August 11, 1944 — Sailing for the southern France D-Day (Part 3)
August 11, 2024August 13, 1944 — Phil’s final letter home before D-Day
August 13, 2024The Marnemen left the Naples area by convoy.[1] Units had received maps in sealed packages seventy-two hours before embarking, together with the Seventh Army identification code and its key. These were to be opened four hours after sailing and all assault troops were carefully briefed.[2]
The Americans were issued special shoulder patches and flag brassards, which the sewed on their uniforms. The voyage passed peacefully, the great convoys edging northward along the west coast of Italy and then negotiating the Straits of Bonifacio as planned.[2]
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Each soldier aboard the combat loaders received an American flag armband and two packs of Lucky Strikes.
“Swilled coffee and chain-smoked, flicking our Zippos with trembling, nicotined fingers,” a soldier in the 45th Division told his journal.
Sunlight thrashing in sick days with recurrent malaria contracted in Italy — “Pure fire, sun storms flaring from inside outward,” as a victim described his symptoms.
Yet for most, another G.I. Write in his diary, “It hardly seems that an invasion is on, things are so quiet.”[3]
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“A little later (on the crowded deck) when someone said, ‘Okay, you jokers, take your last look at Italy!’, only a few of the men looked up.
Even when a small radio was tuned in to ‘Axis Sally,’ the Nazi propagandist, and she boasted that the Germans knew all about the coming invasion of Southern France, the soldiers kept on playing cards or talking quietly.
Finally the ship’s chaplain couldn’t stand it any longer. “This bunch of men is awfully unexcited,” he complained. “I just had a normal crowd at services this morning. On the way across the Channel from England almost everybody turned out.”
These men were different. They were 3d Division men.[4]
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On the evening of August 12, a long convoy of LSTs stretched almost as far as the eye could see over a choppy sea, off the port of Naples. The sky, darkening from its midday brightness, was faultlessly blue.[5]
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[1] Champagne, 78.
[2] Turner, 35.
[3] Atkinson, The Guns at Last Light, 196
[4] Will Lang, Life, Oct. 2, 1944. Quoted in: Taggart, 202.
[5] Taggart, 202.
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