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Watched a show yesterday on The Military Channel called "Surviving D-Day". Good show I'd never seen before, and learned a lot that I'd never heard of before.
Such as the fact the soldiers that were going ashore were given a huge breakfast on-ship before the landings as a treat and to give them extra energy, but the rough seas in the landing crafts made them sicker than hell which made them vomit and weakened them considerably. The LC's were not only swamped with seawater, but puke too.
I knew a lot of men drowned in the landings, but I didn't know that many had jumped over the sides of the LC's to escape the murderous MG42 fire coming into the fronts of the LC's, and they jumped into deeper water and drowned because of all their gear.
And I knew the Germans had flooded a lot of fields and farmland, but I didn't realize how many Allied parachutists had drowned in those flooded fields.
They never mentioned all these things in the war movies I grew up with.....
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My dad was in 2nd Division Rangers. They went up the cliffs. His was the 3rd boat to hit the beach. 135 men started 65 were still walking 3 days later. Him and his platioon did 19 missions behind enemy lines for recon and capture enemy. Till the day he died he had nightmares and you could not touch him in his sleep. He never spoke of the war, what he saw and would not watch a war movie. He was not perfect but he was my hero
