GOING OVER THE TOP
I found myself standing in front of the famous Life magazine photographer Robert Capa.
It was about 3 a.m. on D-Day when I left the troop transport USS Samuel Chase for a landing craft headed for Omaha Beach. I was 23 at the time: a first lieutenant with the 1st Engineer Combat Battalion. On D-Day I was serving as a liaison officer on the staff of Major Edmund F. Driscoll, the commander of the 1st Battalion, 16th Infantry Regiment, 1st Infantry Division. My mission was to stick close to Major Driscoll so that he could communicate with engineers if he needed them. My company “headquarters” consisted of me, a radioman, and a runner.
Two battalions of the 16th Infantry Regiment—the 2nd and the 3rd—were preceding us in the first wave of landings. The 1st Battalion was to land behind the two assault battalions roughly an hour after the first wave—about 7:30 a.m. Our assumption was that
