EvanL
06-01-2004, 01:06 PM
Sixty years ago this week, 17-year-old Bill Marshall of Ontario witnessed death for the first time when he landed on Juno Beach in the second wave of troops and saw two bodies in Canadian uniforms floating in the water.
By JOE FRIESEN
UPDATED AT 1:01 PM EDT Tuesday, Jun 1, 2004
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On the eve of the Normandy invasion, preparing to board a landing craft bound for France, a fellow soldier approached Bill Marshall with a question.
"Should we kill?" the soldier asked.
At 17, Mr. Marshall was probably the youngest person in his platoon. But he had a ready answer: Faced with German guns, he told the older man, they could either kill or be killed.
"Before we walked down to the boats, he had a long chat with me on 'Should we kill?' And I said, 'Come on, that's what we're here for. God's on our side.' "
The soldiers of the Highland Light Infantry of Canada had been training for the D-Day landings for months. Responsibility for the operation, code named Overlord, was placed in the hands of American General Dwight Eisenhower.
"Eisenhower stopped and spoke to me," said Mr. Marshall, who had fibbed his way past recruiting officers in London, Ont. "He asked me what I did in [civilian life]. I told him I went to school. He said, 'This is sure going to be a lot different than going to school.' "
On June 5, 1944, Mr. Marshall boarded LCI 250 bound for Juno Beach. Close to 200 men, each bolstered by a gift of 25 cigarettes from the Canadian government, packed the landing craft, the bow painted with a shark's mouth.
Mother Nature provided the tides and cloud cover that D-Day planners had hoped for, but she couldn't calm the seas. Everyone on LCI 250 was sick, either from the rolling water or from fear. Toward dawn, some soldiers had to be lashed to the ship to stop them tumbling overboard.
"They were so sick they couldn't do anything. Really green," Mr. Marshall said.
The 9th Brigade, to which Mr. Marshall's company belonged, was part of the second wave of the Canadian 3rd Division's landings at Juno Beach. Along with the tanks of the Sherbrooke Fusiliers, they followed the initial thrust of the Queen's Own Rifles and the North Shore Regiment.
They arrived slightly behind schedule, 2½ hours after the first assault.
"Now, everyone is frightened," Mr. Marshall recalled. "I don't care who they are, they're scared. The first thing everybody does, they're all standing there having a pee."
The men scrambled down ramps on either side of the landing craft, lugging bicycles and equipment.
In the adrenaline rush of the landing, Mr. Marshall's field of vision shrank to just 20 yards. The sight of two bodies in Canadian uniforms drifting in shallow water grabbed his attention.
"There were two floaters in the water. They were Queen's Own [Rifles]. They were ahead of us on the beach. And you look, and you say, 'Forget it.' And then we went up on to the shore on the small railway line . . . and there were four guys lined up, lying on top of the railway line. They were dead. And I looked at them and said, 'Jeez, they're playing for keeps.' It was the first time I'd really seen dead bodies."
The 9th Brigade met little resistance as it landed. But the advance halted once it cleared the beach and marched into the coastal village of Bernières-sur-Mer. "It was just one massive traffic jam."
As the soldiers dug in for the night, one of the few German aircraft in the area, and a confused Canadian tank, fixed them in their cross hairs.
"We got hit with an ME-109 [German aircraft] that came in and strafed us. And at the same time as that happened one of our Fort Garry Horse tanks opened up on us . . . [The German plane by then had levelled out and] went over me when it was about 50 feet in the air. And all the pilot did was lean out and do that [touches his brow] as he flew by me. He tipped his hat and away he went."
Mr. Marshall escaped unscathed on a day when 340 Canadians died and 574 were wounded.
A month later Mr. Marshall, three days past his 18th birthday, was wounded in the fierce gun battle for the town of Buron.
"We started going through the wheat fields, in arrowhead formation like you usually do, five yards between men and strung out like a big V . . . Somebody on the other side fired a shot, I was carrying the mortar across my body, and [the bullet] laid my finger open to the bone."
Just under half the platoon, 18 of 40, made it to the road. Twenty-two comrades fell in a few minutes.
Despite their losses they pushed on into the town, where they were locked in house-to-house fighting.
"About 3 o'clock in the afternoon I stepped outside the house and got my second injury. I don't know if it was a mortar shell or an artillery shell. I got one through the neck and out the middle of the back. Missed my spine by about that much," he said, holding his fingers an inch apart.
Three weeks before the 60th anniversary of the invasion, sitting in his living room in Lindsay, Ont., 77-year-old Bill Marshall winces slightly as he scans a company photo taken before the invasion. Drawing his finger across the rows of faces, some solemn, some smiling, he picks out friends killed that day. By his count, the Highland Light Infantry lost 293 of its 793 men, killed or wounded, in the battle for Buron.
Pausing, he points at one man, and remembers their talk over whether it was right to kill.
"He eventually agreed. Married with two kids. He died at Buron . . . Well, he and practically all his section. None of them came back."
By JOE FRIESEN
UPDATED AT 1:01 PM EDT Tuesday, Jun 1, 2004
Advertisement
On the eve of the Normandy invasion, preparing to board a landing craft bound for France, a fellow soldier approached Bill Marshall with a question.
"Should we kill?" the soldier asked.
At 17, Mr. Marshall was probably the youngest person in his platoon. But he had a ready answer: Faced with German guns, he told the older man, they could either kill or be killed.
"Before we walked down to the boats, he had a long chat with me on 'Should we kill?' And I said, 'Come on, that's what we're here for. God's on our side.' "
The soldiers of the Highland Light Infantry of Canada had been training for the D-Day landings for months. Responsibility for the operation, code named Overlord, was placed in the hands of American General Dwight Eisenhower.
"Eisenhower stopped and spoke to me," said Mr. Marshall, who had fibbed his way past recruiting officers in London, Ont. "He asked me what I did in [civilian life]. I told him I went to school. He said, 'This is sure going to be a lot different than going to school.' "
On June 5, 1944, Mr. Marshall boarded LCI 250 bound for Juno Beach. Close to 200 men, each bolstered by a gift of 25 cigarettes from the Canadian government, packed the landing craft, the bow painted with a shark's mouth.
Mother Nature provided the tides and cloud cover that D-Day planners had hoped for, but she couldn't calm the seas. Everyone on LCI 250 was sick, either from the rolling water or from fear. Toward dawn, some soldiers had to be lashed to the ship to stop them tumbling overboard.
"They were so sick they couldn't do anything. Really green," Mr. Marshall said.
The 9th Brigade, to which Mr. Marshall's company belonged, was part of the second wave of the Canadian 3rd Division's landings at Juno Beach. Along with the tanks of the Sherbrooke Fusiliers, they followed the initial thrust of the Queen's Own Rifles and the North Shore Regiment.
They arrived slightly behind schedule, 2½ hours after the first assault.
"Now, everyone is frightened," Mr. Marshall recalled. "I don't care who they are, they're scared. The first thing everybody does, they're all standing there having a pee."
The men scrambled down ramps on either side of the landing craft, lugging bicycles and equipment.
In the adrenaline rush of the landing, Mr. Marshall's field of vision shrank to just 20 yards. The sight of two bodies in Canadian uniforms drifting in shallow water grabbed his attention.
"There were two floaters in the water. They were Queen's Own [Rifles]. They were ahead of us on the beach. And you look, and you say, 'Forget it.' And then we went up on to the shore on the small railway line . . . and there were four guys lined up, lying on top of the railway line. They were dead. And I looked at them and said, 'Jeez, they're playing for keeps.' It was the first time I'd really seen dead bodies."
The 9th Brigade met little resistance as it landed. But the advance halted once it cleared the beach and marched into the coastal village of Bernières-sur-Mer. "It was just one massive traffic jam."
As the soldiers dug in for the night, one of the few German aircraft in the area, and a confused Canadian tank, fixed them in their cross hairs.
"We got hit with an ME-109 [German aircraft] that came in and strafed us. And at the same time as that happened one of our Fort Garry Horse tanks opened up on us . . . [The German plane by then had levelled out and] went over me when it was about 50 feet in the air. And all the pilot did was lean out and do that [touches his brow] as he flew by me. He tipped his hat and away he went."
Mr. Marshall escaped unscathed on a day when 340 Canadians died and 574 were wounded.
A month later Mr. Marshall, three days past his 18th birthday, was wounded in the fierce gun battle for the town of Buron.
"We started going through the wheat fields, in arrowhead formation like you usually do, five yards between men and strung out like a big V . . . Somebody on the other side fired a shot, I was carrying the mortar across my body, and [the bullet] laid my finger open to the bone."
Just under half the platoon, 18 of 40, made it to the road. Twenty-two comrades fell in a few minutes.
Despite their losses they pushed on into the town, where they were locked in house-to-house fighting.
"About 3 o'clock in the afternoon I stepped outside the house and got my second injury. I don't know if it was a mortar shell or an artillery shell. I got one through the neck and out the middle of the back. Missed my spine by about that much," he said, holding his fingers an inch apart.
Three weeks before the 60th anniversary of the invasion, sitting in his living room in Lindsay, Ont., 77-year-old Bill Marshall winces slightly as he scans a company photo taken before the invasion. Drawing his finger across the rows of faces, some solemn, some smiling, he picks out friends killed that day. By his count, the Highland Light Infantry lost 293 of its 793 men, killed or wounded, in the battle for Buron.
Pausing, he points at one man, and remembers their talk over whether it was right to kill.
"He eventually agreed. Married with two kids. He died at Buron . . . Well, he and practically all his section. None of them came back."