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Across the Channel and Over the Beach
Our fleet was enormous, and each ship had its own barrage balloon bouncing overhead.
The last three nights we were attacked by planes - bombing mostly, because they couldn't get low
enough to strafe effectively on account of the balloons. The sailors looked at us and said, "We sure
feel sorry for you fellows' having to get out on that beach and fight." We turned a shade whiter and
answered, "Hurry up and get us ashore where it's safe. There isn't any place on this tub where you
can dig a foxhole." And they said, "Well, if that's the way you feel about it, we hope you get off
soon, so we can get the hell out of here!"
On the afternoon of D-day, I was on deck looking at the vast clusters of barrage balloons,
listening to the naval gunfire in the distance, and trying to figure out what was going on along the
faraway smoky shore when some idiot yelled, "GAS!"
I knew what to do. I held my breath and reached for the flap on my gas mask carrier. But the
carrier wasn't there. It was in the second mate's stateroom, where I had left it. Still holding my breath,
I headed back for it, noting as I went that there was a lot of panicky scrambling around on deck near
the top of the ladder to the hold. Everyone on deck had left his gas mask in the hold, and everyone in
the hold had left his on deck. The ladder was too narrow for two-way traffic. There was quite a little
bottle-neck.
Meanwhile I reached the stateroom just before collapsing from lack of air, found my mask,
and, dislodging several waterproofed packs of cigarettes stowed in the gas mask carrier for lack of
room in my musette bag, put it on with some difficulty over my bugged-out eyes. [The cigarette
packs were waterproofed by tying them in condoms. The system did not work well, for the sharp
corners punched holes in the rubber.]
And then I found, to my horror, that I had forgotten how to breathe! Strain and contort my
diaphragm as I would, I could not get any air into my lungs. Reeling from asphyxiation, I finally
remembered that waterproof patch across the end of the canister. Of course I couldn't breathe through
it. I clawed at it, trying to get a fingernail under a corner, but finally yanked the mask off in disgust,
and took a deep breath of fresh ocean air.
The effect of the oxygen was immediate. It enabled me to recall that you can't use poison gas
over water, because it sinks to the surface and is absorbed. I put away the mask and went out on deck
to help quell the panic, which was dying down by now anyhow. I remember our battalion
commander, Lt Col Costain, waving his own mask in the air and shouting to the men to stop making
jackasses of themselves.
Anyhow, we kept better track of our masks - at least for awhile. Lt Ray Wright claimed that
the ship's chief radio officer, whose stateroom he shared, slept in his all night. About as comfortable
as sleeping with your head in a hot water bottle.
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