"There was heavy fog, the sea was rough and A Company was the first ones to hit the beach. The biggest percentage of it was wiped out immediately.
When the ramp went down in waist deep water, there were already bodies floating in front us.
Shells were bursting everywhere; men and parts of bodies were flying. They would holler, a lot of them were praying, and the ones that were praying, were hollering momma, that stands out in my mind more than anything.
A Chaplain was on the same boat as me, and he used to say ‘You try to save their lives, and I’ll try to save their souls’.
When we landed, he heard a man hollering for help, and as he turned to pick him up…I don’t know what hit him, but his body went one way, and his head wasn’t there any longer.
He was the only Chaplain there..he was the one who would console and pray with these soldiers.
A lot of people say ‘the Lord did this, the Lord did that ‘… no one can ever convince me that the Lord came down and took his head off. The Lord wasn't there that day...just alot of screaming and dying. – First Sergeant Walter Dickens, Medical Detachment, 116th Infantry, 29th Div., Omaha Beach, Normandy, France, June 6th, 1944 #reality #ww2 #stayzero #zerofoxtrot #dday