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Upstarts
Because a liberty ship is too deep in the water to get close to a beach, personnel and
vehicles are lightered ashore in landing craft of several varieties, all of which have flat, shallow
bottoms so that, theoretically, they can run right up onto the sand. So we had to wait our turn for
a landing craft. We waited all of D-Day, which wasn't bad, since we weren't scheduled to land
until D+ 1. But D+ 1 passed – slowly - and so did D+2. And finally, on the morning of D+3, a
Landing Craft, Tank (LCT) came alongside and the ship's crew started to off-load our equipment
into it.
I didn't get in the first LCT. Col. Costain and Captain Jacobs, the Headquarters Battery
commander, left in that one. Major Hughes was somewhere on shore already
he'd landed with
our regiment's first infantry waves on the afternoon of D Day. But we had no idea where he was,
and we knew that he had expected us on D+1. We had tried to contact him by radio from the ship
- and failed. My instructions when we hit shore were to find the 359th Infantry command post
and get the situation there, then to find Col Costain and/or what elements of our own battalion I
could and report what dope I had been able to get. You see, each of our batteries was on a
different ship, and we didn't know whether the firing batteries were ahead of us, behind us, or
where.
The second LCT finally came up alongside and started to load. My jeep was one of the
first to be loaded into it, toward the stern and away from the drawbridge that made up the front
end. Joe B. Davis, Sgt Johnson, and I went down the swinging rope ladder somewhat gingerly,
and backed it [the jeep] into place. The vehicles were packed in almost solid, so that you had to
step from vehicle to vehicle to get around.
The back seat of the jeep was packed with luggage almost to shoulder height, and Sgt
Johnson sat perched ‘way up on top of it all. I considered taking off my heavy musette bag and
hanging it somewhere on the vehicle instead of wearing it between my shoulder blades. Then I
thought again. Maybe something would happen, and we'd have to abandon the jeep quickly. I
might need the things in the bag. I compromised by sitting with it rested on the back of the seat,
leaned uncomfortably against my helmet.
Hours went by. They were still loading. I began to wonder if they would ever get the
LCT loaded. It didn't really look as if they would.
The sides of the craft were high and narrow so that all you could see was a patch of sky,
and on one side, the rail of the liberty ship, and every now and then another jeep dangling in
mid-air being loaded. From time to time you could hear the clatter of anti-aircraft fire, and once
in a while a plane came across my little vista. I wasn't really scared, but I was nervous with
anticipation and anxious to get ashore, where I was part of a fighting machine, instead of here,
where I was just so much vulnerable dead weight. Also, it was late afternoon, and I had been
wearing my full pack most of the day, so as to be ready without holding anything up. I cursed
myself for an eager beaver, because I really knew better. I had forgotten the ancient army adage:
Never run when you could walk, never walk when you could stand still, never stand still when
you could sit down, and never sit down when you could lie down.
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