When we hit the beach, we knew - there was no doubt in our mind - that we had to take that beach. Things like we went through are... just things you don't forget. I mean, it's impossible. Well when war broke out, I was still in high
school. I was 16 years old. I didn't think the war would last six months,
really, when I first heard about it. Two years later, I had graduated from high
school and went to aircraft school to take the same
schooling that the Army Air Corps men did. And I went down there trying to get in the
Air Force and I was drafted in the Army. Although he had his sights set on the skies, Harold McMurran was sent to the United States
Army with the 546th Maintenance Company. The closest he would come to an airplane would be as a repairman for a height finder, an instrument used to determine the altitude
of enemy aircraft. But to where Harold would be deployed was
still a mystery. The day before you was to ship out, if you got OD's you was going to the Atlantic
side. If you got khaki's you was going to the Pacific
side. They didn't have to tell you, when you went
through there and they started issuing you those clothing,
you knew where you was going. And we didn't want to go to the Pacific so we lucked out in that respect, going to
the European Theater. Harold may have counted himself lucky, but before he would ever set foot in war-torn
Europe, the war would find him. We were sent down to the English coast. That was one of the worst places that you
could be, because the Germans had air force bases just across
the Channel. And they would bomb us just about every night. And we had foxholes to get in, but if one of those 500 lb bombs dropped within
a hundred yards of you, it'd bounce you out of that hole just like
you had springs in your shoes. And you'd crawl back in another one, it'd
close do the same thing. But the nightly bombings were only a glimpse
of what was to come. Soon, Harold would find himself advancing
straight into the jaws of death. Since late 1940, the Allied forces had been
chipping away at Adolf Hitler's global conquest, finally achieving victory in Northern Africa,
and a successful invasion of Italy. But the Allies knew that the French coast
was the gateway to victory in Europe, and in June of 1944, they were finally ready
to take it. Operation Overlord would be the largest seaborne
invasion in history, landing over 150,000 troops with intent to
drive Hitler's armies back from where they came. Germany knew the invasion was coming. The only question was where. Hitler was determined that we were gonna invade
up at Calais. And he kept his two SS divisions up there,
even when his generals told him that we was coming in on the beach. He said, "That's just a decoy down there." But the real decoy was just off the coast
of Calais, where the Allies amassed a false army under the supposed leadership of General George
Patton to draw Hitler's attention away from the beaches
of Normandy. Up on Calais, on the English side, they were
putting tanks made of rubber - blow 'em up. Trucks and everything up there - just stacking
them in there. The deception had worked and the defending
German forces were split. In the early morning of June 6th, the invasion
was underway. We loaded on the LST, and we started to move
out. But it seemed like anything that could go
wrong did go wrong. The Navy bombardment and Allied bombers missed
crucial German targets, leaving the enemy defenses largely intact. American tanks sank beneath the waves before
they could reach the shore. And the Airborne paratroopers, deployed behind
enemy lines, were left scattered and disoriented by adverse
weather and enemy firepower. The 101st and 82nd Airborne Division, they
dropped before daylight and that was a disaster. I went in at 7am. The bodies were drowned and been killed while
they were still in the water. We went in way, way too early. Because they had not taken as much of the
beach as they thought they would. So when we got there we actually became infantry. We were not maintenance, we was infantry. With the battle still raging when he reached
the shore, Harold was forced to abandon his equipment
and join in the fight. The Germans had just about every inch of that
beach covered with machine gun fire. You could see it - bullets hitting all around
you in the sand. Sand just popping up all around you. There was very few of us that made it through
without getting hit. No further from me to you, you just see him
just blood and guts everywhere, hit with a machine
gun - 50 caliber machine gun. And you'd be splattered with his blood - no way to really clean it up from you. And you're wondering - trying to find out where
that fire came from. And maybe you could return some fire. But they were firing from so many different
directions, you never knew which one actually hit your
buddy. You just was praying you wasn't the next one
that they hit. Here them hollering, begging for help - from
the guys that was wounded. And some that was wounded trying to get up under a sand dune that was there that
was the best protection that was there at that
time. But, uh... it's hard to describe your feelings when you
see something like that. And the people that got less credit for what
they did was the medics. They did not have very much training either,
but they did a good job. You could holler for a medic, and the chances are there'd be one there in
just about five minutes or less, cause they knew that holler. In spite of tremendous casualties, failed
plans, and fierce German resistance, the battered Allied soldiers reorganized,
improvised, and persevered until their objectives were
completed and the beaches were taken. D-Day may have looked vastly different than
expected, but the gates were now open and victory seemed
just over the horizon. When we hit the beach, we knew - there was no doubt in our mind that we had
to take that beach. Because if we didn't, everybody would be a
loser. But we would sacrifice everything we had to
take that beach. And I figure that's the
reason we got it.
