(4 of 14)
I look down. I can just make out rows of trees. I think to myself, This is France, and now I'm in combat. This is for real. I landed in a long, narrow field with two antiglider poles in it, and I hit hard and roll over on my back, tangled in my shroud lines. I see one chute go down behind the trees on the other side of the field, so I know that I'm not completely alone. I've landed on good solid ground. I lie in the grass trying to get out of my harness. In my mind's eye, I can see Germans running with fixed bayonets to kill me, and I'm having trouble with the harness buckles. To say I'm scared is an understatement. I reach down to my right ankle and pull out my trench knife and stick it in the ground beside me. I think at least a knife is better than no weapon at all. Then I unsnap my harness, untangle myself, stand up and run to the hedgerow where I saw the chute go down.
"Flash" was our code word, and countersign was "Thunder." We also had been given a child's cricket snapper. One snap was to be answered by two snaps ... or was it the other way around? "Oh, hell," I mutter. "Just snap the damn thing a few times." In reply, I get, "Look out, I'm coming over." He sounds good to me, and I say, "Come on."
The two of us went back across the field that I had landed in and found some troopers coming up the hedgerow. I didn't know who they were, but right now it didn't make any difference as long as I was with somebody. We moved north about 100 yds. and stopped. It was there I saw my first German. While we were stopped, I thought I'd have a look over the top of the hedgerow to see what was on the other side. I climbed up and slowly looked over, and as I did, a German on the other side raised up and looked over. I couldn't see his features, just a square silhouette of his helmet. We stood there looking at each other, then slowly each one of us went back down. I sat there wondering what to do about him. I could throw a grenade over, but I might kill more troopers than Germans. While I sat there thinking, we started to move again, so I left him sitting on his side of the hedgerow wondering what to do about me.
"MY UPPER JAW WAS SHATTERED; THE LEFT CHEEK WAS BLOWN OPEN." --Harold Baumgarten Baumgarten, 19, a rifleman with the 116th Infantry, was wounded five times during the battle for Omaha Beach
Having my college education and a good background in American history and wartime battles, I realized that it was not going to be easy, and I did not expect to come back alive. I wrote such to my sister in New York City--to get the mail before my parents and break the news gently to them when she received the telegram that I was no longer alive.
We left the marshaling area with full battle equipment, about 100 lbs. per man, and went in trucks to the huge seaport of Weymouth, England. That night we boarded a liberty ship, Empire Javelin, which was to carry us across the Channel to Normandy. The harbor of Weymouth was crowded with ships of every size, shape and description, most of them flying the Stars and Stripes. We had the old battleships Arkansas, Nevada and Texas with us. On the evening of June 5, the harbor came alive. I could see one ship signaling to the other that this was it.