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The Longest Day Fire Blazing, hearts racing, limbs missing, soldiers yelling out in agonizing pain, are some scenes than can be replicated by movies or books. But the reality of what happened on June 6, 1944, known as D-Day, the longest day in history can never be and never will be portrayed accurately, especially what happened on Omaha Beach. There are countless details that happened on D-Day that few and far between have any clue of. The landing on Omaha Beach was different from any other day during WWII. It was the first major involvement from the U.S. and first real account at the reality of war. It was on June 6, 1944, that Operation Overlord, the long anticipated invasion of Nazi- held Europe went into action. General Dwight David Eisenhower was in command of the invasion, which was code-named Operation Overlord. The first of the beaches to be landed on was Omaha Beach, which was the most restricted and heavily defended of the beaches. The terrain was difficult backed by 10 feet high sea walls and overlooking cliffs which was immediately recognizable from the sea.( The Valour ) Before even setting foot on beach sands, rangers were already feeling the affects of war. The American forces in there LCVP landing crafts were fighting through rough seas, the cold air, and sporadic rain (Ambrose, 445).There were people chewing tobacco, Kim 2 praying, thinking to themselves pensively, singing, anything to prepare themselves from what was about to happen. When one person vomited from either sea sickness or apprehensiveness, it was followed by an uncontrollable chain reaction. As landing crafts came nearer and nearer to Omaha Beach, sounds of machine guns and explosions rang out in the minds of the rangers. They knew they were about to engage with the images they pensively had in mind (Saving Private). As landing crafts came closer, a convoy guide yelled, “ we’re going to drop this ramp and as soon as we do, we’re going to back out, so you guys better be ready!” One private retold what happened. “When we hit the sand, the ramp went down and Lieutenant Anderson was the first off the boat with Private Dominguez. In the next few seconds, I went off, and I saw Dominguez had already been shot and was lying in the water and sand” (Meyer). Colonel George A. Taylor, who lead his troops against a German machine gun emplacement, said, "Two kinds of people are staying on this beach, the dead and those who are about to die" (The Valour).
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