Word: beachings
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...Every man who set foot on Omaha Beach that day was a hero," Bradley later wrote, remembering the carpet of corpses, men burned alive or blown apart or drowned. All told, by the end of the first day, at least 150,000 men had landed by sea and air, and there were 10,000 casualties. But by August the Allies were speeding toward Paris on their way to victory. The German surrender came 11 months later...
...quite a sight. There was the oldest man in the D-day invasion, 56year-old Brigadier General Theodore Roosevelt Jr. (son of the former President) barking orders at Utah Beach. Although he had a heart condition, Roosevelt insisted that his presence and leadership would help boost troop morale. With German artillery exploding all around him, he paraded up and down Utah Beach, ordering U.S. tanks to secure the flanks and U.S. engineers to breach eight 50-yd. lanes through beach obstacles. He refused to wear a helmet, preferring to don a knit wool hat. "We have landed in the wrong...
...operation began as Allied paratroopers boarded planes and gliders. "O.K., let's go" was Eisenhower's direct order. Just after midnight, June 6, they began landing behind enemy lines, with orders to attack and destroy German gun batteries. Meanwhile, an armada started making its way toward the designated beaches. Allied troops began landing at 6:30 a.m. Wading through the water onto French soil, they met vastly different fates. At Utah Beach, the farthest west, bombardments had decimated the German defenses. Moreover, an opportune navigational mistake had landed the troops at a practically unguarded stretch of the beach. The Americans...
...condition to carry on. All were trying to stay alive for the moment. Behind us, other landing craft were attempting to unload their equipment and personnel in the incoming tide and were coming under enemy fire as well. I realized that we had landed in the wrong beach sector and that many of the people around me were from other units and were strangers to me. What's more, the terrain before us was not what I had been trained to encounter. We could see nothing above us to return fire to. We were the targets...
...were being urged by braver and more sensible noncoms and one or two surviving officers to get off the beach and up to higher ground. But it would be some time before enough courage returned for us to attempt it. One or two times I was able to control my fear enough to race across the sand to drag a helpless G.I. from drowning in the incoming tide. That was the extent of my bravery that morning...