Forward Observer
Hours before daylight on D-Day four men in a rubber boat approached Omaha Beach. Three Navy frogmen dropped off into the water. The fourth man, Lt. William Smith, continued to the beach where he crawled ashore in darkness and dug a shallow foxhole for protection. His dangerous mission was to get to the beach undetected and to adjust naval gunfire by radio.
Lieutenant Smith, or “Smitty” as he was called, understood his overwhelming responsibility. He had landed in North Africa and Sicily, and knew what the weapons hidden above him could do to troops and landing craft. He was a twenty-seven-year-old veteran, handpicked for this new and untried assignment, and had trained for weeks in the difficult art of coordinating the fire of moving ships against stationary targets.
Smitty was also a very religious man. When he packed his duffel bag, the last thing in and the first thing out was his Bible. When he wasn’t on the job, his first priority was reading it, and he did this every night without fail. He also turned to God frequently in prayer. His son later described how he prepared for his D-Day mission:
He had long ago resolved himself to the near certainty of his own death. He was going to call fire as long as he had a single breath in his body. He would leave his own fate, and thus the fate of many of those coming ashore in his sector, to God… he asked only that God look out for them. As usual, there was no thought of his personal safety. On this day God certainly had more important things to think about than him.424
At the end of a long and harrowing day on Omaha Beach, Smitty turned off his radio and thanked God, not for his own survival, but that he had been able to do his job successfully. He also said a prayer for “those brave, brave men that had fallen in service to their nation, and their God.”425 He was awarded the Bronze Star for his heroic actions on D-Day.
Sing to the Lord a new song, for he has done marvelous things; his right hand and his holy arm have worked salvation for him.
—Psalms 98:1
Field Marshal Rommel inspecting beach defenses. (Eisenhower Presidential Library)
Landing craft ramp goes down on a Normandy beach. (National Archives)