"Remembering D-Day"
|
June 27, 1944
|
|
On D-Day plus
21, Private Art stormed onto Omaha Beach, helmet and khaki clad, with
appropriate back pack, gun and ammo, ready to meet the foe. Luckily, the
foe had been driven back 7 miles by then, so he and comrades piled into
jeeps and drove to Caen, a city in Normandy.
And the rest is history. Private Art relates that when they arrived
there, he remembered thinking that a week or so before, he visited Stone
Henge and went back to a warm house with food to wit, going to movies,
listening to the radio and socializing with the residents of Port
Sunlight. Now 'here I was, watching tracer bullets in the distance, with
no shelter, watching tanks firing, and I slept under a tree on my first
night there. Not a safe place to be. What a transition!'.
The next day one of his company buddies, Campbell by name, overwhelmed
by the radical change in the company status, shot himself in the foot.
He was transported back to the hospital area. Eventually, PA saw him
back in England. It is vague what became Campbell's ultimate fate.The
man had fathered an English child, and proudly displayed the picture to
any GI who would be interested. Campbell made a hit in England (in more
ways than one), because his last name was a familiar one to Scotch as
well as English citizens.
Rose Pranger
(6/5/98)
|
|
