The 2nd of June, 1944

German troops placing beach obstacles.
(Source)

The young German Landser¹ took up his position behind the gunner and the assistant gunner. His sergeant jokingly described the young fellow as the assistant to the assistant go-fer. He had one job, fetch ammunition for the tripod mounted MG-42 machine gun which provided flank protection for the 75 mm cannon in the bunker nearby.

The cannon was aimed down a long stretch of beach, the gunners couldn't see out to sea, the benefit was that anything out at sea, like a warship, couldn't see them either. Their machine gun position had a panoramic view out to sea, to both flanks, and (in a pinch) they could re-locate the gun to fire to the rear of their position as well. But, as the sergeant said, "If the Amis or the Tommies get behind us, then we don't need to worry, because we are already dead at that point."

Grenadier Horst Mellanthin, from a small village in the Rheinland, very close to the Dutch border, had been in the Army only three months. He had been drafted shortly after his seventeenth birthday. He came from a long line of draftees! His grandfather had been a farmer until he was drafted in 1913, then killed in action at Verdun in 1916. His father had been a farmer as well. Drafted into the Army in 1943, after the fall of Stalingrad, at the ripe old age of 37, his father had lost an arm outside of Leningrad in late 1943. Now it was Horst's turn to serve Germany, as his grandmother liked to put it. Easy for her to say, she didn't have to put on a uniform.

Though to be fair, his Oma² lived in Aachen, which had already seen a number of bombing raids. She didn't need to wear a uniform to be at risk!

Horst was exhausted, they worked all day planting beach obstacles, laying mines, and digging fighting positions. He hadn't fired his rifle since training back in April, even then they had only fired maybe fifty rounds. The Reich seemed to be running out of everything. He had asked his sergeant about that, he was told that he was lucky to be in France. The alternative, Russia, didn't appeal to him at all. All his father had ever said of the place, when he wasn't drunk, was that the Russians weren't humans and that they lived in the coldest place on Earth. No, papa did not like Russia or the Russians.

Who could blame him?

"Mellanthin, wake up! Go down to the armory and grab two more boxes of ammo!"

Wearily Horst got to his feet and headed for the ammunition storage. It was going to be a long night.

Rehearsing for the invasion, Slapton Sands
U.S. Army Signal Corps Photo

Private Jack Wilson of Tucson, Arizona was in the best shape of his life. They had just completed a twenty mile route march the other day with full field gear. Six months before that the young draftee would have been lucky to get through a five-mile hike in his gym shorts. The Army had toughened him up a lot.

As he cleaned his M-1 Garand, he realized that he had probably put well over a thousand rounds through his rifle in the past couple of months. Seems all they did was march, shoot, and go out on field problems. Now that was ending, they had moved closer to the coast and were now restricted to their camp. Not enough room for long marches, but plenty of room for calisthenics and endless classroom lectures. Though he'd rather be out in the field than in a classroom, he sensed that something big was about to happen.

Maybe they really were going to invade France! While he wasn't looking forward to boarding an LST³ again, he always got seasick, he was looking forward to seeing action for the first time. His sergeant, who had seen action in North Africa and in Sicily, told him that he would soon see all the action he could handle, and then some. "Come see me a week or two into things, if you're still alive, and tell me again how you can't wait to see action. You're just a f**king kid."

Well, I suppose I am, Jack thought, but still, this waiting is getting on my nerves. At least his outfit hadn't been at Slapton Sands back in April. He'd heard that that had been completely FUBAR'ed⁴, German E-Boats charging in, sinking LSTs left and right. Word was that a few thousand GIs had been killed in that mess. What would prevent the Krauts and their E-Boats doing that again when the big day arrived?

"Hey, Jack, let's go get some chow! Someone said they're serving us steak tonight!"

Jack got up and followed his buddy Bill Brandt out of the tent. Truth be told, he was hungry.

And so begins a small fictional interlude here at The Chant. The Sixth of June approaches, the 76th anniversary of the Invasion of Normandy. I thought I'd share a little something to remember those who fought there, especially those who died there. On both sides.



¹ Schütze - Yesterday I had Horst at this rank, the Germans stopped using that in 1942, the switched to Grenadier, same in English as in German, still a private, still the lowest rank in the infantry.
² Oma - Granny
³ LST - Landing Ship Tank
⁴ FUBAR - F**ked Up Beyond All Recognition