FROM THE MEMORIES OF JAMES BRANCH, 38TH INFANTRY REGIMENT, 1ST BATTALION

MEMORIES RECOUNTED IN JULY 2004 and used with the permission of Mr. Branch

I departed NYC on the USS Florence Nightingale to Belfast, Ireland, then moving by train to Newry, County Down, North Ireland. Leaving there we went back to Belfast and boarded the USS Santa Rosa, which was a South American Cruise Liner for Swansea, Wales. We, the 38th, left NYC on the USS Florence Nightingale and was in a 100 ship convoy with several Navy destroyers for escorts. We went through the North Atlantic in October and encountered very rough seas. We took one 38-degree roll, so the Captain said, and almost daily after the third day out we had sub scares. We were 11 days to Belfast, Ireland. I can't say for sure about who all was on the ship, but I believe most of the 38th was on it .

We arrived at Omaha Beach at approximately 11:00 a.m., on June 6 1944 and upon arriving we were not able to get off the ships because things were not going too good. Three German planes came over that afternoon and bombed the ships waiting offshore. We went in the next day June 7 about 10:00 a.m. We were recieving a lot of artillary fire from railroad guns that were about 10 miles off shore. We went in on a LCI. We hit a sandbar and the coxswain, though we were in and they lowered the ramp and I was one of the first off and didn't go down the ramp but jumped off the side and I was over my head in water. My knees had buckled under the weight I was carrying, but once I straightened up I could hold my head back out of the water. The reason that I was in such a hurry to get off the LCI was we heard before we left the ship that the Germans was zeroing their guns on the LCI's and when the ramp was lowered they would try to put a shell in the LC I and in one case succeeded and killed everyone on board. This is why I positioned myself to be first off and jumped off the ramp that was lowered instead of going down the ramp . Everything that would float was floating in the water, including some of the dead. Spare tires off vehicles, you name it, if it would float it was there.

My first meal in France was about 36 hours after landing. It was a K-Ration. In fact, most of our meals was a K-Ration. For the first two days we couldn't sleep or eat because of all the trauma that we saw on landing. You would look into the faces of the men you had been with for over a year and they looked strange to you. The death of the fellow soldiers was hard to take at first. My Platoon Sgt was hit the third day in and lived a couple days after he was hit and died from the head wound. Not much has been said about the Division of German snipers that was there on maneuvers, but they really took their toll on us. There was bitter fighting through the hedgerow country and the sunken roads. Hill 192 was as tough as it come, then the Diamond shape forrest and every little village in between.

The "Saving of Private Ryan" was close as it could possibly be, but on a much smaller scale. The D-Day Invasion was a hugh Armada of ships, landing craft, planes, balloons, and there was intense amount of fire from the ships' big guns. At the village where they found Private Ryan was more like the 1st battlion of the 38th Reg, in the Twin Villages of Rockerath and Krinkelt, Belgium, but a lot more troops and tanks involved . The 38th knocked out 78 German tanks there infour days and nights of fighting in and around the Twin Villages.

Thank you, Mr. Branch, for sharing your memories. Since I did not think to ask my father about this information while he was living, I wanted to include the memories of someone who had experienced the same things as he did before, on and immediately after June 7, 1944. This would not have been possible without the memories of Mr. Branch. Thanks again to James Branch. (Linda Covington)