy. They are an occupation army and have been living there for four years. Some have local girlfriends. They will die. Not you."
The colonel was all business, without a glimmer of his usual sly humor.
"The minute you get ashore, you will move toward the draw and get up that hill. It should take you about twenty-five minutes. From that hill above the beach, you'll see the road to Bayeux and their Panzers. You'll radio us down at the beach immediately about the tank movements. Any questions?"
There were none. Taylor looked hard at each one of us.
"Intelligence tells us that the people of Normandy have fraternized with the enemy. They did what anyone else would do to survive four years of occupation. Gifts, cakes, chocolates. They've probably accepted daily life with the Germans. Now we will be the invaders. What they call "liberation" is good for newspaper stories. We aren't liberating anything, we're turning things upside down. What you've got to tell yourselves is that Omaha is not just a beach. If you throw a light on it, that light will shine all the way into Germany. It's our doorway to the enemy. The Nazis have had it their way for a long time. You'll have to kill them like they've never been killed before."
Shut-eye was impossible due to the rough seas and the churning in my stomach. They got us up in the middle of the night. Overlord began to unfold according to a master timetable. Thousands of bombs from Ninth Air Force planes fell inland. Navy shells battered the coastline. The weather, which had been dicey on June 5, stabilized a little in the early hours of June 6. The sea was still damned choppy. We moved up on the decks. It was pitch-black. I saw flashes of our bombs and exploding shells in the distance. Around us were a multitude of massive silhouettes, the battleships Arkansas, Texas, and Nevada, assorted cruisers, destroyers, and rocket-launching craft, all getting in their licks. We hoped there'd be fewer Nazis defending Omaha after that shellacking.
Above: Robert Capa took this shot of me (on the left can of ammunition, getting forty winks) on June 5 as the USS Henrico got into position for our assault on Omaha.
Below: Hungarian-born American photojournalist Robert Capa, on one of his innumerable journeys to where an armed conflict needed documenting.
How wrong could we be! Not only were our bombers and artillery off target, but one of the crack German combat units, the 352nd Field Division, moved back into our sector, thanks to a last-minute decision from General von Rundstedt to rehearse defense maneuvers alongside the 726th in case of an Allied invasion. Whether by impulse or instinct, knowledge or just blind luck, the best soldiers the Nazis had would be facing off with us during the invasion. Unbeknownst to us, enemy firepower at Omaha would be double what we'd been told in planning sessions.
We strapped on our life belts-"Mae Wests," as we called them-and put condoms on our rifles. Then we climbed down rope ladders into the LCVPs, the standard thirty-two men in each boat. A soupy fog blanketed everything. As the boat I was in pitched violently, I gripped the railing with one hand, and with the other, I kept guys from crushing me with their heavy equipment packs. Waves crashed over the boats, washing away the puke on the decks. I wondered if any of the history books would mention all the goddamned vomit that made our boots feel like ice skates.
The bombing faded away as Allied planes flew back across the Channel to their home bases. Our destroyers fell silent. Everything became ominously quiet. There were no "good lucks," no small talk, no prayers. All eyes peered into the fog toward the approaching beach somewhere in front of us. A wave of boats maneuvered away from the ship and moved toward Omaha every seven minutes. I was in the third wave. Our coxswain guaranteed us he'd get us to the right landing spot. How the hell could he guarantee anything? He was a twenty-two-year-old kid from Kansas who'd never seen Normandy in his entire life. He was piloting that goddamned boat on the same memorized map that they'd banged into our brains. The quiet was suddenly interrupted by an explosion forty feet off our starboard.
"What the hell was that?" shouted a lieutenant.
"A mine," said the coxswain. "The navy couldn't knock out all of them."
We were stunned. Mines this far from the beach? We thought we were still a couple miles out. Maybe we were there already. A second explosion blew up a mushroom of water portside.
"That's no fuckin' mine!" said our sergeant. "They're shelling us from the beach!"
We had fantasized that the first or second attack waves would be the most dangerous. We'd even joked about it. But the joke was on us. The first and second waves had hit the beach with at least an element of surprise on their side. By the time we were coming in, the Germans were alerted to the invasion and had time to adjust their artillery.
We began to see bloody bodies floating by us in the water. They were boys from the first two assault waves. A few were still alive, bobbing up and down in the swells, pleading for help as we passed. The coxswain was under strict orders not to stop for anything or anyone. We had to grit our teeth and look away, trying not to listen to the screaming men in the water begging us to pick them up. It was horrible, worse than Dante's Inferno.
Another shell screamed as it plunged from the sky toward us. We crashed helmets as we hit the deck. This time the explosion was just over our stern. The waves from the explosion almost capsized us.
Holy shit, our worst horror had become reality. Our bombs and artillery hadn't knocked out their positions. Like the first two invasion waves, we were rushing into a death trap.
The LCVP dropped its ramp. We plunged into the freezing, choppy water. We had to struggle to keep our heads above the surface. Bullets from Nazi machine guns splattered everywhere. A helluva lot of dogfaces were hit and killed before they got anywhere near the beach. "Rommel's asparagus," those mines attached to iron obstacles, were blowing up all over the place. I swallowed a ton of saltwater mixed with American blood. We struggled like crazy not to drown while making our way through those metal death traps and around all the floating bodies. Mortar shells started to fall like hail. It was two hundred yards from the landing craft to Omaha Beach, the longest distance I'd ever travel.
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our well-laid plans to get off Omaha Beach in twenty-five minutes went straight to hell. We were trapped in that nightmare of mines, machine guns, and mortars for more than three goddamned hours. I remember it happening like an avalanche that grabs you and sweeps you up in its staggering violence, too stunning to understand its magnitude as you live through it, moment after endless moment.
Wave upon wave of our soldiers hit that beach. Nothing could stop the massive invasion. Machine guns rattled from up above, dropping dogfaces in the surf, turning the ocean red. Human screams were drowned out by the shrieking artillery shells that fell out of the foggy sky. Mines exploded underfoot. Smoldering bodies were everywhere. As thousands of dogfaces debarked, hundreds and hundreds dropped into the surf and across the sand. Heads, arms, fingers, testicles, and legs were scattered everywhere as we ran up the beach, trying to dodge the corpses. I saw a man's mouthjust a mouth, for Chrissakes!-floating in the water.
It didn't take long to figure out that the fingers on the triggers of those deadly Nazi guns didn't belong to combat novices. How could Intelligence have been so wrong about the presence of seasoned, battle-ready German troops above Omaha? As we scurried up to the only cover in sight, a
sea wall that was nothing more than a low pile of shale, we expected to find craters from our own bombs. But there were none. Our bombs had hit too far inland and missed the beach completely. Through the smoke and fog, I spotted the stone house up above. I silently thanked our coxswain from Kansas for landing us close to where we were supposed to be. But there was nowhere to go. The narrow strip of American-held beach was soon choked with shoulder-to-shoulder survivors of the landing, some lying prone, their legs in the water, grateful to be out of the line of fire of Nazi machine guns. For Chrissakes, Easy Red on Omaha was the smallest beachhead of the greatest amphibious invasion in history! The only way to get off that goddamned beach was to cross a mine field and break through the barbed wire barrier that the Nazis had built 150 feet up ahead. Every time one of our bangalore teams tried to torpedo the barrier, they were devastated by cross fire and mortar shells.
English and Canadian outfits were landing on our left. The Twentyfifth Infantry was landing on our right. Everyone was pinned down on the beach. What was left of our outfit was going to be wiped out unless we could break inland to the base of the bluff. Methodically covering each other with small arms fire, we established a human chain for the bangalore relay. The minutes went by torturously. Finally, Sergeant Philip Streczyck zigzagged through the mines and made it to the barrier, setting the charge that blew a breach in the wire. We yelled out a cry of relief. A lieutenant turned to me and screamed something. My ears were ringing so much, I barely heard him. He had to say it three times.
A Third Face: My Tale of Writing, Fighting and Filmmaking Page 17
