5 Days Before
D-Day
I left England on June 1, 1944
on the Liberty Ship...S.S. George E. Pickett.
This was the third dry run we thought, so the speech we got before
boarding, by some nameless General, was taken in stride.
After being under sail for 12
hours, we started to consider the possibility of this being the 'real
thing'. The following day, still moving around the Channel off the coast
of Brest, more vessels joined our group.
We kept moving together. A convoy
without any visible Naval escort! We all
stayed on deck as much as possible because it was extremely hot below.
All the hatches were covered
but we finally found that our cargo was composed of Sherman tanks, Jeeps with
trailers filled with gear, DUKWs piled high with rope cargo nets, two and a
half ton trucks with canvas covers tied down and thousands of 5-gallon Jerry
cans filled with gasoline and guys from the 90th Infantry...who were
at a loss as we were.
It turns out that the General
with no name turned out to be Ike, whom I wouldn't know from a hole in the
ground...and later realized it was he...when his picture was in the Stars and
Stipes.
This was no “dry run”...this
time, we knew it was the real thing!!!
Little did we know that we would spend 5 days aboard this vessel.
D-Day First Light
D-Day! First Light revealed, an LCT nestled up
against the S.S. Picket on the port side, next to the No. 2 hatch. No 2 hatch is the largest hatch on a Liberty
ship and contained the heaviest
units. The booms on No. 2 are
rated for 50 tonnes, so the order was to place our tank cargo aboard the LCT
along side. The Landing Craft Tank can
deliver its freight by dropping its ramp like a bow...right on the beach and
tanks are driven off, each with its own
driver...one after the other. During the
loading process, we were taking fire from shore and the bridge of the LCT was hit by an 88 shell from a German
gun. We found out later that a Naval Lt.
on the bridge was decapitated. The crew
was replaced and the LCT cast off, beach
bound.
The empty spot was taken
immediately by another vessel. The action on the starboard side was used for
off-loading fuel, ammo and infantry into LCVPs (Landing Craft Vehicle
Personnel). The S.S. Morgan went down by
the stern, 200 yards off our port side.
The daylight increased and it got lighter. My outfit went ashore via an LCVP piloted by
a coxswain who was out in the open at all times. He brought us safely to the beach without
incident; then he dropped the ramp and we debarked in waist deep water. As soon as we were ashore, he backed off the
beach to get another load. We had landed
on Utah Beach. Ten hours later, I
returned to the Pickett to help finish unloading the ship and get our
gear. The Naval bombardment destroyed
almost every fortification on the shore.
The Atlantic Wall where we landed, was a myth. Fortunately, for my outfit we were put ashore
1,000 yards northwest of our initially assigned area...and it was very lightly
defended.
There is a film called, “A
Walk in the Sun” with Dana Andrews and John Ireland (to name a few of the
stars) that comes to mind. John Ireland,
mentally writes letters to his sister
about his well-being after the invasion of an island off Italy. All through the movie, he writes or narrates
letters to her optimistically not knowing if they will ever be read. In the movie, their mission is to take a
well-fortified farm house which is serving as an observation post. Completing their assignment, after a huge
loss of life, we see John Ireland's character under a shade tree...paper and
pencil in hand; he grimly muses about
the contents of the letter to his sister at the close of the film.
“Dear Sis...Today
we took a farm house. It was so easy!”
Musings,
Afterthoughts and Perceptions
D-Day on the S.S
George E. Pickett
This year
celebrates the 70th Anniversary of the Normandy Landings!
Oh, Yes! They knew we were coming! The 82nd Airborne had been dropped
the day before. They fought their way
back to the beach. They did not know
that the landings would be delayed because of a little bad weather. I'll bet they were outraged beyond anything I
could imagine...wondering how they were supposed to hold their objectives without the backup they had been
promised...to be “right behind them!”
They were waiting for the sound of bugles signifying that the cavalry
was en route to the rescue. To say the
least, they were upset!!! They were
tired!! They were lucky!
Let me explain
where I am going with this:
People get killed
in wars.
Soldiers get
killed in war.
We are not trained
to see the whole picture!
Our superior officers tell us
that we are a small link in the whole chain...of what the fighting is all
about. Don't get negative thoughts regarding your orders! Why are we going to do this, this way when it
seems so much easier, to do it another way?
It's not exactly like they issue a rain check to some outdoor activity
and everyone is inconvenienced for a few days.
This activity has men's lives
in the balance. We should not have
delayed the landings and sacrificed those men of the 82nd and 101st
without a chance of relief as they expected.
Somehow, I suspect that the delayed landings came about because of some
bad intelligence...at the last moments of this operation. I suppose the early jumpers were told to hold
their objective and we would get to them as soon as we can. Just as these
divisions carried out their orders without question...we would have done the
same and gone ashore on the 5th (of June) in the storm...because we
were trained to respond to our orders without question...and because we were
immortal.
Men who have never been in a
combat situation may think about death,
but not about their own.You cannot realize or perceive your own death.
That only happens to someone else. Combat changes that!
but not about their own.You cannot realize or perceive your own death.
That only happens to someone else. Combat changes that!
One day you understand! A guy could get
killed out there!
I asked myself, “What in the
world am I doing here on the beach on D-Day?
When you've seen enough bodies
of friends or enemies, you stop running for cover when there is a shelling from
88's . You get scared of getting out of
your foxhole if one of your skittish neighbours is quick on the trigger. You start thinking a little differently. Your existence depends on how good the guy
next to you in the field is. He and the others who are still alive, start
thinking pretty much the same way. Don't
worry about yourself so much...just watch out for your fellowmen...because they
are the only thing that is keeping you alive!
Here we are...70
years after the event...
and I defy you to
tell me how many casualties
the pre D-Day
invaders suffered.
I'm sure that this
figure is best kept with
the overall
population of American and Allied losses!
Merle
Baird-Kerr...compassionately scripted May 17, 2014
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