What an absolute death trap. Ropes of machine gun tracer fire everywhere, mines on the beach, c-wire laid down, artillery and mortars exploding everywhere. The courage it would have taken to even move a muscle once the ramp dropped….
I took a battlefield tour of the Normandy sites of interest ten years ago. The tour guide had been running tours there for over thirty years. He said that when he started, some vets would come back every year to remember, some once every few years.
He told the story of a German vet who manned one of the MG42s in the bunkers. The vet said he stopped firing and ran when he could see the whites of their eyes. Historians of the D-DAY landings have attributed 1200 casualties from this guy’s bunker on Utah beach.
The guide said this veteran couldn’t get through his story without crying.
Imagine being one of the unlucky ones. You are physically fit, trained hard, and know all there is to know about combat. Then the ramp drops and you are instantly killed by a MG42 before you have a single chance to put anything you learned or trained for into action.
CorsairObsidian on June 5th, 2024 at 19:02 UTC »
What an absolute death trap. Ropes of machine gun tracer fire everywhere, mines on the beach, c-wire laid down, artillery and mortars exploding everywhere. The courage it would have taken to even move a muscle once the ramp dropped….
Serpico2 on June 5th, 2024 at 20:15 UTC »
I took a battlefield tour of the Normandy sites of interest ten years ago. The tour guide had been running tours there for over thirty years. He said that when he started, some vets would come back every year to remember, some once every few years.
He told the story of a German vet who manned one of the MG42s in the bunkers. The vet said he stopped firing and ran when he could see the whites of their eyes. Historians of the D-DAY landings have attributed 1200 casualties from this guy’s bunker on Utah beach.
The guide said this veteran couldn’t get through his story without crying.
_aware on June 5th, 2024 at 20:19 UTC »
Imagine being one of the unlucky ones. You are physically fit, trained hard, and know all there is to know about combat. Then the ramp drops and you are instantly killed by a MG42 before you have a single chance to put anything you learned or trained for into action.