World War II Veteran Remembers D-Day
MARCIANO: On Wednesday, America marks an iconic day in military history. It was June 6, 1944, the largest ever sea-borne invasion unfolded. Allied forces swarmed five beaches at Normandy, France -- Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno and Sword. 5,000 ships, 11,000 airplanes, and over 150,000 service men became part of world history that day. We call it D-Day. Veteran Morton Waitzman was there, and he shares his pointed experience.</s>MORTON WAITZMAN, WWII VET: My name is Morton Waitzman. I was born in Chicago, Illinois, November 8, 1923. I was in the 29th Infantry Division, (inaudible) Company, Second Battalion. I actually enlisted in January of 1943. I would have been drafted anyway, but I was anxious to get after people who started that whole war after Pearl Harbor. I was told I had a choice between going directly to Europe or staying behind in the States and training for officers candidate school in engineering. But I made clear that my choice would be to go into the European theater if possible. And so I found myself on a mortar troop ship in December of 1943 on the way to Southampton, England, initially going to be going to the 82nd Airborne or the 101st Airborne, and landing just before D-Day so I could join the French underground. But that never took place. I was in jump training, and I jumped off towers and so on, but the training was stopped because there would be only one reason. D- Day was rapidly approaching. We soon found out it was supposed to be June 5th, but then the weather was bad and General Eisenhower made it June 6th. So we were on one of our motherships about June 4th, going across the English Channel, bobbing up and down in pitch black, and eventually got to about, oh, 15, 20 miles offshore off the coast, and we were told where we were going then. And it would be Normandy. It would be Omaha Beach in Normandy. I was at the beaches in Normandy, but I had to get to the landing craft, so climbing down those cargo nets at about 4:30 or 5:00 in the morning, it was pitch black, it was raining, it was cold, and it was a matter of survival, the time you jumped from the cargo net into the infantry craft. Many didn't make it. If you fell into the sea, that was the end. And we lost several comrades this way. I obviously survived that, got onto the boat, and we headed towards shore. And hitting the beach at about 6:30 or so in the morning. When those doors opened up, our job was to move out fast. And we came in at low tide, and it was still where we could see the obstacles around the beaches. The enemy fire was very intense, 8,000 in our group were killed or wounded in the landings. And I to this day remember specific stories involving the vision of human beings being torn apart by the artillery fire, machine-gun fire. It was not an easy time. It was an experience that any of us who experienced this find very difficult to keep from having recall, that makes life difficult sometimes. For 50 years after the war was over, I didn't talk about anything concerning the war. The memory of it was so difficult that -- I had to go on living. I talk as frequently as I can now as part of the emotional impact that it has on me and my family and my wife, because I have to teach this, and my comrades who do the same feel the same way. It's a history lesson. History is important.</s>MARCIANO: Well, this Wednesday, June 6, will be the 68th anniversary of D-Day. Huge wildfires, they're ripping through the forests of at least mine states today. This fire in New Mexico has gotten so big, it's setting a new record.