Anonymous Pfc, US 1st Infantry Division
16th Inf. Regiment, 1st Inf. Division, Omaha Beach, June 6, 1944 |
There were men crying with fear, men defecating themselves. I lay there with some others, too petrified to move. No one was doing anything except lay there. It was like a mass paralysis. I couldn't see an officer. At one point something hit on the arm. I thought I'd taken a bullet. It was somebody's hand, taken clean off by something. It was too much.
The beach was a total chaos, with men's bodies everywhere, with wounded men crying, both in the water and on the shingle. We landed at high tide, when the water was right up to the shoreline, which was marked by a sharp-edged crystalline sand, like a small gravel, but very, very sharp. That was the only defilade which was present on the beach to give any protection from the fire above. That was where all the men who had landed earlier were present, except for a handful who had made their was forward, most of them being killed
...The beach sounded like a beehive with the bullets flying around. You could hear them hit and you could hear them pass through the air.
16th Infantry Regiment, 1st Inf. Division, Omaha Beach |
From the book "D-DAY The Normandy landings in the words of those who took part"
Foreward by Field Marshall Lord Carver, Edited by Jon E Lewis
Pages 103 and 104
Purchase "D-DAY..." here: AmazonTop and bottom photos by Army photographer Robert Capa