Chapter 11. Channel Crossing

Finally the day arrived:  orders to dress warmly, pack ditty bag, and board for the crossing.  Our transport was a medium-sized Norwegian cruise ship, quite elegant as built but converted for troop carrying.  I remember being in a walnut-walled lounge having a bridge orgy.  With the same three players all day and into the night we played on a high-legged table sitting up high―maybe on stacked bags that were there in the crowded lounge.

We couldn’t go on deck because that was our GIs’ territory.  They were packed in, standing by day and stretched out to sleep at night as I recall.  The Red Cross gals must have had bunks with the nurses down below decks for our one night aboard the cruiser.  Sometime during the darkness we sailed across the Channel.

In daylight, still out in the Channel, but with land in sight, small groups of us started peeling off into a few landing craft.  Finally it was our turn to be ferried closer to the Normandy Beach.  Vividly I recall sailing toward land and the breathtaking moment that the leading wooden end of our LCD dropped down to a cellar-door slant, whereupon 2 of us at a time sat down dangling our legs over the slant and balancing our packed ditty bags skyward, slid into the water.  It reached up to about 6 inches below my chin.  To my great relief, the water was a comfortable September tepid temperature.

Balance was the word as we carefully strode toward land through the calm water.  It was an emotional moment to reach Omaha Beach and look up at the very sand dunes from which Hitler’s forces mowed down so many of our troops on D-Day.  As we angled off to the right to climb up over the banks we still could see battle-related trash.  And I could not get away from the imagined noise and screams that still lingered on.

We had carried our metal mess kits, cups and cutlery and our water cans, as usual, with our ditty bags.  But that day I’m sure we ate only K-rations as we warmed ourselves and tried to dry our clothes on the grasses and sand atop the dunes.

Just at twilight the GIs set up individual pup tents for each of us.  I still remember how heavenly it seemed to have shelter and a place to rest my weary body.  Dry by then, I hit the sack at the first possible moment and sublimely fell asleep.