The Steel Wave (31 page)

The 29th was called the Blue and Gray Division, their shoulder patches a simple yin-yang design of the two subtle colors, a reflection of the geography of their makeup. Most were from the eastern seaboard, Virginia and Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, and New York. The division did not come into existence until World War One, but the individual infantry regiments had an extraordinary history of their own. All four, the 115th, 116th, 175th, and 176th, could trace their origins to colonial times, and even before. One in particular, the 116th, had been assembled from men who spent their youth in and around famous battlefields of another war, descendants of many who marched through fights that ripped across Virginia in the 1860s. Those men had been raised with the glorious stories of the famous men that their grandparents stood beside and even worshiped. The 116th Regiment had evolved directly from the old 2nd Virginia, a Confederate unit whose extraordinary reputation had come under the leadership of a man whose legacy was a part of every Virginian, who had earned much of his legendary reputation in the Shenandoah Valley. It was natural that the 116th would name themselves after this most vivid hero of their homeland. They began to call themselves the Stonewall Brigade.

The 116th had filed aboard ship nearly a week before, a lumbering transport named the U.S.S.
Thomas Jefferson.
Before the men could even settle into the crowded bunk rooms, the ship had steamed away from port, and despite assurances from their officers, some of the men believed the great assault had already begun. But the ship only took them as far as a sheltered anchorage, a rendezvous point in peaceful waters off the Isle of Wight. For the first time, the men could see more of the great fleet, transports, larger landing craft, and the destroyers that gave them protection from any probing by German U-boats. Here the days crept by snail-like, and in the cramped and crowded confines of the ship, the men fought the boredom and anxiety of what was still to come. The tedium of their days was broken by the only kinds of recreation they could muster, card playing and crap games mostly, which the officers obliged by looking the other way. There was no privacy, no place for any man to sit alone with his thoughts. Even the men who made use of the time to send letters home wrote in crowded quarters, alongside men who would not stay silent, who deflected the sentiment in their own letters by teasing the others about the proper way to say
I might not see you again.
The letters wouldn’t actually be mailed, not yet, security keeping everything on board ship, and even if the letters were to go out at all, they would pass first through the censors, those hated bureaucrats armed with scissors and thick black pens, who would remove any mention of place or time or conditions. But the men wrote anyway, the words on paper their only outlet for the fear they could not dare reveal to their buddies around them.

On the night of June 4, the routine of the sailors changed. The ship’s crew scampered through the crowded decks with a contagious urgency that spread to the soldiers. The clatter of the anchor chain and the deep rumble of the engines jolted them, nervous voices rising, then squeezed away by waves of fear, so many grasping the hands of friends and companions, brutally aware that every rumor, every fantasy, every nightmare was about to be replaced by reality. As the ship moved out into open water, the violence of the wind and rain drove even the curious belowdecks, huddled in the smells of their crowded bunk rooms, the anxiousness giving way to seasickness. When the anchor chain released again, they were ecstatic to find they had returned to port, and their relief fueled energetic rumors that the operation had been called off; quite likely the Germans had surrendered to the threat alone. But that had passed quickly. Sanity was restored by the officers in orders relayed to the men that there was only a postponement. All day on June 5, the soldiers no longer cursed their boredom, the sickest men enjoyed a full day of recovery, the sailors sympathetic, the medics passing out more seasickness pills, eagerly accepted by men who had learned something unexpected about the sea and themselves. The brief journey was not their first ocean voyage, of course. The Twenty-ninth Division had come across the Atlantic on the enormous
Queen Mary,
a city at sea. Some had suffered then as well, but that was more than eighteen months ago, and the talk and anticipation then had been more about enemy submarines and what they would find in England. It was, after all, an adventure, the fear not yet real, so much attention on training and readiness, mock battles and easy talk. Now, with the clock ticking in every bunk room, all talk of a quick end to the war was set aside. These men now understood that the time had finally come to fight the enemy.

After a twenty-four-hour reprieve, the ship began to move again, churning past the darkened coast of southern England. This time, when they reached the final rendezvous point in the English Channel, the men could see that the small fleet that had given them such pride was no fleet at all. It was just one small part of a vast armada, thousands of ships that spread out beyond the horizon, protected by swarms of fighter planes and barrage balloons. As darkness came, the
Thomas Jefferson
surged seaward once more, the anxious misery of the rolling seas equaled by the tight anxiety in every man that this time the mission was a go. D-Day had arrived.

T
ommy Thorne was one of a twelve-man rifle squad of Company A, 116th Regiment, most of the squad from his part of Virginia, their homes spread out in the green farm country around Fredericksburg. He was old for twenty-two, had married right out of high school, a common custom around his home. His wife, Ann, had given birth a year later, a fragile little girl they had named Ella. The baby was not yet a year old when he signed up, and now, more than a year later, he could only know her through his wife’s achingly detailed letters. But with the letters came photographs, so Thorne had fastened the most recent photo in a place that was protected, the safest place he could find: inside his helmet liner.

When the call came to volunteer, Thorne did not have to be prodded. He had convinced himself that hesitation might mean the draft, and he might not have any choice about where he served. The recruiting sergeant had been a gruff, likable man who filled the young men with fiery stories of glorious adventure, how they would punish the Japanese for their obscene violence against Pearl Harbor. The attention was on the Pacific, the recruiting office papered with colorful posters about bloodying the cartoonish Japs. But the recruiter’s enthusiasm for a quick victory was dampened by what Thorne had seen in the newspapers: horrifying reports of disaster, odd names like Corregidor and Bataan. He was assigned to the Twenty-ninth Division at Camp Blanding, near Jacksonville, Florida, and welcomed the rumors that very soon the division would go west, boarding the great transport ships that would carry them across the Pacific. The men soon learned what the senior officers already knew, and as the division continued to grow and find its identity, the truth of their assignment was passed down to the men who would carry the rifles. Long before anyone knew the specifics of Operation Overlord, the 29th was on its way to England.

ENGLISH CHANNEL
JUNE 6, 1944, 4 A.M.

As the ship rumbled and tossed through the windy darkness, Thorne had wanted to go topside, to escape the smells of seasickness but, more, to try to see the amazing variety of ships. He had never seen a battleship, but the lieutenant had told them that the great juggernauts would be there, providing thunderous cover for them, very likely obliterating enemy positions onshore, if there was an enemy to be found. When the naval barrage began, the Allied bombers would already have made their runs, thousands of tons of high explosives dropped along all five landing beaches, blasting the enemy fortifications and the artillery emplacements anchored behind them. Thorne had felt his lieutenant’s confidence, shared by most of the men, nervous hope that the landings might be completely unopposed, that it would be an engineers’ battle, their only task to clear away the debris so the infantry could have a clear path inland.

At 2:30 A.M., the regimental commander, Colonel Canham, had come through, carrying the word to any men who might be sleeping that the time had come to strap on their gear. Thorne had grabbed a nap propped up in a corner, a poker game unfolding right in front of him, his attempts to sleep a waste of time. But some had slept, those men who had that luxurious ability to nod off anywhere, and when the colonel gave the orders, they had emerged from cubbyholes and peered up from bunks where other men talked in low voices. At 3 A.M., food had been served, passed out by the sailors, a breakfast of franks and beans and doughnuts. The advice came from the officers: No matter how miserable your gut might be, no matter how scared you were, you had better eat. Talk of food always seemed to grab the attention of the troops far more than the usual briefings. Thorne had taken his lieutenant’s advice seriously and thought of his words now.

“This is all you’re going to have for the next couple of days, at least. I’d eat as much of this chow as you can hold.”

Most of the men had obeyed, and Thorne had stuffed himself, a few extra doughnuts for good measure. Now, as the ship tossed and rolled through the windy darkness, he tried not to feel the uneasiness under his belt and what a full stomach might suddenly mean.

He was still in his corner, the poker players silent now, the game dissolving. He scanned the room: steel bulkheads, a network of iron pipes overhead, the smell of oil and cigarettes, some of the men still fumbling with bits of paper, an effort at one last letter. They were mostly quiet, sitting on the hard deck, leaning against their overstuffed packs, rifles upright beside them. Occasionally Thorne saw a smile, one man slapping a friend on the back.

“You know that every damned one of us is going to get a bronze star. All we gotta do is hike over that beach and get our picture taken. I hear the colonel’s got his own flag, and his staff is having a race to see who sticks it in the ground first. Ernie Pyle’s here too, on one of these tugs somewhere. I wanna meet him, get my picture taken. I hear he puts your name in the paper if he talks to you.”

The man seemed to run out of energy. Thorne looked at the others, Sergeant Woodruff leaning back, his helmet pulled low, more men from his squad sitting together, one man rubbing his M-1 with an oily cloth. The lieutenant appeared at the door, his bass voice booming.

“Listen up. Make sure you’ve got your gear, your
own
gear. No screwups. We’re close to it, boys. When the order comes to go topside, fall in and keep it orderly. Nobody gets points for being the first in line. You’ve done this before, so do it right. This tub’s hauling thirty of those damned landing craft, and there’s room for everybody. Any questions?”

“The tanks really gonna beat us in, sir?”

“That’s what I’ve been told. There’s supposed to be a couple dozen tanks in our sector, and if everything goes right, you’ll be landing right behind them. I saw one of those amphibious ducks. Damnedest thing I’ve ever seen. The tanks are wrapped in a canvas balloon, like some big-assed Christmas present, and they actually float. Some kind of outboard motor shoves them through the water.”

Thorne tried to imagine a floating tank. To one side of him a man spoke.

“Just so long as their damned cannons work.”

The lieutenant adjusted his belt. “The tank boys will do their job. You’ve got enough to think about.” He paused. “One more thing. Those of you who bothered to listen to the speech from that major…what’s his name, the division staff officer. I’ve been hearing those rules since I got my commission, and by damn you’re going to listen to them too. One in particular: Shoot only at known targets. I don’t want any of my people picked off by friendly fire. Shooting like hell at a concrete wall is more likely to kill you than hurt anybody on the other side. Pick your targets. You got that?” He seemed satisfied by the lack of response and adjusted his backpack, looked at his wristwatch. “Check your rifle. Then check it again. It can’t be long now. I’m going to talk to Captain Bridger, see if he’s heard anything. Meanwhile, check those M-1s.”

There was authority in the man’s rough voice, and as he moved out of the room the men obeyed, with a rustle of plastic sheathing, the waterproofing material that they had already used to wrap their rifles. It was the only protection the weapons would have against sand and salt water. Thorne felt the oily film on the steel barrel and pulled back the small bolt. Others were doing the same; there was a chorus of
clicks.
As he rolled the plastic back around the length of the gun again, he saw one man removing his watch and stuffing it carefully into a condom. Thorne laughed. “What the hell is that?”

The man looked at him without smiling. “Waterproofing my watch. My wallet too. Works really well.”

“But…that’s a rubber.”

“It’s not just
a
rubber, it
is
rubber. That’s what counts. Tried to fit one over my boots, but it wouldn’t stretch that far.” The man held the watch toward him, said, “See? Works like a charm. My grandpa gave me this, and I don’t want it screwed up.”

Close in front of him, Sergeant Woodruff peered out from beneath his helmet. “The only thing screwed up is you. You meet some mademoiselle, you’ll wish you had that damned thing in your wallet and not around it. Anybody in this outfit catches the clap, I’ll kick his ass.”

Thorne thought of the lone condom, had been embarrassed to take it, had thought of handing it off to the man who stood in line behind him. He had never succumbed to the temptations of the English girls and had taken a fair amount of ribbing. Don’t need it, he thought. What would I tell my wife if I got the clap? Well, I wouldn’t tell her, I guess. Better yet, don’t catch it in the first place. He slipped the strap from under his chin, pulled the helmet off, and looked into the liner at the photo.

Beside him, the BAR man, Rollings, said, “Hey, Tommy, you forget what your wife looks like?”