A shell burst between them. “It took Gillingham’s chin off, including the bone, except for a small piece of flesh. He tried to hold his chin in place as he ran toward the shingle. He made it and Bill Hawkes and I gave him his morphine shot. We stayed with him for approximately thirty minutes until he died. The entire time he remained conscious and aware that he was dying.”

From the beach, to the GIs, that shingle looked like the most desirable place in the world to be at that moment. But when they reached it, they found concertina wire covering it, no way to get across without blowing the wire, nothing on the other side but more death and misery. And although they were now protected from machine-gun and rifle fire coming down from the German trenches on the bluff, they were exposed to mortar fire. The few who made it had no organization, little or no leadership (Lieutenant Wise of F Company, one of the few officers to make it to the wall, was trying to force a gap in the concertina when he was hit by a bullet in the forehead and killed), only a handful of weapons. They could but huddle and hope for follow-up waves to bring in bangalore torpedoes to blow the wire.