Normandy Invasion

you June 9th 1944 allied troops in Normandy have moved inland the work of the US Navy and Coast Guard and the combined Allied sea forces has been done work not without a price in men and materiel it all began many months earlier in Chesapeake Bay and other sections of the American coast untested sailors and soldiers learned the task of getting from ship to shore but that time the shore was a friendly one then with part of their training finished they left the United States late in the winter and all through the spring the great con boys moved eastward across the Atlantic aboard all the transports life was the same the troops relaxed and waited for the voyage to end all along the coasts of Great Britain that spring the training went on Navy and Coast Guard landing barges practiced landing operations day and night meanwhile the larger landing craft LSTs and LC eyes carried on their maneuvers learning to land at a given spot at a certain time through all the days of preparation the light planes thousands of them continue to soften enemy defences and communications in daily raids off the southern coast of England thousands of ships from all allied nations are preparing for the invasion signal Navy and Coast Guard crews make last-minute preparations when the k-rations come aboard everyone knows that d-day is drawing near somewhere in southern England troops embark on lcvps to be ferried to the waiting transports offshore Joan pip the LC eyes are loaded the next time these men step ashore will be on an enemy Beach there's only a little time left to relax and the bombing attacks of the air force are intensified now the rates are continuous at ports of embarkation the troops prepare themselves for their greatest battle a Coast Guard officer breached his men and all along the coast sailors received their final instructions at last the ships leave the coastal waters and move out into the channel the slow LSTs loaded with heavy equipment the transports loaded with men fast warships scream the mighty invasion fleet from enemy Raiders at 1530 a Coast Guard flotilla of LC eyes leaves loaded with engineers medical corpsman and infantry day-day approaches and the ships are in their assigned positions or some of them like the Coast Guard man transport chase it is the fourth invasion in European waters you the only blames overhead our friendly from the 83 foot Coast Guard rescue boats to the Navy's powerful battlewagons the invasion fleet is moving towards France and below decks officers study the maps that marked the invasion beachheads on the coast of Normandy some of the landing barges are stopped by concrete obstacles built far out in the water by the enemy offshore the larger landing craft approached the beachhead slowly or DLC eyes the troops prepare to land the beach is still empty and the crossfire of German guns still rakes the shore out of enemy firing range the LSTs wait to move in until the beaches are cleared the arrival of motorized equipment marks the end of the first phase of the landing the LC is their first loads of men now on the beaches go out to the transports to ferry more troops in Shore still waiting beyond gun range the LSTs unload supplies on smaller LC teams heavier equipment is transferred to giant Rhino fairies flat-bottomed barges that will land it ashore and reinforcements arrive thousands of men defeated and disarmed the first German soldiers captured in France wait until someone has time to evacuate them out in the channel the rescue boats of the Coast Guard are looking for survivors and aiding damaged vessels and the hospital ships are waiting for the wounded from the damaged coastguard LCI a wounded man is transferred to another ship the life-saving blood plasma goes with him another Coast Guard band LCI badly crippled could not reach the shore and it's wounded are removed you the beach is firmly in allied hands now at the best extent of the operation is visible silent evidence of the fierce battle is apparent everywhere but in a few days many of the damaged ships will be afloat again now more and more trucks move inland to push the enemy back and the LSTs land their cargoes on the beach Marge's built especially for the normandy operations are left on the shore to be unloaded during the daytime there are only Allied planes in the air but at night German bombers Harris the beachhead and drop mines offshore out of sunken block ships artificial harbors have been built until a fort is won from the enemy these must handle all Allied shipping bad weather came after the fighting on the beaches was over the heavy storm left a trail of damage chips once again the landing barges moved out into the channel this time loaded with German prisoners in England prisoners board a Coast Guard transport and ships which have carried thousands of American soldiers overseas now returned westward with a different cargo with men who were beaten and captured in Normandy you

Channel: US National Archives

Views: 1,320,144

Rating: 4.6534863 out of 5

Keywords: US National Archives, NARA

Id: Z5DVGt4c71E

Length: 20min 38sec (1238 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 21 2015

Reddit Comments

[u/abbazabasback]

What a sacrifice.