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Early morning headed out the English Channel.
The trip was rough and many were seasick. I slept most of the
way for we hadn't slept much the past few nights. We landed in
France in the afternoon (about 2:00 p.m.). We landed on the famous
Omaha Beach in Normandy. My eyes now really opened up. This was
my initial taste of war. I saw hundreds of scuttled ships lining
the shores. A crater-like hill was at our right. The hill was
so torn up as a result of ship to shore batteries and bomb craters,
and still rifles stuck in the ground indicating a spot where
a brave soldier had died. There were fox holes galore. A graveyard
where the heroic soldiers lay, who gave their lives. They helped
establish the beachhead.
As we moved up the hill we continuously encountered
a vast graveyard of broken equipment, more craters, smashed tanks,
barrage balloons swayed in the sky and Thunderbolt (P-47's) fighter
bombers were zig-zagging across the skies. They offered a protective
cover from any German plane that had ideas of bombing the beach.
Thousands of army engineers were building
floating piers to increase the landing capacity of ships coming
from England with troops and supplies. A steady procession of
ragged German troops, captured in the early fighting, were going
down the hill to board the same LCI we got off. How lucky, I
thought, they were going away from it all while I was heading
into the fracas. How I envied those German prisoners, who were
so damn lucky to be alive, while my future was still in doubt.
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