D-Day. The Battle for Normandy

were. By the time they did, the 275th Infanterie-Division and the German 3rd Paratroop Division had begun to arrive from Brittany. The American objective of Saint-Lô would not be taken for just over a month of bitter fighting through the hedgerows of the bocage .
    To their west, Heydte’s 6th Paratroop Regiment and the 17th SS Panzergrenadier-Division Götz von Berlichingen had established a defensive line on either side of the Carentan-Périers road. But the breakthrough the Germans feared there did not take place. The Allies had a much higher priority: the capture of the port of Cherbourg to speed their resupply.
    The build-up of forces was already proceeding apace. In a triumph of American organization and industry, Omaha beach had been transformed. ‘Within a week after D-Day,’ wrote a naval officer, ‘the beach resembled Coney Island on a hot Sunday. Thousands of men were at work, including Sea-Bees, Army engineers and French labourers. Big and little bulldozers were busy widening roads, levelling ground and hauling wreckage.’ Before the end of June, Omaha beach command had a total strength of just over 20,000 officers and men, the bulk of them in the 5th and 6th Engineer Special Brigades. DUKWs ferried back and forth through the water with supplies and personnel. Once the beach was out of range of German artillery, then the landing ship tanks beached at low tide to disgorge more vehicles. When they opened their bow doors and dropped their ramps, according to one eyewitness, the strange grey vessel looked like a whale shark. ‘Jeeps bearing staff officers were as common as yellow cabs in the heart of New York,’ wrote the same naval officer. And ‘large groups of German prisoners could be spotted here and there awaiting removal via LST’.
    On the beach, a sergeant in the 6th Engineer Special Brigade recounted how, when they were escorting some prisoners to a stockade, paratroopers from the 101st Airborne started to yell, ‘Turn those prisoners over to us. Turn them over to us! We know what to do with them!’ A member of a naval combat demolition unit saw the same or a similar incident. ‘Those wounded paratroopers were trying to do anything they could to get to those German prisoners. I guess they had been mistreated very badly in the rear or something. Bloody or not they were still ready to do more fighting if they could have gotten to those Germans.’
    Unfortunately, wounded American airborne troops were evacuated on the same vessels as prisoners. An officer on LST 134 recorded, ‘We had an incident where we had some paratroop soldiers and prisoners aboard, and I don’t know what happened but I understand one or two Germans got killed.’ On LST 44, a pharmacist’s mate experienced a similarly tense encounter: ‘One of our ship’s officers started to herd these prisoners into the same area where I was helping tend some shell-shocked and wounded American soldiers. The immediate reaction of our troops was frightening and fierce. The situation was explosive. For the first and only time, I refused entry and demanded our officer stop sending the captured troops into this area. Our lieutenant looked surprised and extremely angry, but grudgingly complied.’
    The LSTs were specially equipped for bringing wounded back to base hospitals in England. ‘There were stretchers placed on brackets on the bulkheads of the tank deck,’ noted the same pharmacist’s mate, ‘and they were several tiers high.’ Some of the wounded prisoners of war were in a terrible state. ‘A German prisoner brought aboard on a stretcher had a body cast extending from his ankles to his chest. He was pleading with me and our ship’s doctor for help. He called us, “Comrade, comrade.” Our ship’s doctor, with my assistance, opened the cast, only to find this pitiful human being was being eaten by hordes of maggots. We removed the cast, cleaned him, bathed him, gave him pain killers. We were too late. He died peacefully that evening.’
    Both at Utah and at Omaha, rear troops and sailors were as desperate as front-line soldiers to get their hands on war souvenirs. According to a Coast Guard officer on the USS Bayfield , souvenir hunters bartered away furiously for German medals and badges of rank. Many prisoners of war, still fearing execution as their commanders had warned them, handed them over with little protest. On land, the most eagerly sought trophies were Luger pistols. If anyone wanted a Luger, one officer