WW II History Lesson #3 - There will be a pop quiz on this but don't know when!!!!
This why we should pray daily for our service people who are on Active Duty Anywhere!!!!!!!!! (P.S I HATE remembering this trip even today)
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The Ride to the Beach:-
We left England aboard a troop ship just about a week after D-Day and there wasn't a whole lot a space aboard the ship but the trip was fairly short. When we got about a half mile off-shore they dropped cargo nets over the side and I'm sure you remember the drill. Groups of sixes were lined up and approached the side to descend into the Higgin's boats that were coming along side when the word was given-down you went with all your gear. (Note - The Channel must be loaded with the gas masks that were thrown over the side as excess weight.)
Due to the swell that was running this day, the sailors had painted a line on the ship's side below which you were not to go. In truth,it wasn't too high but to us it looked liked we had to climb down from a very high place into a a canoe which was to hold about a Platoon of Infantry.
The swell had guys sick just looking down at the boat and one guy got so agitated he didn't think to stop at the painted line and when the swell carried the Higgins boat up it knocked him off the cargo net and he was gone. I've always remembered that because we hadn't even got onto the landing craft and we had lost a man that I knew very well. That sobered everybody and all talking stopped. Even the nervous type of talking trying to hide your fears.
Then the circling began until the required number of Higgins boats were filled and this took time and caused a lot of the men on the boat to get sea sick. By the time we were lined up in our wave, we were knee deep in vomit and God forbid you fell down but several men did and it wasn't pretty.
One man in the Plt. was lying on the deck and when we got to the beach he said he was too sick to walk ashore let alone fight if he had to. The Plt. Ldr.told him that if he didn't get up and in position he would go back to the troop ship and surely be sent back to the beach again. That was enough to get him on his feet and to wade ashore(thankfully this washed a lot on the vomit off him in the process) so he looked and smelled much better.
The next day the "sick" man approached me and was very upset because he said he just realized that in order to get back to the States,if he "made it',he would have to get back on a ship and he didn't think he would be able to do so.
I'm happy to say he made it back to Michigan and after a number of years died in his own bed at home with his wife and family around him.
Here's what it looked like -talk about a cattle boat and the Krauts were using REAL BULLETS OY VEY!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Sgtleo