Last onto the boat was Lieutenant McCoy. He did a quick head count and shouted, “Lower away!”
The mechanism rattled and squeaked as the LCVP began to descend.
Here goes nothing, Jacob thought to himself.
The boat dropped about eight feet then suddenly stalled, swinging on the ropes as the jammed winch jerked to a halt. The smell hit them a moment later—the overpowering stench of raw sewage.
Beau pointed. “We’re right below the discharge vent from the heads!”
“Lieutenant, what should we do?” Freddie pleaded.
It was the first time anyone had seen Lieutenant McCoy at a loss for words. Finally, the officer came up with a solution to the problem: “Keep your helmets on, men!”
And there, confronted by the greatest danger he would ever face in a very long lifetime, seventeen-year-old Jacob Firestone got the giggles. At that moment, miles up the coast, the Royal Navy began heavy bombardment of the British and Canadian invasion beaches. It was just after five thirty a.m., with H hour less than sixty minutes away. But, huddled beneath his helmet, Jacob laughed all through it.
“That’s some sense of humor you got there, High School,” Beau rumbled.
Even after the winch was freed and the LCVP hit the water, Jacob was still cackling. Part of him wondered if the laughter was the only thing keeping him from panicking as their boat began to move toward Omaha Beach and what was sure to be a deadly battle.
Three minutes tossing in the waves wiped any remaining smile off his face. Seasickness was no longer just Leland’s problem. Everyone suffered, including Lieutenant McCoy. The struggle to find room at the gunwales became a wrestling match among soldiers who needed to save their energy for what lay ahead.
The sea was so rough that each oncoming wave crashed over the boat, dousing them all with icy water. It helped wash away the vomit and what was left of the raw sewage that had been dumped on them by the ship. In no time, Jacob’s thick woolen uniform was so sodden and heavy that the simple act of shifting his position in the boat took all his strength. Between that and his life preserver, pack, rifle, trenching tool, gas mask, first aid kit, knife, grenades, explosives, ammunition, field rations, and canteen, he questioned whether or not he’d even be able to move when they reached the beach.
They were still more than a kilometer offshore when the American fleet opened fire. They could feel the shells screaming overhead. On the bluffs and farther inland, columns of smoke, fire, and debris rose up to color the sky. A moment later, returning fire came from the German batteries onshore.
For most of the Americans, it was the first proof positive that their enemy even existed. Someone was shooting back. In a strange way, their war only started in that instant.
“Keep your heads below the gunwales!” McCoy bellowed.
That was bad news for the seasick men in the Higgins boat. Now they had nowhere to throw up except onto themselves and each other. Luckily, the surging waves continued to wash them clean.
Yet for all the fire that was being exchanged, nothing coming from the shore seemed to be aimed at the landing boats. Didn’t the Germans see them? Jacob risked a glance over the side. Their LCVP was one of hundreds that dotted the sea off Normandy. Among them were dozens of larger landing craft, capable of carrying not just soldiers and equipment but tanks and artillery.
“Lieutenant!” Freddie called suddenly. “Are we sinking?”
Jacob looked down. Racked by nausea and stressed beyond straining, none of the platoon had noticed that they were crouched knee-deep in seawater.
“Ignore it!” McCoy barked. “The boat’s unsinkable!”
“That’s what they said about the Titanic!” Leland wailed.
The lieutenant was adamant. “If the army says it won’t sink, then it won’t sink!”
In the stern of the LCVP, the radio rang with chatter from the other craft. Over the babble, a terrified voice cried, “We’re sinking!”
The men of Bravo Company’s Third Platoon pulled off their helmets and began bailing. After a moment’s hesitation, their lieutenant joined them.
They were in the line of assault craft, less than two hundred meters from shore, when it happened. A control boat directly ahead of them blew into pieces.
“Mine!” McCoy bellowed, ducking as they were showered with debris.
Jacob stared at the patch of turbulent water where the boat had been seconds before, searching for survivors to drag onto the LCVP. There weren’t any. It had been that fast—and that deadly.
To his left, too close for comfort, a large LST—Landing Ship, Tank—opened its gate to deploy its cargo of amphibious tanks. But as the ramp came down, it triggered a booby-trapped underwater obstacle. Jacob could feel the hot wind of the blast on his face, and the roar left him momentarily deafened. A Sherman, its billowing float screen ablaze, lifted twenty feet in the air and hit the water right next to Jacob’s Higgins boat, nearly swamping it. If he’d reached out a hand, he would have grazed the cannon on the way down.
“Stop! Stop!” Jacob hollered. “There are wounded in the water!”
“We’re not a rescue ship, High School,” Beau reminded him grimly. “We only go in one direction.” He pointed toward the beach, less than fifty meters away.
A new noise joined the roar of the boats and the booming of artillery—the rapid-fire clang of machine-gun bullets ricocheting off the raised steel ramps that formed the bow of the LCVP. Helmets could be used as bailing buckets no longer. The men of Third Platoon ducked their heads and made themselves extremely small. The time they’d be able to shrink from danger was almost over, but they intended to cling to it as long as they could.
The Higgins boat scraped bottom. H hour. The ramp opened and slapped down into hip-deep water. As Jacob scrambled upright, he saw a platoon charge out of a boat not ten meters away. Machine-gun fire ripped through them, striking down at least half of the soldiers in the blink of an eye.
We have no chance, he thought to himself. How could anybody ask us to try this?
He hit the ramp running—high-stepping, knees pumping through the breakers. For several seconds he forgot his training, his orders, and even the fact that there were other people with him. Gunfire rang in his ears—it was everywhere. A bullet plucked at his sleeve, and by instinct he dropped, genuinely amazed to find himself underwater. Choking, he bounced up, praying his rifle would still fire. But fire at what? His fevered mind raced. There was nothing to shoot at. The Germans were at the top of the bluff in pillboxes and machine-gun nests, raining bullets down onto the invaders. Already the shallow water was littered with casualties, some wounded, many dead—and they hadn’t even reached dry land yet. Cries of “Medic!” rang out amid the chaos.
Jacob charged ashore with the men of the first wave and flattened himself to the rocky beach. Beau was by his side, burrowing like a sand crab, as if trying to bury himself. Jacob couldn’t see Freddie, but he could hear Leland cursing somewhere behind him. Incredibly, the guy actually sounded a little better, now that he was on solid ground and not seasick anymore.
Bullets sprayed over their heads, but for the moment, couldn’t reach them. The beach sloped upward to a seawall a few meters ahead, which provided some shelter from the incoming fire.
Jacob risked a glance over his shoulder. Where were the tanks and artillery pieces? Where were the engineers to clear the way through the mines and obstacles? As he watched in horror, an amphibious tank drove off one of the LSTs and plunged into the sea, disappearing forever.
Beau saw it too. “The plan’s a bust!” he howled. “And we’re left holding the bag!”
It was true. After all the training and preparation, nothing was happening the way Captain Marone had described in endless briefings. The air-and-sea bombardment had not hindered the enemy’s coastal defenses. The boats had run aground on sandbars far short of the water’s edge, forcing the landing parties to slog ashore through deep water, sitting ducks for the snipers who awaited them. The heavy weapo
ns, armor, and vehicles were ending up at the bottom of the sea, where they couldn’t support anybody, not even themselves.
Worst of all, the men of the first wave lay wounded or dead in the surf, or hemmed in on a few meters of beach behind the seawall. The unit’s objectives rattled around in Jacob’s head, words like Fox White—their designated landing position. Was this it? Were they lost? For sure, nothing in this awful and chaotic place resembled the charts and maps they’d been shown. And with so many of their people suddenly and tragically out of the picture, did it even matter?
Jacob inched up to the seawall and peered over with one eye.
Beau appeared at his side. “What do you see?”
“Machine-gun nest. Dead ahead, halfway up the bluff. That’s what’s got us pinned down.”
Both men examined their options. The situation didn’t look promising. Between their position and the base of the bluff lay two hundred meters of completely open beach. Anyone trying to cross that gap would be chopped to pieces.
Leland crawled up behind them. “What do we do?”
Beau shrugged. “Do I look like a general to you? How many stars on this helmet?”
“Where’s the lieutenant?” Jacob asked.
“Hit,” Leland reported grimly. “Medic’s wrapping up his arm.”
“Great,” said Beau. “The high school kid’s in charge.”
Jacob looked back toward the armada in the vain hope that help was on the way. All up and down the beach, troops were landing every minute, coming under the same withering fire. No officer to take command. No miraculous piece of equipment to turn the tide.
Then it happened. A few hundred meters to their right, a Sherman tank roared out of the water and onto the beach, dripping like a wet dog. Why this one tank had survived after so many had foundered, no one knew. It was here, and that was enough.
Bullets bounced off its armor as it roared over the seawall and made a run for the base of the bluff. It picked up speed, firing at the machine-gun nest. The shell ripped into the escarpment just below the German gunners.
“Higher!” Beau bellowed.
Almost as if the tank crew had heard him, the cannon began to crank upward, adjusting its aim.
As the tank moved forward, the swiveling gun made contact with a trip wire attached to a tall obstacle. A dark object swung into the side of the Sherman—an anti-tank mine.
Before Jacob’s horrified eyes, the Sherman disappeared in an enormous fireball. There was no chance any of the crew could have survived. A plume of thick black smoke blew diagonally across the sand, directly into Jacob’s face. For an instant, Omaha Beach disappeared.
Jacob choked once, then realized what he was looking at. Cover. If he couldn’t see the German gunners, they couldn’t see him.
“Let’s go!” He was up and over the seawall, sprinting through the black smoke.
He heard Beau’s voice—“High School, are you crazy?”—followed by an even more terrifying sound: machine-gun fire. Bullets ripped into the sand, perilously close by. But as long as he stayed in the plume of smoke, he knew the gunners couldn’t draw a bead on him.
As he ran, he pulled a grenade from his belt. He knew the burning tank was about twenty-five meters from the base of the bluff, but he’d have to leave the cover of the smoke to have any chance of an accurate throw. At that moment, he’d be completely exposed to the guns. If he didn’t destroy them, they would most definitely destroy him.
He could see the flames of the Sherman right in front of him, even feel the heat. He pulled the pin as he ran, counted five more strides, and burst into the open.
He reared back his arm even before his eyes zeroed in on the nest. There it was, almost exactly where he’d expected it to be. Breathing a silent prayer that he was more accurate than he’d been when the coach had cut him from JV baseball, he let fly and hit the dirt.
He heard the German gun burst to life, felt the first few rounds pass over his flattened body. The next sound was the explosion of the grenade. The gun fell silent.
Beau galloped up behind him, grabbed him by the collar, and dragged him the rest of the way to the foot of the bluff. Spent and dazed, Jacob tried to spot the nest, but he couldn’t find it anymore. At last he spied it, the sandbags blown apart, the weapon disabled.
“The gunners—” he managed.
“You got ’em, High School!” Beau shouted. “You’re one crazy, stupid hero!”
Troops streamed across the beach, following Jacob’s path through the plume of smoke, Leland in the lead. Another figure ducked out from the shelter of a large hedgehog—a beach obstacle that resembled a gigantic piece from a game of jacks.
“Freddie!” The sight of him brought Jacob back to his feet. He’d been worried that his friend might have been one of the hundreds of crumpled uniforms that dotted the beach like collapsed scarecrows.
Freddie started toward them, waving madly. “We made it! We—”
Freddie never saw the mine, never knew what hit him. Dozens had passed over that very spot. But Freddie’s boot came down in the wrong place, and in one violent flash of gunpowder and shrapnel, his war was over.
Jacob, Beau, and Leland could only huddle together and stare as the madness of Omaha Beach raged all around them. It had been that quick, that sudden. An instant ago, they had been a foursome.
Now they were just three.
“No-o-o-o!” Trevor cried out in shock. “Not Freddie! Freddie can’t die!”
G.G. raised both bushy eyebrows. “He could and he did. I’ll show you exactly where it happened.”
The Firestones waited with about forty fellow tourists aboard the Fleur de Lys. The excursion boat was a reconditioned landing craft used on D-Day—not a Higgins boat, but a bigger LCIL, which stood for Landing Craft, Infantry, Large. There were plenty of luxury boat rides to ferry visitors to Normandy’s five invasion beaches, but the old soldier had insisted on this one. Only the Fleur de Lys could land people virtually the way he and the troops had landed more than seventy-five years before.
“You talked about Freddie a million times, but you never said he died,” Trevor protested.
“I never said he didn’t die, did I?” G.G. challenged.
“Well, no, but—”
“Trevor,” Dad put in quietly, “maybe Grandpa left out certain details because he felt you weren’t mature enough to hear them. War isn’t like the video games, you know.”
“Are you kidding?” Trevor defended himself. “It’s exactly like video games. And, yes, Dad, I get the difference that when you die in real war, you stay dead. I know that. I just didn’t know it happened to Freddie, that’s all.”
“It happened to too many of us that day,” G.G. said grimly. “Those tanks that sank before ever firing a shot—they weren’t just soulless machines. They had crews in them. Think those poor fools had a chance to get out?”
Everyone was jostled as the LCIL ran gently aground. An announcement sounded in several languages that the gate was about to lower. There was a stir of excitement.
Trevor closed his eyes and imagined what it must have been like on G.G.’s Higgins boat—the spray of the surf, the clang of bullets on the iron gate, the fear of knowing that your life could end at any second.
The gate rattled down and there was Omaha Beach, 2020.
“It’s peaceful,” Trevor said in a hushed voice.
“Yeah, sure,” the old man agreed. “Today.”
The shoreline lay before them, looking nothing like its storied past. A handful of people strolled here and there. It was a chilly overcast day, typical Normandy weather.
As they marched down the gangway, Trevor tried to picture a hail of bullets all around them. He could almost feel the weight of each GI’s equipment, the pack on his back, the grenades at his belt. His hands cradled an imaginary weapon, which he “aimed” at an imaginary enemy way up on the bluff.
He was holding that pose when he noticed her looking at him—a blond girl about his age, maybe a little
older. Embarrassed, he lowered the “rifle” and hurried to keep up with G.G. and Dad, his sneakers splashing through about an inch of water before he stepped up onto the very same pebbly beach the old soldier had described.
G.G. strode inland a short ways, stopped, and just stood there, lost in thought.
Trevor’s dad approached and put an arm around his grandfather. “You okay, Grandpa?”
The old man was silent for a long time. Finally he said, almost irritably, “They put in a road.”
Trevor stepped up on his other side. “I guess that’s so they can get the tourist buses in.” He indicated two jitney vans that were loading up passengers.
“Come on, Trev,” Dad prompted. “Let’s give Grandpa a moment with his thoughts.”
They started away when G.G. suddenly said, “It was right there.”
Trevor stopped. “What was, G.G.?”
The old soldier pointed. “That was where Freddie bought it. Right by that crosswalk.”
Trevor was trying to decide if that was a tear in G.G.’s eye or just a trick of the light when he spotted the same blond girl by the breakwater, still watching him.
I must have made a real idiot out of myself, he reflected ruefully, charging down that ramp playing pretend soldier.
The Firestones ended up using that road about an hour later, when they took a short taxi ride back to their rental car. G.G. had the cabbie pull up on the curb in order to avoid driving over the crosswalk. Dad was pleading with his grandfather to “let the poor man do his job.” But Trevor understood perfectly. The crosswalk was where Freddie Altman had stepped on that mine. To G.G., it was hallowed ground.
The day was a blur of museums, historical sites, and monuments dedicated to the invasion of Normandy, Operation Overlord. “Although our part,” G.G. pointed out, “hitting the beaches, was actually called Neptune.” He shrugged. “The brass hats loved their code names. In my unit, we said every time you went to the latrine it was Operation Look Out Below. And that was the polite version.”
G.G. knew everything there was to know about D-Day, even the parts that his unit hadn’t been involved in. He explained that while his beach, Omaha, was the site of the fiercest fighting, all the armies met enormous resistance as they continued inland. He showed them Pointe du Hoc, a hundred-foot promontory between Omaha and Utah, where army rangers suffered heavy losses pushing to the top to destroy coastal guns that turned out not to be there. He even had praise for his old enemies the paratroopers when he talked about the village of Sainte-Mère-Église, where an unlucky series of fires in the village lit up thousands of parachutes coming down, and countless lives were lost to snipers.
War Stories Page 6