D-Day continues ... and it isn't pretty

This continues Bill Stigall's account of D-Day in Shower of Frogs.

Chapter 13 ...

This was the beginning of the worst twenty-four hours in my life. I was sick with fear. I hoped to God they would not come through. Hours passed. I waited. I tried to get some information.

Flashes of fire seemed to be mostly from one direction, so I determined that that must be the way. It was pitch dark and almost any sound was amplified by uncertainty and apprehension. I would have given anything to get out of that situation.

If this was what war is like, I didn't want any more. I thought of those I loved and wondered if I would ever see them again. I felt there was a good possibility that when the moment came I would freeze and never fire a shot. I didn't know whether to move about, to find someone from my squad, or stay where I was. I realized that I was above ground lying beside my jeep, which was completely stupid, especially after all the holes I had dug. But I thought I still couldn't chance it now. I had to watch.

Very late in the afternoon help came through. A group of paratroopers and some artillery support eased the situation. We discovered that we had wandered into a trap and were separated from the main body of our outfit. Since this was my first real experience in a combat area, I did not have the slightest idea what was happening. Nor did any of my squad. We spent the night in the same place, but the worst had passed. I went out on the road beside the orchard to talk to a para trooper. If memory serves, we swapped rifles. He had a carbine. The Browning automatic would, I thought, be much more helpful in his hands than in mine.

In the gullies beside the hedgerows, on each side of the road, about every twenty feet, lay an American soldier. Few seemed much more than asleep; this was my first reaction. I soon realized my mistake as I saw so many lying still in various positions of silence. I was so caught up in the pushing on of the action that no such emotion as sorrow or hate or anger or pleasure (at seeing German dead) rose in me.

My first sight of the contemptible bastards who brought me to that sickening scene, that putrid spot, was that of dead German bodies in the fields of Normandy. I was surprised to see them. I had also been surprised to see the American dead. I was further surprised that there was no emotion about seeing either - merely observed. It was as if I were a camera equipped for smell, taking pictures. What can one feel in such a situation?

... and it goes on