OMAHA BEACH: Last Living 1st Wave D-Day Officer on Storming Normandy

we uh past Landing control which are boats about a thousand yards offshore and they said do not attempt to land at vierville the casualties are 95 percent half of them killed land on dog white Beach so we shifted over to dog white Beach and we landed our first wave there two companies of the second Battalion plus a headquarters boat and they were cut like everybody else on Omaha Beach they were cut down to about 50 percent all the officers killed or wounded you are about to inform the great crusade to meet this mounting aggression and make no mistake about it good will prevail I was born at for Fort Benning Columbus April 22nd 1922. and your father was in the service correct my father was a graduate of what they now call the class of night June 1919. now you grew up in a military family of course and your family had regular interaction when you were a kid with figures who would become extraordinarily famous later on right oh yes yep I knew Eisenhower I knew Bradley I even double dated with Bradley's daughter Johnny Eisenhower was a friend of mine from Junior High School we also he was in my company at West Point as was Georgie Patton as was Mark Clark Arnold was in B company I was in a so I knew all of these people I knew their fathers I knew their fathers when they were lieutenants that type thing played tennis with them played golf with them and later they're four stars things like that it was a very very useful growing up period living on Army posts because you did meet all these people when they were lieutenants when they were captains and so on so like your father you went to West Point you began there in early July of 1939 correct you're there for two months two months later Hitler invades Poland World War II in Europe begins yeah yeah a couple of years into your time at West Point Pearl Harbor we're in the war what's it like to be at West Point when all these major events are happening and you probably know you're going to be in the middle of it soon well the point is that we contracted not expecting War but when the war came that's what we were preparing for so it went very well it made you quite a bit more attentive to your studies particularly your military studies things like that but it really didn't change anything we were the same happy-go-lucky people we would have been without a war and you were commissioned in 1943 with an engineering degree that actually helped you get in with the Rangers explain that a little bit well in a sense um I'm afraid there was a little exaggeration there it didn't help me but it didn't prevent me I was an engineer officer and the Rangers were infantry but when they uh sought volunteers for the ranger battalion I went ahead and volunteered and lo and behold I passed the personal interview and found myself in the Rangers and the excuse was that being an engineer officer I knew about fuel fortifications I knew about minefields I knew about barbed wire I knew about all kinds of things engineering demolitions was another one things like that and they said we need somebody who specialized in those things in the Rangers so I expected to be in headquarters and so on first thing they do is throw me out in a ranger platoon and I'm in the arranger platoon for about two three months and they've moved me up to staff where I really belonged when did you head to England uh we headed to England in uh early January of 1944. I say early January we docked in Liverpool on January 19th which was exactly one year after I graduated from West Point so January 19th is the big day for me because of of the other Association definitely and so what did you do to prepare then for The Invasion that you knew was coming we went initially to lemster England which is over on the Welsh border and we trained much of it was physical training I mean we knew our mission involved a long march a fast March so there was a tremendous amount of marching night marching distance marching double Time marching and things like that to get us in physical condition they had rifle ranges and we had to all qualify with our own weapon we had to qualify expert and uh we did a lot of scouting and patrolling but the nastiest thing that we had to do was somebody coming up flashing a map in front of us and saying you are there get there within nine hours period goodbye no bus tickets no nothing you could hitchhike you could jump the railroad and do all sorts of things to get there but everybody succeeded uh we also did a great deal of training with landing craft uh they brought the ships in that we would use in The Invasion and they brought the landing craft in that we would use in The Invasion and uh as a result when we actually loaded out for the invasion we knew half the people we were dealing with in the Royal Navy because the Rangers all use Royal Navy transport to get to the beaches and we use Royal Navy boats things like that and uh we were very lucky because they had done it before they'd done it in Africa they've done it in Sicily they've done it twice in Italy and so on and knowing them we got along very well very few hitches none with the English Crews none absolutely what kind of resistance were you told to expect well we were told to expect that the bombing of the beaches would leave us plenty of good cover the cover if it were on the beaches a bomb crater would be filled with water but it was better than being up on the sand so that was the type thing we expected for ourselves we expected a sea wall we expected enemy wire we expected mines mostly anti-personnel mines but mines things like that but uh that's what we trained for we also accepted expected very hostile positions of the enemies on the crests that they would have trenches they would have minefields they would have wire in front of the minefields and things like that we did not expect an easy show when did you actually find out what your assignment was what you had been training for all this time not until we got on board the ships we got Maps of the entire area when we were still ashore in the Dorchester camps we had these wonderful maps without a word on them you didn't know the name of that town you didn't know the name of that locality you didn't know the name of the woods that were on the map all you saw was the maps and we memorized those maps and the sand tables were the same way they had no names all you were doing was you were memorizing the terrain which is what we all did and I mean the enlisted men they learned it as much as we officers because they were sitting right beside us as we got the information from the maps we had wonderful aerial photos and the aerial photos were of such a scale that I mean you could practically put a dot and locate yourself within two or three yards on the aerial photos I mean we were really prepared that way when we moved aboard the ships they took away all those nameless maps and gave us the real maps with all the names and the coordinates and things like that and so we got to about three or four days still had the sand tables but now they had Maps still had the aerial photos but now they had names and that type thing um the preparation was very good the preparation was so good that when we landed one mile from where we were supposed to one of my sergeants said you know where we are captain and I said sure the only place there's a wooden sea wall is that lay Mulan so we're at lame old land and uh turned out that's where we were one mile exactly from the Fairview exit tell me about being on board the ship and and getting ready to get into the Higgins boats well the ship was a wonderful ship the British officers were became personal friends and they were the ones that would uh run the flotillas and things like that of landing craft um the British Navy has a bar that opens at about five o'clock in the afternoon which meant that we had all the liquor we wanted because the British officers had all the liquor they wanted I don't know about the enlisted men getting Grog still but I think they still get Grog and so our Rangers did fairly well in all respects and most people ask what about fear and I would say that with very few exceptions we did have one officer that turned a jelly but the non-coms took care of that they hauled him by his armpits until he got his uh battle eggs under him he became a very good Commander after that but the the initial shock of all that all those machine gun bullets and rifle bullets and artillery and mortar coming in on us he sort of had problems but as I say trust the noun comes to straighten the junior officers out there wasn't enough time to sleep and so I just went over my equipment made sure I had everything made sure everything was working and suddenly we heard attention U.S Rangers attention U.S Rangers I'm trying to get the exact words but it meant man the boats and so we went up on the deck and all of our assault votes being British were hoisted by davits up to the Loading decks so we just climbed into the boat while it was there on the on the deck and they lowered us with the davits into the waters now we did crash into the side of the boat and things like that and the tackle got jammed and fortunately the British had the necessary tools and acts and they cut enough of the lowering ropes that we were lowered into the water really without incident we then proceeded on our mission which was to go to La Puente Oak and land there after the second range of Battalion they had three companies assaulting those Cliffs and after they had successfully reached the top they were to send a message to us and then we would go in with six cup actually eight companies of Rangers and we would exploit the point to Hawk capture and then go out and set up blocking positions so the Germans could not get any infantry in to support the German defenses of the beaches um the second Battalion never showed up they were sent to the wrong Point by their butt guideboat and as a result they were a half hour late but we had to leave at the end of half an hour we weren't allowed to wait over in case they were late so we we had left they did land first man up up the cliffs was up in something like 51 seconds uh he cheated there was a bomb crater on the edge of the cliffs and sort of a hemisphere of bomb crater there there was debris that fell out on the bottom maybe 30 feet of it so he ran up the 30 feet of debris he was a marvelous athlete he climbed up some 30 feet and was in the bottom of a bomb crater had a rope with him threw the Rope out and all of a sudden he was building up members of his Squad that type thing um other people had more difficult times using rope ladders using uh metal ladders using toggle rope climbs and all sorts of things like that but the the second Battalion got up on top of the cliffs and uh radioed their message we're there but we were already practically at vierville we uh past Landing control which are boats about a thousand yards offshore but I'll tell you any events you need to know about and they said do not attempt to land at vierville the casualties are 95 percent half of them killed land on dog white Beach so we shifted over to dog white Beach and we landed our first wave there two companies of the second Battalion plus a headquarters boat and they were cut like everybody else on Omaha Beach they were cut down to about 50 percent all the officers killed or wounded and uh my Battalion Commander was watching a thousand yards out but the waves were about a thousand yards and he said they quote I'm not gonna lose my Battalion on that beach so he talked the British flotilla Commander into going farther east and the commander was not at all averse to it he did coordinate with the higher people up and they all agreed so we moved a mile more and suddenly we found the beach with breakwaters well the breakwaters come up to the sea wall they're the same height as the sea wall about four or five feet but they formed little barriers made us like we were in Forts on three sides and water on the other and as a result when we went in there we took five casualties other people were taking 50 percent casualties so we got our whole Battalion Landing intact which by the way is the name of my book laughs but uh in any event we landed and we took very few casualties on the beach but only because of the breakwaters now above us who should be shooting at us the hills were a fire and I mean active grass fires so the Germans couldn't see us through the flames and smoke and they couldn't shoot at us there was a nose on the hill to our left and nobody down there from the left could shoot at us because all they saw when they looked to the where we should have been all they could see was water um the only place we were getting shot at was from down the beach to our right and it was 30 or 40 Machine Guns Plus probably two 300 infantrymen plus mortars and things like that which was enough the artillery that everybody feared was located at vierville and the artillery was shooting at the boats and ships as they came in so when once you got off the boats and on the beach all you had to contend with was Small Arms fire well we had these breakwaters in between us and the Small Arms fire so we we got off the beach within 15-20 minutes and uh went up the bluffs and the Germans at least half of them because the Flames of the grass fire at least half of them had deserted their positions and left their explosives there in the foxholes and uh so we got up the hills with relatively Little Resistance when I say relatively I mean relatively because there were some people killed on the way up but uh nothing like people were losing on the beach who weren't protected by these uh sea walls and break Waters actually so we got up there into the uh bocage and uh we were very lucky there again Harvest had not taken place so the fields were filled with mostly grassy crops that were three to six feet tall and if you got caught by a machine gun or by ambush in there all you had to do was to drop down they couldn't see you they had no idea where you were they knew what the range was you just rolled over a few times and crawled to the nearest Hedgerow maybe went over came in behind the resistance and we had very little problems initially with hedgerows later when they got Vehicles up the tanks could not penetrate the Hedge roads and uh the tanks will not Venture forward without infantry so they had a lot of problems later with the Hedge Rose but it was mostly the tanks and the vehicles that had the problems but the early on Infantry those grasses were just worth their weight in gold because they could not see you an unaimed rifle Fire doesn't hit anything so it was good let me follow up on a couple of the things I was when you found out as you approached a thousand yards out from the beach yeah that was that your first indication about just how intense the casualties were at different parts along the beach we didn't know until we hit that first landing control that it was murder on the beach and it was and a company of the 116th infantry from the blue and gray division the 29th uh they did suffer 98 casualties of whom half were killed and half were were just wounded only eight men in an entire infantry company escaped unwounded and those eight men do not accompany me believe me so we learned the conditions there uh when we made our landing at the boundary between dog green and dog White uh there were two companies of the second battalion one company B company landed on dog white and a company landed on well I have them backwards B company landed on dog green the edge of it and the other company landed on dog White so uh they had different results the company that landed on dog green lost their boat one of the boats was sunk about 200 yards out so they struck struggled through the surf to get ashore all the time exposed to machine guns on the ridge the other platoon managed to escape all that and came through in pretty good shape the two companies and the headquarters boat landed on dog White and they were met immediately with 50 casualties of whom 10 percent at least were killed so they had a rough time and that's when we diverted one mile and it's almost to the edge one mile to find the breakwaters and uh we came in on the break Waters now you're blessed in a couple of ways you got rerouted to a less oh yeah intense spot you mentioned the Smoke on the on the bluff also as as you've said you came in a minute about 7 50 a.m I believe 750 I my foot hit the water is 750. and at that point the difference between the tides then and when the first wave had gone in was quite different correct absolutely uh there were there was approximately 50 yards of beach when I landed uh when the original troops had landed there were 250 yards of Beach and they had to walk that beach through the obstacles with the artillery and Small Arms fire dogging them all away and frankly there weren't very very few heroes in those early units that landed they they just got chewed up badly and when they got to the Beast the bomb craters weren't there the Air Force didn't release their bombs until a mile later and it was a mess and uh the first Division and the 29th division both took it on the chin terrible losses one of the challenges for you is to cut Through the Wire yeah uh how did you what weapons did you use to well the wire was on the far side of the coastal Road and when I say Coastal Road it was nothing but beach bungalows it was macadamized but it wasn't wide enough for vehicles to pass each other without running off the macadamized road on the other side of that road there was the equivalent of a double apron fence barbed wire fence and uh it was not only double apron but it was two double aprons one double apron fence and then another about 30 feet of barbed wire um what we did was we inserted Bangalore Torpedoes which are about six feet long but you can screw them together so now you got 12 feet you can screw them together now you got 18 feet and so on so when the grenadiers went forward they had already gotten themselves about 20 feet and uh with help they passed the people on the beach helped move the bangalories forward and then the Bangalore torpedo men themselves took the last Bangalore torpedo ran it across the road under the wire having gotten it to the wire they pull the fused lighters which gave them three seconds and they took three seconds to run back across the road and in the process we didn't lose a single torpedo man in the hole that I went through there were two Bangalore torpedo men who went in 10 feet apart and they really blew us a big hole uh it was like a 20-foot hole to go through but there were little strands of rot wire still there under your feet and some of them had loops and your feet caught in them you had to be very careful uh going through the blown area but you got through nobody got became casualties or anything like that because it was almost impossible for anything on the Bluffs down here to shoot at the foot of the Bluffs here and the Bluffs were close to 100 yards from the beach so I mean it was impossible so we got through pretty easily and started up the bluffs and we took a lot of casualties in the hedgerows and things like that now you mentioned the seawall earlier and how you know you're really on the beach about 15 or 20 minutes before you made your way up the bluff but you had an interesting encounter uh while you were still on the beach with an old friend oh yeah uh well he wasn't my old friend but I knew his kids from Fort Leavenworth Kansas uh he would Brigadier General code of he was a Daniel coated too but everybody called him Dutch and Dutch coda well we were sitting there in our little fort waiting for orders from Battalion Sullivan the deputy said you stay here and uh I'll go down and get the orders so he went down got the orders and he was back in two or three minutes but during that time my Rangers were very curious man they couldn't look at anything without wondering what it is what does it do and they said Hey cap and I said what do you want I said who's that guy down there on the beach and I looked down the beach and here was a little old fat man he was just at the very far edge of the beach I mean where the dunes began and uh I said I don't know he's either a crazy reporter who doesn't know what he's doing or he's a high-ranking officer who does know what he's doing because he was just circulating to the Troops and waving at him and shaking his fist he had a cigar in his mouth which occasionally it was not lit which occasionally he would wave and things like that and as he moved the 29th division troops who were caught on the beach moved up to the dunes and on the dunes and started up the plateau and up the bluffs finally and uh it took him about two minutes and he finally got to my position he went down to the end of the uh the Breakwater and I said I better get down there and find out which do I follow plan a tackle him and turn him over to the Medics or Plan B salute him and Report well he came around the end of the break Waters and I looked and there was a little tiny Silver Star on his collar and I said whoops Plan B so I went up to him and people criticized me for it I did a Snappy hand salute which he returned and I said sir Captain Ron fifth Ranger infantry battalion uh we've just landed on this beach actually I told him those where the situation a little bit later and he looked at me he said Ron and I said yes General Ron and he said uh you're not Jack Ronson are you and I said yes I am Jack Ronson he said well welcome to Omaha Beach but in any event he then after I gave him the situation how we had landed and what troops there were how the enemy what the enemy resistance was he asked me to go to where is your Battalion commander and I could actually Point him out it was not more than 75 yards away and I said I'll take you and he said you will not you will stay with your men they need you more than I do but he didn't say that but that was this that was what it meant so I stayed with the troops and he walked his way down but as he was leaving he turned to my troops and said uh you men are Rangers I know you won't let me down he wasn't encouraging us to move out he knew we would so he expected things of us and as he went that 75 yards over to Colonel Schneider he would stop with every group and he could see the the goal or rather the orange diamonds on our helmets you could see the arranger patches and he said the same thing but it finally morphed into by the time he said it the last time it was Rangers lead the way and that's where we got our motto and it was all Rangers got their motto from that Rangers lead the way which the first time I heard it was you men are Rangers I know you won't let me down but he changed the whole complex of the Norman Invasion the orders that we already had were to proceed by platoon infiltration to the assembly points up on the land and they were two three four miles away but uh what general Coda did was he said to Schneider get your companies together and fight your way to the assembly points because you're going to operate as a battalion now and that was the way it went and what were your orders from there well our orders were to get to the assembly area and uh which we never did and uh I'll wait further orders when we got into verville itself we we tried to encircle viraville on the south too many machine guns every field had three or four machine guns so uh we drew back and this was the initiative of the Bee Company Commander he said I'm not going to get through that way my job is to get to veerville and the assembly area was on the other side so he went straight down the coastal Road fought his way into viewerville and at that point we got orders you will not try attempt to receive relieve the second Rangers you will protect the beach head so we redeployed the whole Battalion around the boundaries of gervil to make sure the beach held Beach head held

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Length: 34min 7sec (2047 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 06 2023