John D. Hinton's story

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Mats
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John D. Hinton's story

Inlägg av Mats » 31 maj 2002, 18:01

Intressant läsning om en soldats upplevelser vid landstigningen 1944.

I was a member of the 29th Infantry Division, in M Company, 3rd Battalion of the 116th Infantry Regiment. I was inducted into the Army June 16, 1943, at Fort Oglethorpe, Ga., and was discharged on Oct. 23, 1945, at Camp Atterbury, Ind.

[...]We were loaded into our LCVP, the small landing craft that accommodated about a section of men, about 25 or so. We soon realized that the weather in the English Channel hadn't changed much from the day before. We hit the beach in waves of landing craft. So we had to circle in the water until all our wave was unloaded and ready to head for the beach. It didn't take long, with the salt spray coming over the sides of the craft, to start getting seasick. After a while the wave was formed and we started for the beach. The wind and waves got rougher and rougher it seemed. I got very sick. There was a hole in the deck made for this very thing about eight 8 or 10 inches in circumference. I think I had to use it about four times and so did many of the other men.

The LCVP was getting very hard for the sailors in back to run and control. The wind and waves were blowing it off course. We began to hear an occasional bullet or piece of shrapnel hitting the sides. Consequently, we weren't landed in the sector of beach that we were supposed to be. When we finally did reach the beach and the ramp was let down, we were up against another LCVP which I suppose had hit some kind of underwater obstacle, because it was cocked up on one side and we were bumping it.

The water started rushing in. The sailors were yelling at us to hurry up and get out. As I reached for my packboard a wave knocked it out of my hand and washed it back of me. I was weak from throwing up so much and I saw I couldn't get it, so I quickly jumped off the ramp into about 4 feet of water. My helmet fell into the water, but I made a quick grab and got it before it sank. The plastic wrap of my rifle came off during this and I had sand in my rifle barrel and breach. Machine gun bullets were hitting the obstacles all around us. Some of us tried to take cover behind some of the obstacles, but saw that was no good. Most of us headed for the beach as fast as we could, bullets whining all around us and hitting the water.

I saw many men fall. It was supposedly low tide and was a good ways to the beach. Many of the obstacles were still on top of the ground. Somehow I made it to the cover of the shingle embankment, a bank a few hundred yards from where our boat landed. It was about 4 feet high and offered a little cover and concealment. Many men never made it out of the water. Some of the craft were hit by artillery from the large concrete pillboxes near the top of the bluff. Many men were killed on Omaha Beach or in the water before reaching it. Our platoon leader, Lt. Balenger, was wounded. Our captain was wounded, and many more of the men.

Most men stayed behind the small embankment until some officer would come along and urge them to follow him. The engineers had managed to clear a path about four feet wide up the bluff and that's where the group I was with inched our way up the bluff. This was a minefield

We were drawing fire from a house about a half mile to our left, the only house I saw. It must have been a good German sniper since we had a gun set up right at the top of the bluff and every time someone tried to get behind it he seemed to get them, in the arm or the leg. He got me in my right leg and a couple of guys in the arm and he also killed one man.

I could hear movements at the top of the bluff, but we could not yet see them. I'm sure it was Germans in one of their many trenches. I threw all of my grenades in the direction of the movement I heard. My rifle would only fire one round at a time. It would not pull another out of the clip.

One man in the bunch at the top near the gun was dead. I saw one of our men and he said our platoon sergeant, Sgt. Rowell (a mighty fine man), said if we got hit to try to make our way down to the shingle embankment, about 75 or 100 yards from the beach. They had dug out a place large enough to set up an aid station. So I headed back to the aid station, and halfway down I heard someone shout, "Help me." It was one of the men from one of the engineer battalions attached to us.

He had a pretty good sized hole in his leg. I took his belt and the pliers from the kit on the belt and fashioned a tourniquet. I tightened it with the pliers and finally got the blood stopped. I gave him a shot of morphine. We all had one in our first aid kit, or our rifle or pistol belt. I sprinkled the sulfanilamide powder in the wound and bandaged his wound with the bandage in the kit. Luckily there was a small shell hole or mortar hole very close to us. I dragged him into it and told him I would send a medic. I also told him to loosen the tourniquet and let it bleed just a little, about every 20 minutes and then tighten it up.

I found the aid station where they bandaged me up and I had to put a tourniquet on another man who had been shot in the foot. Since my wound was not bleeding now I helped as much as I could. I loosened the tourniquet every 15 or 20 minutes, let it bleed a little as we had been told to do, and then tightened it back.

I lay in that hole, behind that bank, until dark. We could look up in the air and see all sorts of debris flying from landing craft and small LCIs, Landing Craft Infantry, all day. The Germans had zeroed their artillery back on the water's edge by then. I poked my head out once and saw a shell hit right in the middle of a group of men coming off an LCI. I felt lucky to have come in on one of the first waves.

I lay there until dark when things seemed to die down a bit. Every now and then an LCVP would make it in, picking up wounded men. I got on one finally and they pulled out into the water and went from ship to ship, looking for the right one they were supposed to put us on. Pieces of shrapnel were hitting the sides. They finally found the right one and I was put on it.

They took my rifle and helmet. The medics on beach had already removed my shoe and leggings. This LST had been rigged with litter holders along the inside walls. It seemed we were there most all night until it was loaded. Then they pulled out for England. You could still hear pieces of shrapnel hitting the sides, but they were not strong enough to penetrate the walls.

Mikael Karlsson
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Inlägg av Mikael Karlsson » 31 maj 2002, 23:00

Man ska vara glad att man slapp vara med om det... :|
Mycket intressant läsning.

Karl Bruno
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Inlägg av Karl Bruno » 1 juni 2002, 00:08

Mmm...jag har alltid undrat hur de klarade av att springa ur sina ynkliga båtar med alla packning och allting, rakt mot de tyska bunkrarna. Jag vet faktiskt inte om jag skulle klara av det eller om jag skulle bryta ihop av dödsångest... :|

Mikael Karlsson
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Inlägg av Mikael Karlsson » 1 juni 2002, 00:13

Det var ca 90% som blev nermejade väl?
Var det någon som överlevde från dom första båtarna?

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