The War Years: D-Day, continued

Before leaving England, we had a going away party before going to France. There was plenty of beer. We were playing football. In running and being tackled, I sprained my ankle. It swelled like a poisoned pup. It was impossible to walk on it. The officers gave me a choice of staying in England or going on to France with my unit. I decided to go because I felt safer with the outfit. A very good choice, because I did come back home. When we moved out, the officers took me by jeep to the train. That was the only help I got. The only way I could walk was by wrapping my ankle from parts and strips from a parachute.

To start on a nice boat trip to France sounds like a vacation. The closer we got to the shore, the more ships we saw, and thank God they were ours. The first ones were battleships. We were still about 10 to 20 miles out and when we got past them, the big shells they were shooting over our heads sounded like a freight train running through the sky. Made you wish for a return voyage right quick. We went on in, then we started seeing land, and on the hills and beach, you could see little puffs of cotton all over the ground. A very pretty sight if you didn’t know what you were getting into.

We were now approaching the Port. It didn’t look too much like a Port because the first land was from water up the cliff several hundred feet. The LST I was on kept moving and the Port was full of masts sticking up out of the water. It sort of gave me an odd feeling. The Captain kept moving around. I thought he was trying to find mines, and I don’t mean a gold mine. Finally we got past the cliffs and came to a nice beach. Nice, if you could forget the noise and explosions of shells and bombs, not see the pillars of smoke and the noise of machine guns. Finally, we dropped anchor, so I didn’t worry about mines anymore. But then we were sitting ducks.

It was raining and we were getting wet. Two of the soldiers crawled under the canvas where there was a little bit of room between the bow and the canvas and the load. They were laughing because the could keep dry. They didn’t laugh long because we hit a bump and the bow broke from the weight of the soldiers on top and just about squashed the ones underneath.

The next morning, leaving the ship was also an experience. Being crippled, I had trouble getting around. The officers said do not get on the trucks. The men wanted to because they had to drive off the ramp in about five feet of water before heading for land. The soldiers climbed all over the trucks and held on. I, being slow and last, grabbed onto soldiers and pulled myself up on top of them, one over the other, until I was clear on top of the back. They were all telling me no more room, but I made room for myself.

The shelling had slowed down now as we entered into the Normandy peninsula. We were headed for a place to camp. As we turned off the road into a field, a sniper took a shot at us, but didn’t hit anyone. We unloaded and started to dig foxholes. This was going to be a long night. We did get in, so we were somewhat protected, but didn’t get the kitchen set up. We did have rations with us, so we didn’t go hungry.

Not my grandfather, but a similar gun being used in Normandy in WWII.

I was given guard duty on a .50 caliber machine gun for aircraft in the middle of a field and we took turns on it. When off duty, we would sleep in the ditch under the hedgerows around the field. I was sleeping when the artillery started shooting in the sky. The flak started raining in the bushes around us. Suddenly, I heard someone running and jumped in the ditch on top of me. It scared me and all I had to protect me was a rifle which was lying beside me, and no way to use it. I didn’t want to move because I didn’t think he knew I was there. The guard at the machine gun was close, so he grabbed this guy. We found out he was the sergeant of our guard  that was scared and wet off his rocker. After that night, I always had a hunting knife with me when I went to sleep. I thought the guy was a German soldier.

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