I Was in World War II

After a month at Fort Dix, we were taken to New York to board the Louis Pastuer, a converted French luxury ship. Luxury was hardly a description for the ship. The whole ship seemed to reflect an omen of disaster. Everyone that boarded it had no doubt that terrible trouble lay ahead. Ten thousand men boarded for a nine day trip across the Atlantic. The crossing was very rough. Many men suffered seasickness, except for the men in the amphibious boat brigade. We played cards and joked around to pass the time. There were also men playing constant games of poker, reading, writing letters, and of course, sleeping. After several days at sea, homesickness soon joined seasickness. The darkest feeling that we felt was the fear of the unknown. Many of my buddies became very close. I remember sitting on the ship talking to a guy who had been assigned to fight with a Thompson.

"When I get out of the Army, I'm going to take a couple of these with me." He explained.

"What the hell would you use one of those for back in the states?" I asked.

"To rob banks. That's what I do for a living. I joined the Army 'cause I knew the law couldn't catch me here, I'm going to die anyway, right?" You were likely to meet all kinds of people like that in the Army.

On March 3rd, we sat at Plymouth, England, happy to finally set foot on land again. I had advanced two ranks, and arrived in Europe as a Master Sergeant, and I was only 19 years old. The only place for us to stay was in an amusement park where our battalion pitched tents and set up stations. The tents reeked with the heavy stench of sweaty, unwashed bodies. Each man was only allowed one fresh water shower per week, and sometimes one per month. You weren't even allowed to stay in the shower long enough to rinse the soap off. We tried to cope with the rain and the tempers of the men that were living too close to each other, men who were anxious to go to war. But despite the rain, there was hot water, cold milk, clean underwear, and crisp apples. We were also fed these cans of bacon and eggs. They were grey, slimy, grainy, and looked almost inedible. When we went into town, we had fights with the British service men. The British women seemed only to be attracted to the Americans, with the silver and brass on our uniforms. It was a miserable and depressing three months. Three weeks before the departure from Plymouth, they started to pull men that had past infantry experience from the boat brigade and into the infantry. I was put on a landing craft where I sat for three weeks, in the rain. I found myself trying to keep my head clear, trying to keep the thought of death out, and the thought of victory in. Shouting somewhere in the background interrupted my thoughts.

"Get me out of here!" yelled a young Private, "I don't want to die, please would someone help me!" Then almost as soon as the noise was heard, the yelling ceased. Someone had grabbed the soldier and probably dragged him to a place where he couldn't be heard. This shouting seemed to upset the troops even more, and I certainly could not describe how they felt, but some of my buddies were looking quite pale.

On June 1st, in the cold rain, with waves crashing over the decks of the boats, we began seaward journey. The mighty engine of the ship ceased and everything was as quiet as the grave, and everyone on board stopped what they were doing and gazed at each other, knowing that the time had come. My fellow soldiers of the infantry, who were not used to the rhythmic rocking of the English Channel, became seasick. The chill and dampness bit through my uniform. I was beginning to realize the severity of war, and we weren't even there yet. The only noise I heard that night was the occasional rubbing of cloth against cloth and the heavy breathing of the soldiers as they found a place to sit in front of me. The night was very quiet, but then overhead we heard the sounds of airplanes and from the sound of them, they could only be our bombers and C47's. There were hundreds of them. The C47's were carrying our 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions. During this time the weather seemed to be turning for the worst. I remember the fear erupting inside me as the storm and cold weather wreaked havoc on my exterior. I was so afraid that my brain wasn't functioning clearly. I couldn't think straight.

At three in the morning on June 6, 1944, we were loaded off into our designated LCM crafts, or as the men called them, "Higgins Boats," but I preferred "Landing Craft." They were about thirty-six feet long, and could hold up to about 40 men. They were flat-bottomed, and the fronts of them were big doors, able to fall forward leaving a sort of ramp for the soldiers to walk out on. No type of craft could have replaced this boat during the landing, and without them we never would have made it to the beachhead. Our craft had about 60 men in it, so it was very crowded. Besides being overcrowded, we had lots of special equipment, like rolls of telephone wire, bunches of Bangalore torpedoes, satchel charges, grapples, flamethrowers, and much more. Each of us occupied about one square foot per man and carried over 125 pounds of equipment each. Now instead of sitting comfortably on a ship, we were being tossed from one position to the other in a tin can. We circled for an hour and a half in the storm, and then finally headed for the beach.

There were many battleships behind us. Whenever they fired their big guns at the bunkers, it would cause a tidal wave that would splash over the side of the boat. Overhead there were these big blimp things. At basic training, they told us that they we called Barrage Balloons. They were connected to the ships by steel cables. If German planes tried to fly low, they would be tangled up in the cables. The noise was like the worst thunderstorm you had ever heard, but instead of being above you, it was all around you.

"Move fast and clear those mortar holes. Keep the sand out of your weapons... And I'll see you on the beach." Our captain said. That was the last thing we heard from our Captain. We were one hundred feet from the shore, when our craft hit a sandbar. Thinking that we had hit the beach, the driver quickly dropped the ramp, which was a signal to get out of the boat.

"Clear the ramp," he yelled.

We jumped into twelve feet of water. Our Captain went first.

"Okay, this is it! Everybody out! Let's go! Let's go!" He threw his body forward off the boat. I watched as his body splashed into the water. There was a spray of blood, and I knew he was hit, bad. The soldiers weren't