Uncle Bill, D-Day June 6, 1944

Uncle Bill on D-Day, June 6th 1944

This is August William (Bill) Diedesch.  He was my father's uncle.

Shortly after this was taken, he signed up for the reserves.  Then his unit was promptly called up to active duty and assigned to General Bradley for the invasion force on June 6th, 1944.

Uncle Bill was placed into the 116th Division, 29th regiment.

The following is an excerpt from a story in the 1960 Atlantic Magazine, which chronicles the fate of the 116th as they landed on the beaches of Normandy in the first wave of the assault.

• At one thousand yards, Boat No. 5 is hit dead on and foundered. Six men drown before help arrives. The other six boats ride unscathed to within one hundred yards of the shore, where a shell into Boat No. 3 kills two men. Another dozen drown, taking to the water as the boat sinks. That leaves five boats.
• At exactly 6:36 A.M. ramps are dropped along the boat line and the men jump off in water anywhere from waist deep to higher than a man's head.  Already pounded by mortars, the floundering line is instantly swept by crossing machine-gun fires from both ends of the beach.
• The first men out try to do it but are ripped apart before they can make five yards. Even the lightly wounded die by drowning, doomed by the water-logging of their overloaded packs. From Boat No. 1, all hands jump off in water over their heads. Most of them are carried down. The same thing happens to the section in Boat No. 4. 
• The seventh craft, carrying a medical section with one officer and sixteen men, noses toward the beach. The ramp drops. In that instant, two machine guns concentrate their fire on the opening. Not a man is given time to jump. All aboard are cut down where they stand.
• By the end of fifteen minutes, Able Company has still not fired a weapon. No orders are being given by anyone. No words are spoken. The few able-bodied survivors move or not as they see fit. Merely to stay alive is a full-time job. The fight has become a rescue operation in which nothing counts but the force of a strong example.
• By the end of one half hour, approximately two thirds of the company is forever gone. There is no precise casualty figure for that moment. There is for the Normandy landing as a whole no accurate figure for the first hour or first day. The circumstances precluded it. Whether more Able Company riflemen died from water than from fire is known only to heaven. All earthly evidence so indicates, but cannot prove it.

Uncle Bill, we remember you and thank you for your ultimate sacrifice in the early morning hours of June 6th, 1944.