Veterans Describe What It Was Really Like To Be A Soldier On D-Day | D-Day Documentary | Timeline

[Music] [Music] d-day was something that I think never everyone but share this moment that we went through something very special [Music] it was pitch doc and we started the Lord of the troops up we got up about three o'clock in the morning and went down the rope ladders we were gonna be the initial assault wave on d-day we were all to want your kids 23 24 25 year olds we had the mission to take out these guns that were appointed at Omaha Beach Utah Beach we were instructed that not to bring anybody back except the wounded or the dead we had to use helmets to bail water out of out of the moat as I was going into the beach I could hear two bullets hit the other side of my boat the 88 not coming at us and traces are going over our ass I know what a cruel I took in it was about 36 soldiers and there wasn't one of them that made it I yelled up at God I said hey God you know there's anything you want me to do in my life I will do it as long as you get me off this speech I was exhausted and scared and wet cold something I tried to get out of my mind but it's just stuck there and I just can't shake it off [Music] you Washington the War Department says it has no information on reports by the German radio that invasion operations have begun on the French Channel coat England was loaded with equipment and troops we laughed and said the only thing that kept Island up with her barrage balloons we trained there for nine months that ever had practice jumps we had one a night jump there and it looked like the area of France but will you realise where we're gonna go they hit like hedgerows and everything everybody was that way doing something to happen we thought of home and know kind of an emotional time to be on the on the boat knowing where we were going the next day something big was coming that we knew we were when we were told that we're going to be moving and to go to Southampton Knights of Southampton that's right on a course to go to France they put his behind Bob water wolf fences with guards on the outside and guards inside and nobody could get in or out and we were there for about a week we realized that that we were going to be the tip of the spear when the invasion came I think we all had a an idea in fact we all knew that General Eisenhower said it was going to be 94 percent casualties so we all knew that already he probably wasn't supposed to know what we did so yeah we know what is coming we were all anticipating what we how we would react to people being shooting at us and so it was a time of a good deal attention you had to have some kind of weather that was clear enough so you could have air cover you had to have high tide you had to have as close to a full moon as possible so you could see what was what you were doing and the high tide was so you could get over the barriers on the beaches June 5th came and and he said were going on the 5th and we were all suited up to go and word came down that the missions been scrubbed because the weather it wasn't very good the weather was stormy all the week before and the only way we could forecast was to look at the whole weather systems coming across the North Atlantic and the weather showed a day before a high-pressure Ridge creeping up from the Azores and this told us we could go it is now too early to try to guess what the Allied command objective might be we got briefed for a couple of missions before before d-day and then for the actual invasion they showed us the sand tables and gave us a briefings told us what to expect we will assign to landing craft assault because we were going to be the initial assault wave on d-day now that first Battalion won that award don't ask me why we weren't too excited about hearing we were going to be the initial assault when any of them we were soldiers sailors and airmen of the Allied expeditionary force 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 our homefront 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 devotion to duty and skill in battle we will accept nothing less than full good luck and let us all beseech the blessing of Almighty God upon this great and noble undertaking [Music] well I saw so many planes I actually felt sorry for the Germans England that double summertime and it was still fairly light we could we could see the English Channel as we were going across I looked out the door and saw all that boats headed for France so it looked encouraging we weren't we weren't alone it was pretty quiet they passed out some pills and put about half asleep and first thing you know we're ready to you were over the Cotentin Peninsula and ready to jump n-b-c reporters are standing by to bring you the latest invasion bulletins as they come off the wire early this morning the long-awaited British and American invasion began when paratroops landed in the area of the farm the German news agency said the alight envisioned operations began with the landing of airborne troops in the area of the mouth of the same river when we made landfall across the channel the Germans were waiting for us they had been expecting us the night before and they were already with all their anti-aircraft artillery and they shot us up we couldn't have been more than three four hundred feet off the ground soon as we hit the coast then then it was they called the night of nights and the sky lit up and and if flak came up and if Shingen tracers were coming up you could hear the bullets hitting the side of the plane and there's no substitute for having somebody trying to kill you because the pilots were trying to stay away from the flak and everything we was all pretty serious when they're going through that it was just it was going to combat what we had been training to do we were maybe five minutes just solid any aircraft fire rifle fire could hit us at that altitude so we were really anxious to get out of that airplane when the flux started what which did over the greens the islands the guys were just saying let us get the hell out of here you can't imagine how how tense everybody was it was it was amazing and we're quite here to get out of the damn thing goes brother back out you know I think everybody wants to get out of it I think everybody was rated no question about whether you is going to jump for naught you just wanted all that thing because the shopman was going through that thing sound like a beehive you know so there was no problem getting the guys to jump if they wanted out they warned that green light to come on so they can get out of that damn thing [Music] there was four planes in the formation 66th was that company can a plane and the left was a plane was one of our platoons on the right was 68 and then I was I was in the back but 69 and after them we went through all that firing and add we got the we saw the plane company our company plane gets shot down one of our friends was shot down when I was you know 12 14 min the company commander the first sergeant that was just before those guys even got on the ground I think the number is somewhere around 60 aircraft didn't make it back to England the moon was going in and out behind the clouds and I just thought about well what you could see and then you couldn't see where we didn't know where was that but where's there and you're down there that's going to happen all I can see is [Music] trace are flying on all directions down there it looks like everyone's going to hit you between now and then they peel off one way or the other and that's a bottle and that's the first time I ever saw a green tracers I told people I saw a green tracers and I found out later at that the German did have ours were red well when I come down on my parachute on June 6th I was landed on the shrine down over the hill behind the church here on the roof of a shrine and there was two Germans there to greet me when I landed welcome me to Normandy I was the last man out I was the last man in a stick to make sure everybody got out I was a sergeant at the time when I landed we had the password thunder welcome and flash and when I landed another guy landed very close to me and I turned and was still in my parachute and I opened my mouth to say the password inhaled out tipper we had known each other so well in all this training we could recognize just by the way we moved you know he's you see somebody and he recognized me and then I recognized him I hit the ground work very quick and it wasn't hurt got up took my harness off and it was so quiet there there was no action no firing right there on the ground and I heard some rustling in the bushes there were three three of us together there's the power troopers led the way in the glider trips followed of course I guess I'm about every glider crash-landed some overturned some water suing some got that on attack but damaged but about to an attack fortunately I was in a glider that was hurt the gentleman radio announced though it link of where I was from that time until I got to sate long I probably was some 14 miles from where I was supposed to be I was all old the only thing I got scared of really right into because I avoided roads and so forth was cause I'd hear Mike was sneaking up on cows because I thought they might be some of our bed and I did use the clicker ID that I never believed in the clickers because I figured it was more harm than good I could hear the guns on the shore opening up with a bombardment I could hear that all the time every morning noon and night although that period I could see very nearby the pressures going up okay Sherwood walked right in front of me that I had to say that he hadn't seen me fortunately I had my Tim Tommy Gunn talk and what he came around of the three I've tried to remember with her had his gun slung over his shoulder I think so but I just stitched him all the way up with a machine gun and that was the first period I worst that was the most difficult to read I had him all my my whole career because I thought he was the point of a squad there's no substitute for hearing a bullet snap past your head and you realize that someone's trying to kill you and you can't explain or put into words how that feels but it it forever changes you you're never never quite the same I landed in water over my head I had on all of my equipment plus a leg bag I managed to get out of the trench and the troops that I took up with were 82nd division people they came in behind me and that's the people that I was with when I killed my first man it was very lonely I jumped in couldn't find any of my friends for about five hours and my first impression was what am I doing here I had never felt so alone and all my life early Tuesday morning landing craft and like warship were observed in the area between the mouth of the thumb and the eastern coast of Normandy well we were told that since the Germans held the high ground above the beach we knew we knew there were fortifications on the beach we'd been told that that guns one positioned in such a way that unless you got real close you couldn't even see them the Hansen large guns hidden like inside the rocks and so forth it was pitch dark you couldn't see nothing in front of you and we started the lord of the troops up and the boats who didn't know exactly how bad it would be but we expected it we were told a lot of us wouldn't be back first thing you know every shipping that habis not firing at the beach battleships destroyers you name and it looked like the fourth of July only about a thousand of fourth of July's Olympics and that ocean lit up like a Christmas tree and it was 4:30 in the morning and they were bombing that beach like hell so after loading up our troops went into a rendezvous er area with the other boats and then we got our single to land into the beach one of us crushing over the top of the boat we were drenched below that we had to use helmets to be a water out of the bottom of the boat and it was a tough ride in we we could see what was happening before us so huh 116th was getting clobbered so we were in for a dreadful time you're scared all the time you do something I was anyway I imagine all the others were too like everybody else I guess they're thinking Holmen what was what was what was coming we I guess we knew what was coming but till you get there you really never know quite what to expect it's a little usually a lot different than what you what you think it's going to be we knew all along we're gonna be in for a dreadful time but as I say until you're there you don't know the enormity of it I wasn't nervous that was scared like hell well everybody was scared wait we were only a bunch of kids about 20 21 19 nobody knew what the hell war was that's right but now I know and then we got our single tool and head to the beach and I figured out a way in I says this is gonna be a piece of cake it can't be nobody left on that beach with a bombardment they took the way I could see them soldiers they were scared stiff you know and they can see they were nervous we interrupt our program to bring you a special broadcast Berlin radio says that about 15 Allied cruisers 50 to 60 destroyers are roughly half guarding great numbers of landing craft apparently waiting orders to hit the coast the British American landing operations against the western coast of Europe from the sea and from the air are stretching over the entire area between Sher Berg and La Habra a distance of about 60 miles [Music] there's a roughest time I ever saw it's raining and a ways worse alive it's a boat to just bouncing up and down and everybody all the soldiers was getting seasick and vomiting over the side d-day morning we were about 500 yards staring of the the battleship Texas and she was firing her big guns in the point to hawk and every time she'd fire the guns we would move sideways about 25 feet we did trips back and forth bringing everything from from troops to plasma blood plasma k-rations shelves for the guns for the thing how many I look like a might say trying junk out between vehicles and ships and smaller ones the LCM SLC teased that were you know hid minds and broached and everything greatest feat of ships ever to set sail four thousand ships and thousands of lesser craft the greatest army ever to strike in a hospital as I was going into the beach I could hear to pull a chicken on the side of the ship on either side of my boat and then that's what I realized I says well this isn't going to be a piece of cake this is for real we started this your bullets on the side then on the side of the boat so we knew then I was gonna be like from that ramp went down I looked into the well of the boat and it was 35 soldiers in the air and I don't think there was an atheist India because every one of us was making a sign of the Cross as we were going in no you tend to pray a little and I have they looked at right and I seen a book then it's realized what we were worn into our job was to blow up these are two obstacles they had what they call hedgehogs and then they had these telephone poles with a ramp and on top of the telephone pole was a mind that was fraught we're not tight came in the boat should just slide up there the mind would explode and our job was to blow up 50-yard gaps so the infantry could land I carried out my rifle there I went out with can't cheating and ammunition on a rifle and I forgot how many pounds of explosives I had him my back I believe they called it touch at all and as I got to the wrap with a small boat that was in the Lange nose I just says they jumped into the water there was the explosion and while I was on the water maybe a couple of seconds someone bailed me out and I couldn't find anything I can't finally the crew that I was attached to they were all killed I'm assuming one left and as I was going in I could see the other boats a lot of the Coxon's I got an old Sullivan got nervous and they lured their ramps way before they got into the beach and that's how a lot of those soldiers drowned the tide was coming in so fast the people are holding hands I guess a lot of coats swim but they were all in hands Coxon got her soon as closely could and he was pretty good about it yeah had a little map he was studying and they got us in pretty close I don't think we landed where we were supposed to but it was good enough for us I guess we landed in water that was only a little over our knees fine unfortunately we didn't didn't have the deep water that some others had as I hit the beach well you know what Lord the ramp and the soldiers fall off it was one soldier there didn't want to leave I guess he froze he seen what happened in front of them and we were instructed not to take anybody back on the stairway wounded or dead as I lifted up my mom tell him to get off I was shot and he came out my back in fact when it happened I called for my mother I was in that water and I called for my mother I didn't really stop getting scared or feeling the bottom until the little you start hearing the bullets hit neither side of the ship and hit in the water and then when I looked like I said I seen that boat blow up I said all my god eyes I hope I know get hit but when the ramp went down and we started coming in I think organization kind of went up the went up in smoke we everybody were running around was survival on their minds more than anything else I can remember the soul just telling me go all the way in and let I want to get wet I don't want to get wet you know you can get wet they got killed the beaches of northern France are alive right now with Allied troops Allied troops landing in a wave after wave we got in within 300 yards of the closest point of going to arc we had the mission to take out these guns that were pointed at Omaha Beach Utah Beach you named the beach these guns were ready to go and pretty soon the 88 start coming at us and and tracers are going over our head the next thing I know when we got within about a hundred yards from the point we were taking an awful pounding and one shell hit just in front of the bow of the landing craft just picked it up and we had almost half full water already just flipped it over first thing I know I hear remember hearing captain and saying abandon ship we had no choice we was dumped right into the water and we lost five guys and we figured that the end is going to come under the command of General Eisenhower allied naval forces supported by strong air forces began landing Allied armies this morning I mean uhlan coast of French and the water was really red talking with all the people that came gonna help there it's awful they had us pinned down actually you couldn't move if you stood up your god it's pretty hard to form any kind of a cohesive attack plan at that point I think everything went up plans just went down the drain everybody was on their own for quite a while they're actually survival was a priority I reached a point or I could see that I had to talk to God in a real hurry and I remember looking up to God and I yo God no matter what it is you want me to do I'll do it forever or the rest of my life and almost instantly the Navy had shut down smoke flares waved down below the beach nivea Ville and the smoke had drifted up by us at that point Colonel cannon who was my regimental commander had come along in the smoke I said okay guys get off the beach get your ass up here get up to the beach and run and it was almost simultaneously the yell twenty-nine let's go and we did we get up to the berm and we made it to the burn and managed to get up there soaking wet so I mean we're talking about a beach that's like a quarter of a mile long to get up on how I managed to get there I don't know but God was helping me when I jumped in I I went overboard I I went under and all of a sudden someone pulled me back up that was almost simultaneously with this explosion from an 88 but what I was about maybe we're steep but the tide was way out of it I managed to crawl up the beach and because attacked the tug went out very far but when it came in it came out quite fast it left a very small beach and that's when before as I was crawling in the beach I looked back and I could see these attacks that was supposed to float they just sank they went right to the bottom and they got up on a beach and another one of the tanks made it but it got stuck and it lost his strength you know all the small rocks and as I lay in there there were I couldn't find any Navy minute and you could tell the Navy men because I'm a helmets we had a blue stripe that went around the helmet there was some 1015 feet from me laying down what American and then heat they call them 88 the shells hit them and they will go on their body pots all over the place dad bodies all over the place that the legs I remember this well he must have been an officer because he said to kind of two kinds of people on the speech those that are dead and those that are going to be dead I remember that cuz I backed off the beach I could see a lot of soldiers there just floating in the water and it was a hell of a sickness site something I tried to get out of my mind but it's just stuck there and I just can't shake it off and I oh I thought so much of those we were all a bunch of kids no Morton I was only 19 years old so the rest of them the one that I was I figured I was the youngest one on that beach that day because the rest of them are all older than I was 23 24 25 year-olds and to see them soldiers just floating there and dying on that beaches it was hell and don't let anybody tell you it was different because it was held and it was awful and these are things that you I will never forget serious thing that ever happened to me in my life [Music] he mentioned the naval bombardment and it was tremendous and so much so that we wondered whether the rain Germans would be left on the bluffs I couldn't believe it was one of the big surprises that we had was to find the level of the opposition the defense there after the tremendous bombing which stood it pretty well whatever it was done was not enough to make any difference to the Germans in their efficiency and ability to prevent us from landing and therefore they had to change everything so they scrapped the book and we went on in as close as we could to our assigned areas within the range of Omaha Beach you should the destroyer had a certain section to eliminate the German what they called the Atlantic Wall there was just a huge mass of ships at those landing craft and everything and circling around there was no success immediate success on the beach a lot of ships I should have been in unloader than going out with still there in the beach so there was a mass of ships close to the beach it would have been a field day if the artillery had going out for far other but it was obvious that they did was determined to confine their fire to the beach and just off the beach we went and examined pillbox afterwards and they said this is probably where our big guns hidden to be a little ship it's a man off a gun then do any damage unless they were directed one of the toughest things for us was that when we would come across parts of bodies floating and we would have to report them in and they had special people that pick them up that never goes away it stays with you all the time I when flashbacks come back I see arms waves bodies we lost a lot of people out there a lot of good people [Music] a landing was made this morning on the coast of France and German radio stations admit that our troops are now 10 miles inside Europe he was very surprised because reliant on their experts you also Germany thanks marina that nobody could land on the such weather conditions it was a very courageous decision of General Eisenhower and of a successful my father was away from the theater and some others as well and he said this is very painful as they are learning while I am not there the British and Americans were more courageous and rumors concerning the bizarre but in the morning around 8 o'clock yeah there was still no clear picture of the situation in my father's and runstats headquarters there still were of doubtful if this really had been their ending but this changed you know and I've all the big and of him there and hurt if he began to call his driver and repair himself for departing from France today is a day that no living American can ever forget invasion days the light invasion forces have cleared the enemy from all of their Beach heads in French Normandy today they are fighting their way inland the report that several big heads have now been established Allied forces are fighting their way inland from BBK recording the reconnaissance photos I don't know never Merman being scared you know it was an experience that I knew would probably be the most important thing I did in my entire life would be part of that invasion we coming into the beach and were taken wounded off most of them were paratroopers from the 101st and 82nd airborne one person we took off as a glider pilot and he he was in really bad shape the doctors later said that he had broken every bone in his body what I took him back in my boat we have broken the first German defense line we've pierced a hole in it we are 10 miles inside the fortress of Europe that wall of steel and concrete which Hitler boasted could never be broken but it apparently has already been broken our job was to go in there and stay there until we silenced each of the German heavy artillery in there the machine-gun nest the mortar nests and the sharpshooters the destroyers stayed there and till there were no more firing from any source of the Germans the German this wall was broken forever what was happening when we'd got there people are getting off the boats and being killed on the beach I remember looking down in both directions and as far as I could see there were men on the only on on the sand there and they were either dead or they were lying still because it didn't want to be dead and because there was nothing but death for them if they got up because the none of the defensive very offensive actions of the Germans were stopped with all the things we did until the destroyers came in and destroyed the big guns and then all the others that they had and by by the time sunset there was not a single German gun firing or a pistol or a rifle mortar or anything else and the German wall the Atlantic Wall was no more enormous allied reinforcements have been pouring across the channel and onto the beaches and into the gaps in the Nazi line of steel and cement fortifications along the coast supreme headquarters says initial landings succeed fighting proceeds Weston Churchill says that the enemy was surprised by our landings the airborne troops are well established behind Nazi lines the Allied forces of penetrated several miles inland losses have been far lighter than had been anticipated and the operation is proceeding in a thoroughly satisfactory manner and another bulletin just e'en emphasizes the element of surprise saying that the Nazis were caught off their guard in an effective surprise by the Allied forces although all the beaches on which we have landed have been cleared of the enemy and some of the beaches have been linked together the fighting inland is both heavy and general the first phase of the invasion is going well the alai is now control about 50 miles of the French coast [Music] if you've been to the cemetery you've been back to that cemetery times that that's the emotional center of course so the whole thing it's a really really really good game moves you every time you go there I miss I've often I fought all my life how I why did I how did I make it and so many others didn't and I don't I don't have the answer to that but it's I've thought about it all my life I remember that day like a wounded me the four of us was there we were all crying not only what we saw the Florence we couldn't believe it and Brean he had studied to be a priest and he was the one that prayed the most against Wallace [Music] I'm not the hero I'm not bad I'm not a hero I'm just a survivor the hero's most of the heroes over there order the white process that you all doma and their mothers and their fathers and their brothers and their sisters and even their children are some of those people those are the heroes of this war where the survivors now I'm glad you feel that way but and I hope you always do because democracy and liberty are too precious and until I came over here I didn't realize how precious it was I always had the feeling something's looking after me because look at what happened we're supposed to land ten o'clock in the morning and I didn't land until the next day so that saved me then if I landed ten o'clock in the morning I probably would have been one of those guys laying there I always felt bad than I do today for all the servicemen they get killed in action I state I take about it all the time [Music] I was very glad that I would took part in it and I could be of some you know help one way or another yes but anybody would have done what I did I you know here Oh what what does it mean a hero can you tell me that's because he did something which is very important but he had the job he had a job to do and that's what that's what I did I had a job to do and I did it but I'm not a hero I won't call myself a hero the thing that affects me more is that they were one of my buddies one of my fellow soldiers and we were kind of like a family in a way and we were kind of like one hormones that I think affects me more than anything else their lives were cut short they never got the chance to realize adult life and they were just kids really and our whole regiment averaged 21 years old I think all this is in them and they never had a chance to have families and children at all it said [Music] No and I didn't think they could be effective but he can't help but have it overwhelm you to see all [Music] I've always been proud of the uniform I wore the boys that I served with [Music] I remember the first night in France I was in a in a ditch on the outskirts of the little town called st. Laurent that is and I was exhausted and scared and wet I don't know what all cold but in in some ways I was elated that's kind of an odd way to put it but I I was elated that I had made it through that terrible day and that the 29th division was there and I was with them and I'll never forget that of course as long as I live you got a look at it this way you're looking at me I'm looking at him I'm looking at him what can I say is we know what it was they wish the brightest the heroes were all over they're very right when those people say you're here old now those guys under the white cross isn't he that's right that's it but it's nice to see you guys burn ICU very nice to see that range ok see you're not alone we made it and I'm thankful to God that we did make it [Music] you do wonder why you I make it and others did not and the feeling that we're not going to make it was a sort of all pervasive you know as a not just on d-day but it's today's LinkedIn in two months and minded into a year I its remarkable at that I wouldn't made it all the way through we changed the world whether you know it or not we actually involved in changing the way the world was operated [Music]

Channel: Timeline - World History Documentaries

Views: 1,009,032

Keywords: History, Full Documentary, Documentaries, Full length Documentaries, Documentary, TV Shows - Topic, Documentary Movies - Topic, 2017 documentary, BBC documentary, Channel 4 documentary, history documentary, documentary history, world war 2, omaha beach, world war ii, invasion of normandy (military conflict), saving private ryan, d-day documentary, d-day (event), normandy landings (military conflict), adolf hitler, american history, band of brothers

Id: Q9HUM0KwLbI

Length: 55min 29sec (3329 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 05 2019