Omaha Beach and Beyond

Many of those killed were, like me, barely teenagers when they enlisted, just starting to grow to maturity in the army. Those comrades and I spent many happy weekends and furloughs together, soaking up culture and drinking bitters. We shared living quarters, read each other’s mail, and, more significantly, shared the misery of training in the most extreme of elements.

The 116th Infantry lost from 800 to 1,000 men on D-Day and D Company lost at least seventy-two. Of the dead, twenty of them were from my hometown of Roanoke. Five of nine of our officers were killed, including Captain Walter O. Schilling (who was from Roanoke), 1st Lieutenant William Gardener, 1st Lieutenant Merle Cummings, 1st Lieutenant Vincent Labowicz and 2nd Lieutenant Alton Ashley. There were twelve noncoms killed, including these Roanokers: First Sergeant James H. Obenshain, Staff Sergeant James L. Wright, Sergeant Russell W. “Jack” Ingram and Sergeant George D. Johnson, Corporal Jack R. Simms. Add to the list of the dead twenty-three privates, including Roanokers Private First Class Charles R. Milliron and Private First Class Walter D. Sink. The company had thirty-two men wounded, many of them severely. And yet our nightmare had just begun.

Before the invasion, the 29th Division numbered about 14,000, and replacements poured in as men were killed or wounded. By the time we took Saint-Lô six weeks later, it was said that the 29th was really three divisions: one in the field, another in the hospital, and yet a third in the cemetery. We endured those unbelievable hardships so we could participate in D-Day, which we knew would be huge, deadly, and unforgettable. Yet we couldn’t fathom the terrible odds of surviving just one day fighting in the hedgerows of Normandy.

For decades following World War II, Bob Slaughter—like so many other veterans—remained silent about what he saw and experienced in war. As time passed, and he saw how little the public knew about “The Longest Day”, Slaughter made it his mission to see that a national memorial to those who fell on D-Day be built. In 2001, his dream came true, as the National D-Day Memorial was dedicated in Bedford, Virginia.

Bob Slaughter’s story was chronicled in Stephen Ambrose’s book, D-Day: June 6, 1944. His own story, in his own words, is told in his new book, Omaha Beach and Beyond: The Long March of Sergeant Bob Slaughter, available from Zenith Press and sold at all major bookstores and Amazon.com.