Eugene

The morning of June 6, 1944, we can see the coast of Normandy. The artillery shells fall, plunging into the sea. Our LST is nearing the coast, everybody was nervous. Not because they are afraid of death, but because they wanted to kill as many Nazis as they can. Here we are, the ‘door’ opened. Everybody charges out. Bloody, the description for the first one who have charged out. “Up the cliff, men! Or we will all die down here!” ordered Sergeant McTaff. We shot up some anchored rope. They catched onto the barbed wire above. Everybody climbed up. But those Nazis, they show no mercies, shot them from above. “Private Heffling, get up the rope, or our men would die up there, now jump to it!” I climbed, the Nazis are still shooting at us from above, no one has got up yet, and no one has even touch the top alive yet. Halfway up there, and I could see some of our men who got up, alive. They began their hand to hand combat with the Nazis. Our men were pushed off the cliff, kick off, or just shot down. “Keep up the fight up there, you lots!” shouted Sergeant McTaff. The morale was low though, so it’s quite normal for that sarge to see us running for our life, but he is getting sick of it, ‘cause the reinforcement is going to arrive here soon, and they would die together with us too. Even the Germans have an army size two or three times our size, and as more people reached the top, the morale rised. There were hand-to-hand combat up there, then gun-to-gun fight. “Hold it up there for as long as you can, you can do it!” I reached the top without any fighting, pretty easy. There was a bunker, a Nazi bunker, mounted with an MG42, I try to crawl there without been spotted, slowly, slowly…The MG42 turned towards my direction. Oh shoot! It spotted me! I thought. Miraculously, non of that German's bullet hit me. He began to fire on the others. I think that the jerry inside doesn’t know that he didn’t hit me with any single bullet of his MG42. As the war continued, everything was getting even more bloody, I continued to do the ‘dirty job’ of crawling to that Nazi bunker. A few more centimeters to go, come on Heffling, you can do it. There, I manage to reach that bunker, whew! No one spotted me. Now where’s my grenades and charges? I put the charges on the bunker door. Quick! Get to cover! I threw a grenade in there just to make sure that it’s save. I walk in, slowly does it. Here’s another door, open it, there’s someone in there, two Nazis, they didn’t notice me coming, they only care about their MG42. I take out my Thompson, aim at the first Nazi’s head. Headshot, and now for the other one! Headshot... I took that MG42 and a MP44 inside the bunker, take it to the other side, and fire the MG42 at the Nazi reinforcement. As more Nazis come, the more I shoot. “Heffling! You take out the bunker all by yourself?!” asked Private Ferdinand. I continued my MG42 firing, and ordered, “Shut up and come help me flank of the jerries!” “Well…oh yes…of course!” he replied. Ferdinand is a Jew, he’s from France, but he is sort of nerdish, I would say. Ferdinand has an M1 Garand rifle, high recoil, but accurate though. We fire our guns together, every shot of Ferdinand’s rifle must hit, ‘cause he has only a few bullet in it, a few package of them, and even a single bullets worth more than him. The Nazis are coming in like hell, waves by waves. We only have about 32 mens left. I’m tired of shooting this Nazi gun (MG42), and it will be out of bullets soon. When will the reinforcements come? It’s more than 30 minutes since we land here on the beach. I thought. “Look! Panzers! We are done!” someone shouted. That’s done it, not even a panzershreck in that bunker, sheeit… I thought German Panzer fire her gun. Blast by blast, craters were formed. As I was firing my machine gun, a shell dropped down near Ferdinand, blewing us off ‘our’ mounted machine gun. Mortars! Now we are in a fine jam! I thought.

Ferdinand’s leg was badly injured, so I called out, “Medic! Medic!” Now one came, I wished that I would have died. So I planned to charge out, like crazy. Before I was about to charge, a buzzing sound came near. It’s a P-51, our flyers! The P-51 dropped a bomb onto the German Panzer. As more of the P-51 squadron came, the Nazis are on the run, the machine guns of our plane raged down the enemy, sparing no mercy! My morale rised. After the air-strike, the reinforcements arrive, Ferdinand was saved, food and supplies are sent, the .50cal was brought, no more Nazi gun. “Private Heffling, you are promoted fast to Sergeant!” Sergeant McTaff called out happily, “Well, I got a promotion too! Well, at least being a sergeant is good too! Oh yeah, you are in charge of Company E, or Excellent Company, farewell!” Wow, I actually got promoted to sergeant instead of corporal, more than what I want.