Well, here I am writing you from an orchard in France in the long twilight of a June day. Our planes are droning overhead, a battery of artillery is firing just the other side of the hedge and the ripple of machine-guns punctuates the silences between the salvos of the artillery.
To go back several eons to the time I last wrote--five days ago. At 1:30 a.m. . . . at the signal we climbed into our craft . . . . The ropes whined through the pulleys, we landed on the water and cast off. It was rough and spray burst over us, soaking us to the skin and leaving us shivering with cold . . . . Then began our long run to the beach--the transport area was some fourteen miles off the coast.
For some three hours we jockeyed and pushed toward shore and then the naval bombardment began. In the dusk flashes came from the big ships as the great guns were fired. Gradually . . . I could make out on all sides the craft of the flotilla--most were our small landing launches . . . . There were also destroyers on our flanks, rocket ships with racks for their rockets, and many smaller craft . . . and now German shells began landing among us, sending up towers of spray.
Suddenly we heard the drone of planes, and silhouetted against the colored clouds of dawn formations of planes swept by and passed toward shore. Flight after flight dropped its bombs on the German emplacements . . . . One fell by me, flaming like a meteor . . . .
Suddenly the beach appeared before us--a long stretch of sand studded with wire and obstacles. Then with a crunch we grounded . . . and we jumped into water waist-deep & started for the shore. We splashed and floundered through some hundred yards of water while German salvos fell. Men dropped, some silent, some screaming. The moment I arrived at the beach I knew something was wrong . . . . We'd been put ashore a mile too far to the south . . . . Shells continually burst around us . . . . The day wore on . . . . Our ships shifted their bombardments to the flanks.
The immediate beach was cleared of Germans and the soldiers began to push their way inland over a flooded area about two miles broad. This had been inundated by the Germans by damming the streams . . . . When night fell I was still soaking wet & shivering with cold. I did my old trick--took off shoes and socks and went to bed in my wet clothes . . . ."
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Used with permission from Annette Tapert, ed., "Lines of Battle," (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1987), p. 153-156.
