U.S. Rangers On D-Day: From the Archive

Me ajatuuotteilla annamme kaikille tuotteille 7 vuoden takoon. Sina ajassa ettiin juodat töissä jo paviisituhattakupillista kahvia. Tai ajatruukilla neljä kertaa maailman emperi. Jokasvat tapoon saa pun toimistalla. Aajituuotteilta saat kalustet, koko työpaikalle aina 7 vuoden takula. Katso lisää ajituuotteet pistefi. Moi! Aimora! Mitäs viikalla oppumeni? Vähän vaa syttää. Mitäs noin? Lähti kyllä apasesta. Lähti kuraahan kasta. Ajoitettiin diskusta jo heti kuulelta. Ei ihme! Mitäs hommakehitty? Titte hippaa sormilvääraja popparia. Voi, joku. Osa päässy kutti patiilla. Jooh, niin pääs käymään. Kaniu. Harriapia varamaan koko terhen riemuristen kutti patiille. Tallinksiljapistefi. Koko työpaikalle aina 8 vuoden koko terhinksi. If you had as much cliff climbing training as the Rangers of my battalion, the second Ranger Battalion had, you knew that someday in the future cliffs were going to be there. So we didn't know how or why we were supposed to be experts at this and experts at that, but we knew it may have something to do with objectives in the future that we would call upon to accomplish. But we never learned the true facts of where we were going to land on D-Day to a month or two before D-Day. And then our training only consisted of studying aerial photographs that the Air Force brought back, showing this point, and we didn't know the name of the point it wasn't told to us at the time. We had photographs and we could see these big, big, butthons, concrete, plain placements where these big, 155-millimeter coastal guns, they're barrel sticking out. This is Fortress, underground tunnels and tracks and bringing in the ammunition, troop quarters and observation on a point, by the way, that still stands, they didn't penetrate that or blow it off the point of Hawk. But in that training phase for a few months before D-Day, we didn't know where these pictures were taken of. What the name of the place was, but we could see we had a hundred foot clip to climb, a very narrow beach there and what we were assigned to do told the mission would be in three ports, namely get the guns out of action as quickly as possible, render them inoperable, and then cut off the coast road between Utah Beach and Omaha Beach by establishing roadblocks. And the third part of our mission was to cut all communications between Utah Beach and Omaha Beach. And that's what we did as quickly as we could. And it was explained to us that it was one of the most important missions of D-Day. With the rigorous training complete and the Rangers ready, it was time to go. They headed across the dark and rough English channel on a fateful day known as D-Day. We were not on American ships and we did not land with an American LCA. We're aboard English channel steamers, passengerships, as a transport that had in place of its light boats on it. The small landing crab, British landing crab, manned by the British Navy, which about 25 vellas, Rangers would be on each of these small landing crabs. We had three to accompany. And it was a horrible day, weather-wise, sea, it had been a terrible storm a day or so before. And a couple days later it was a awful storm. But it was horrendous. The swells were high. It was rough. It was cold. It was rainy. And we circled about. And it's a couple hour run from the transport area to the landing area. So that's two hours. In our case, we went toward the point and suddenly we realized that the British coxon was headed for the wrong clip, not point to hawk. That meant that they had to then turn right as the chrome rudder caused, brought to his attention his era, turn right parallel a clip, about 300 yards, and go for three miles, which was running a gauntlet of fire because you got Germans all along the top of those cliffs firing at you for three miles. And then you do a quick left turn to assault a small narrow beach below these 100 foot cliffs. And you got the Germans up there, leveled in on you firing away as you're coming ashore. So we had a lot of fire coming at us for three miles. However long that takes plus the run in. A couple of men got injured. Boats got hit regularly. Fortunately, none of the mortars fell in our boats, but they were dropping mortars all around us too. In the stormy weather, we were soaking wet. We were up to our knees and water, bailing with the billed pumps could not get the water out of the boat. So we had to bail with our helmets. It was uncomfortable. It was cold. Some men were seasick. And I suppose that perhaps they'll be hit by shrapnel or rifle fire. And then when we did land and the rapists went down, of course it was our duty to just run forward and grab a rope and get up that cliff and kill as many Germans as we could till we got organized to go forth and destroy the big guns and and neutralize the whole area. But just getting out of the assault craft would prove to be almost fatal. I was the first one wounded. I didn't realize it was wounded at the time. I got this burning sensation through my right side, spumb me around. And as I went out the ramp, I went out of sight. Over my head in water because of a shell crater there, I didn't see, didn't really think about it. And the guys pulled me out and we did whatever we had to do on these unexpected things. And got to the rope as quickly as possible. And some of us got out of 225 of us that assaulted the cliffs. 180 of us got to the top. We, what caused this series of mistakes when that Coxon made that mistake going to the wrong point, it caused us 30 precious minutes on our landing at Pointe-Hawk, which enabled the Germans to come out of their underground hideaways, crew quarters and machine gun bunkers. To be waiting for us, we were able to land an assault with precision as all of the other fire support were to be lifted at 630. And we hit at 630. We were taken and by surprise they would have been out. We'd have been up before they got out. But it was the reverse of that. They were waiting for us. They would just stand there, just shootin' us off. The post that we come in, shootin' us off the beach. Or on the flanks and the side of the, see it was at the point, came out and then it was a couple of little coves. And on some of each coat was a machine gun in placements, concrete cemented into the face of the cliff with supporting steelwork and all that. And they had a field they just pickin' us off. Sometimes away from the edge of the cliff, maybe the Grapner hook would be maybe 20, 30, 40 feet inland. Well, those guys would cut those cables or ropes that far and we could not see them from the bottom of the beach lookin' up. They didn't, we didn't get a shot at them. But some of our guys were at their water's edge with special snipers, special expert marksman would be there to pick off those Germans that they could. How many of each died and wounded I don't know. All I know is we were successful, the 225 that landed that morning, 180 of us cut up. Lucky, I'll say. Fortunately for us, we could run in and out of shell craters and the like to make our way to check different positions and move out from there. Something, some wonderful benefit that the boys at Omaha Beach didn't have because no shell craters or bomb craters were found. I don't know, I'd be say had nothing to hide in, but we did. The place was decimated. You could look across that point and it looked like the face of the moon with all the thousands of holes and craters and the like. The emplacements concrete, several feet thick with steel rods in it. It was blown to kingdom come. But there were no guns. What made you think there might still be some was their telephone poles or timbers or whatever they had sticking out of some of the emplacements. But you could see the guns that had never been there. You know, when you've gotten to your position where you're about to think about destroying them is not there. It's disappointing, but we're prepared for that. In combat, we were trained, you'll face to face with many disappointments, but you've got to have a good common sense and brains to figure things out quick and move accordingly. A complicated objective. You look across that landscape, 40 acres, flat with nothing but shell craters and blown to kingdom come. It had to be inland. So we looked inland, we saw trees and what looked like a rural setting. There was only one road out of the point. It were minefields on each side. I figured there's men there. They come and go. They must come and go that road too. They had a machine gun covering it. and they had another replacement covering a billet near by with a slip above ground. So we had to take them out. We neutralized that machine gun as killed them and sent them running for cover. And we got through that thinking, well, we'll get out to that road, get to the coast road that run between Utah Beach and Omaha Beach. And we'll look if we see anything. And we turned right because we were assigned to the west flank of the invasion area. We came upon this sunken road between two hedgerows. Now that's another thing. We didn't know much about hedgerows. It just seemed really was a frightening sight. We didn't-- you know, an American boy looks at a hedgerow, just maybe three feet high or very seldom other much more. These were like 15 feet high, with trays growing out, like 30, 40 feet in the air. You could have hit a column of tanks in this hedgerow and never have seen them from this coast road. So we saw where that going from the black top into that sunken farm road between pastures. Some something heavy or something had cut up the dirt. Well, farm wagons have a steel rim on them, and that could have been it. We didn't know what could. But quite frankly, we're not about to cut across the middle of the field or a pasture and silhouette ourselves. We sent our men out of the platoon that we had 22 men when we started from the cliff. By the time we got to the coast road, there was only 12 of us left. The rest of them had become casualties, and killed their wounded badly. So the 12, I had left, 10 of them, the two saffs are, and took their men and set up the road block out there on the black top road. They had descended into the meat grinder known as the hedgerows. These ancient earthen berms were to prove a killing ground for the first allies, then the Germans who occupied them. The Rangers developed a unique patrolling tactic for the terrain. We have a pattern of patrolling called leapfrogging. I stand here or hide or make myself invisible, try to stop breathing so no German can hear a second thing. And Jack will run up 10, 15, 20 yards, hopefully hoping he can get to that spot where he wants to be to make his observation. I cover him while he does so, and I go by him, another 30 yard, he covers me, and we're leapfrogging, protecting one another, going inland. We had gone in and I had about 100 yards, and it just so happened, my leap around him to the hedgerow, I looked over, and there before me was a swell, an indentation, because back from the edge of the cliff, the land starts to fall and the rear down to the lowlands. Well, I looked over and I looked down and then it was a swell, an apple orchard, and there were the guns all set up, textbook ready to be fired, but no men that we could see. So we looked around, we couldn't see every part of that orchard, but for what we could see, we couldn't see any men there, but we saw about 75 to 80 men, I guess it was 100 yards away. There's a sunken road behind this orchard that kind of paralyzed the black top road, and there was another farm road up westward of us. We had just been past Jack and I when we were leapfrogging, trying to get to find these guns, a German combat patrol of about 50 men, heavily armed, was coming and went by us within 20 feet of us, and we were hidden in a ditch. What we did not fire for the reason that our orders were, stop anybody coming from Utah Beach toward Omaha Beach, so stop any help to get Omaha where the divisions are going. These men were coming the opposite direction, they were going toward Utah Beach, so we didn't feel that we should give up our position or signal where we were any men there, because I don't think they even thought there was a German at far inland, we're about a mile inland. So anyway, we saw these men, and the patrol by the way, was going west on a black top road in the field behind a wall. We noticed that they came out and crossed over half a mile, west of us, and went in parallel to the road that Jack Cune and I were going in, where we found the guns, they came upon those men that we saw over there, the Germans. It appeared to us that some German officer, non-com, was standing by his vehicle, talking to these men, I don't know what he was talking about, we couldn't hear him whether he was bringing him up to date, but I don't think he knew we were, there was an American soldier near there. He was probably telling what the updated on how their nations go, and it was about eight o'clock in the morning. So, I'd said, Jack, hop up there and cover me, I'm going in and do the best I can with, he had a thermychranate, now we were given thermychranates, they're about the size of a little longer beer can, but the composition that's in there, the incendiary compounds or whatever they are, when air hits it, it becomes molten metal, it runs out like poor you could pour it out. Anything among the gears or in the hinges, where this molten metal can flow, liquid as it became molten metal as it would seep down into those crevices of the gears and everything, and as air hit it, it cooled off and it just locked everything and made it inoperable. I've read so many books about how we were supposed to have strong grenades down the boat, we couldn't even reach the top of the barrel, they're so high, I'd had to go out in the middle and make myself exposed to everybody and get on Jack's shoulders to throw things down, we didn't do anything like that. But anyway, so, and then I took my, I had a submachine gun and Jack did too, he was up on the top of the head row, keeping his eyes glued on those Germans, so I said, "If they even look this way, I watch it drill the first one you can 'cause I gotta be warned so we can get out of there." So anyway, it did the two guns, put them out of action, rendered them inoperable, took my field jacket off, wrapped it around the butt of my submachine gun and smashed as best I could, the gun sights of all five guns, and came back to Jack and said, "Hey, we gotta go back to the guys at the road and get some more 'cause I got three guns that I can't do anymore with it." So we ran back, so 100 yards, 150 yards, whatever it was, you know, we were in pretty good shape in those days. How long does it take it to run back? And each guy gives me, we just stop them in our Jack and shirts, and I run back, I don't think it took us 10 minutes to run 100 yards and back to them, whether they do the mile and I forget to 100 yards dash, but we were pretty fast. So we got back and it went back the same course down at Sunk and Road, there was no Germans, we didn't count it anything, to where we had spotted them. We looked up over the hedge row and they were still there talking, they hadn't heard us, and actually when you think of it there was nothing for them to do. For the reason that, they couldn't get fire orders from their point, their observation point, because E-Copney is killing them out there on the point, their observers, we were at the right place at the right time, and it was a low in the battle, because they couldn't get firing orders back from whatever source. And they weren't going to be sitting ducks for fire because you see the 88s behind them, inland had been firing on arranges on the cliffs and crawling fire, and the Texas are back up, and the destroyers were looking trying to get back at those 88s. Well anyway, we come back, we use the thermyquinase to finish off the guns, and as I'm coming out of the swell, the Appalachia having destroyed and rendered inoperable, the five guns, Jackson's coming, man, let's get out of here. We were both nervous at that point. I crawled up the bank, and bankmen of that hedge row was nine feet, where I was crawling, a big explosion occurs. We couldn't hear what each other was, so we just ran like a couple scared rabbits as fast as we could. Back to the black top road, where our 10 men were in a roadblock position, and our ears cleared up. And then we started rationalizing what happened. I concluded that maybe the Texas or the destroyers trying to get those 88s that were showing the dickens out of us earlier, it may have had a short round as so often happens. But guns they destroyed were more menacing even than they appeared. For their large caliber shells could have zeroed in on successive waves of men reaching the German walls surrounding Europe. We were not expecting to see them pointed at Utah Beach, because we didn't know much about Utah Beach the fourth division and the guys up that way. In combat you already know what's going on. a couple hundred yards around you. You may know something of the big picture, and you may know all of your battians' mission. But that surprised us. But we didn't know the capability of these guns. They had a fire range of 10 to 12 miles. They could hit the armada of ships that were I could 12, 13 miles off the coast. They could reach all the beaches, the Allied beaches, and certainly the American beaches, the Utah beaches. And they had a 360 degree, and they were mobile. You know, they were on wheels. They couldn't move them anywhere. But they were ported in that direction. They would have destroyed many of the vessels, many of the ships, many of the transports. Or if they hit the LCA, the big LCA. You know, I was speaking of our LCA, 25 guys. But you got big American LCA's landing craft assault that I've hundreds of guys on them. And then they have tanks on them, and they're all susceptible for that fire, and it would have been blown out out of the water. But worst of all, they could have tore up all the beaches with a men's swarming over them. Because you know, Omaha Beach was bloody, bloody Omaha. They stopped the landings. It was so bloody. And these guns been able to add to that, as they would have just blown out beach to kingdom come. LaMelle's gallantry netted him a field promotion. But his next encounter with the Germans would be a bit on Arthats. Then after D-Day, I became the Sergeant Major of the highest listed, highest, at this time rate for the battalion in headquarters combat Sergeant Major. And I went with the major slater. Duke Slater used to be my company commander. He became executive officer. And he and I and some others went down to meet with, I think, the 29th Division. Because we headed to 29th Division, guys, of having several divisions, a couple in a hospital, a couple in a graveyard, one of the field and one in training. That sort of humor, you know. And as I recall, I could see that from the hilltop we were on with our headquarters, the battalion headquarters. He was coming up a road and I could see another patrol coming. I thought the patrol, I saw was my own old company, D, sending a patrol up. It looked to me like Lieutenant Edlin is patrol, wanted to get to the port faster than I'd decump me patrol, the old competition thing again. And he and his patrol got there and they showed, shoulder their arms as if there was a Sunday afternoon. And they walked right in the gates of these Germans with machine guns, everything, as if nothing's going wrong. And essentially, the brief as I can be, so they take me to your leader and they did. One thing led to another. And Bob Edlin, Bob and one of his guys, spoke German, were taken to the commanding officer of that fortress. And they explained through his interpreter that they had it surrounded with 50,000 ranges. There's still 500 of us in the battalion and mostly were shot up and only at hand strength. But the German Colonel wouldn't surrender to him as a lowly lieutenant, only to Colonel Rudder. So the word came back to us that Colonel Rudder would have to come down to take the surrender. So Colonel asked me to go get some vehicles, any kind of vehicles. And we didn't have many vehicles, you know, with ranges, don't have their own vehicles as such. So I went to nearby office and bar command cars and tried to make a contingency, look like a real important group of officers coming. And it was only Colonel Rudder and a few of his officers in one command car. Another command car filled with what looked to be dignitaries or officers or high-ranking people, but they weren't. And then I brought up a few six-by-sixes, big transport trucks for prisoners. Well, make a long story short. They did affect the surrender, and most effectively, because got a little rough in there. He grabbed that Colonel by the belt buckle and showed the grenade and his tummy and told him he was either going to do it or get blown to bits at that moment. With the German's doubts overruled, the surrender proceeded his planned, one of the guttiest actions of World War II. When we come in with our pretended, the convoy of important people and my trucks, I noticed that that patrol had those German prisoners all organized. They had all their weapons on one side to road, and all the prisoners on the other side to road sitting there with their hands on their heads, waiting for us. And there was only four guys that did all of that, because they thought they were surrounded by 50,000 rangers. We didn't have that many in the war. It's a matter of fact, we only had 3,000 rangers in World War II, six battalions, 500 each, plus replacements. Sydney Solomon was destined to live through the invasion and the rest of the war. He was working for a Wisconsin newspaper when he heard the call to arms and enlisted in March of 1942. After a rushed stint in officer's candidate school, he became a second lieutenant in the Army Rangers. By June of 1944, it was his turn to lead the charge to freedom. In a darkened transport, wallowing in the choppy English channel, his men were awakened from their fitful slumbers at 3 a.m. It was time to prepare for the greatest assault of all time. This year, I decided I wanted to be more intentional about my clothing, leaning into pieces that feel comfortable, easy, and still put together. That led me to Quince. Quince has comfortable fabrics and great looks that make getting dressed every morning simple and fun. Now that spring is here, there's no better place to look than Quince. My 100% European linen shorts and button-down shirts are my new favorite. Lightweight, breathable, comfortable, and still look put together. The best part about Quince are the prices. Everything is 50 to 80% less than you'd find at similar brands. The key is that Quince cuts out middlemen by working directly with ethical factories so you're getting premium materials without the markup. 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We went in, our H hour was at 630 in the morning. So we were awakened at about between 3 and 3.30 a.m. in the morning. And those who wanted to eat could eat, not very many of them were in the mood to eat a breakfast though. Only the so-called Chowhounds ate breakfast and they regretted it later on. But at between 4 and 4.30 we were alerted to go up on a boat deck because the landing craft were hanging in the davits of the Prince Charles. And remember the invasion was to be on the 5th of June, but because of the stormy weather and the rough seas it was postponed for 24 hours. Well, on June 6th the rain had stopped, but the seas were still pretty choppy. And we got up on a boat deck and by 4.30 we were climbing over the, there was a plank on the, at the British semen had put up on the railing on the boat deck over to the landing craft. Landing craft were swinging with the. the motion of the boat. So the the British seamen were there and we had to they helped us up on the to get up on the plank and then we walked over. Now it's it's dark, perfectly dark and they kept saying they would help us up there and and we'd walk a plank I felt just like a pirate days and they said do not look down. Well I looked down I wanted to see why I shouldn't look down and that was a great sight there because way down there in the dark you could see the phosphorescent of the ocean is a lap against the the hull of the Prince Charles but then we got into the landing craft. Now only two of us were two were going because my platoon had one landing craft and the first platoon had the other landing craft and we went down together and then we were going we circled around to we were both side by side and then we went in. Now on my landing craft I had 37 men. Tied was at low tide just starting to come in. So as we approached the oh we're probably ten or twelve miles out in the channel. That took a good hour maybe a little over an hour to get in and so by the time we reached the shore before we reached the shore the dawn broke and when the dawn broke and then as we got closer and then we saw that we were headed right to where we wanted to go. Well everything was fine but then as we got closer I could see the concentric circles in the water around us and that was artillery and mortar shells landing. Fortunately none of them hit us but they were landing all around us and you could see the circles because I was standing up there. Then as we got a little closer you could hear you could hear the the ping of the of the German machine gun of small arms fire hitting the steel whole landing craft. Some of them may have been scared I was not scared because I figured I was well trained and I didn't know I didn't know what to be afraid of. So it I'd never been in combat. It's just like going into a football game. You're trained and you know if you're not trained if you didn't pay attention if you don't if it is if your coach didn't train you. Then you would have butterflies because you don't know what the other guy is going to do and you don't read the papers and all we heard was that the Germans were Superman. Well so were we. We had we had good training and now I stood and this is a I'm going to put a little bit of humor in this in our in our dry run in getting into the landing craft on shore. We had never got into the landing craft with full ammunition and the and a full supply of ammunition nor the ration the food rations that we were going to carry because our kitchens and supply train trucks weren't going to come in until five days after the invasion. Never did we carry all that what we should have. So we get into the landing craft. Now everybody's got five days supply of ammunition. Five days supply of k rations and what we call D bars which are little looks like a Hershey bar an inch square three of them to a that was a days ration and one inch a one inch square was a meal and of course psychologically when you ate that you couldn't finish that one square and you know it was just psychologically was so loaded with calories or what up. So now we get into that landing craft and everybody so bulked up with the landing there wasn't room for me to sit down. So and I'm the first one going off the as the lieutenant. I'm the first one that was going to jump off the the ramp. So I stood up next to the sub left tenant the English sub sub left tenant who was in charge of the two landing craft and I stood next to him. He had a stand too that we're going in and I I'm just standing there taking in the scenery. I'm standing up and when he shot when a small arms far start pinging on the steel hold landing craft every once in a while I squat down a little behind the steel door because I'm standing right in front of a steel door that the sub left tenant is going to he's going to swing that open and then the ramp is going to go down and I'm going to jump to the right and then we had it all this is how we all planned out planned it in our dry runs and the second man would go off to the left and ultimately right and left. In addition the tide is just starting to come in. So every time a man jumps off the boat is that much lighter the tide is coming in and we're going in. So now the sub left tenant calls out go and he I push open the door he lets go the rope with the ramp that goes down I jump off to the right sergeant Reed who is the next man he jumps off to the left. I land in water about up to my waist and I'm loaded down with ammunition and I'm carrying a six to one six millimeter mortar shell to have one more shell for my mortar section and holding my Tommy gun over my up high so it doesn't get wet and in addition now this doesn't take as long as it takes me to explain it I'm trying to get my feet on flat on the bottom and just and sergeant Reed the second man off to the left he got hit just as he jumped off so I got got my feet squared away and sergeant Reed is underneath the uh underneath the ramp so I reached over and grabbed him by the collar and yanked him out from underneath the landing craft otherwise he would have been submarine and I started up sloshing through the through the surf and up on dry up on the sand there and I figured about I guess maybe about 15 yards and I said I dropped him and I said sergeant the aid man will come and get you I've got to get on my way so I started running and I hadn't run more than uh oh maybe 10 yards and a mortar shell landed a German mortar shell landed right behind me until the wounded my entire mortar section and it knocked me I just got trapped in my back it knocked me flat on face down on the sand and uh oh I just dropped the mortar shell down there and I thought yeah I must be dead but then in the next instant why sand started kicking up in my face and then I then I realized I'm not dead and I thought hey some machine gunners got his beat on me and he's getting the the range and I better get the hiccup and run that's what I did I picked up and ran and ran into the base of the cliff and I was about a hundred yard oh I'd say almost a hundred yards wide of of sand that we had across I started reaching in my field jacket I forgot about that for the maps and my platoon sergeant came running up and I said sergeant Kennedy and I'm reaching in then I realized that I'm alive so up I didn't didn't get the maps out to give it to him and that's when I got up and I ran as fast as I could to the base of the cliff the aid man came running over to me and I started to take my jacket off and my shirt off and he picked out some shrapnel out of my back and this is before the days of penicillin so he took a packet of of a sulfa powder and sprinkled that on the where the shrapnel was and put a patch on it said that's all I can do for now lieutenant but my shirt back on my jacket and I said let's start up that's where all of our casualties happened now I've got all the figures these are the official figures this is where I say the point to Hock area was the glamorous one ours with a and v had the most hazardous one and it was hazardous because we had to run across a hundred yards of beach before we started to climb up the cliff 21 men were killed 20 of them were killed crossing that beach in the first 10 or 15 minutes only one man was killed up on top of the cliff that was the other lieutenant Bill Moody and he was killed right next to me when we're lying in a shell hole so 20 men were killed in the first 10 15 minutes crossing that beach now these are from the official battalion medical report 21 men killed on June 6 from C company the next was D was a D company that came in the Lamell's company at point to Hock they had 14 men now let's go back and e company up at point to Hock they had nine men killed F company at point 10. had six men killed. Now our A and B companies had 13 and 12 men killed on the beach crossing that beach. They had the same similar beach to crosses we did a hundred yards and that's where the that's where ours was the most hazardous. And headquarters company had six men killed. Now those six men are killed because there are eight men and radio men and actually assigned to each one of the line companies as radio men and aid men. But a total of 81 men killed but 52 men from A B and C and 29 men from D&L. We had 12 as many killed. We didn't have any beach obstacles where we were because if we're the journeyman soldiers they figured what dumb soldiers would make a landing here at a cliff where they had to climb a cliff. Where were the dumb soldiers? Where were the smart ones? But the beach obstacles which were to prevent the tanks to come in and land and supposedly to get landing craft the hundred sixteen the hundred sixteenth regimen of the twenty ninth they hid behind these you've seen pictures of those of combat time. And that's where the men got killed. We told our guys run across the beach run. You know a man running is not a good target for somebody with a rifle. But a stationary target is absolutely perfect. Now they had two bazooka men and two in each one in each assault section and my radio man was killed. So we didn't have any radio we didn't have any communication. The radio was in the English channel. The BAR men they lost their BAR in the in the drink. When we got up on top the only thing I did was get all my men together. Now we had nine men up there out of the thirty seven men in my landing craft. I counted nine of us up on top. Only two of those nine had not been wounded. Now the other seven of course in counting me were lately wounded. It's still able to climb up there. The seriously wounded were still down below. So but with nine men I figured there's no point in continuing our mission. We're not in effect the fighting force. So I'm laying in a shell hole there. And just about ten yards from the top of the cliff. And that's when Bill Moody came the other platoon leader came running over and jumped off to my right and I said Bill I just spotted a trench up ahead. And I said he so I pulled back down and he reached up and peered out over the over the edge of the shell hole. And all of a sudden he fell on my right side and I looked at him and he'd been killed instantly killed. He peered over the when I said there's a trench up ahead of us. And he looked up to see where it was because I pointed out to him where it was. And as he reached up on his haunches a little to look over the edge of the shell hole that's when I didn't stay up there because I had already seen it. And so I reached down again and just then why he fell over on my right side. And I looked there and I was wondering why he did that. Then I saw that he was he had been killed instantly and he'd been drilled right through the right to the fard with a sniper fire. And so I turned around and grabbed two men and I said follow me and we ran across to that trench. And we just started to go through that to clear out the trench. And I came to a dugout. I could see a dugout ahead. And before I got to that I was carrying two grenades on my suspenders and my cartridge belt. So I took that and I threw that ahead for the curve on it and waited because it went in off in there and then we waited. Oh I don't know maybe a minute or so. And then we ran ahead and sprayed the inside of it. That was that. And we went on ahead and then I found we we found we took our now we didn't go running ahead. We went cautiously the three of us. And so I was leading the way and then I came across the the mortar position which they said was up there and that was there it was like a great big manhole and there wasn't it wasn't man though. They were probably all in that so called fortified house. So I we went into the into the hole there where the mortar was and it was of course I say it was like a manhole and it was cement lined. So and on the wall were the targets up at point up at the beach where the main invasion force was coming in with all the elevations and the setting for because they had flags up on the beach there and everyone had just like a flag to a gulf course. And with that number on the painted on the on the side of the walls of the the mortar hole was the elevation there. So we just took the bits of our rifle and knocked out the all the mechanism that sets the back and then went on and we decided well then another trench came off to our right and I debated so we went on a little ahead but I figured well we're I don't know where that one to the right goes because to the left is the main invasion beach and I went around there was a curve ahead and went cautiously and I thought I better not go too far because I don't know if anybody's going to come from the right and get us from behind. So we went around this curve it's just as clear today as it was 55 years ago and a German came from the opposite direction. Well he was more startled and I was and he stopped dead in his tracks and I grabbed him I thought maybe we ought to take one prisoner to get maybe get some information. So I had Steve Graben took his weapons away from and I said take him back and put him down the back of the cliff where Ralph Gornson was and I maybe we get some information so he took him back and I know whether he gave him a push to get down there or whether or what. I couldn't care less but I turned around and came back and I told the Ralph that Bill had been killed and I said I think the best bet is for us to hold on to this ground up here because we didn't have any communication with anybody else our radios were gone and they're drinking and Ralph was trying to get some of the less serious wounded who were able to make it to go up to where A and B were coming in and try to make a contact with them so we could meet up with them. So we stayed up there I stayed up on top for the rest of the day and just made certain that nobody came in. We dug a foxhole we dug slit trenches up there and I stayed up there that night but they didn't counter attack where we were. I'm assuming they knew where the main invasion was coming in the main force was coming in and they wouldn't think of anybody was coming in where the cliff was. So with the matter of fact when I woke up just after dawn early in the morning here maybe 500, 700 yards away in the next field, a couple of fields away I guess. There are two old French women rounding up the cows that hadn't been killed by the artillery. Cows had to be milked that morning so they grabbed, they took the cows and rounded them up and took them in there. Now Ralph sent up word we're going to meet A and B company. Only one officer was alive all the others had been killed and wounded either in A and B. So we were going to meet the remnants of them out on the black top road that parallel the cliff was about three quarters of mile from the cliff and that's the road we were going to take anyway and get up to point the hawk to meet up with D and F there. So we went up and that kept normal the B company was the only officer there. All the rest had been killed or seriously wounded. Well you can't imagine it as a civilian unless you've been in service and unless you've been in a combat unit I would never have given it a thought except I knew we were in a combat unit. Now about eight, nine, ten days after the invasion that's when I was promoted to captain and took over B company and I stayed with B company to the end of the war. By the end of the war I had had 200% turnover in B company. Now not all of those were killed but if they weren't killed they were so seriously wounded. They weren't they weren't sent back to the to the company. Hey, this is war. This is not a game. This is not a football game. When you get hurt in a football game and you go to the sidelines, something a substitute comes in and takes your place. But this is war. This is either some, I'm going to kill somebody before he kills me. And it isn't a game. And we're mentally prepared for that. All of our training has been psychologically prepared for that. You got to be very close with some guys, even though you came close with them over the times in service because I relied on them. And by the same token, they relied on me to keep them alive this June and one of the trips back to Normandy. My first trip back was in 1979. At that time, I was national president of the Ranger Battalion Association. And I went to the military cemetery at that time. And I got the location of a lot of my men. And I went to there and I saluted them. Now, this June, and I go back every five years and do that. Now, this June reporter from the local newspaper where I lived called me up and asked if he could, if he got an okay from the paper, could they go along join a ranger? And I said, yes. So he came with me and he came with us on our trip. And we went into the, you know, the sent Normandy, the military cemetery there. I said, before we go anywhere else, I have my, what I call as my Durey-my mission. And I go there and had the location of these men's graves. There are 9,900 and some odd graves there. Almost 10,000 graves there. But I go and I salute them. It took courage, cunning, and more than a dash of luck to survive the war and live to talk about it. But Leonard Lomel, Sidney Salomon, and many other brothers and arms lived on to inspire us with tales of great deeds of heroism and bravery as they recall their days as U.S. Army Rangers of World War II. We hope you've enjoyed this presentation of, in their own words. This program was created and produced by first-person productions and corporate, an association with the documentary Broadcasting Company, produced by David Benson, written by Rod Pyle, engineered by Greg Bartheld and Brian Donnelly, narrated by Bill Rackner. This production is copy-written by first-person productions incorporated. Any unauthorized broadcast, public performance, or copy-it is a violation of applicable laws. There were a whole number of Chinese agents around Andrew, and that's true of the Russians as well. This week on Disorder, we bring you insider revelations about former Prince Andrews' dealings with Jeffrey Epstein. He was a sexual partner with both Epstein and Andrew. I'm joined by historian Andrew Loney, who uncovers the conspiracy within the royal family. These are people who were completely immoral and were able to exploit the system. To hear it now, go to disordershow.com/latest.