From the S&S archives:
Landing boat crewman recalls scene on Normandy coast as 'pure hell'

BAYEUX, France — Like many here, J. Keaton Landis has returned to the place that haunts him when he has time to think of it.

Landis was in the Navy on D-Day, working on a landing boat bringing soldiers to Omaha Beach.

"I'll tell you, I was glad I didn't have to get off that boat. It was pure hell," he said.

Landis said young men normally don't think about death. But, when the sea turned red with blood, they realized it was a possibility.

"'My God,' I thought. 'This is for real,'" Landis said.

He said they were supposed to drop troops on the beach and move out.

"We were dropping the soldiers on the beach almost exactly at the spot where the American Military Cemetery is today. Normally that only takes a few minutes, but everything was so jammed and congested that it took an hour."

Landis said he remembers seeing what he thought was a rail fence running along the beach. It turned out to be bodies.

"At noon, the Germans were still bringing tanks up to the coast and firing. It was horrible," he said.

He remembered one wiry young captain with the toughest group of men he had ever seen.

"I wondered how this little man had earned so much respect from these tough men, but, when the boat landed and opened, I saw the captain — with a rifle in one hand and a pistol in the other — lead the charge toward the hill. I guess that's what you call having leadership quality.

"He is probably a cross in the military cemetery today. I am sorry I don't know his name," Landis said.

Worst of all, he said, was the fact that the landing boat crew was not allowed to pick up the wounded.

"There they were screaming and crying on the beaches and in the water, and you had to ignore them," Landis said. "I know the logic behind it all, and I am sure it saved lives by not picking them up and completing our mission of getting more men on the beach, but I'll never forget that horror."