My father-in law was there. Let me relay his story.
There were dead bodies and landing crafts on fire up and down the beach on Omaha. He was carrying an 88mm mortar that he was supposed to leave on the beach. He lost his M1 Garand in the surf coming ashore. There were still active gun enplacements on the hill firing down on them.
He got to get up behind a concrete emplacement free from sniper fire and was approached by an officer who asked where his weapon was. He told the officer about losing it in the surf, and the officer ordered him to find another among the dead & wounded, which he did. After picking it up, he ran to a nearby small concrete white building with another soldier in tow. A mortar shell landed and killed the other solder, and small bits of schrapnel hit his left leg.
Shortly thereafter, the order came to go up the hill, and he did. Once to the top of the hill, others started firing at some snipers that had gotten in to some slit trenches. He got down and pulled back his Garand only to find he had charged the hill emplacements with an unloaded weapon. He reloaded it from his bandolier, but by this time there was nothing to fire at.
He spent that night in a ditch, all the while incoming artillery zinging over his head.
The next few nights were better, he actually had a foxhole on the American extreme left. The next foxhole over was the British extreme right.
Today....he HATES SPAM and refuses to eat it.
To (then) Pvt John Chrismas
He was a citizen of Canada serving in the 1st.
Also 2x Bronze Star recipient--wounded at Hertegen Forest.
ROX
