By spring of 1944, we knew the invasion of France must be imminent. The amphibious assault training we’d been doing all winter intensified. We crawled under barbed wire while live tracer rounds from machine guns skimmed over our heads. Explosives were set off around us, simulating real battle sounds. Our training was reaching its crescendo, just when the Allied high command wanted it to. War was in the air.
~~~
“Go with God!” a teary-eyed grandmother called out. Her hair was mussed and her eyes sleepy. She hugged her thin gray sweater around her as she huddled against the damp chill of the morning.
“Thank you ma’am,” I replied, heaving my bags up onto the truck as we prepared to leave Ivybridge.
It was early morning in April of 1944, and we were set to leave our temporary home for the invasion assembly area in Dorset. Townsfolk woke up to see us off. Diesel exhaust hung in the air as thick as the ghostly fog that floated among us. The fumes bit the back of my throat.
“Give ’em hell, mate!” another man barked sharply at me amid the throaty growl of idling diesel engines.
“I sure will, once in this life and once in the next,” I assured him. The villagers were certain the invasion would happen anytime.
Over the months, the dislike the villagers had felt toward us turned into tolerance, and now, a genuine affection. The town claimed us as their lads, and the many indiscretions of our boys seemed to have been forgotten. Most of the romances the GIs had were markedly ephemeral, but a few were of the lasting kind, and several new brides saw us off with eyes as misty as the morning.
Once we were loaded, the motor convoy revved up and off for Blandford. George London looked back at his new bride until the murkiness swallowed her up. The man with the cutting tongue stared ahead, stone-faced. Tears flowed unchecked down his round, ruddy face. The jolt of the truck jarred them off his chin and onto his lap. Everyone managed to resist the temptation of serving George one of his own scathing sarcasms. Some things are sacred, and a man leaving his sweetheart to hold a stare-down with death is one of those things.
When we reached the tent camps of Blandford several hours later, it seemed obvious the villagers had been right. Every square inch of every available field was packed with tanks, personnel carriers, weapons carriers, and every other conceivable vehicle of warfare. The piles of materiel seemed to go on forever. Long toms, howitzers, gasoline, food, and drums and crates of anything it seemed we could possibly need was being stored there. The enormity of this mission, Operation Overlord, now began to really sink in to us. We’d wondered what was taking so long to plan, and now the evidence of several years of planning lay before us in great heaps. The wrath of the free world was being stockpiled in southern England, waiting for the word that would unleash relentless destruction across the channel.
Hitler knew we would strike. He just didn’t know when. While he waited, he had Field Marshal Erwin Rommel fortify the northern coast of France. He did everything imaginable to stop an invasion. He dammed rivers to flood large tracts of land, and removed homes to make shooting lanes. The Norman countryside was rearranged to suit the needs of the German Wehrmacht. He was ready to play the game of war. But it was a game he was designing, a game only he knew the rules to. Any Normandy beach remotely suited for an amphibious landing was fortified with obstacles and mines in the water, and tons of concrete and steel on shore. The cliffs of Normandy fairly bristled with guns; 75 mm, 88 mm, 105 mm cannons stared down the beach with mouths agape, waiting to breathe fire down on any unfortunate invader. We would not be welcome guests.
As Hitler’s henchmen squinted over the English Channel for signs of the impending invasion, we waited. Plans for Operation Overlord were finalized, and we were restless as we waited in the marshalling area at camps around Dorchester. We blew through thousands of rounds of ammunition on the firing range, ensuring the new weapons we’d been given were sighted in.
Everyone was on a razor’s edge, and seemed bound to tip either way. Some men became kinder, almost gentle, as though they had a heightened appreciation for the brevity of life. Others were explosive and hot-tempered, resulting in some fistfights. We played football to blow off steam, until too many fellows got injured, and we were forced to stick with softball. For many men, it would the last time they had the necessary limbs to throw a ball.
They showed us movies to distract us; Going My Way with Barry Fitzgerald and Bing Crosby, and Mrs. Miniver with Greer Garson were two popular ones that come to mind.
Many men found solace in reflection, prayer, and Bible reading. Honky-tonk Borkowski, who had managed to break most of the commandments several times since we’d arrived in England, took to reading the Bible for hours at a time. And he wasn’t alone. Many other men searched for something to cling to from beyond the grave, as no one knew the number of their days. Jedidiah Hankins, who had been scorned by many as a religious fanatic until then, was doing brisk business, selling his gospel of fire and forgiveness. The backwoods preacher was more fired up than if he’d seen the Spirit move at a tent meeting. When he wasn’t surrounded by inquiring sinners, this physician of the soul made house calls.
“Is it well with your soul?” he’d ask a fellow solemnly, his meaty paw gently shaking his shoulder. If the answer was no, he was sure to set him on the straight and narrow. Several days before the invasion, he asked me that.
“Yes, sir,” I assured him, looking him straight in his kind gray eyes.
“That’s a good boy,” he said, smiling gently and patting my shoulder, “that’s, that’s . . .” he couldn’t finish. He patted my shoulder a few more times as he blinked at me with watery eyes, and left.
~~~
“I just want to go home,” Johnny Snarr told us glumly. He usually didn’t express his feelings openly, except maybe to me, but tonight, it seemed everyone was prepared to spill their guts. We were all sure General Eisenhower would issue the command any day now, and everyone was strung tighter than banjo strings.
“The road home goes through France and Germany,” Ronnie Fisher piped up cheerily. He was playing a game of poker that had been going on for a day and a half now. Ronnie was one of the fellows that was as excited about D-Day as a boy is about Christmas.
“Yeah, well I’d just as soon skip the scenic route and paddle my way back the way I came,” Johnny replied, his tone disdaining the eagerness Ronnie displayed.
“Come on, Johnny, don’t you want to win you some medals?” asked Private First Class Francis Capriotti, putting down his Lucky Strike to deal another round of cards.
“Fuck the medals,” Johnny replied bitterly.
“The ladies love medals,” Francis said dreamily, and you could tell by the far-off look in his eyes that he was planning his welcome home parade, the way a young girl plans her wedding. And he had yet to fire a shot.
“What’s the first thing you’re gonna do when you get home?” Johnny asked generally, scanning the circle for a response. “You know, if you make it.” He gave a forced smile, as though he was trying to lighten his mood.
“If I make it?” Francis laughed. “Oh, you don’t need to worry about me makin’ it, it’s the rest of these poor sonsabitches you need to worry about!” We laughed. Our youthfulness caused most of us to look at the other guys and think “his poor mother,” never doubting our own cloak of invincibility was intact.
“Hmm . . .” I thought aloud. “Kiss the wife and get her to make me some biscuits and gravy,” I smiled, thinking about how I missed Ellen’s great home cooking—and her loving.
“I’m going to start helping Jedidiah do the Lord’s work,” Honky-tonk chimed in fervently. I almost smiled, because it seemed he was saying it extra loud, as though he thought his zeal might convince the Lord that it would be in the best interests of his kingdom if he spared the life of this prospective servant.
“Well, amen! Amen!” Jedidiah smiled at him encouragingly.
“I guess I’ll settle down for a change. Marry Alice. Help my dad out at the pr
int shop,” Leroy Green contributed tamely. My ears perked up.
“What does he print?” I asked, trying not to sound too interested.
“Newspapers,” Leroy replied. “He owns the Arlington Daily Herald.”
“Interesting,” I said thoughtfully. “Well, if he ever needs a rookie reporter, tell him to put my name at the top of his list of people to call.”
“I’ll do that,” Leroy promised sincerely.
“What are you going to do, Eddie?” Francis asked “Crazy Eddie” Gunn. Eddie had been manically preparing for D-Day, cleaning and oiling his gun compulsively, and now he’d sat on a crate for nearly an hour, fastidiously honing the edge of his bayonet with a whetstone.
“Huh?” Eddie looked up upon hearing his name. He was a wild man. He kept to himself, but when we talked about going into battle, his eyes gleamed.
“What’s the first thing you’re going to do when you go home?” Francis repeated.
“I’m not going home,” Eddie replied, testing the edge of his bayonet with his thumb and putting it back on the end of his rifle. He spat on the whetstone, picked up his trench knife, and painstakingly ran it along the stone.
“What, you going to settle down in Germany after it’s over?” Harold Meeker asked him jestingly.
“I’ll be somewhere in Europe,” Eddie responded, his eyes intense as he carefully stroked the stone with the blade.
“There won’t be enough left of me to send home in a shoebox.” He stopped for a moment, laughed a humorless, chilling laugh as he looked at our faces, and resumed his task. We stared at him silently.
“But, you can bet your life I’m going to stick Betty Bayonet into the chests of a thousand Krauts before they finally get me.” He brandished his gun.
“Yah!” He yelled and lunged at George London as though running the bayonet through his body. We all jumped, and there was daylight between George and his chair.
“Jesus Christ, Eddie, be careful with that thing!” George shouted loudly at him like your father does when he's more scared than mad. There were no two ways about it, Eddie was unbalanced. I was glad he’d be shooting the other direction come D-Day. A strained silence overcame the room. The only sound was the spine-chilling scrape of metal on stone.
“What about you, Johnny?” someone broke the silence.
“Huh?” Johnny hoisted his gaze from the ground.
“What’ll be the first thing you do?”
“Me?” Johnny asked himself, as though he hadn’t given it any thought. A grin spread slowly over his face.
“Oh, fuck the missus,” he replied to a chorus of hoots.
“Well, that goes without saying,” Harold observed. “And what’ll ya do after that?”
Johnny swished the words around in his mouth. “Flip ’er over and fuck ’er again!” he drawled.
We all laughed. Those were good days.
~~~
Despite all of our training, not all the men could psychologically cope with the angst of going to war. One paratrooper drove a knife through the palm of his hand, just to be relieved of his soldiering duties. Another fellow from C Company washed down a whole can of chewing tobacco with swigs from the canteen of alcohol we were each given to use for sterilization of wounds. He managed to miss D-Day in the hospital, but was shipped to France after his stomach had settled. These men could handle the certainty of self-inflicted pain, but the unknown of war was too much to bear.
They began loading ships in the beginning of June, 1944. The HMS Empire Javelin was our assigned vessel. We were to begin Operation Overlord on June 5, but inclement weather caused General Eisenhower to change his mind. So we waited. We knew our objectives, and had memorized every landmark drawn on the maps we were shown. The sand tables we’d studied were accurate, scaled-down versions of the Normandy coast. But still, the nervousness persisted. The flutter in my stomach was there even when I wasn’t thinking of going to war. My hands were always moist. The adrenaline never slowed. Men talked of being home by Christmas. I wasn’t holding my breath this time.
~~~
Clang! Clang! The ship’s general alarm bell woke us up at 2:00 a.m. It was June 6, 1944. D-Day. The real deal. Excitement and dread tangoed in my belly to the beat of my thumping heart.
“Twenty-nine, let’s go!” someone shouted the 29th Division’s motto as we got ready for a breakfast of meat with gravy, bread, and coffee. My throat felt like it was clamped shut below my jaw, but I managed to get some breakfast down. We went down to our sleeping quarters and geared up.
Men wished friends and former enemies alike good luck with a sober warmth. Fellows passed around copies of General Eisenhower’s memo to us for their buddies to autograph.
“Soldiers, Sailors and Airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Force!” it read.
“You are about to embark upon the Great Crusade, toward which we have striven these many months. The eyes of the world are upon you. The hopes and prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere march with you. In company with our brave Allies and brothers-in-arms on other Fronts, you will bring about the destruction of the German war machine, the elimination of Nazi tyranny over the oppressed peoples of Europe, and security for ourselves in a free world.
Your task will not be an easy one. Your enemy is well trained, well equipped and battle hardened. He will fight savagely.
But this is the year 1944! Much has happened since the Nazi triumphs of 1940-41. The United Nations have inflicted upon the Germans great defeats in open battle, man-to-man. Our air offensive has seriously reduced their strength in the air and their capacity to wage war on the ground. Our Home Fronts have given us an overwhelming superiority in weapons and munitions of war, and placed at our disposal great reserves of trained fighting men. The tide has turned! The free men of the world are marching together to Victory!
I have full confidence in your courage and devotion to duty and skill in battle. We will accept nothing less than full Victory!
Good luck! And let us beseech the blessing of Almighty God upon this great and noble undertaking.”
SIGNED: Dwight D. Eisenhower
We mingled on the deck of the Empire Javelin, waiting to be transferred to the thirty-man LCAs (Landing Craft, Assault). A surly wind smacked me in the face with the salty ocean spray. The sky was still as black as the inside of a whale’s belly, until American B-24 bombers began lighting up the Normandy coastline with thousands of bombs meant to tenderize German fortifications before we landed. It looked like a southern sunrise. Streaks of orange shot through the low-lying clouds like lightning as German anti-aircraft artillery tried to pick off the endless flocks of planes that hummed overhead.
“Look at that!” First Lt. Floyd Stavely was as awestruck as I was.
“Quite something,” was all I said, too engrossed in the fireworks display in front of me to form a longer response.
“Robert?” Floyd asked, turning to me after a silence.
“Yes?” I looked him in the eye.
“Do you think maybe you could say a few words to the fellows before we push off? You’ve got more of a way with words . . . you know?” He looked a little embarrassed. I knew what he meant. He was a great leader, but not a great communicator.
“I think I could,” I agreed, outwardly calm, but inwardly uneasy. We were standing in the doorway of history. My words could affect the future—for good or bad.
Floyd gathered the company to the deck around us, while I prayed for words to buoy the spirits of the men.
“Gentlemen!” I addressed them. They moved about like spirited thoroughbreds, restlessly chomping at the bit. Some were eager to fight, most were just eager to get the fighting over with.
“We stand at the threshold of an undertaking whose parallel the world has never seen. We embark today on a mission to chase a mad dog back to his lair, and drive a knife between his ribs. May the justness of our cause fill you with a strength more potent than the power evil has inspired in our enemy. I cannot promise you tomorrow. I cannot
promise you this afternoon, or even two more hours. I can promise you that when the earth sips your lifeblood from you, you will not have bled in vain. I can promise you that you will not be forgotten, however small a role you play in this grand theater.” I paused to steady my voice. I was glad the dusk hid my glistening eyes.
“Comrades. Friends. Brothers. Love your life, for he who doesn’t love his life has no strength to fight death. But don’t grow too fond of it, lest you exhaust yourself in trying to save it, and put your brothers in harm’s way. For your life is a vapor; it appears for a little while, and vanishes away. But while your life may vanish, you will not. You’ve been branded on my heart, and on the hearts of your brothers. Your legacy is ensured. Godspeed comrades! Twenty-nine, let’s go!”
The men cheered and yelled. We wished each other good luck and got buddies to sign our Eisenhower letters or pictures or money. Emotions ran high. It was an eerie feeling, to look a man in the eye, shake his hand and wish him luck, and wonder if those eyes you saw would be lying dull in their sockets in a few short hours. It was like a carnival of death. Some men were laughing and joking, some were sober and subdued, others fought tears.
Eddie Gunn stood alone on the bow, looking at the fiery coast just eleven miles away. The sky flashed like a Fourth of July from hell, lighting up his face with each flash. He was like a pit bull on a leash staring intently at another dog. He looked about ready to jump into the water and start swimming across.
Love is a Wounded Soldier Page 15