The Beach

We were told there would be approximately 175,0000 total troops making the invasion, which would include D-Day and D Plus 1.  This included paratroopers, glider troops, navy personnel, rangers, engineers, anti-aircraft units and infantry.  We were to land with the British and Canadian forces at designated beaches.  Our beach was Omaha and our sector was Easy Red - this was later spoken of as the "Bloody Beach".  We must understand that although the total figure of 175,000 looks impressive, many of these troops never touched shore as many of the landing crafts and men were shot down by enemy defense guns.  Snafus are bound to happen in such a large operation.  Several of the glider troops landed in marshlands off their targets; many of the paratroopers landed away from their drop zone or were shot in the air by the defending troops and some of the vehicles and men were let off in water too deep to make it to shore.

We understood we were to land on an open beach heavily fortified by submarine mines, underwater hedgehogs to stop landing crafts, steel railways pointed out to sea, many with mines on top of a "can opener" on top,  to slice open a boat hitting it.  Concrete tetrahedrons were in our way - wooden telephone poles slanted out to sea with flat mines on them to stop us.  There were steel obstacles to stop tanks and half tracks, plus many of the roads exiting the beach, as well as certain areas of the beach, were well mined and all were barb wired.  Besides this, there were countless tank traps along the way.

On top of that, major bunker positions were built with concrete overlooking our (Omaha) entire beach.  Even the small beach resort buildings had been fortified and hid artillery to knock us out.  German fortified bunkers lined the crest of the bluffs.  And besides this, on our sector of Omaha Beach (Easy Red), we were confronted by Pointe de la Percee sitting out and setting on our right flank exposing us to the fire of mortars down from its bluff.  These bluffs or cliffs were over a hundred feet high and the defenders were well dug in and heavily armed.    Along the bluffs we were faced with tremendous fire power from the Germans - 75mm guns, German 88's, 37MM automatic weapons, artillery positions, anti-tank guns, rocket throwers, and many machine gun posts. We were also plagued that day with devastating mortar attacks and infantry men with rifles.  (Dal Estes - Tracks Across Europe)

In 1998, Steven Spielberg released his film, Saving Private Ryan.  At the time I was hosting a radio show in Central Illinois and thought it would be interesting for my listeners to get a movie review from my Dad, a guy who was actually there on D-Day.  I figured he could either vouch for the movie's authenticity or call BS. To do it, I was required to do something I had only done one time previous in my life.....go to a movie theatre with my Dad.  (The first move we ever saw, The Other Side of the Mountain still ranks as the WORST movie I have ever seen in my life.  I was hopeful this experience would be much better.)  We decided to go to a weekday matinee.  Dad couldn't believe the cost of the movie going experience then (can you imagine what he would think now?).  During the movie, I tried to keep an eye on him,  in order to get a sense for what he was thinking.  For the most part we were both riveted to the screen, but there were a couple of times, after particularly climactic parts, that he bowed his head and shut his eyes.  I wondered......was he thinking of his men, remembering the real version or just trying to take it all in?

After the movie we went for a late lunch and discussed it.  Per usual, my Dad was entertaining, real and insightful.  Overall, he thought the movie was well done.  He thought the opening scene of the movie was very realistic and commented more than once about the sounds being very close to what he remembered.  "I will never forget the sounds of bullets whizzing by my head, or bullets hitting metal", he said.  "The sounds in that move were scary close to the real thing".    One thing he found that wasn't accurate with his experience, were the barrage balloons tied to the ships post D-Day.  Although there are plenty of historical photos showing the balloons on the ships (see above from later, after the invasion), Dad said that their commanding officer made some men cut theirs down as to not give the Germans any more help in seeing the ships from afar.

There were two things that my Dad took great exception to in the movie, however.  The first, was the scene where the US troops shot the unarmed German soldier.  "Neither I, nor any of my men, or any of the men I knew would have shot an unarmed German in our custody.  It just wouldn't have happened."  I asked him whether he thought that happened often in the war or whether it was for creative license within the movie.  "I don't know, but I need to believe it was for the sake of the movie".

As we sat there and drank our iced tea, I asked him what else he saw that wasn't accurate.  His answer still makes me laugh to this day.  He sat his glass down, looked right at me and said "we didn't use the F-Word".  (He was referring to the number of times "Fu**" was said in the movie, Saving Private Ryan.)  I just absolutely cracked up.  "Dad, you are telling me that no soldier used the "F" word during the entirety of WWII?"  He smiled at me and said "I didn't.  I can tell you that.  I was a gentleman".

My Mom told me weeks later that my Dad had nightmares for many nights after that movie going experience.  I felt bad and apologized to him for putting him in that situation.  Not wanting me to feel bad, he put his arm around me, smiled and said "it's OK honey, it was a hell of a lot better than the real thing." Yep - that's my Dad.  He was a gentleman....and a gentle man too.