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[background music]

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You see, we got loaded up on the LCAs

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off the transport, the steamers,

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at four o'clock in the morning.

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As our LCAs landed and the ramps went down,

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we pushed buttons on our switchboard that
we had at the gunwale.

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That set off these rockets

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that had launchers along the gunwales of the
LCAs.

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Those rockets would sail up there, 150 feet...

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These were all 100-foot cliffs.

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Fall behind the lines,

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grab into the earth,

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and we would pull on them down on the beach,

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and that would secure them so we could hand
over and climb the 100 feet straight up.

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We got up there and fought our way through
the Germans to the gun positions.

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Then when we got to the positions where our
three guns who were supposed to be, these

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big coastal howitzers, they weren't there.

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There were nothing but telephone poles sticking
out of these immense emplacements.

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Sergeant Kuhn and I went looking for the guns.

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We just happened upon this little road that
ran from the coast road along the English

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Channel.

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It ran inland, and it looked like wagon marks
or something on the dirt road between these

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mammoth hedgerows, nine feet tall.

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Sergeant Kuhn, my platoon sergeant and I,
leapfrogged, that is to say, I'd run up 50

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feet and looked over the hedgerows and see
what I could find any evidence of any guns.

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I'd hold that position whereas he'd run up
and catch up and take over the position.

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Then I ran the other 50 feet.

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We kept doing this, protecting each other,
never knowing if we're going to run into a

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machine gun nest or something.

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As luck would have it, within the first couple
hundred feet, we came to this hedgerow and

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it was my turn to peer over it, and examine
what lay on the other side, and there were

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the guns.

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By 8:30 in the morning, we had destroyed those
guns so they could not be used and got back

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to our road block men.

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We fought there for two days, to D plus two,
when we were relieved.

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We had heavy casualties.

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I think out of 65 men, I had 15 men left,
but those of us that did survive, of course,

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were just plain lucky.

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We knew what were doing and we accomplished
the mission by 8:30 in the morning of D-day.

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[music]