 For years people had thought of everything that happened and every time we landed people improved on the ideas and said Well that worked well that worked well. This was a problem Normandy differed from the fighting in the Pacific because when we isolated these Japanese atolls they rarely could reinforce their garrisons This was extremely important in Normandy. It was a huge beachhead Potential beachhead and the Germans were capable of reinforcing them more rapidly and they could contain they could defeat our Landings unless we advanced on the broad front. We did it rapidly. We had to gain surprise You know their their main objective that day was to get the men and equipment to the shore and it was just you know Pour the coal on get all the way to the beach and don't stop until the boat stops training us at that time for a Pacific theater and we had to do a lot of training Within the swamps and living in the swamps in water almost to our waist and but of course that's what the Troops and on the islands in the Pacific had to contend with so they put us through a Program that was as realistic as they could you know and then they didn't tell us where we were going but We and we didn't know until we got like shipped over shipped us over to the port of New York City And put us on the Queen Mary So it was quite a miserable walk to get on that boat But then once we were on the boat we learned immediately that we were headed for England because the crew knew where they were going and they told us and passed it on to Soldiers coming on ship, you know, they put us in a tent in Ivy Bridge in the cold of winter. This was January and Mud on the floor. We slept in our overcoats to keep warm. We were spoken to by Colonel Charles D. W. Canem from a stage Just like Patton wasn't that movie Patton and he he used some foul language He said two out of three of you are not going back to the States Because we're going to be the spearhead of the second front Anybody that's got butterflies in his Bella Speak up now and we'll transfer you and they transferred some guys out and the troops had already been Designated into boat groups. They were counted off to a specific number of people and task loaded At Normandy they had an assortment of people with various weapons and specialties a leader and Sergeant in each boat really about a platoon and They were well designated well trained all to work together. They had practiced for months Climbing scramble nets or cargo nets. They had practiced running out of LCVPs. They knew where their place was in the boat They had that part of it down. We trained in boat teams We lived slept and ate in boat teams So we all knew each other and we trained on the moors with mock-up Assault boats and we we were trained to go out of these salt boats and fan out and attack pillboxes And they did it so many times that it became wrote you could do it in your sleep As we trained for the D-Day landings in England and Wales We found a number of locations that were actually surprisingly close to the French coastline and one of them had slapped in sands Actually resembled some of the beach at Omaha actually quite well. You had that sloping soil leading up to the escarpment It was actually very close and we trained extensively most of the training exercises started off poorly And then as we advanced and gained experience actually turned out rather well now the practice landings On the southwest coast of England, which was called slapped in sands We're a picnic compared to D-Day Because the little boats were waiting for us in the water a nice sunlit day Balmy seas we climbed down the cargo nets. We got into our little boats. Every man had a certain position We landed it was a picnic We went nice little cruise to the beach and the pillboxes The the topography was exactly like D-Day the big hundred foot bluff in front of us May 15th We got driven in a truck to a special Camp called a sausage because we're shaped like a sausage. We were in camp D1 They had a mock-up of the beach we were gonna hit in a clay mock-up We even had airplane pictures taken from P38 of the Germans working on the beach with the Terrible obstacles they were putting in four rows one man Was so he was so Fearful that he was going to die on that beach that he told me said Sergeant Reynolds. He says How many times do we have to do this? He said he said the odds that are going to catch up with us we can't continue with this fighting and I Just shrugged my shoulder and and and what what is there to do except fight, you know, we have no option So they called it off for 24 hours and Then when we set sail again, we were immediately introduced to the sandboxes again and our assignments and What was expected of us the penetration that we were to make Omaha Beach was four and a half miles long by 300 yards wide At low tide at high tide. There was no beach Now the first division was going to land on the eastern part which turned out to be the soft part my other battalions You know the second and third battalion were going to land in between on dog red dog white Each each had a dog insignia Osmo's dog green The smallest of the beaches most heavily defended it was possible on the first load and sometimes they did and sometimes They didn't to load troops right off the deck They would winch the LCVPs over the side load the troops and then lower the whole thing But if they did that they would only do it the first time So the preferred and typical method were for troops to climb down the The scrambled nets or cargo nets from the troop deck down into the LCVP that was difficult of course because the LCVP was going up and down and Troop transport would be going up and down 12 miles out and that storm That had blown up and the council the first day It hadn't let down that they Prediction was that it would subside and it did because we made it a show But it was still very very bad. This started very early in the morning. I think as early as three o'clock They didn't have enough side on the boat to get all the LCVP's peas loaded at once It was pitch black three thirty in the morning The weather was horrible the wind was going at 10 miles an hour the waves were up to 20 feet high 15 to 20 feet and they had a lower over the sides already in the boats But the minute we were lowered over the side the boats hit the water was thrown around like matchsticks Every man was immediately soaked with the icy cold English Channel water So we were freezing the water got up to our knees So in order to stay afloat for three hours We had to be bailing out with the helmets and we were all freezing So once you were loaded you had to take your LCVP with the others who had just loaded and you would start making Circles in the ocean and of course that means sometimes you're going with the waves and sometimes you're going against them It makes for a very rough ride. That was another thing in those assault boats You smelled that diesel plus the salt water and the waves would make anybody sick It was such a stinking mess that that alone Was enough to kill a man from the stanchion the diesel oil and the puke Everybody was very somber in the boat. You couldn't hear anybody talking There were three guys vomiting in my boat up in the front sitting in the water And crying Most of the guys were praying I was praying eventually you get all the people in your landing wave together And they're all going in a circle and somebody decides it's time to go now And then you would come out of the circle into a line And you would charge the beach all together Door green sector was so small In length that it wouldn't support a whole battalion Landing abreast of each other 24 boats not even two companies So we had to come in a sequence. So we came in a b D and c Coxons were taught to hit the beach and keep full throttle on drop the ramp Everybody unloads the lcvp is not armored. Uh, you know, they're there's the ramp is steel But you know, honestly They're very exposed The men in some cases were encouraged when they saw the naval gunfire and heard the deafening roars of battleships and cruisers firing into the beaches The battleship texas then was part of our firepower, but they had to stay 12 miles out Because they had big guns coastal guns had laundry some air They could blow the battleship texas out of the water So they had to stay 12 miles out these rough seas dark of night They fired over the beach They were only going to fire from 555 to 625 When the guys were going to land 630 The navy also had an lci barge Fitted out with a thousand rocket launches. They were going to fire 4,005 inch rockets at door green sector Blow up some of the obstacles get the guys to keep their heads down unfortunately They're they had to go 12 miles out. So I saw these rockets coming in they looked like a flock of birds But they landed harmlessly in the water The first thing I saw A company b-boat on my left port side blew up hit a mine We were showered with wood metal and body parts So we only had 180 men now When our ramp went down the signal for every machine gun on that beach To open up on the exit to our ship. The fella in front of me, Clarice Riggs, was machine gunned on the ramp I dove in behind him. Only my Left side of my helmet was creased by a bullet. I was standing in neck deep bloody water With my rifle over my head. So we were losing men right and left. The water was full of blood We started running across the beach We were about 500 yards out. So we're neck deep water when we got to the actual beach We the sand was wet and we were tight with treacherous. It went out fast came in fast When we got to about 135 yards away from the seawall a machine gun spray Came from the trenches up on the bluff And I heard a loud thud on my right front and my rifle vibrated I turned it over. There was a clean hole through its receiver Another thud behind me to the left and that guy was gone too I hit the sand behind the hedgehog Which is about 130 yards from the seawall I went down behind it on one knee But the fire the bullets were coming through that hedgehog And it seemed to me they were coming between my legs under my arms That I realized that that I Had to move And I got up and in one run made it all the way through that 300 yards or so to the shingles And that was the next stop that I made and at the shingles We couldn't get any further because of the barbed wire And it held us up And for about an hour or a little longer. I aren't 10 minutes. I aren't 20 minutes Now there are only two of us alive from my boat team Charles Connor and myself We had 85 casualties First 15 minutes The Germans zeroed in from their strong points on the beaches on the likely advancing Dog green is a perfect example. They had zeroed in with crossfire And You know, they literally shot down many of the men before they even got out of the boats It was it was pretty bad the first wave suffered horrifically even the second wave for that matter The tide poles were full of bloody water. The beach itself looked like it was painted with a red paintbrush So we were left with options Stay there and die Give up the beach to the Germans or fight wounded We decided to fight wounded