The Bedford Boys: One American Town's Ultimate D-day Sacrifice Read Online Free Page B

seized the opportunity to move while the German gunners’ view was obscured.
    “Rangers, lead the way!”
    The first man to run through the opening was cut down by an MG-42. “Medic,” he yelled.
    “Medic, I’m hit. Help me.” 24
    A few minutes later, he sobbed “Mama” over and over and then died.
    Many of the men around Cota were again paralyzed by fear. Cota once more led by example, dashing through the opening. Troops followed him across the promenade, through the gap in the wire and into a field of marsh grass. Cota, his aide Shea, and several squads wormed their way along shallow trenches and finally reached the base of the Vierville bluffs. 25
    “A single file of troops, composed of rifle men of the 116th 1st Bn, and headquarters, Rangers, and some members of the 82nd Chemical Mortar Battalion (armed with carbines) then ascended the bluffs, diagonally and to the right,” Shea later wrote. “They reached the crest at a point about 100 yards to the west of a small, concrete foundation (evidently a summer house) which lay twenty-five yards below the crest of the bluff. A few anti-personnel mines were detonated during the ascent, but they were not in great number.” 26
    It was now about 9 A.M. Canham had set up the 29th’s first command post at the base of the bluffs. He tried but failed to make contact with the 1st Division on the eastern half of Omaha Beach. Suddenly, several rounds of very accurate two-inch mortar fire landed on the post. The mortars killed two men three feet from Cota and seriously wounded his radio operator, throwing him thirty feet up the bluff. Cota’s aide, Lieutenant Shea, was blown seventy-five feet below but only slightly hurt.
    Cota carried on climbing, urging men on. Again, the advance stalled, this time just below the crest of the bluffs. Someone yelled out that they should take a look below. A lone American rifleman walked along the promenade road. “Before him marched five German prisoners who had been stripped of their weapons and who held their hands above their heads. Inasmuch as they were the first Germans the men had seen, they caused particular interest.” 27
    An MG-42 snarled. Two prisoners were cut down. The American dived towards the sea wall. Two other prisoners fell to their knees, as if begging the German machine gunner to spare them. “The next burst caught the first kneeling German full in the chest,” recalled Shea, “and as he crumpled the remaining two took to the cover of the sea wall with their captor.” 28
    Cota finally reached the top of the bluffs. Another machine gun was firing from a hedgerow three hundred yards inland across a level field. Men huddled out of sight below the crest of the bluffs. Cota asked who was in charge. No one replied. “In the face of the fire,” Shea reported, “[Cota] passed through the men, personally led them in a charge across the field instructing them to fire at the hedgerows as they advanced. . . . The machine gun fire stopped as soon as the troops started to move across the fields towards it.” 29
    Cota then led his men along the perimeter of the field, using the hedgerow as cover, until he reached a narrow lane 600 yards from Vierville sur Mer. As he advanced along the lane, Cota saw other survivors from the 116th’s 1st Battalion and Rangers who had also fought their way off the beach. There was minimal opposition as Cota and these men entered Vierville sur Mer and then headed for the crossroads where Roy Stevens was supposed to meet his brother Ray in the center of the town. At the crossroads, about noon, Cota reunited with Colonel Canham.
    The remnants of the 1st Battalion would advance further west to assist Rangers assigned that morning to knocking out gun positions on cliff tops at Point du Hoc at the far end of Omaha Beach. It was also essential, before the Germans counterattacked, to open the D-1 draw so that vehicles and troops could move inland and establish a beachhead. Cota formed a patrol with