The sea is so rough that the men of Baker must bail furiously with their helmets to keep its six boats from swamping. Thus preoccupied, they do not see the disaster overtaking Able until they are almost on top of it. What they behold is either so limited or so horrible that discipline withers, the assault wave begins to dissolve, and the chaos induced by fear virtually cancels out the mission. Great clouds of smoke and dust raised by the enemy fire have almost closed a curtain around the agony of Able Company. Outside this pall nothing is to be seen but lines of corpses adrift, a few heads bobbing in the water and the crimson-running tide. The British coxswains raise the cry "We can't go in there. We can't see the landmarks. We must pull off."
In the Baker command boat, Capt. Ettore V. Zappacosta pulls
a Colt .45 and shouts, "By God, you'll take this boat straight in!"
His display of courage compels obedience, but it is still a questionable order.
Those of the Baker boats that try to proceed suffer the fate of Able Company.
Three times during the approach, mortar shells break right next to Zappacosta's
command boat but leave it unscathed, thus sparing its men a few more moments of
life. At seventy-five yards from the sand, Zappacosta yells, "Drop the
ramp! " The end goes down— and a storm of bullet fire comes in. Zappacosta
jumps from the boat first, reels ten yards through the elbow-high tide and yells,
"I've been hit!" He stumbles on a few more steps. The first-aid man,
Thomas Kenser, yells, "Try to make it. I'm coming." But the Captain
falls face forward into the waves; his equipment and soaked pack pin him to the
bottom of the ocean. Kenser jumps toward his captain and is shot dead in the air.
Lieutenant Tom Dallas of Charley Company, who has come along for reconnaissance,
is the third man. He makes it to the edge of the sand strip, where a machine-gun
burst blows his head apart before he can flatten. Private, first class, Robert
L. Sales, who is lugging Zappacosta's radio, is the fourth to leave the boat,
having waited long enough to see the others die. His heel catches on the end of
the ramp, and he falls sprawling into the tide, losing the radio but saving his
life. Every man who follows him is either killed or wounded before reaching dry
land. Sales alone gets to the beach unhit. To traverse those few yards takes
him two hours. First he crouches in the water, straddling forward on his
haunches just a few paces. He collides with driftwood—a floating log. In that moment
a mortar shell explodes just above his head, knocking him groggy. But he hugs
the log to keep from going down, and the effort seems to clear his head a
little. Then one of Able Company's tide walkers hoists him aboard the log and,
using his sheath knife, cuts away Sales's pack, boots and assault jacket. Feeling
stronger, Sales returns to the water and using the log as cover, pushes in
toward the shore.
Private Mack L. Smith of Baker Company, hit several times in
the face, joins him, and an Able Company rifleman named Kemper, his right leg
badly wounded, also comes alongside. They follow the log until at last they
roll it to the farthest reach of high tide. Then they flatten behind it,
staying there for hours after the flow has turned to ebb. The dead of both
companies wash up to where they lie and then wash out to sea again. If any of
them recognizes the face of a comrade, Sales and his companions, disregarding
the fire, join in dragging the body onto the sand beyond the reach of water. So
long as the tide is full, they stay at this task. Later, a first-aid man comes
crawling along the beach and dresses Smith's face wounds, then moves on. Sales,
as he finds the strength, bandages Kemper's leg. The three huddle behind the log
until night falls. There is nothing else to report on any member of
Zappacosta's boat team.
Only one other Baker Company boat tries to come straight in
to the beach. Somehow the boat founders. Somehow all of its people—one British
coxswain and about thirty American infantrymen—are killed. There is no one to take
note and report where or how they perished. Frightened coxswains in the other four
craft take one look, instinctively draw back, then veer right and left away
from Able Company's shambles. In this they dodge their orders. But such is the
shock to the boat-team leaders, such their feeling of relief at the turning movement,
that not one utters a protest. Lieutenant Leo A. Pingenot's coxswain swings his
boat far to the right toward Pointe du Hoe. Then, spying a small and
deceptively peaceful-looking cove, he heads directly for the land. Fifty yards
out, Pingenot orders "Drop the ramp!" The coxswain freezes on the rope,
refusing to lower. Staff Sergeant Odell L. Padgett jumps him and carries him to
the bottom of the boat. Padgett's men lower the rope and rush into the water.
In two minutes they are all in up to their necks and struggling to avoid drowning.
Pingenot is already far out ahead of them. Padgett comes even with him, and
together they cross to dry land. The beach of the cove is heavily strewn with
giant boulders. Bullets seem to be pinging off every rock. Pingenot and Padgett
dive behind the same rock. Glancing back, they are horrified to see that not
one person has followed them. Quite suddenly smoke has half blanked out the scene
beyond the water's edge. Pingenot moans, "The whole boat team is
dead." Padgett cries out, "Hey, are you hit?"
Back come many voices from beyond the smoke. "What's
the rush?" "We'll get there." "Who wants to know?" The
men are still moving along, using the water as cover. Padgett's shout is their
first information that anyone else has moved up onto the beach. They all make
it to the shore, twenty-eight strong. Pingenot and Padgett manage to stay ahead
of them, coaxing and encouraging. Padgett keeps yelling, "Come on, things
are better up there!" Two men are killed and three wounded while they are
crossing the beach. In the cove the platoon latches onto a company of Rangers,
fights all day as part of that company and helps destroy the enemy entrenchments
on Pointe du Hoe. By sundown that mop-up is completed. The platoon bivouacs at
the first hedgerow beyond the cliff.
Another Baker Company boat which turns to the right has less
luck. Staff Sergeant Robert M. Campbell, who leads the section, is the first man
to jump out when the ramp goes down. He drops into deep water, and his load of
two bangalore torpedoes takes him straight to the bottom. He jettisons the
bangalores and then, surfacing, cuts away all his equipment for good measure.
Machine-gun fire brackets him, and he submerges again briefly. Though not a strong
swimmer, he heads out to sea. For two hours he paddles around, 200 or so yards
from the shore. He hears and sees nothing of the battle, but somehow gets the
impression that the invasion has failed and that all other Americans are dead,
wounded or prisoners. In despair, strength fast going, he moves ashore rather
than drown. Beyond the smoke he quickly finds the fire. He grabs a helmet from
a dead man's head, crawls on hands and knees to the seawall and there finds
five of his men, two of them unwounded.
Like Campbell, Pfc. Jan J. Budziszewski
is carried to the bottom by his load of two bangalores. He hugs them half a
minute before realizing that he must either let loose or drown. Next, he shucks
off his helmet and pack and drops his rifle. Then he surfaces. After swimming
200 yards, he sees that he is moving in the wrong direction. So he turns about
and heads for the beach, where he crawls ashore under a rain of bullets. In his
path lies a dead Ranger. Budziszewski takes the dead man's helmet, rifle and
canteen and crawls up to the seawall. The only survivor from Campbell's boat
section to get off the beach, he spends his day walking to and fro along the foot of the bluff, looking for a friendly face.
In Lt. William B. Williams' boat, the coxswain steers sharp
left and away from Zappacosta's sector. Not having seen the Captain die, Williams
doesn't know that command of the unit has now passed to him. Guiding on his own
instinct, the coxswain moves along the coast 600 yards, then puts the boat
straight in. It's a good guess; he has found a little vacuum in the battle. The
ramp drops on dry sand, and the boat team jumps ashore. Yet it's a close thing.
Mortar fire has dogged them all the way; and as the last rifleman clears the
ramp, one shell lands dead center of the boat, blows it apart and kills the
coxswain.
Momentarily the beach is free of fire, but the men cannot
cross it swiftly. Weak from seasickness and fear, they move at a crawl, dragging
their equipment. By the end of twenty minutes, Williams and ten men are over
the sand and resting in the lee of the seawall. Five others are hit by
machine-gun fire crossing the beach; six men, last seen while taking cover in a
tidal pocket, are never heard from again. More mortar fire lands around the party as Williams leads it
across the road beyond the seawall. The men scatter. When the shelling lifts,
three of them do not return. Williams leads the seven survivors up a trail
toward the fortified village of Les Moulins on top of the bluff. He recognizes
the ground and knows that he is taking on a tough target. Les Moulins is
perched above a draw, up which winds a dirt road from the beach, designated on
the invasion maps as Exit No. 3. Williams and his crew of seven are the first Americans
to approach it D-day morning. Machine-gun fire from a concrete pillbox sweeps
over them as they near the brow of the hill, moving at a crawl through thick
grass.
Williams says to the others, "Stay here; we're too big
a target!" They hug earth, and he inches forward alone, moving through a shallow gully. Without being detected, he
gets to within twenty yards of the gun, downslope from it. He heaves a grenade;
but it explodes in air, just outside the embrasure. His second grenade hits the
concrete wall and bounces right back on him. Three of its fragments hit him in
the shoulders. Then, from out of the pillbox, a German potato masher (hand grenade)
sails down on him and explodes just a few feet away; five more fragments cut
into him. He starts crawling back to his men; enroute, three bullets rip his
rump and right leg. The seven are still there. Williams hands his map and
compass (symbols of command) to S. Sgt. Frank M. Price, saying, "It's your
job now. But go the other way—toward Vierville." Price starts to look at
Williams' wounds, but Williams shakes him off, saying, "No, get
moving." He then settles himself in a hole in the embankment, stays there
all day and at last gets medical attention just before midnight.
On leaving Williams, Price's first act is to hand map and
compass to T. Sgt. William Pearce, whose seniority the Lieutenant had overlooked.
They cross the draw, one man at a time, and some distance beyond come to a ravine;
on the far side they bump into their first hedgerow, and as they look for an
entrance, fire comes against them. Behind a second hedgerow, not more than
thirty yards away, are seven Germans, five rifles and two burp guns (machine
pistols). On exactly even terms, these two forces engage for the better part of
an hour, with no one getting hit. Then Pearce settles the fight by crawling
along a drainage ditch to the enemy flank. He kills the seven Germans with a
Browning automatic rifle. For Pearce and his friends, it is a first taste of
battle and its success makes them giddy. Heads up, they walk along the road
into Vierville, disregarding precaution. They get away with it only because the
village is already in the hands of Lt. Walter Taylor of Baker Company and
twenty men from his boat team.
Taylor is a luminous figure in the story of D-day, one of
the forty-seven survivors of the landings on Omaha who, by their dauntless initiative
at widely separated points along the beach, save the mission from total stagnation
and disaster. Courage and luck are his in extraordinary measure. The Taylor
story begins when Baker Company's assault wave breaks up just short of the surf
where Able Company is in ordeal. Taylor's coxswain swings his boat sharp left, then
heads toward the shore about halfway between Zappacosta's boat and Williams'.
For a few seconds after the ramp drops, this bit of beach next to the village
called Hamel-au-Pretre is clear of fire. No mortar shells crown the start.
Taylor leads his section,crawling across the beach and over the seawall, losing
four men killed and two wounded in this brief movement. Some yards off to his right, Taylor has seen Lts. Harold
Donaldson and Emil Winkler shot dead. But there is no halt for reflection;
Taylor leads the section by trail straight up the bluff and into Vierville,
where his luck continues. In a two-hour fight he whips a German platoon without
losing a man.
The village is quiet when Pearce joins him. Pearce says,
"Williams is shot up back there and can't move."
"I guess that makes me company commander," says
Taylor.
"This is probably all of Baker Company," Pearce
remarks and takes a head count; they number twenty-eight, including Taylor. Taylor
says, "That ought to be enough. Follow me!" Inland from Vierville about
500 yards lies the Chateau de Vaumicel, imposing in its rock-walled massiveness
and its hedgerow-bordered fields, all entrenched and interconnected with
artillery-proof tunnels. To every man but Taylor, the target looks prohibitive.
Still, they follow him. German fire stops them 100 yards short of the chateau. The
enemy is behind a hedgerow about fifty yards in front of them. Taylor's men
flatten, open fire with rifles and toss a few grenades, though the distance
seems too great. By sheer chance one grenade glances off the helmet of a German
squatting in a foxhole. He jumps up, shouting, "Kamerad! Kamerad!"
Thereupon twenty-four of the enemy walk from behind the
hedgerow with their hands in the air. Taylor pares off one of his riflemen to march
the prisoners back to the beach. The brief fight has cost him three wounded. Taylor then moves his platoon to the first crossroads beyond the chateau. Here he is
stopped by the sudden arrival of three truckloads of German infantry, who deploy
into the fields on both sides of his position and start an enveloping
movement. The manpower odds, about three to one against him, are too heavy. In
the first trade of fire, lasting not more than two minutes, a rifleman lying
beside Taylor is killed, three others are wounded and the Browning automatic is
shot from Pearce's hands. That leaves but twenty men and no automatic weapons. Taylor
yells, "Back to the chateau!" They crawl as far as the first
hedgerow; then they rise and trot along, supporting their wounded. Taylor is
the last man to go, having stayed behind to cover the withdrawal with his
carbine until the hedgerows prevent fire against the others.
So far the small
group has had no contact with any other part of the expedition, and for all its
members know, the invasion may have failed. They make it to the chateau. The
enemy moves in closer. The attacking fire builds up. But the stone walls are
fire-slotted, and through the midday and early afternoon theseports serve the
American riflemen well. The question is whether the ammunition will outlast the
Germans. It is answered at sundown, just as the supply runs out, by the arrival
of fifteen Rangers, who join their fire with Taylor's, and the Germans fade
back. Already Taylor and his force are farther south than any element of the
right flank in the Omaha expedition. But Taylor isn't satisfied. The battalion
objective, as specified for the close of D-Day, is still more than one half
mile to the west.
So he leads them forth, again serving as first scout.
Eighteen of his own riflemen and fifteen Rangers follow in column. One man is
killed by a bullet while they are getting away from the chateau. Dark closes
over them, and they prepare to bivouac. Having almost reached the village of
Louviers, they are by this time nearly a half mile in front of anyone else in
the U.S. Army. There a runner reaches them with the message that the remnants
of the battalion are assembling 700 yards closer to the sea; Taylor and his
party are directed to fall back to them.
The invasion morning- it is done. Later that day, Staff Sergeant Price pays the perfect
tribute to Taylor. He says, "We saw no sign of fear in him. Watching him
made men of us. Marching or fighting, he was leading. We followed him because
there was nothing else to do."
Thousands of Americans were spilled onto Omaha
Beach. The high ground was won by a handful of men like Taylor who, on that day, burned
with a flame bright beyond common understanding.
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