WWII Vets Told Us What D-Day Was Really Like

Jude 44 when I was in the Normandy it was about 18 19 years old and now oh it's a day I am 94 my name is George choppa I'm 93 I'll be 94 in a couple of weeks I was in a 607 of the graves registration company on d-day in 1944 I do Mendelson yeah Thank You chef Lee Smith looks tough one sweater but they bought my father good performance listen dear William Christmas tree my list equation is estimated that he comes a little done good or there's the father was the doctor where the heart inserted a metal bezel here how up my father Byrne kind cannot admit fits in you are not still you should've called Boston the Amish Gadhafi a British Knights ability to be a mother the kid was probably started the creek house when I turned 18 I got drafted you know I was very young I had never been on any kind of a trip before it was a lonesome feeling I you know leaving this shore all of a sudden you're out getting out there and the ocean getting further and further away from home we knew we were going invasion day on the English Channel allied fighting men equipped with all types of firepower with tanks trucks and bulldozers board landing path for the long anticipated assault on fortress Europe [Music] we're anchored right sides ashore and the German artillery is constantly firing you can see ships getting a hit who didn't know if we were gonna get hit so everybody got on this side of the ship opposite to shore waiting for our turn to go down a rope ladders I can't tell you now how long we waited all I know is I didn't get down into al CI landing craft and then from there we started heading into the shore you see guys getting hit you're seeing bodies I was scared to death tell you the truth I blacked out for a while I didn't know which way it was up half of our guys went out of Omaha and half won in Utah I was at Utah Beach see Omaha is worse most of the shelling was coming from these guys were dug in and they were our Air Force could he couldn't even get him because they were entrenched and they were really machine-gun nests up above the cliff in Omaha they were shooting at guys ducks at these moments about Barstow let's do some Mary Glee's I reversed the group heavy machine guns not for men the first that the second man they shot what the desert and the frost men carry there a Malaysian boxes I versus know for the Hobby tea Armel Caspar wouldn't use it the toys from wood the Hobby shelf as he needs today the Amish no girth missing Ashley and her comrades help Mia the hability serving her and thought kinda will help coach them thus humanoid he won't live you know a government didn't want bodies lying around for other troops coming in to see that and so we gathered them as quickly as we could we had 17 temporary cemeteries throughout France Belgium and Germany we gathered approximately 75,000 dead soldiers that's American and German because the Germans didn't picked up their dead we did we buried them in a separate cemetery and we just had markers over the graves one dog tag left on the body one tacked to the marker that was our job you're working like a robot you're seeing 18 19 20 year old guys getting killed he remembers something like that you remember when you see the guts of a soldier I mean I couldn't look at their faces you know it's just we handle bodies and unimaginable conditions throughout those 11 months not just at Normandy Nazi prisoners are taken by the thousands they thought their Atlantic Wall was invulnerable the Nazis fight stubbornly and bitterly but they were out general and outgunned in the landings on the beaches and many surrendered we sent our sufu sister Lucia which was in London City about Carla talked another sport because here before towers the shifts seized the Mossad usually world leader gained was possible we had German prisoners they can graze for 11 months all the way through and they thought they were digging their own graves you know at my carbine rifle I remember standing over this one guy Dan I said Nix Nix Arbeit Nix s it means you don't work you don't eat and they say yeah you know not see me pull ski meet Shack or whatever and a lot of that was true it wasn't long before a liberated Paris was hailing the heroes the courage and heroism of the d-day envision worthy omens of the inevitable final victory [Music] [Applause] I've seen every permanent Cemetery over there except one and I can walk through a cemetery without breaking down I walked around wondering that I handled this particular body when I saw that cemetery 50 years later with my kids and I'm walking through those crosses it's ours of David and I see no date of birth people walking through there now have no idea of the age of these guys I looked at my kids and I said you know you don't know this I know it many of these guys were 18 19 and 20 younger than what you are now because they were like 21 22 my kids looked at me when we're on that bus and Michael said to me dad you never told us anything yeah I said yeah I know Michael I didn't talk about it [Music] if in addition you she's don't know why scientist well is humanoid to lead us only here little is on the street dust produced incorrect inverse your fifty Humphrey become Nam dr. Sanjay available bar we have the mega job but if democraty Divya told the Jewish problem [Music] you [Music] you

Channel: VICE News

Views: 924,137

Keywords: VICE News, VICE News Tonight, George Ciampa, Paul Golz, dday war veterans, VICE on HBO, news, vice video, vice news 2019, D-Day From Both Sides of Normandy, army war veterans, war vets, dday 75 year anniversary, army vets, normandy, american army, normandy invasion, german army, dday memories, war prisoners, war and conflict, violence, omaha beach, operation overlord, band of brothers, d-day invasion, d-day celebration 2019, Battle Normandy, utah beach d-day

Id: StlBx05rTuU

Length: 7min 26sec (446 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 07 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/zuluportero]

Der ami sieht längst nicht aus wie 93. Krass.

[u/JonNoob]

Es ist immer wieder erstaunlich darüber nachzudenken wie viel glück wir haben in dieser Zeit in diesem Land zu leben.

Wären die meisten von uns 100 Jahre früher geboren, hätten nur wenige von uns den Ersten Weltkrieg mit Glück überlebt um dann noch den schrecklichsten Konflikt der Welt auszutragen und wahrscheinlich spätestens dort ein jämmerliches Ende zu finden. Die Angst die jeder einzelne junge Soldat in dieser Zeit gehabt haben muss ist für mich einfach unvorstellbar: Jederzeit kann es durch einen dummen Wink des Schicksals vorbei sein. Ein Querschläger, ein Granatspliter, 1° andere Artillerieausrichtung und alle Träume, Hoffnungen und Wünsche die diese 18-Jährigen Burschen jemals hatten in einem Moment ausgelöscht.

Herr Golz hat so Recht, dass es wichtig ist diese Geschichte immer und immer wieder zu erzählen, damit die Erinnerungen daran was passiert wenn Staaten außer Kontrolle geraten, niemals verblassen.

[u/Fabius_Cunctator]

Der US-Veteran wirkt unglaublich jung und frisch im Kopf.

Kaum zu glauben, dass der Mann vor einem dreiviertel Jahrhundert in der Normandie dabei war.

[u/MentalBerry]

Danke fürs teilen. Das hält uns mal wieder dazu an, froh zu sein in welcher Zeit wir leben. Dass Europa zurecht einen Friedensnobelpreis hat - 70 Jahre kein Krieg. Wir mussten sowas nicht durchstehen! Danke fürs teilen, ich musste ein paar Tränen verdrücken.