The Wilmington morning star. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1909-1990, 1944-06-12

Continued from Page One)
they had great concrete walls
which had been blasted by ma
val gunfire or by hand-sse ex-
plosives after we got ashore.
Our only exit from the beach
were several swails or valleys
each about q hundred yards
wide. The Germans made
most of these funnel-like traps,
literally sowing their bottom
sides with buried mines. They
contained, too, barbed wire en-
tanglements with mines attach
ed to hidden bitches and ma
chine guns firing from slopes.
That is what was on shore,
but our men had to go through
maze nearly as deadly before
they even got ashore. Under
water obstacles were terrific.
Germans had whole fields of
evil devices to catch our boats.
Even now. several days after
the landings we've cleared on
ly channels through them and
cannot yet approach the whole
length of the beach with our
ships; even now a ship or boat
hits one of these mines every
day and is knocked out of COM
mission. The Germans had
masses of those great six
pronged spiders made of rail-
road iron and standing Shout
der high in places just beneath
the surface water for our land
ing craft to run into.
They also had huge logs bur.
led in the sand, pointing up
ward and outward, their tops
just below the water. Attach
ed to these logs were mines;
in addition to these obstacles
they had floating mines in the
beach waters, inland mines
buried in the sand beach and
more mines in checkerboard
rows in the tall grass beyond
the sand.
And as I said before, the
enemy had four men on shore
for every three men we had
approaching the shore. And yet
we got on. .s-t
Beach landings are planned
to schedule set far ahead of
time. That is no secret for they j.
all have to be timed in order
that everything will mesh and
for the following waves of
troops standing off the beach to
be ready to land at the right
moment. AS the landings are
planned, some elements of the
assault force break through
quickly and pushed on inland
and attack the most obvious en-
envy strOngp0ints. 1t usually is
the plan for units to be inland,
attacking gun positions from
behind within minutes after
the first men hit the beach.
I've always been amazed at
the speed called for in these
plans. You'll have schedules
calling for engineers to land
at H-H0ur plus two minutes
and service tooops at H plus 80
and even for press censors to
land at H-Hour plus IS min
utes, but in this attack on a
special portion Of the beach
where am, the worst we had,
incidentally, the schedule did
mt hold. Our men simply could
not get off the beach. They
were literally pinned down
at the waters edge by an in
human wall of fire from the
bluff. Our first waves were
on that beach for hours in
stead of few minutes before
they could begin working in
land. You can still see foxholes
dug at the very waters edge
out of the sand and small jum-
bled rock that form parts Of the
beach.
Medical corps men attended
wounded as best they could.
Men were killed as they step
ped out of landing craft. An
officer whom / know got q
bullet right through his head
just as the door of his landing
craft let down. Some were
drowned.
The first crack in beach de-
Tense finally was accomplish
ed by terrific and wonderful
naval gunfire which knocked
out the gun emplacements.
They tell epic stories of de-
stroyers that ran right up into
shallow water and had it out
point blank with big guns In
those concrete emplacements
ashore.