"The bombings had failed to knock out the German defences ahead of us. This left our division to emerge from the sea into untrammelled machine gun and artillery fire which turned the sand red and the sea into a gruesome soup of body parts.
Omaha was a chaotic bloodbath.
My boat was in the lead in the assault when it hit something, possibly a mine or an artillery shell. I awoke sometime later in shallow water unable to move.
About 12 to 15 feet to my right up in front there was a dead man and I couldn’t see his face and I didn’t know who it was. I couldn’t pull myself over there to see because my elbows were just digging into the sand. My back and legs paralyzed by fear.
I saw a lieutenant running down the beach screaming and hollering: ‘I can’t see, I can’t see.’ His whole forehead was hanging down over his face. You couldn’t see his face. He didn’t run far when another guy hollered at him to stop, and told him to turn directly to the left, off the beach. He did, he ran a few yards, and he was shot down.
I knew right then and there that I would be haunted for the rest of my life.
My company suffered 96% casualties in the first hour, but if it came to it – I would do it again. I thought my country was worth it then and I still do.” – PFC. Russell Pickett, Company A, 116th Inf. Reg., 29th Division, First Wave, Normandy France, June 6th,1944. #ww2 #zerofoxtrot #stayzero #dday