Evening star., 1944-06-12
By ERNIE PYLE.

"A lOO-foOt DUH q couple OF hun
dred yards back from the beach had
great concrete gun emplacements
built right into the hilltops. They
opened to the sides instead of the
front, thus making it very hard for
naval fire from the sea to reach
them. They could shoot parallel
with the beach and cover every foot
|of it for miles with artillery fire.
Then they had hidden machine
gun nests on the forward slopes with
cross-f1re taking in every inch Of
the beach. These nests connected
with networks of trenches 80 the
German gunners could move about
without exposing themselves.
Valleys Heavily Mined.
Throughout the length of beach
running zigzag couple OF hundred
yards back from shore line was an
immense v-shaped ditch Is feet
deep. Nothing could cross 1t, not
even men afoot, until fills had been
made. And in other places at the
far ends OF the beach where the
ground was flatter they had great
concrete walls which had been
blasted by naval gun FIRE OF by
Fhand-set explosives after we got
ashore.
Our only exits from the beach
were several valleys, each about
hundred yards wide. The Germans
tmade most of these fllnnel.like
Traps, literally sowing their bottom
sides with buried mines. They con-
tanned, too, barbed wire entangle-
ments with mines attached to hid
den bitches and machine guns fir
Il ing from slopes.
That Is what was on shore. But
our men had to go through a maze
nearly as deadly before they even
got ashore. Underwater obstacles
were terrific. Germans had whole
fields of evil devices to catch our
boats. Even now, several days after
the landings, we've cleared only
channels through them and cannot
yet approach the whole length of
the beach with our ships; even now
ship or boat hits one of these
mines every day and is knocked out
Of commission. The Germans had
masses Of those great six-pronged
spiders made of railroad iron and
standing shoulder high in places
just beneath the surface water for
our landing craft to run into.
They also had huge logs buried in
the sand, pointing upward and out
ward, their tops just below the
water. Attached to these logs were
mines. In addition to these OBJ
stacles they had floating mines in
the beach waters, land mines buried
in the sand beach and more mines
in checkerboard rows in the tall
grass beyond the sand.
Defenders in Ratio Of 4 to 3.
And as said before, the enemy
had four men on shore for everv
three men we had approaching the
shore. And yet we got on.
Beach landings are planned to a
schedule set far ahead of time. That
is no secret for they all have to be
timed in order that everything will
mesh and for the following waves
troops to be standing off the beach
and ready to land at the right mo-
ment. AS the landings are planned,
some elements of the assault force
break through quickly and push on,
inland and attack the most obvious
enemy strongpoints. 1t usually Is
the plan for units to be inland,
attacking gun positions from be-
| NIT nn Exc%
men hit the beach.
I've always been amazed at the
speed called for in these plans.
You'll have schedules calling for en-
gineers to land at H-hour plus two
minutes and service troops at H
plus 30 and even for press censors
to land at H-hour plus rs minutes,
but in this attack on a special por-
ton OF the beach where I am, the
worst we had, incidentally, the
schedule didn't hold.
Our men simply could not get off
the beach. They were utterly pinned
down right at the waters edge by
an inhuman wall of fire from the
bluff. Our first waves were on that
beach for hours instead of q few
minutes before they could begin
working inland. You can still see
foxholes dug at the very waters
edge out of the sand and small jum-
bled rocks that form parts of the
beach.
Medical corps men attended
wounded as best they could. Men
were killed as they stepped out of
landing craft. An officer whom
know got bullet right through his
head just as the door of his landing
craft let down. Some were drowned.
Naval Gunfire Cracks Defenses.
The first crack in beach defense
finally was accomplished by terrific
and wonderful naval gunfire which
knocked out the big emplacements
They tell epic stories of destroyers
that ran right up into shallow water
and had 1t out pointblank with big
guns in those concrete emplace-
'ments ashore.