JJ Mills: Sniper incident

Another boy named McDaniel and I was walking along inland from the Omaha beach landing, it was late in the evening and not much light, this was about D+1 and we were about 3 feet apart, when we heard a zzzz past our heads and then the sound of a gun. I ask Mac if he heard that go by our heads and he said "yes I did". We turned and looked toward where we thought it came from but no more shots came. It was a sniper and they most usually don't shoot more than once, for fear of giving away their hiding place, unless their target is worth the risk.

Vierville-sur Mer; Victor Miller

Early in the morning I was awakened by our Captain Edward Luther calling 'Baseplate'! The captain asked if there was room in my trench for him and I said no, so he said I had better come to him. Stray bullets were flying around occasionally.

He told me the Germans had infiltrated back into Vierville and we should go back and clean it out. So we all went. (and I am happy I lived through it.) At some point I was outside the wall around that part of town and was being fired on by a sniper. I was trying to find him when a newly arrived GI called over the wall demanding to know who was there. He then demanded I get up and come in or he would throw over a grenade. So the choice was mine. Stand up and get shot or stay down and get a grenade? Finally I talked him out of throwing one.

Later that day when we had left Vierville again we headed west. We were on the road when we came across a gap in a hedgerow and we had to pass it. Back in the distance was a German sniper dug into another hedgerow wit a good sight at that gap. Some 3 or 4 dead GI's there attested to his accuracy. It was a relief to dash across and find that you were still alive!

We spend a cold showery night out in the field and continued our advance the next morning towards Point du Hoc. Along the way we took quite a few prisoners. Several captive nation personnel seemed to be rather happy to surrender. We reached the rangers that had climbed the rocks at Pointe du Hoc on d-day and learned from them that the had found the emplacements of which we had been shown pictures in training empty and had disabled the guns that had been moved to the back, right under the noses of their operators.

Mike McKinney, 1st Inf. Div.: Connecting with the British

On June the seventh, late in the afternoon, I got orders to take out a combat patrol and try to contact the British who had landed on a beach several miles to the east of us. We were east of Colleville, on the far east of Omaha Beach and went up the cliff into a field. The coast consisted of high cliffs at this point, so we traveled a bit further inland. I had a bunch of riflemen with men, a BAR-man) and a light machine-gunner. When we had crossed the field, we saw a sign. We went over to it, to see if there were any directions on it, but in staid of that we found out that we had just walked through a minefield! That took a little itch off. After a while we did find British troops. They had a half-track with them and when they saw us coming they yelled at us: "How are ya Yank? Cup of tea?" We sat with them and they took out their little Tommy-cookers, to boil a pot of water and we had a cup of tea. It started to get dark by that time and we decided to stay with the British overnight. When the sun came up the next morning, we headed back to our own lines and reported back to our company. It would take one more day before the British and American forces could establish a link between Omaha and the British beachheads