World War II: A Photographic Record of the War in Europe from D-Day to V-E Day

228 Pages·1962·31.156 MB·English

by  Ralph Martin & Richard Harrity

^k FawcettGoldMedalBook
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RECORD OF rOE
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Memorably uuu.v.,l,v pictures by Signal Corps combat photogra-
phers and army artists, with a commentary from YANK Magazine.
by RALPH G. MARTIN AND RICHARD HARRITY
1 t
To the combat photographers of the Second
i;
World War—of the U. S. Army Signal Corps, Air
Corps, Navy, Coast Guard and Marines, and those
;
h of Yank, The Army Weekly and The Stars and
f: Stripes—who were killed while recording Ameri-
can history, during World War II.
I
A PHOTOGRAPHIC RECORD
From D-Day
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GOLD MEDAL BOOKI
II
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DF THE WAR IN EUROPE
to V-E Day
Fawcett Publications,Inc.,Greenwich, Conn.
IMember of American Boole Publishers Council, Inc.
©
Copyright 1962by FawcettPublications, Inc.
All rights reserved, includingthe rightto reproduce
this book or portions thereof.
Printed in the United States of America
Acknowledgments
Gur deep appreciation to Lt. Col. Hubert Van Kan of
J.
the Office of the Chief of Information of the U. S. Army
and his staff, including Mrs. Donna Traxler, Edna Curcio
and Marian Ulmer of the Army Photo Agency Library. Also
Major Howard G. Stevenson and Major Ralph T. Hauert
of the U. S. Army Information Service and Captain Anne
Curtin. Our special thanks too to Col. Robert B. Randle,
Lt. Col. Edward Scheiber and Samuel Besner of the U. S.
Army Pictorial Center and their staff: Theodore Vasko,
Melvin Siegel, Louie Aaron, Nicholas Falco, Lester Binger,
Pvt. Clifford H. Dorow, John Robertson Henry, Thomas
E. Spriggs. Added thanks to Chief Signal Corps Historian
George Thompson.
Our personal thanks to Romana Javitz and her staff at
the New York Public Library Picture Collection: Louise
Leak, Francisca Gay Schacht, Marion Weithorn. Added
thanks to Jack Green.
We
also wish to extend thanks to Pat Coffey, George
Baker and Tom Flannery for their kindness in permitting
us to use their material and to the public relations staffs of
the U. S. Army, Navy, AirCorps, Coast Guard and Marines
for permitting us to select and use these pictures in this
book.
For Shirley Green and Richard Craven, ourdeep appreci-
ation, as always.
Ralph G. Martin
And Richard Harrity

Part
I
From D-Day to St. Lo
Most of the plans were neatly filed in a fat folder
labelled ^'Operation, Overlord/' Everything had been
figured out, on paper. There would be so many personnel
and vehicles on so many boats, so much ammo, so many
rations, so many stretchers. Each truck would have its
gas tank full, carry enough extra for a 150-mile trip, and
each soldier would carry a K and a D ration. All oflBcers
would send their trunk-lockers to storage.
There had been dry run after dry run, with soldiers
seldom sure whether or not it was the real thing. There
had been a final date set, and changed, postponed a day
because of bad weather. It all depended on weather, tide
and what the moon looked like.
This was the plan:
Simultaneous landings on two main beaches: near St.
Laurent-sur-Mer on the northern coast of Calvados, and
near Varreville on the southern part of the east coast
of the Cotentin Peninsula; with two airborne divisions
dropping inland the night before around Ste. Mere-Eglise.
The British and Canadians would come in north of Caen
near Le Havre.
There would also be a one-hour air bombardment and
continuous naval bombardment of the 16 German coastal
guns and the myriad of six-foot-thick concrete pillboxes,
things the Nazis called '"Widerstandsnests." And there
would be three companies of Rangers going in to destroy
a battery of big German guns at Pointe du Hoc, which
commanded both beaches. And there would be engineer
special brigades with the big job of blowing gaps in the
thick concrete wall lining the beach, cutting through
From D-Day to St. Lo
the rows of barbed wire, bulldozing roads out of nothing,
anAdccsowredeipninggttoheCmOinSeSs.AC (Chiefs of, ^Staf,fr of^ .t.h.e cSu-
preme Allied Command), there would be a maximum
of five German infantry divisions and one panzer division
along our whole front on D-Day.
It was there iii the folder, everything you could think
of Somebody had even sat down with a pencil and paper
and figured out that by D plus 10 we would have had
43,586 casualties.
m
An invasion ship is a lonely ship. Down below an
LST you sit and sweat and nobody says anything because
there is nothing to say. You look around and wonder
who will be dead soon. Will it be that taJI, tough-Iooking
sergeant busy double-checking his rifle; or the guy
stretched out in his upper bunk who keeps praying aloud
all the time; or the kid sitting next to you who wet his
pants? Who will be dead soon.?
Then the thought comes, swelling inside of you, a huge
fist oi fear socking at your gut, hammering and ham-
mering "Maybe it's me. Maybe I'll be dead soon
COMMUNIQUE NO. 1, Tuesday, June 6, 1944:
"Under the command of General Eisenhower, Allied
naval forces, supported by strong air forces, began landing
Allied Armies this morning on the northern coast of
France.'^
The sea was choppy, and Omaha Beach was a long
seven miles away when the first wave of the 1st and 29th
Com-
Division soldiers lowered into their assault boats.
ing in, there was Allied naval gunfire bursting all along
medium and fighter-bombers swoop-
the beaches; large,
ing down by the dozens, dropping their loads on gun
positions, troop concentrations, coastal batteries, bridges,
highways, railroads.
j
With so much air-navy pounding, everything ilooiked
easier. Some even thought that it might be a w^lk-in.
But nobody walked. They came in running fast, falling