Three War Army Hero: From the Archive

In 1944, in preparation for the invasion of Normandy and what we call now Omaha Beach, I was assigned to Company L of the 115th Infantry Regiment of the 29th Infantry Division.

And we were designated as the second assault wave to go in on D-Day behind our 116th Infantry Regiment was mostly Virginia National Guard.

Ours was mostly Maryland National Guard.

I joined the 29th Division and the 115th in January of 1944, which was six months before the invasion.

I was a platoon leader of the 3rd Platoon in Company L of the 115th.

And, uh, we-- I got so involved in training immediately, training in the moors, along the moors of England, a lot of overnight, a lot of two or three-day exercises.

And then we had some practice landing, uh, exercises off the coast of England.

That's when it dawned on me when we first time-- we first practice landing we made that we were going someplace.

We didn't know where at the time, someplace along the coast of France, but we didn't know where it would be.

And then it started to sink in that we were heading for what in my mind would be the beginning of the downfall of the Third Reich.

[dramatic music] I was trying to weld my platoon, which was my main concern, into a good fighting unit, make sure they were in good physical condition, make sure that we train hard, give them a chance at night and weekends to play a little bit and relax and see the En- English countryside.

But mainly it was training, get as hard and tough as we could because we knew it was not gonna be easy once we landed in France.

All these maneuvers were battalion size at least, and each battalion is made up of three rifle companies, a weapons platoon, and a headquarters platoon.

And in each battalion, there are three of these companies plus a heavy weapons company plus a headquarters company.

And then that's the battalion fighting unit.

And we were also occasionally working with the entire 115th Regiment.

I don't recall any division maneuvers along the moors while I was with them during those six months.

But I don't think it was really necessary.

The main part was to get your regiment and your battalions and your companies into working with each other and, and in good fighting condition.

Remember, they had been there since, uh, October of 1942, and they had been doing this similar things during a good portion of that time up until January of '44 when I joined them.

So initially, it was a learning experience for me of how to get [laughs] onto a boat and off a boat, and I was following them.

And then as we moved along further into my time there, I was able to point out some things that I thought could-- they could do better of moving more rapidly, being careful of what the-- where their steps were, not falling, someone were tripping and falling down as they got off, and to be more careful.

And that's what we emphasized during the time I was there.

[dramatic music] We didn't think in terms of losses except we knew some people probably wouldn't make it off the beach.

Also, at that particular time, we didn't know whether we were gonna be the assault force as the 116th was, or whether we'd be the backup force to them, or even a, a regiment in reserve.