JUNE 12 - 1944 - D-DAY PLUS SIX

by David Thibodeau

Last story had us on shipboard headed for Normandy and the landing on Utah Beach. We were out there for about two days before we headed in. From out at sea, Utah Beach seemed organized like a huge bowling alley, with cuts in the earthen sea wall and big numbers on them, visible for a mile or more.

We had to wade through a foot of water, then we followed a Lieutenant through one of (he gaps and moved inland, carrying our duffel bags and packs. There were MP's in foxholes looking up at us, and one said the Germans were still shelling the beach area, though we were told the front was 19 miles inland. We saw many signs in German saying "Achtung! Minen!" (attention, mines), and we soon came upon smashed WACO gliders that the airborne troops had come down to crash landings in. We passed fields studded with hundreds of sharpened poles, also.

We were in hedgerow country. The ancient farmers cleared their fields of rocks and put them in rows, thus demarking their fields. The rocks accumulated vegetation and trees, and a barrier was thus created making roughly rectangular farm fields.

We stopped for the night, having left our duffel bags behind under guard. A young Lieutenant was in charge of us replacements, and he told us to dig holes to sleep in. Most of the men dug out in the open field, but I talked a guy into digging along the hedgerow, where a shallow ditch was already there, making the task of digging easier, and with the hedgerow giving us added shelter. After we got it dug, the Lieutenant came over and made us dig a new one out in the field. The military brain rarely goes for original thinking.

After we got into combat, we saw where both Germans and Americans always dug their holes along the hedgerows, even the foolish young Lieutenant, I am sure.

During the night German planes came over, and the sky was lighted up by anti-aircraft bursts.

RAYMOND O BARTON
Raymond Oscar Barton

The next morning, Major General Raymond O. Barton, Commanding General of the 4th Infantry Division, came to give us a talk. About 400 men gathered around the fatherly old officer, and he assured us that casualties were not high, and more men were shot accidentally by their own rifles than by the enemy. Despite his kind, but fatuous comments, our division was to suffer 28,000 casualties by May 7, 1945, most of them killed and wounded, and most of those Infantrymen.

Next day, a truck from the 42nd Field Artillery Battalion came and picked us up, and dropped us off at our assigned units. I went to Battery "B" 42nd FA Battalion, and just as 1 arrived. the Germans sent over a barrage of 88 millimeter artillery shells into the battery area. Not knowing the protocol, I stood helplessly by the foxhole of a cook called "Pappy." as he was about 30 years old. He told me to jump in, saying,"Always room for one more." A tall guy who went to Headquarters Battery was killed in July when a German bomb landed right in his foxhole.

I was assigned to the 3rd Gun Section, and got a casual welcome from the men, who were under the command of section chief Sgt. Billingsley. Cpl. Fair was the gunner. Spence was the tank driver, Melver, Coker, "Dagwood," the only name I ever knew him by, a kid named Sherwood. Speck. Cass, and Clark. who had spent a year at Purdue University, made up the section. The 4th Division was a Carolina National Guard outfit, and most of my battery mates were from the deep south. The Civil War was only 79 years back in history at that time. That would put it back to 1921 for us today, and Fletcher Melver, who came from backwoods Alabama, called me a Yankee, the name implying with certainty that I was guilty of practices with women forbidden in the Old Testament, the New Testament, and the Sacred Writings of the Mohammedans.

The battery was firing missions off and on all day and often at night, and we moved every couple of days to keep up our fire support of the 12th Infantry Regiment. Back then each regiment was supported by 4 batteries of ]05"s and one battery of 155 mm howitzers. Each battery had 4 howitzers.

Being under artillery fire is a frightening experience, and it always seems the next one will be right on top of you. I prayed with great sincerity, carving a cross on the walls of my hole, and promising to be really good the rest of my life if I got through the war.

The German .88 had a very high muzzle velocity and the shells had a fairly low trajectory so they came in flat. You didn't hear them coming unless they were passing over where you were: On impact, artillery shells shatter into steel fragments. Our 105 mm. howitzers worked the same way, but had a higher trajectory.

As we moved through recently captured areas, we came upon large numbers of dead German soldiers, who seemed to be bursting out of their clothing because decomposition had distended their bodies. Dead, bloated Holstein cows littered the fields also, legs up in the air. The poor beasts were torn up by shrapnel from the continuous artillery and mortar bursts.

The graves registration people were in no hurry to get shot up recovering the enemy dead, so the Germans often lay where they had fallen for several days, We often encountered truckloads, big GMC 6X6's, hauling dead GI's back.

HORIZONTAL FLOURISH LINE

 

Top of Page

Sitemap