On the Beach

Seventy years and several months ago, my dad was bouncing around in a small boat just off this inoffensive-looking beach, which was then covered with obstacles, burning ships and tanks, and a lot of dead soldiers.  My dad was ready to join Eisenhower’s great crusade, and though he didn’t land until three days after the Omaha Beach invasion, he watched the whole thing from his transport along with everyone else in his unit, leaning over the rail even though all the officers kept telling them to go below where it was safer.  German shells were landing all around, though none of them hit the transport, and the shrapnel began to pile in drifts on the deck.  There was so much of it that the weight of it— along with the weight of the rubbernecking GIs— was threatening to capsize the craft, so brooms were broken out and the shrapnel was swept overboard.

My guess is that the battlefield was covered with smoke and dust and that my dad didn’t see much.

The beach has changed a good deal since 1944.  There was an enormous pile of shingle just inland from the beach, hard to climb and very difficult for vehicles.  Behind the shingle was a seawall composed partly of masonry and partly of timber.  And behind that was the tall bluff covered with masked German fortifications.

Looking at it now, I can’t imagine how anyone got off the beach alive.

In the background of the photo is Point du Hoc, where the Rangers climbed up a vertical cliff to storm an enemy battery, aided by the fact that the Germans didn’t believe such an attack was possible and all the fortifications were facing the other direction, ready to repel a land assault.  The 155mm guns had been withdrawn a few days earlier, but the Rangers hunted them down and destroyed them later in the day.

I’ve been to France maybe half a dozen times, but this is the first time I’ve sought out anyplace connected with my father’s adventures.  (Well, I did look for the slit trench he claimed to have dug in the garden at Versailles.)  I know in a general way where he was, but very few specific locations.  Hard to miss this one, though.

I was surprised at the number of D-Day buffs looking at the sites on a cold Wednesday afternoon in October.  Most of them were French, and a great many brought their children.

Good to know that my dad’s efforts, and those of his comrades, are not being forgotten.