"It was five minutes to one when the light snapped off and a hole in the plane was opened. Under it we could see the coast of France below - and a garish sight it was, for flak from the coast defences was spouting flame everywhere ... And we were scared by it ... until ... we were all madly shuffling down the hole and jumping into space ... As I stood up with my harness off ... I knew I was hopelessly lost ... Suddenly there was a rip and a tear in flapping jumping-smock, and I flung myself to the ground as the machine guns rattled."
"As flotilla officer I had charge of our landing craft ... The Germans had no 88mm guns firing off shore, but there was an eight-foot sea wall with mortar and machine-gun emplacements of concrete. The sea was even choppier than in the Sicilian landing, though there was no swell, and most of the troops had been seasick. But they were in the best of spirits ... German planes were nowhere to be seen, nor were the boasted secret "weapons". If they have anything up their sleeves it is curious that they did not bring it out to meet our landing..."
"As our line of craft approached the shore the navy's guns were blazing and smashing shells into fortifications guarding the strip of the beach we had to take ... 300 yards ahead of us was a concrete wall about 20 feet high .. the Jerries were lining the top and potting away at us, sweeping with their machine guns ... as we swept forward. Several of our lads fell, but we dashed forward and got under the base of the wall where the Jerries couldn't get at us ... Jerry was fighting hard, but soon the beach was swarming with our chaps...."
"It was wonderful. There they were, marching in to die, just as if they were going to a ball game ... The Germans had hidden themselves in cliffs facing the beach and were pouring deadly mortar fire down upon the advancing Americans ... They did not have any cover except bomb-made mounds, but they pushed forward, with men falling every way you could look. It was heart-breaking to hear their leader calling through his radio: "For God's sake, get those mortars quick! Dig them out boys, they are right down our necks' ..."
James Doohan, later actor (Scotty in Star Trek)
Lt. Doohan successfully led his Canadian troop onto Juno Beach and pushed inland to establish the best possible gun position (along the way Doohan shot two German snipers, never knowing if he killed them or just injured them). A position was secured and command posts were established, but not all Germans between the beach and their position had been captured.
At about eleven-thirty that night, I was walking back to my
command post from another command post, with Tommy O'Brennan on my right, about
a foot and a half away. We were walking around a large shell hole . . .
And that was when the machine gun opened up on us.
It hit me and spun me around. Staggering, I fell down into the shell hole.
Tommy hadn't been hit at all, and for a moment I hadn't fully registered that
I'd been struck. I just knew something had shoved me with tremendous force.
Then I looked at my right hand and saw the blood covering it. I could see the
holes in my middle finger.
[From "Beam Me Up, Scotty" by James Doohan with Peter David] He had three bullet
holes in that one finger. He managed to walk to the regimental aid post, despite
also having four bullets in his left leg. But as the doctor was removing those
slugs, Doohan noticed a hole in his shirt. He had been shot in the chest.
Miraculously, though, that bullet had been deflected by the sterling silver
cigarette case he kept in his right shirt pocket — the one his brother Bill had
given him when Jimmy was best man at his wedding.
Four inches from his heart.
He kept that cigarette case for the rest of his life — and even continued using
it (with the dent slightly taken out) until he quit smoking in the 1970's. (Drew
Philip Halevy)
Dick Johnson: B17 pilot, USAAF 8th Air Force: Personal Memory: "This is D-Day," the briefing officer announced. "The invasion has already begun and we are going to try to prevent the Germans from bringing up reinforcements. The weather is very bad and we may have to bomb by radar". he said. Each B-17 was loaded with twelve, 500 and two, 1,000 pound bombs and all 37 aircraft were off at 0600 double war time. Two aircraft aborted due to mechanical problems. Our 303rd commander, Colonel Snyder led the low flight. Newsman Walter Cronkite flew with Bob Sheets in our version of Shoo Shoo Baby. We were to bomb a bridge near the invasion coast but the cloud cover at the target was total so we intended to bomb by PFF (Radar). Our flight leader with the radar had a failure so we returned to Molesworth with the bombs not dropped. The lead group dropped 192 five hundred pound bombs and 30 one thousand pounders with unobserved results. We had no opposition and saw no enemy planes. The weather was our biggest danger that day.
Score, Milk runs: 6, other: 4. After getting back to base we refueled and went out again to the same target with a new radar lead. This time we dropped through the clouds an did not observe the results. However on the way in there was an occasional break in the clouds and I never so many boats on the way to to the French coast, There were literally thousands of wakes on the English Channel. We saw no other aircraft and the Germans had a bitter joke: "If you see a camouflaged airplane, it's British. If you see a shiny unpainted airplane, it's American. If you don't see any airplane at all, it's German." These were both milk runs and we were in German gun range foe a bare thirty minutes. Score so far: Milk runs 7, others: 4 (Dick Johnson)