My Uncle
was a graduate of West Point and arrived in England as a 1st lieutenant in
April of 1944. He was quickly assigned to the 1st Infantry
Division, 16th Infantry Regiment. Because he was newly arrived
and spoke German he was assigned to the Headquarters Company. The 16th
Infantry Regiment was assigned Easy Red and Fox Green as their beach head
during Operation Overlord. The Headquarters Company was to disembark from
a British Troop ship and assigned to landing craft in the first assault
wave to land at Easy Red at D+35minutes. Things happened differently on
June 6...
These are
excerpts from his memoirs about that landing....
We spent
several days on board the ships in the harbor waiting for the command to
start the operation. The weather was bad, causing the operation to be
postponed a day or two from the earlier scheduled landing. There was only
a period of five or six days in any month when the landing could take
place because of the tides and the time of high tide.
The
landing was scheduled to take place at 06:30 hours called H hour. Finally
on June 5th we got the word that the landing would take place
the next day, we moved out of the harbor. The morning of the landing we
were awakened at 0300 after not having slept much and were fed breakfast.
We then got our gear on and went up on deck.
We
climbed down the side of the ship on rope ladders to the small 34 person
English landing craft. From there the landing craft took us out to a
rendezvous area to meet the other landing craft and continued to circle
until the time came to go in. We could hear the bombers flying over and
see the battleships and cruisers firing their big guns on the
fortifications along the coast. Finally when we left the circling to go to
the beach we could see craft loaded with rockets that would blast off
about six or eight at a time. It was an awesome sight and sound.
Unfortunately the rockets missed their targets in our sector and hit
inland and not on the fortifications. The bombing on our beach, Omaha, was
not effective but on Utah Beach it was.
Because
of the storm, the water was very rough and our little 34 person boat that
had a ramp in the front to drop down when we got close to shore, was
tossed around in waves that were six to ten feet high. I remember getting
very seasick and tossing up in a plastic bag someone gave me. Someone also
gave me some Dramamine tables and said they were good to help prevent
seasickness. Not having been told any dosage, I took three of them. As we
approached the beach, we could hear the German machine guns and artillery
firing from the emplacements and fortifications. Of course we saw small
craft that had been hit as well as rubber landing craft strewn around.
Finally
we hit the beach and our front ramp dropped down so we could run off into
a few feet of water among the "hedgehogs" that were steel girders welded
together to make a multi-faced X that the Germans had placed in the water
to tip over any landing craft that came in at high tide. The first few
people off the craft were cut down by German machine gun fire. I was in
about the third or fourth group off. I could see machine gun fire rippling
the water all around and an occasional artillery or mortar burst. I
scooted off to the right diagonal as I went toward the shore. Ahead of me
there was a row of hedgehogs in about two to three feet of water. Beyond
that the water became a little deeper before it got to the beach above the
waterline. I stopped by the left side of a hedgehog because machine gun
fire was heavy about five to ten yards ahead in the deeper water. On the
right side of the hedgehog were two soldiers – a sergeant and a private.
After about five minutes of waiting for the machine fire to lift, I looked
to the high ground to my right diagonal to find the source of the machine
gun fire. I noticed a ripple of water in a straight line from the right
diagonal come up to where we were and then the two men on my right floated
away with the tide. They had been hit and killed by that machine gun
burst. I decided that that spot wasn’t too healthy and moved on to the
deeper water since the machine gun firing had ceased there. While going
into the beach, I did not recognize any of the fortifications or high
ground that I had memorized from the maps and photos of where we were to
land. The reason soon became clear when I looked at the division patches
on the men lying around me on the beach. The Navy had landed us on the
wrong beach. We were thousands of yards to the right of where we should
have landed. It was in the adjacent division area.
For a
while we had to dig in or lay on the beach because of the enemy fire. The
beach was fairly steep for about 20 to 30 yards and at the top there was a
little berm that afforded us a little protection. While laying there I
noticed the soldier near me was lying on his back and his whole leg was
split open to the bone. He was in shock but there was nothing I could do
except keep pulling him up as the water rose. Nearby was a half of a body,
the bottom half having been blown away. After being there about an hour,
an LCI (Landing Craft Infantry) came in. It was a fairly good sized
landing craft that drops anchor and goes up to the shore then drops a
landing ladder on either side of the bow to let the infantry men down. It
could not get in far enough, unfortunately, and the first seven or ten men
off on either side went into water over their heads. Many drowned because
the assault landing jackets had been put on under their assault life tube
and the couldn’t release the jacket buckles to drop the 40 to 50 pound
loads. We tried to throw a rope to some but I am certain that at least 10
drowned. Finally the skipper saw what was happening and they pulled up the
ramps and backed out.
With
Captain Moorehouse having been killed, I was the only officer left from my
landing craft. I assembled all the men who made it to the wrong beach from
my landing craft. After locating all we thought had survived, probably
about ten to twelve, I told them to follow me and we started down the
beach to our left to get back to where we should have landed and rejoin
our battalion. I didn’t know for certain how far that was but knew it
was a fair distance. We crawled at first and crouched and ran at times.
Every once in a while enemy fire made us stop and lie in the sand. One
time after stopping, I felt someone shaking my leg. The Dramamine had
finally kicked in and I had fallen asleep on the beach with enemy machine
gun firing going over my head. I finally woke up when a soldier behind me
shook my leg. I soon realized what had happened and continued on...I suspect
the men behind me who didn’t know anything about me having taken three
Dramamine pills thought I was a pretty cool customer under enemy fire if I
could take a nap under those conditions.
While
going down the beach leading these men we came across everything
imaginable in the way of dead and wounded, plus blown up tanks,
halftracks, and equipment. Before we started down the beach, I remember
one anti aircraft half track coming in next to us. The Captain in charge
was pointing out an emplacement for them to fire on. They got off a few
rounds and suddenly part of the half track disappeared in an explosion and
fire. A German shell had hit it broadside and destroyed it, killing all
inside.
While
going down the beach to get back to our outfit, I ran across Lt. Colonel
Bennet. I had met him before in the D10 concentration area and he
commanded a battalion of tanks attached to our regiment. Lt Colonel Benner
was tall and quite bowlegged. We recognized each other as we ducked some
German fire. He was trying to round up the few tanks that had made it. He
later became Superintendent of the U.S. Military Academy.
We
finally made it to our original landing area probably around noon time. By
then our rifle companies in the 3rd Battalion had taken some of
the high ground just above the beach and we set up the Battalion Command
Post with the men I had with me. It was set up inland up a draw from where
we were to land. It was on the left of the draw and in about 200 to 300
yards.
The next
day we moved inland without too much opposition. I was in charge of one
rifle company for a day or two until a replacement Captain came in. The
maps we had and the intelligence were quite good. I remember looking at my
map and seeing markings on the map for what was supposed to be buried
cable that the Germans used for communications from their fortified
emplacements to their command bunkers located inland. I located the spot
shown on the map, had a man dig there and, sure enough, we located the
cable which we then cut......