“You ready, Gunn?” I asked him. His eyes stayed fixed on the glowing horizon.
“Hell, yeah!” he replied through clenched teeth.
“Let’s load up,” I told him, and he reluctantly let go of the rail and followed me to the side of the boat where the rest were waiting to board the LCA we were assigned to.
One by one, the 30 of us climbed over the rail and found our seats. I took Ellen’s picture out of my pocket and kissed it. When we were set, we were lowered into the choppy sea. The bottom of the craft smacked the water as the Empire Javelin rolled on swells ten feet high. We were drenched almost immediately.
“Bail, goddammit!” Lt. Stavely screamed at us, and we removed our helmets and frantically scooped out the water that had splashed in over the bow.
There were six LCAs from our ship altogether, and we waited until all six boats were in the water, circling ’round and ’round in a maneuver called “Piccadilly Circus.” By the time all the boats were loaded, half the men in mine had succumbed to sea sickness. We’d been given Dramamine tablets, but the angry channel proved to be too much for the stomachs of most everyone on board. I thought I was fine, until we formed a line and headed for shore. Corporal Charlie Reid was puking his guts out in front of me when a blast of wind threw a stream of his vomit into my face. Spitting out any that had gotten in my mouth, I desperately fumbled for the brown paper bags we’d been supplied with for that contingency. I found one, brought it to my mouth, and filled it—only to have the water-soaked bottom give out and the entire bagful deposit itself on my left thigh. We were cold, soaked, queasy, and covered in the sour stench of vomit. We just wanted to reach shore. At the moment it seemed things couldn’t get worse. How naïve we were.
The weather was against us. The missions of the 101st and 82nd Airborne Divisions earlier that night had been hampered by the clouds and rain, and many of the thousands of tons of bombs the air force had dropped had missed their targets for the same reason. The efforts of the battleships shortly before H-Hour (06:30 hours) would also have limited results.
We were destined for Omaha Beach, Dog Green sector. Intelligence had reported our opposition would be mainly Russian, Slovakian, and Polish conscripts—hardly loyal subjects of the Third Reich. Hitler’s forces were wearing thin, and much of the optimism regarding the anticipated success of our mission stemmed from the belief that we’d only be fighting these non-German conscripts and the old men and boys Hitler had resorted to using.
Unbeknownst to the Allied forces, the German 352nd Infantry Division had been moved to Omaha Beach. This was a battle-tested unit that had seen action on the Russian front. They were professional fighting men. They wouldn’t be greeting us with white flags.
Daylight crept up on us, slowly revealing the mighty armada we were a part of. Over 5000 ships sailed in the channel. The LCAs and Higgins boats we rode on looked like bathtub toys compared to the battleships and destroyers. Every way you looked there were boats; it looked like a giant could have used them as stepping stones to walk from France to England, so numerous and close together they were.
No one spoke to each other. The bluster of the wind and waves, and the roar of the engine prevented unnecessary conversation. Most of us just sat in miserable silence. Frankie De Luca fingered rosary beads, and though I couldn’t hear him, I could see him mouthing, “Hail Mary, full of grace . . .” Jedidiah Hankins sat near me and belted out “Onward Christian Soldiers” with lusty fervor. Other men prayed or quoted scripture, though I couldn’t make out what their moving lips were saying. I prayed, too. I didn’t pray for victory. I didn’t pray for strength. I just prayed that I’d get to see my Ellen again.
But there was one sound the wind could not smother. At H-Hour -1 (05:30), the battleships began pounding the coastline. The USS Texas had all 10 of her 14-inch guns trained on the Nazi gun batteries of Pointe-du-Hoc, and it put on a show that rattled us, together with other ships and air support. I couldn’t imagine what the Germans must be feeling. The Texas was lined up parallel to the shore, and the force of firing thrust her back, creating massive waves that affected even us, about a mile away. Her cannons belched fire and smoke as she unleashed salvo after salvo. Missiles weighing a full ton raked the belly of the sky, as the thunderous report of the cannons shuddered me through. The air force joined the deafening percussive symphony, dropping bombs whose blasts even we could feel out on the channel. Heaven itself seemed to be burning up. There was no way we thought the Germans could survive the onslaught before us. We cheered and hollered with every explosion that sent a million multicolored sparks flying every which way, as if a star had shattered before us. Even I was now confident we’d take our objective easily—and maybe be home by Christmas.
“Move over!” Lt. Stavely yelled at the coxswain, frantically pointing toward the starboard side of the boat. The waves, wind, and poor visibility had separated our six boats, and the smoke and fog obscured the Vierville church steeple—our reference point for landing on the Dog Green sector of Omaha beach. As we approached the beach, we became even more separated from the other boats, as the coxswains zigzagged their boats to avoid the deadly Teller mines strapped to the numerous obstacles the Germans had planted in the water. I started to sweat again as our skipper fought the current and waves, knowing that if our little boat hit a mine, it would be game over. Our enemy was forgotten, but not for long. Boats ahead of us started to take on small arms fire.
“Keep down!” Lt. Stavely screamed as the men peered around in horrified disbelief. We hunkered down as tracer bullets pinged off the ramp in front of the boat, as the Jerries zeroed in on us.
“Get in closer!” Lt. Stavely bellowed at our terrified coxswain. We were still fifty yards from the shore and he was slowing down.
A boat on our left hit a mine. A geyser of water, boat, and soldiers shot up into the air. I took a peek over and saw bodies; headless bodies, half bodies, limbless bodies, and bodies screaming for help. I felt sick. The coxswain saw it too, and had enough. Before Lt. Stavely could say anything, he let down the ramp. I thought Stavely would shoot him.
Lt. Stavely was the first down the ramp. He took a few steps and was cut down by enemy fire. I was the new leader by default.
“Let’s go!” I yelled, as the men stood like timid penguins in front of the ramp as it slammed down, causing the boat to buck violently on the briny surf.
Private William Forsythe was in the front, and attempted to exit the boat down the ramp. He took one step forward, and machinegun fire spattered the water around him. He got hit at least once and fell over, hitting his head on the side of the ramp before sliding off face first into the water.
Bullets ricocheted around us, and some of them began to find their mark. Ronnie Fisher got hit in the face and went down. One of the most eager participants on our boat was one of the first casualties. Eddie Gunn, who was standing behind him, wiped Ronnie’s blood and brains off the side of his face. He snapped.
“You goddamn Nazi sonsabitches!” he roared, leaping off the side of the boat. Five or six fellows tried debarking down the ramp, but only two made it. It was like facing a firing squad to use the ramp, so we followed Eddie’s lead and threw ourselves over the side.
The water buried me. Weighted down by sixty pounds of equipment, I sank like a lead anchor. Struggling to break the surface, I inflated my Mae West. If it wasn’t for that life preserver, I might still be at the bottom of the Channel.
The muffled explosions of the mortars and artillery shells pounded my water-filled ears. I felt for the bottom with my feet and kicked off. My head broke the surface, and I gulped a breath of air as the water gave me a salty slap to the face. I swam cumbersomely, looking for some sure footing. My lungs were burning.
Enemy fire continued, raining a deadly downpour of lead drops all around. I needed to move quickly, so I dropped my defunct M1 Garand and clawed my way forward. A floating body hit me in the neck as I scrambled toward the beach.
When the water reached m
y waist, I hid behind a tetrahedron, one of the many obstacles planted by the Germans along the beach. The beach was strewn with them. They looked like pieces from a giant game of jacks. Already exhausted, I crouched behind it like a crocodile, with only my head from my nose up protruding out of the water.
Two men labored to walk out of the water onto the shingle to my left. An 88 shell exploded in front of them, showering me with sand and water. They both fell down. Their screams jolted me from my rest. I slogged through to the pebbled shore and dashed as well as I could in my water-sopped clothes. The blast had blown them about ten feet apart.
“Medic!” I called as I ran.
“Medic!” I screamed again as I came upon the first man. It was Private David Sanders, a kid from Chicago who had lied about his age to get into the army. He lay on his back, his body riddled with shrapnel wounds. His right leg was held together with a thin strip of skin and flesh. It was broken off above the knee, and the severed lower half lay at a forty-five degree angle to the upper part still attached to his body. Muscle twitched around the white, splintered bone, as a bloody mist pulsed from his mangled stump.
“Mother!” he cried. “Mama!” The bond between mother and child remains long after the umbilical cord is snipped.
No medic appeared, so I tried to apply a tourniquet to his shredded leg. He groaned like a woman in travail, his eyes rolled back white in their sockets. There was no way to stanch the flow of blood from the strips of flesh that composed the remainder of his leg. I reached for a shot of morphine to help appease his demons of pain. He started shaking, and I knew he was as good as gone. I decided to save the morphine for someone else.
“Maa . . .” Half a guttural bleat was all he could muster, and he lay lifeless. I was shaking now, as I removed one of his dog tags from his neck. His face was unshaven, but smooth. A fine, blond fuzz grew on his upper lip. He was seventeen.
“Robert!” I heard a voice call weakly through the mayhem. In my stunned state, I’d forgotten the other fellow. It was George London. David wouldn’t need his rifle, so I pulled his M1 off his body and ran to help George.
“Medic!” I screamed again.
“Morphine!” he cried. I quickly produced a Syrette of morphine and cautiously inserted it in his arm.
“Jesus Christ!” he cursed at me through gritted teeth, “just give me the goddamn shot!” I squeezed the morphine out where I hoped it would inject just under his skin and pinned the empty tube to his collar to ensure no one else would give him another shot.
“That’s better,” he said, a little more peacefully.
“I don’t want to die, Robert,” he said to me. He looked at me with his left eye. The right side of his face had been hollowed out by the blast. His cheekbone was gone, the bone under his eyebrow blown away, his eye socket a brimming puddle of crimson. His torso had numerous puncture wounds.
“Aw, George,” I tried to assure him confidently, “you’ll be fine. Just hang in there and we’ll get a medic for you.”
“Can I have a cigarette?” he asked. His mouth opened only a slit when he spoke. It seemed like a ridiculous request, considering his situation, but I found a dry cigarette on him, lit it, and put it in his mouth. Smoke puffed out of a hole in his cheek I could have stuck three fingers through.
“I don’t want to die!” he repeated plaintively, his eyes begging me for hope.
“Don’t worry, the war’s over for you,” I assured him. “Before long you’ll be back in America. You’ll bring Camilla over, settle down in a nice house somewhere, and have a few little babies. It’s going to be alright.” He seemed to be soothed. The morphine was doing its work.
“Jesus!” he called. He wasn’t cursing.
“Hang in there buddy!” I exhorted.
“Water! I need water!”
I screwed the cap off my canteen, plucked the cigarette from his cracked lips, and gently poured the water over his mouth. He choked on the water and started coughing.
“Did you give him morphine?” Finally, a medic had arrived
“Yes,” I said, relieved there was someone there that could help George.
“Good,” he said, as I took a step back to allow him to get to work. But he just kept walking
“Medic?” I said quizzically. He stopped.
“Aren’t you going to do something for him?” His shoulders sagged as though under the weight of a thousand headstones. He stepped back toward me, handed me a Syrette of morphine, and said, “I’m sorry, this is all I can do for him.” He couldn’t look me in the eye as he spoke.
“Help me, medic!” George cried. I battled tears.
“He left you some more morphine,” I offered. I had no hope to offer, and George knew it.
“I’m dying. I’m dying,” he quivered. “I don’t want to die! I’m not a good man!”
“Damn rights you’re a good man,” I told him, with more conviction than I felt, “the finest.”
“You think, Robert?” he asked. I nodded, and he seemed pacified.
“Can you hold my hand?” he begged me pitifully. I brushed the sand off of his leathery hand and stroked it, like you would to soothe an ailing grandparent in a nursing home.
“Give me my beads,” he demanded weakly. I found his rosary beads in his pocket and placed them in his hand. His lips moved, but I heard no words.
“Mama, hold my hand,” he said faintly.
Rat tat tat tat whomp whomp! I heard the machinegun fire approaching a split second before it hit us. Someone was using a machinegun like a fire hose, and had started spraying bullets from left to right. The hail of bullets traveled over us like a wave. I hit the ground behind George and heard the thump of lead pulverizing flesh. I wasn’t sure whether to flee or play dead. There was no further sound of fire, so after a minute, I slowly turned my head to look at George. His eye stared blankly at the sky. A dark stain on his motionless chest grew larger and larger. They’d finished him off! I was incensed. Not caring now if the Jerries saw me or not, I took one of George’s dog tags off, stood up, and yelled “I’m coming for you now, you stupid Nazi fucks!” As I ran toward the cover of the seawall, I pointed my M1 at the nearest German pillbox and held in the trigger. It was jammed with sand.
I managed to reach the seawall alive, and fell down beside other soldiers huddled beside it. Only then did I feel how exhausted my body was.
“You should get that looked at,” someone yelled.
I looked up. It was a fellow named Davis from B Company. I looked down at what he was looking at. My left boot was torn open, around my calf. I could feel the blood ooze down my ankle and fill my boot. The adrenaline numbed the pain for a bit, but before long I was in excruciating pain. I applied a tourniquet to my leg and resisted the urge to call for a medic, since I knew they had clients that needed help more desperately than I did. I gingerly lay down on my side and waited for help. I noticed a pale, ghostly-looking hand lying on the beach a few feet from my head. I tried to ignore it.
“Do you have a cigarette?” I yelled at Davis. You had to yell everything to be heard over the noise of gunfire and explosions. And when there was a lull, everyone was still half deaf from having shells go off in their ears.
“Mine are all wet,” I explained, forgetting I should have some dry ones in my K-rations.
The irony of it escaped me at the time; my leg was punctured, shells were exploding all around, mines were blowing men to bits, and the thing foremost in my mind was puffing back on a cigarette.
“Thanks,” I said as he passed me a Lucky Strike and a lighter. After lighting it with shaky hands, I calmed down enough to take stock of my surroundings. A dozen or so bodies lay along the seawall near me. I could recognize some of them. There were many men from other companies represented, both dead and alive. A good number of officers were already KIA, so many men were confused as to what to do. Dozens of them had some degree of injury. It seemed almost everyone fell into one of three categories: dead, dying, or scared to death. Some cried for mama. S
ome cried for Jesus. Some just cried.
“Let me take a look at that,” a medic said as he approached me. He pulled off my boot. I bit back a yell.
“How does it look,” I asked, grimacing as he wiped off my leg.
“It could be worse,” he said, examining my leg. I supposed in light of what he’d already seen that day, my wound was refreshingly minor.
“Well, the bone looks fine, but you do have some pretty good muscle damage. Looks like this might be your ticket out of this hellhole,” he concluded. My heart jumped. A million-dollar wound! I would get shipped back to England. Heck, maybe even get out of the war altogether and be home in months!
“You lucky son of a bitch!” a voice yelled over the din. Johnny Snarr crawled toward me along the seawall with Jedidiah Hankins and a hysterical Frankie De Luca in tow. I was glad to see he was alright.
I managed a crooked little grin and bit back a scream as the medic poured alcohol into my wound. A couple of mortars went off not far from us and we hit the dirt. Sand and stones rained down all around us.
“We’re going to die!” Frankie sobbed. “We’re all going to die!”
“Would you just calm the fuck down?” Jedidiah Hankins snapped at him. Johnny, Frankie, and I both stared at him like we’d just heard a sheep let out a wolf howl. Under any other circumstances we would have all rolled with laughter, but it wasn’t a day for laughter.
“I’m sorry,” the preacher said—sheepishly, “but I’ve almost had it with Chicken Little here.”
“Have you seen any officers?” I asked, reluctant to take charge of this motley crew of men that hugged the wall.
“I saw Lieutenant Callahan over that way,” Jedidiah told me. I was relieved.
After my leg was taken care of, I sat up. We watched a Higgins boat disgorge another load of men, right close to the edge of the creeping waterline. The men scurried off like ants.
Zoop-zoop-zoop. It was the peculiar sound of “Screaming Mimis”—seventy-five pound rockets fired from German Nebelwerfers from fixed concrete positions. The Germans mercilessly unloaded all six rockets at the crowd of men running across the sand. All hell broke loose. Even as bits of shrapnel and pieces of arms and legs were still being launched into the air, my attending medic was rushing toward the catastrophe with heroic abandon. I watched as a fellow carrying a flamethrower burst into flames. His tortured screams were ice to my spine. He rolled over and over, but he couldn’t extinguish the flames. Finally, the fire subdued him, and he went into shock.
Love is a Wounded Soldier Page 16
