(details) Lieutenant Edlin of Company A/2Rgr in an LCA during an exercise in England
2561
The story of Lieutenant Edlin de la Cie A/2RAN
injured while landing on Dog Green
Some of Rangers' LCAs headed east of Dog Green, falling under intense fire. Bob Edlin's boat, section chief at Cie A/2Ranger, touched a sand bank.
"I looked over the ramp, we were at least 70 m from the shore, we had hoped to land dry. I said to the boss, "Try to go further." He shouted that he couldn't. Although the British sailor was brave, he could not move from the sandbank. I told him to lower the ramp, or we were gonna be killed there.
"We had been trained not to go out in front of the ramp, because the boat could be pushed by a wave and crush you. So we went out on the sides of the ramp. I looked right, and I saw a B/2Ran Cie boat next door, with Lt. Bob Fitzsimmons, a friend, take a direct mortar or mine strike on the ramp. I thought it was the end of half of Cie B.
"It was cold, really cold, even if it was June. The temperature of the water was 45 or 50°F (7 to 10°C), I had it up to my shoulders when I entered it, and I saw men drowning around me. I tried to hang two, but my job was to move forward and attack the guns. There were bodies of infantrymen of the 116ème floating everywhere. They were turned in front of the water, the package still on the back. They had swollen their life-saving bras. Fortunately, most of the Rangers had not swollen them, otherwise they would also have drowned.
"I started running, with the gun in front of me. I crossed the beach all the way to try to reach the seafront. Before me, there were elements of the 116ème nailed to the ground and stretched behind the beach obstacles. They had not gone to the seafront wall. I shouted to them "Get up and go!" but they were not moving, sounded and completely exhausted. There's no time to take care of it.
"I continued through the beach. There were obstacles everywhere. Aviation had completely missed its objectives. No bomb holes to shelter. The mines had not exploded. Nothing that was planned here had worked. I realized that Vierville was going to be hell and it was.
"While I was 20 m from the wall, I was hit by a sniper bullet probably. She ripped and broke my right leg. I thought, well, I'd have the Medal of the Injured. I fell, so doing it was like a red iron in my leg. My rifle fell about three meters ahead. I crawled him back and raised myself on the left leg, another shot, machine gun I think, tore my left leg apart and I fell back.
"I sat down for a few seconds, looked in front and saw several Rangers lying down. One of them was Butch Bladorn from Wisconsin. I yelled, "Get up and run!" Butch, a tall and strong man, just looked behind: "I can't". I got straightened up and crawled up to him. I wanted to shake him and get him off the beach. He was lying on his belly, his face in the sand. So I saw the blood flow from her back. I realized that he was hit from the front and that the bullet had come out of the back, and that he was completely immobilized. I regretted yelling at him, but I didn't have time to stop and help him. I thought, he's done. Luckily it wasn't true. He became a farmer in Wisconsin.
"As I walked forward, I stumbled. When you get hurt, you have your legs stiffening, not immediately, but slowly. The pain was indescribable. I fell on my hands and knees and tried to crawl forward. I did it a few meters, and then I fainted for several minutes. Back to me, I saw Sergeant Bill Kraus. He was on the wall. When he saw my situation, he crawled back under rifles and mortars and shot me out of the wall.
"Klaus was also injured in a leg. A nurse gave him an injection of morphine, and did the same thing with me. My mental condition was such that I told him to sting my left leg directly, which hurt me most. He reminded me that in the butt or arm, the morphine would go into the leg. I told him to give me a second shot because I was hit on the other leg, he didn't want to.
"There were some Rangers gathered under the wall - Sergeant William Courtney, soldiers William Dreher, Garfield Ray, Gabby Hart, Sergeant Charles Berg. I yelled at them, "You have to get out of here! You must stand up and attack!" They left right away.
"I looked at the top of the cliff, and I thought with that leg I couldn't go. Where were the others? Were they gone? And I heard Dreher shouting, "Go upstairs, these trenches are empty" and then the gunfire sounded down. I thought, "my God, I can't go!" I heard an American Tommy Gun and Coutney yelling "Dreher, they're empty now."
"There were still German small arms fire and German grenade noises. I heard Whitney yelling "Cover me" I heard Garfield Ray talk about his BAR gun. Then there was silence.
"Now, where is the 5ème Ranger? I couldn't walk or drag. I crawled back to the beach. I saw the 5th.ème Store in the smoke of a burning LCI, hit by artillery. Colonel Schneider had seen the massacre on the beaches and used his experience of Ranger in Africa, Sicily, in Anzio. He used the smoke as a screen and went back, saving the Rangers of the 5th.ème Battalion.
"My years of training told me we had to expect a counterattack. I gathered the wounded under the wall and told them to arm themselves as much as possible. I told them that if the Germans came back, where we would be captured where we would die on the beach, but we could take them with us. This is ridiculous, but 10 or 15 Rangers were there facing the cliff, praying that Sergeant White, Courtney, Dreher and the 5thème Ranger succeeds. Our fight was over only if the Germans didn't counterattack.
"I looked to the sea. Nothing. No backup. I thought the landing had been abandoned. We'd soon be dead or prisoners. All of them had withdrawn and left us. At last we tried. A guy leaned down, saying he was Colonel of 29ème. He told us to relax and everything would be fine. Companies D, E and F were at Pointe. The guns had been destroyed. The Cies A and B/2Ran and the 5thRanger were inside. The 29ème and 1era Divisions were leaving the beaches.
"That colonel looked at me and said, "You did your job" and I said, "How?" By wasting two German bullets in my legs?" Despite the pain I hoped to join the section the next day. Someone gave me a morphine shot again."