The Final Salute: National D-Day Memorial June 4-9, 2019 - 15

In Slaughter's boat, the British coxswain tried
to dump the men in deep water until a sergeant
pulled his .45, pressed it against the sailor's head
and ordered him to take the men all the way in.
That was when Slaughter saw the first of the day's
horrors: the boat ahead peppered by shells and
tracer bullets. In one craft, a single survivor. The
first man in his own boat crushed by the flailing
ramp as he tried to disembark. GIs around him
drowning from the weight of their 60-pound
packs and extra 30 to 50 pounds of mortar and
machine gun parts and ammunition.
And worse.
"There were dead men floating in the water
and others acting dead, both coming in on the
tide," Slaughter recalled.
"Men were screaming. The water was turning
red."

Stepping into Hell

Beating tHe BeacH
In the midst of this carnage, Slaughter's long legs
were a blessing and a curse.
On one hand, they made him an unmistakable target. On the other, they helped him cross
the open, unsheltered beach quickly, crouched
low and followed by his number-one gunner.
And though he stumbled and discharged his
rifle, he got to the sea wall with three others.
Miraculously, he was uninjured. But when he
took off his assault jacket and raincoat to clean
his sand-jammed rifle, he shook at what he saw.
The cloth was riddled with bullet holes.
In the unforgiving world of war, he should
have been dead.
Incredibly, he was exactly where he was supposed to be: opposite the Vierville Draw.
Slaughter and his men made their way to the
base of the bluffs, pieced together a working
machine gun using their tripod and another soldier's receiver, and, with another survivor, took
a radio from a dead naval officer's body to call a
destroyer and direct fire to the German bunkers
nearby. Soon, the group reached the safety of
the hilltop and decided to take turns scavenging
the beach for abandoned weapons and
supplies.

Bob Slaughter is among
these soldiers learning
combat skills at a
Scottish camp before
the D-Day Invasion.

Once out of the boat, he helped a private sinking
with machine gun ammo. Others grabbed him
in such frenzy he thought they'd pull him under
before he inflated his Mae West life preserver
and swam ashore. He rested for a moment
behind one of the jagged obstacles the Germans
had placed on the beach to tear apart unsuspecting boats but realized he was
standing beneath a mined
piling. Here he watched
"We were all sick, wet, miserable, bailing with our helmets,
while a soldier stumbled,
deaf from the guns, chilled from the wind and all I could
took machine gun fire and
think was, "Just get us in there. Nothing could be worse than
screamed for a medic, who
was quickly shot trying to
this," he said in 2002. "Of course, I was very, very wrong."
assist him. Moments later,
they both died screaming.
Close by, one of his men begged for
assurance.
"Slaughter, are we going to get through all
this?"
It was a natural response.
Many of D-Day's 6,000 American casualties
occurred on Omaha Beach. While Utah Beach
met less resistance, 2,500 of the 34,000 troops
at Omaha were casualties. Virginia's 116th
Infantry Regiment and the 16th Regiment of the
Regular Army 1st ("Big Red One") Division
spearheaded the assault. First Battalion's
Company A lost 91 men killed or missing and
most others badly wounded. Twenty from
Bedford died and the 116th Infantry Regiment
suffered one-third casualties, the highest of any
regimental combat team that day.
75TH ANNIVERSARY

The Final Salute: National D-Day Memorial June 4-9, 2019

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of The Final Salute: National D-Day Memorial June 4-9, 2019