Originally Posted by
OH58D
Sure it could have, but would have taken longer. Remember you have Utah Beach, Point Du Hoc and the British beaches of Gold, Juno, etc. I was talking with my 96 year old father in law today and he was a Buck Sergeant with the 2nd battalion, 16th Infantry Regt. Ist Infantry Division, stationed in Dorchester, England for training before the invasion. He was in the 2nd wave at Easy Red, Omaha Beach. He was carrying a radio telephone and a Thompson machine gun. They were offloaded into the landing craft at 2:30am and sailed in circles until their time to storm the beach. He said they were all so seasick, they didn't care if they lived or died - they wanted off the LC.
They found the 1st Wave all bunched up, not making any progress. As he got behind a tank obstacle, his radio telephone on his back was hit by German fire and destroyed. He dumped it and made his way across the open sand to more cover and grabbed one section of a Bangalore Torpedo and went with another infantryman up to a heavily barbed wire section by one of the lanes inland. He helped assemble the Bangalore Torpedo, slid it under the wire and was shot twice in the left leg as he tried to move away from the impending explosion. He dragged himself back and laid for hours until he got medical treatment. He was sent back across the channel later that same day and spent two weeks in an English hospital before checking himself out, and finding the next transport across the channel to join his unit. He fought across France, Belgium, Germany and into Czechoslovakia before returning home in December 1945.
From 1946-1949 he went to college, did ROTC, and went back into the Army as a 2LT in 1950. Really tough gentleman, however when the movie Saving Private Ryan was released, he didn't want to see it nor re-live it all. He has never gone back to Normandy.
Your grandfather will forever be a greater man that I am.
Those who beat their swords into plowshares will plow for those who do not.-Ben Franklin
there’s some good in this world, Mr. Frodo. And it’s worth fighting for.-Samwise Gamgee
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