It's been 80 years since D-Day and the Invasion of Normandy. But, the memories of that haunting battle echo throughout time and history. In the years following the war, several veterans sat down to remember their harrowing experiences from that day.
Speaking with NPR, Frank Walk, a combat engineer, said he remembered the trip to get to his ship. He thought he would miss the boat, but later he said that he wished he had. "That was a pretty hairy ordeal, and all the time, I was afraid that I wasn't going to get back to our staging area in time to board the ship for the crossing," he told NPR's Talk of the Nation in 2004. Walk was one of 150,000 U.S., British and Canadian troops on D-Day. He was responsible for clearing Nazi fortifications, but getting out of the boats proved an issue.
"We had a hard time getting into the boat in the first place. It was bouncing around, waves blowing over the side. Wasn't long before all of us aboard that little boat were seasick," he said. "Then we began to say, 'Gee, when can we get to shore?' "
Meanwhile, Cpl. William Dabney remembered the fear that all of the troops had. They knew the high stakes and the very real possibility of death."We saw guys crying, we saw guys after they got off, they [were] throwing up," he said. "Everybody was scared to death. But you did what you had to do. You tried to protect yourself and save your life."
Veterans Remember D-Day
Dabney remembered soldiers stepping on landmines and being gunned down by enemy fire. Pvt. Harold Baumgarten almost died, reflecting on a near-death experience. A bullet struck his rifle while he was still in the water. "A half-inch to either side would have gone through my chest," Baumgarten told NPR's Morning Edition in 1994.
Meanwhile, writer Cornelius Ryan, who was present on the day, remembered all the plans in the sky and the scenes of the carnage afterward."It was absolutely incredible," he told NPR's All Things Considered in 1972. "It was such an incredible, staggering sight that it was almost impossible to comprehend.
"I saw a French man and his son in a rowboat, rowing back and forth out from Omaha Beach picking up wounded and bringing them in," he continued. "We were never able to find out who that man was because if we had we would have had him decorated."
However, Jim McLaughlin, a turret operator of a B-26 bomber, probably best summed it up. "I couldn't believe that there were that many ships in the whole world — all headed in the same direction," he told NPR in 1994. "And then a few moments later to see that beach."
