D-DAY AT 70: Bay City Soldier Kirk Timm Recalls Landing on Omaha Beach
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Sgt. Kirk Timm, 22, at Normandy after the beach had been secured.
Kirk Timm of Bay City recalls the events of June 6, 1944 when, as a 22-year-old soldier he landed on Omaha Beach at 12:15 in the morning.
It was D-Day (Decision Day) and the Allied Invasion of Normandy France had begun, 70 years ago last Friday.
"I noticed as I came down the LCI ramp that the water had a slight tinge of red, almost a rose color," recalled retired hardware executive Timm, 92, in a book he wrote so his grandchildren would learn what happened in the war.
"As we progressed toward the beach the rose color intensified and as we came closer to the edge of the water/sand I realized that these colors I was seeing was the effect of blood.
"Then there were GI bodies and body parts strewn up and down the edge of the waterline. I really hadn't thought about that scene again, until now."
On June 6, 1944, more than 160,000 Allied troops, including Sgt. Timm and his buddies from the 330th Regiment, landed along a 50-mile stretch of heavily-fortified French coastline, to fight Nazi Germany on the beaches of Normandy, France.
Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower called the operation a crusade in which, "we will accept nothing less than full victory."
More than 5,000 ships and 13,000 aircraft supported the D-Day invasion, and by day's end, the Allies gained a foot-hold in Continental Europe.
"We had been at sea for over 24 hours, having left Southhampton our port of debarkation the prior day," Timm wrote. "We sat in the English Channel during this time waiting for the word. The seas were very rough and most of the time the decks of our LCI were awash in vomit."
The LCI perhaps was one of 16 built by Defoe Shipbuilding Company in his hometown of Bay City by May 1944. They were 158 feet long and 23 feet wide and held about 200 troops. Timm recalled his landing:
"Most of the people came ashore in a smaller craft, a landing craft designed to run up on the beach. LCI's were too large with more draft to get on the beach. We landed in (as I remember) cold, very cold water."
"Crowded in all of the ships, planes and gliders were 3 million soldiers, sailors and airmen," Timm wrote. "We were incapable of comprehending what was happening except right in the area within eyesight. The initial assaults were fierce, relentless and unimaginable; the cost of battle was very real and human."
He continued: "I remember I was relieved that I had made it to land; little did I realize that the worst was yet to come. As we progressed up the beach we came under small arms fire from German troops up on the edges of the cliffs.
"The Germans had previously diagrammed crossfire on all of the beaches and we huddled up under the cliff overhangs to get out of the way of their aim points.
"Finally, we called for the Navy to shell the areas very close to where we were positioned and prayed that our artillery spotters were as good as we hoped. We finally found the passes leading down to the beaches and things started to open up and we took some high ground and expanded our hold."
The Library of Congress history of the invasion states: "For the Americans, Omaha was a near-suicide mission. First, a powerful undertow swept away lives and weapons; ten landing craft with twenty-six artillery guns and twenty-two of twenty-nine tanks were swamped. Then, they faced a maelstrom of bullets.
"Within ten minutes of landing every officer and sergeant of the 116th Regiment was dead or wounded. Yet, by 10:00 a.m., as Americans received the first news of D-Day, 300 men had struggled through mortar fire, across the body and equipment strewn beach, and up a bluff to attack the German defenses.
"By nightfall, the Allies had a toehold on the continent, yet, on "Bloody Omaha" alone, 3,000 Americans lay dead."
The cost in lives on D-Day was high. Timm recalled "we started off the LCI with about 230 souls all from Company B, 330th Infantry. Later on that night when we regrouped if I remember correctly there were 18 of us standing. We had no idea where the rest of our company was."
The LOC continued: "More than 9,000 Allied soldiers were killed or wounded, but their sacrifice allowed more than 100,000 soldiers to begin the slow, hard slog across Europe, to defeat Adolf Hitler's crack troops.
Timm recalled his regiment reaching Caretan, a medium sized village, and relieving elements of the 101st Airborne who had parachuted in while the infantry was scrambling up the beaches. He remembered:
"We attacked every day for 23 days from dawn to dark. We lost a lot of our closest friends. Reinforcements become veterans in a few hours if they lasted."
Opposed by the 17th SS Panzer Grenadier Division, "one of Hitler's best," Timm's regiment drove the Nazis back across the swamps. "We literally destroyed them in this series of intense actions, fighting from one Norman village to the other."
Timm fought through France, Luxembourg and the Bulge all the way to the Elbe River. He won the Purple Heart for wounds suffered 22 Nov. 1945 in Luxembourg and a host of other medals, including the French Croix De Guerre with Palm, and last year received the award of Knight of the Legion of Honor from the French government.
Many others from this area were in those crucial battles in France and Germany and some never returned, heroes for the ages. We honor all of them on this anniversary of the fateful battle.
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Terry Watson says:
On June 16, 2014
at 10:21 AM
Dave
Good Story |
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Dave Rogers |
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