The Wyandotte news-herald. (Wyandotte, Mich.) 1943-1963, 1944-11-16

6IIlDleul. - v Z.
He'll, yes
I walked for a ~
mile and a half
along the waters Ernie Pyle
edge of our many
miled invasion beach. You wanted
TO walk slowly. for the detail on
that beach was infinite.
The wreckage was vast and start
ling. The awful waste and destruc-
ton of war, even aside from the
loss of human life, has always been
on Of its outstanding features to
those who are in it. Anything and
everything is dependable. And we
did expend on our beachhead in
Normandy during those first few
hours.
For a mile out from the beach
there were scores of tanks and
trucks and boats that you could no
longer see, for they were at the bot
tom of the water-Swamped by over
loading, or hit by shells, or sunk by
mines. Most of their crews were
lost.
You could see trucks tipped
half over and swamped. You
could see partly sunken barges,
and the angled-up corners Of
jeeps, and small landing craft
half submerged. And at low tide
you could still see those vicious
six-prOnged iron snares that
hepled snag and wreck them.
On the beach itself, high and dry,
were all kinds of wrecked vehicles
There were tanks that had only just
made the beach before being knock
ed out. There were jeeps that had
burned to a dull gray. There were
big derricks on caterpillar treads
that didn't quite make it. There
were half-tracks carrying office
equipment that had been made into
shambles by single shell hit, their
interiors still holding their useless
equipage of smashed typewriters,
telephones, office files.
There were Let's turned COM
pletely upside down, and lying on
their backs, and how they got that
way / don't know. There were boats
stacked on top of each other, their
sides caved in, their suspension
doors knocked off.
In this shoreline museum Of car
mage there were abandoned rolls OF
barbed wire and smashed BULLDOG
ers and big stacks Of thrown-away
ife-beltS and piles Of shells still
waiting to be moved.
In the water floated empty
life RATS and soldiers packs and
ration boxes, and mysterious
oranges.
On the beach lay snaried rolls
of telephone wire and big rolls
of steel mating and stacks Of
broken, rusting rifles.
On the beach lay. expended, SUI
ficient men and mechanism for q
small war. They were gone forever
now. And yet we could afford it.
We could afford 1t because w
were on, we had our toehold, anC
behind us there were such enormous
requirements for this wreckage or
the beach that you could hardly
conceive Of their sum total. MeI
and equipment were flowing from
England in such a gigantic stream
that it made the waste on the
beachhead seem like nothing at all
really nothing at all.
A few hundred yards back on the
beach is high bluff. Up there We
had tent hospital, and a barbed-
wire enclosure for prisoners Of war
From up there you could see far VI
and down the beach, in spectac'
ular crow's-nest view, and far out
to sea.
And standing out there on the
water beyond all this wreckage
was the greatest armada man
has ever seen. You simply could
not believe the gigantic collec-
ton Of ships that lay out there
waiting to unload.
Looking from the bluff, it LAY
thick and clear to the far horizon d
the sea and on beyond, and 4
spread out to the sides and wa
miles wide. It's utter enormity woulc
move the hardest man.
AS I stood up there I noticed {
group of freshly taken German pris.
oners standing nearby. They haC
not yet been put in the prison cage
They were just standing there, 9
couple of doughboys leisurely guard
ing them with Tommy guns.
The prisoners too were looking
out to seattle same bit of sea tina
for months and years had been 81
safely empty before their gaze.
They didn't say . word to
each other. They didn't need to.
The expression ON their faces
was something forever unforget-
table. In Il was the final herri-
fled acceptance Of their doom.
II only all Germany could have
had the rich experience Of
J. standing on the bluff and look.