I had an Uncle who was at Omaha beach. He was with the combat engineers. I'm not sure of the unit. Anyway, the combat engineers were in the first wave so that they could clear the obstacles for the following waves of landing craft. If you study history, you know that the first waves usually take 90% casualties. He never really talked about it other than to comment once in a while that "It was really bad." Anyway, he did tell one story about that day. When he first landed, he was running up the beach. "Bullets were flying everywhere." He saw a shell crater with about a dozen guys in it and room for one more. As he went to dive into it, another soldier shoved him out of the way and dove in there himself. My Uncle was like, "You Son of a Bitch!" and he continued up the beach. A short distance later, he found another hole to dive into. When he turned around in order to let the guy who shoved him know what he thought of him, he saw an artillery round land right in that hole that he was going to take cover in. He said that there was "Nothing left of those guys but a red smear." I believe he was 19 at the time.
"Rare D-Day Photo". It says D-Day. If it isn't, I don't want to corrupt history, so if you can find out more about it, much appreciated. It does makes sense because of the two smiling wise asses.
Just asking. Sometimes the photo's get mixed in the history books and doc's and was wondering if there was more info. You'd have to look up how German forces were dispersed at that time. I took a guess because they're so young and know young guys were used towards the end as the allies closed in, especially inside Germany. Don't recall young guys being used in German defensive positions in that area as D-Day unfolded but it's certainly possible as the main forces were in the east and in Italy
He passed away in 2007. Not a lot of WWII vets left. Any that are, are in their 90's. If you get a chance, see if any will pass on any stories because once they are gone... The only other story he told of the war was when they first encountered Jet aircraft. He said he was near an anti-aircraft unit and the shells kept bursting behind the plane no matter how much they adjusted. He said that they were all like, "What the hell is That!"