Ryan, Cornelius - The Longest Day: June 6, 1944 by Ryan Cornelius

Ryan, Cornelius - The Longest Day: June 6, 1944 by Ryan Cornelius

Author:Ryan, Cornelius [Ryan, Cornelius]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: General, History, Military, Europe, France, military history, War, World War II, World War, 1939-1945, History: World, Military History - World War II, Military - World War II, Second World War, World history: Second World War, History - Military, General & world history, Campaigns, Normandy (France), Normandy, Warfare & defence
ISBN: 9780671890919
Publisher: New York : Simon and Schuster, 1994.
Published: 1994-05-01T04:00:00+00:00


* * *

The last explosion was very near. Major Werner Pluskat thought the bunker was shaking itself apart. Another shell hit the cliff face at the very base of the hidden position. The shock of it spun Pluskat around and hurled him backward. He fell heavily to the ground. Dust, dirt and concrete splinters showered about him. He couldn’t see through the clouds of white dust, but he could hear his men shouting. Again and again shells smashed into the cliff. Pluskat was so dazed by the concussion that he could hardly speak.

The phone was ringing. It was the 352nd Division headquarters.

“What’s the situation?” a voice asked.

“We’re being shelled,” Pluskat managed to say, “heavily shelled.”

Somewhere far behind his position he now heard bombs exploding. Another salvo of shells landed on the cliff top, sending an avalanche of earth and stones in through the bunker’s apertures. The phone rang again. This time Pluskat couldn’t find it. He let it ring. He noticed that he was covered from head to foot with a fine white dust and his uniform was ripped.

For a moment the shelling lifted and through the thick haze of dust Pluskat saw Theen and Wilkening on the concrete floor. He yelled to Wilkening, “Better get to your position while you have a chance.” Wilkening looked glumly at Pluskat—his observation post was in the next bunker, some distance away. Pluskat took advantage of the lull to phone his batteries. To his amazement not one of his twenty guns—all brand-new Krupps of various calibers—had been hit. He could not see how the batteries, only half a mile or so from the coast, had escaped; there were not even any casualties among the crews. Pluskat began to wonder if observation posts along the coast were being mistaken for gun positions. The damage around his own post seemed to indicate it.

The phone rang just as the shelling began again. The same voice he had heard earlier demanded to know “the exact location of the shelling.”

“For God’s sake,” Pluskat yelled, “they’re falling all over. What do you want me to do—go out and measure the holes with a ruler?” He banged down the phone and looked around him. Nobody in the bunker seemed to be hurt. Wilkening had already left for his own bunker;

Theen was at one of the apertures. Then Pluskat noticed that Harras was gone. But he had little time to bother about the big dog now. He picked up the phone again, walked over to the second aperture and looked out. There seemed to be even more assault boats in the water than when he had last looked, and they were closer now. Soon they would be in range.

He called Colonel Ocker at regimental headquarters. “All my guns are intact,” he reported.

“Good,” said Ocker, “now you’d better get back to your headquarters immediately.”

Pluskat rang his gunnery officers. “I’m going back,” he told them. “Remember, no guns must fire until the enemy reaches the water’s edge.”

The landing craft carrying U.s. 1/ Division troops to their sector on Omaha Beach had not far to go now.



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