D-Day Veteran Remembers Operation Overlord
COLLEEN MCEDWARDS, CNN ANCHOR: Well, it has been said that war is hell. And this was hell 57 years ago today on the beaches of Normandy, France, beaches code-named Utah and Omaha by the Allies in Operation Overlord. It was the largest air, land and sea invasion in history -- and a decisive moment as well.</s>CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: Unforgettable images from that day and unforgettable memories. CNN's Anne McDermott has the story of one man who remembers.</s>ANNE MCDERMOTT, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Jules Berlinsky is nearly 90 now, but some things he'll never forget, like landing at Omaha Beach on D-Day.</s>JULES BERLINSKY, D-DAY VETERAN: There was no thought of making it or not making it. We had to make it. We were moving. We were going. We were taking commands from our officers.</s>MCDERMOTT: But thousands didn't make it. He saw dead men in the water, dead men on the beach and paratroopers hanging in trees shot to death by Germans. And there were so many other horrors.</s>BERLINSKY: I saw a tank full of Germans that was set on fire by our side. And they were all scrambling to get out of the tank. And all you saw was bodies hanging over the tank.</s>MCDERMOTT: Berlinsky would smile for pictures back then, but grew to believe war is the ugliest thing on Earth. So, no, he didn't see "Saving Private Ryan." And, no, he has no interest in seeing "Pearl Harbor." In fact, he's a little puzzled at all the hoopla surrounding his little slice of history because he says, "Fighting in World War II was not a matter of heroics or lust for glory."</s>BERLINSKY: We were there because we had to be there.</s>MCDERMOTT: But he wasn't a killing machine. He remembers a night in France falling asleep in a field and when he awoke:</s>BERLINSKY: There was a German. He had also found himself in this hedgerow. And we didn't attack each other. We went off in different directions.</s>MCDERMOTT: In the end, he believes war solves nothing.</s>BERLINSKY: We don't learn from wars. The same things happen over and over and over.</s>MCDERMOTT: And yet he'd fight at Normandy all over again because, he says, it was right, which sets him to remembering again.</s>BERLINSKY: I don't know how we survived it. I don't know how.</s>MCDERMOTT: Anne McDermott, CNN, Los Angeles.