D DAY Through German Eyes - The Hidden Story of June 6th 1944 by Eckhertz Holger

Author:Eckhertz, Holger [Eckhertz, Holger]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: DTZ History Publications
Published: 2015-04-09T04:00:00+00:00

What was your feeling, this being your first time in action, and participating in the killing of these men?

I was not aware of feelings. I knew that we had to stop these troops getting onto our territory, and we had the weapons to do this. Frankly, I felt a certain pride in the skill of the MG gunner, who used his gun very effectively. He was able to pin men down on the beach, forcing them to hide behind beached craft or the vehicles which were coming off the ramps, stopping them forming up and moving. In some cases, these isolated men were then hit by our 88mm fire, and the sand was thrown up a great distance into the air where the shells struck; also many pieces of men and machinery.

I remember that one landing craft was hit by 88mm as it approached the shore at speed; for some reason it then could not stop, and it crashed up onto the sand burning from the rear. Its hull struck a group of men wading ashore and crushed them down completely, utterly demolished them. I felt sick at that sight for the first time, but I continued to feed the ammunition belts to the gun.

The vessels further out at sea began to fire on us again, and more of the naval shells came down on us, the large warship rounds which we could hear approaching. I saw one of these rounds hit the ground in front of our bunker and bounce off without exploding, tumbling end over end up over our roof. But other shells hit our bunker exactly, and I believe one of them hit our 88mm positions, because those guns ceased firing for some time. I heard shouting and yelling from inside the bunker, and men calling for fire-fighting equipment. There was nothing I could do about that, so I remained at my post feeding the belts to the gun.

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