sixty-four years ago . . .
Jun. 6th, 2008 06:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
drewkittyOn 6 June 1944, also known as D-Day, over 130,000 soldiers decided to take a stroll on the beach. To defeat Hitler.
Over ten thousand of them died in the doing.
Family lore on my father's side has it that my uncle drove a landing craft at Normandy as a coxswain. My uncle related the following story to my father, who related it to me.
Based on his description, it was most probably an LCM or Landing Craft, Mechanized carrying up to sixty troops. The training manual for LCM and LCVP operations can be found here.
My uncle sat in an armored cockpit steering his boat through extremely heavy German fire. Machine guns raked the vessel as they approached the beach. When the ramp came down, the men in front had no chance at all. Soldiers threw themselves forward over the dead bodies of their comrades, or over the sides of the boat in the futile attempt to escape the murderous fire.
Of the first load of troops, all of them were killed.
The second load of troops scrambled down the netting into the boat. My uncle ran the gauntlet of shore fire, relatively safe compared to the exposed troops who were his cargo. Once again they were raked by heavy machine gun fire from the shore. Shells exploded close nearby, wounding some of the troops. As the steel ramp came down, machine gun fire scythed through the waiting troops.
Of the second load of troops, again all of them were killed.
As the third load of troops scrambled down the netting, they could see that the floor of the boat was filled with blood and gore and bits of equipment and not a few bodies.
One of the soldiers, a young private who clearly was younger than the theoretical eighteen, asked my uncle, "What are we getting into? What are we facing?" The term my uncle used to describe him was "eager-beaver."
All my uncle could bring himself to tell the boy was, "It's pretty bad. It's . . . pretty bad."
The young soldier took in my uncle's expression and the condition of the boat, literally coated with the blood and guts of the men who had gone before him, and said:
"If it's that bad, I'd better go in front."
He pushed his way forward so that he would be in the lead. My uncle remembered his expression as determined. No longer eager, but that of a man with a task to do that scares the daylights of him, but he is going to do it anyway.
When the ramp went down, he was struck instantly by heavy machine gun fire and killed.
Only a handful of men from the third load survived.
It is this kind of courage and sacrifice that got us off the beach and ultimately defeated the imperial ambitions of Germany, Italy and Japan. Not to mention ending the horrible stench of the Holocaust, an atrocity that shall ring down through the centuries as the epitome of man's inhumanity to man.
If you haven't, watch the first ten minutes or so of Saving Private Ryan. Then think once and twice, and one time again, before you send our soldiers off to war.
Over ten thousand of them died in the doing.
Family lore on my father's side has it that my uncle drove a landing craft at Normandy as a coxswain. My uncle related the following story to my father, who related it to me.
Based on his description, it was most probably an LCM or Landing Craft, Mechanized carrying up to sixty troops. The training manual for LCM and LCVP operations can be found here.
My uncle sat in an armored cockpit steering his boat through extremely heavy German fire. Machine guns raked the vessel as they approached the beach. When the ramp came down, the men in front had no chance at all. Soldiers threw themselves forward over the dead bodies of their comrades, or over the sides of the boat in the futile attempt to escape the murderous fire.
Of the first load of troops, all of them were killed.
The second load of troops scrambled down the netting into the boat. My uncle ran the gauntlet of shore fire, relatively safe compared to the exposed troops who were his cargo. Once again they were raked by heavy machine gun fire from the shore. Shells exploded close nearby, wounding some of the troops. As the steel ramp came down, machine gun fire scythed through the waiting troops.
Of the second load of troops, again all of them were killed.
As the third load of troops scrambled down the netting, they could see that the floor of the boat was filled with blood and gore and bits of equipment and not a few bodies.
One of the soldiers, a young private who clearly was younger than the theoretical eighteen, asked my uncle, "What are we getting into? What are we facing?" The term my uncle used to describe him was "eager-beaver."
All my uncle could bring himself to tell the boy was, "It's pretty bad. It's . . . pretty bad."
The young soldier took in my uncle's expression and the condition of the boat, literally coated with the blood and guts of the men who had gone before him, and said:
"If it's that bad, I'd better go in front."
He pushed his way forward so that he would be in the lead. My uncle remembered his expression as determined. No longer eager, but that of a man with a task to do that scares the daylights of him, but he is going to do it anyway.
When the ramp went down, he was struck instantly by heavy machine gun fire and killed.
Only a handful of men from the third load survived.
It is this kind of courage and sacrifice that got us off the beach and ultimately defeated the imperial ambitions of Germany, Italy and Japan. Not to mention ending the horrible stench of the Holocaust, an atrocity that shall ring down through the centuries as the epitome of man's inhumanity to man.
If you haven't, watch the first ten minutes or so of Saving Private Ryan. Then think once and twice, and one time again, before you send our soldiers off to war.
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no subject
Date: 2008-06-09 05:20 pm (UTC)1st Infantry Division's official motto, "No mission too difficult, no sacrifice too great-- duty first!" is carved in stone on the 1st Division monument at Omaha Beach-- my own connections run fairly strong, as one of the Army units I served in was/is part of the 1st Infantry Division (1st Engineer Battalion)-- the battalion earned a Presidential Unit Citation for the Normandy landings-- in some units (all of the ones in 1st ID "the Big Red One" among them) the sense of the unit's history is kept alive and runs strong and deep.
I was also attached to and supported 1st ID in Iraq in 2004. A lot has changed in the way we fight wars now compared to what it was like to fight them back then, but it is still a bloody, messy business.