The end of Bill Stigall's D-Day: Chapter 13 concludes

So we attacked again. We pushed on to a second attack. Eventually, with infernal slowness, we withdrew a short distance, but not before we encountered more artillery and machine-gun fire, not before we accumulated a few more casualties. We waited. The Robot bombs began falling on London, and rumors circulated that Germans, desperate to halt Allied attack, might use gas. But finally I started back, bit by bit. As a great crescendo of music starts with a small sound in the woodwinds, is picked up by a violin, then full violins, and with trumpets mounts to a full chord, so did I, bit by bit, partly in thoughts that it could not be the end for me, part in a small song sung, part in the right kind of smile from a passing soldier, joined by a warm cup of coffee, some food, and sleep that knits up the raveled sleeve of care, and partly the certain knowledge that I am to have no more of it. I started back. The trip, long and weary as it was, was sure, until finally we reached the coast.

There we paused in agonizing deliberation as to whether we go at that time or the next day, whether we go first or another outfit goes. But finally I boarded a battered Liberty ship. Although we are not yet out from the shore and until we were we were not safe, fortunate changes. I met an acquaintance from home who had been associated with the plays I had directed. He was a member of the crew and had made many crossings of the Channel. He asked after my health, supplied me with some candy bars, took me below deck, gave me several cakes of soap, and directed me to the showers. I had my first bath in thirty-five days. I came up on deck, where my friend had secured a cot for me.

We swapped war stories and talked about home. He told of the wounded his ship had taken back to England. I reported some statistics. Eleven percent casualties on the glider drop; over half of our officers dead, missing, or casualties; companies greatly depleted, one coming back with six men. I told him how grateful I was to be where I was and alive.

Late in the afternoon we moved from the shore. I sat on one of the hatches and watched the Normandy beaches disappear. A great deal of the original wreckage-sunken boats, iron and wire emplacements, equipment of all description-was still visible. It was countered by tents, moving men and vehicles, and the constant arrival and sailing of ships. On the beaches were antiaircraft installations, including giant barrage balloons anchored to ships or to the ground by a net of ropes. The great balloons were at the mercy of the coastal breezes. From out in the English Channel, as the coast disappeared, I watched the balloons dip and dive, gently swaying like dancers. They caught the bright July sun and shone a shining silver against the blue white-clouded sky of fair France.

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