LCVP Higgins Boats approach the sands of Omaha Beach, where men can be seen wading ashore under German fire. June 6, 1944.

by Iron_Cavalry

4 comments

  1. Knowing death and violence was on that beach and beyond it, they stormed the beaches anyway. That type of courage forged in culture and vectored worldwide helped turn the tide of history. Mad respect.

  2. I think about this more than I probably should, but I’m just baffled by the courage it took step off the boat and run directly into gunfire. The gate drops and you see carnage all around you, and as you disembark you find that, if you’re luck, the water is up to your waist, making you exceptionally vulnerable. Then, when you finally make it out of the water and onto the beach there’s nowhere to hide. Even if there was, you’ve been told to not stop and take cover, but to run up the beach towards the fire. You can hear the extremely rapid firing of a slew of MG-42s as you run forward, waterlogged, potentially seasick (and definitely anxious sick), and with more gear than can handle, running past your dead brothers and hearing their wails of pain, knowing that the only thing keeping you alive is luck. All that training and prep work means nothing. You could be the baddest man on French coast, the fastest, the smartest, the strongest, and none of that matters. All you can do is run forward and hope you’re not torn in half. I just can’t fathom what that must have felt like, and these men not only found the courage to keep running forward and directly into the fire, but maintained their composure to stick it to the Nazis once they got off the beach. I just can’t get my head around it.

  3. I wish I could remember the show I watched where some group found a Higgins boat in the middle of a lake in Utah, I think, when there was a drought. The guy on the show restored it for the organization but kept the original materials or something. It was really cool.

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