"All the men who had landed earlier were present except for a handful who had made their way forward, most of them being killed. The beach was total chaos with men's bodies everywhere, with wounded men crying, both in the water and on the shingle. Men crying with fear, men defecating themselves, too petrified the move. No one was doing a thing except lay there, it was like a mass paralysis.
The beach sounded like a bee hive with the bullets flying around you. You could hear them hit, hear them flying through the air.
At one point something hit me on the arm, I thought I taken a bullet, but it was somebody's hand taken clean off by something...it was too much." - Cpt. Joseph T. Dawson, age 30, 16th Infantry Regiment, 1st Inf. Div. Omaha Beach, Normandy, France, June 6th, 1944. #stayzero #zerofoxtrot #ww2