D-Day Ch. 3

Finished screwing her husband in the blockhouse, Gerta dressed and joined Harry, sitting on the roof. They held each other, arm-in-arm, for a long time, just watching the beach and the ocean.

Then, they heard voices coming up the trail. A group of tourists appeared, with their cameras and binoculars. The tourists spoke German....

....Now that he was reasonably safe, Chambers' adrenaline stopped pumping and his wounds began to throb. Mueller told him to sit down and take it easy on the roof of the blockhouse.

As more German positions were captured, more and more GI's reached the top of the bluff. Mueller directed them forward, as ordered, while Chambers scrounged cigarettes, K-rations, and ammunition. But no where could they find a medic.

There were long delays between arrivals. While they waited, Mueller told Chambers his story. He was from Chicago, the son of immigrant parents. He grew up speaking fluent German, so when the Army drafted him, he was assigned to military intelligence as an interpreter and interrogator.

Mueller came ashore on Omaha with the third invasion wave, expecting to find Kraut prisoners to interrogate. But all he found was chaos. So he grabbed a rifle and fought like infantry.

Incredibly, he got off the beach without a scratch - but on the way up the bluff, he bumped into a trio of Krauts at a machine-gun emplacement. He shot two but the third one charged. They fought briefly hand-to-hand. That's when Mueller lost a chunk of his ear and a piece of his arm. "How'd you kill him?" Chambers asked. "Another GI came along," Mueller answered.

With night coming, and the sound of fire-fights all around, the men decided it would be safer inside the blockhouse. Tomorrow, they'd go back to the beach and find a medic. But tonight, it was too hazardous to move.

Mueller and Chambers entered the blockhouse and removed the German corpses, rolling each down hill. They brought in their equipment and settled in for the night. In the twilight, Chambers looked through the machine-gun slit to see the bluff, the road, the beach, and the ocean. "Christ, no wonder we caught hell," he exclaimed. "The damn Krauts could see everything."

Mueller and Chambers agreed to split guard duty - two hours on, two hours off. To break the monotony, Chambers carved grafitti in the cement wall. Since he was from Detroit, Chambers decided to carve the town's nickname - "Motown."

To Be Continued...