d day

We only fired bursts of three or four at a time. The Germans put their finger down, they"d run a hundred off. Because they just push a button, the barrel falls out, and they put another one on. We couldn't do that. We had to take the whole gun down, screw the barrel off, put a new barrel on, then loosen it three clicks, it was a pain. So he fired, I picked him up, I got about ten rounds in there, that sonofagun never fired any more. Some of the riflemen got up and they walked over and looked in the hole. They didn't signal that there was anybody in there. They just looked in the hole and walked away." Background of D-Day: The Second World War had started almost five years ear, on September 1, 1939, when Germany invaded Poland. England and France had promised to defend Poland. But they were unprepared to fight, and as a result they were terribly beaten. by the next spring, France had fallen into German hands. The British army had to flee the Continent and escaped from the French port of Dunkirk with frightful losses. In the summer of 1940 the Germans, with their allies, the Italians, controlled all of western Europe. The German air force began its attempt to bomb the British Isles into rubble. Nevertheless, the British began to think about getting back onto the continent. They started planning an attack across the Channel- even though it seemed more likely that they would become the invaded rather than the invaders. Hitler threatened to invade England. He went so far as to assemble a fleet of barges along the French coast, planning to use them as assault boats. But he hesitated because he realized the risks of an amphibious attack. Also, he knew that the British navy would destroy itself, if necessary in an attempt to smash a German invasion fleet. Still the idea was tempting. The British knew as well as Hitler did that if the Germans could make the landing successfully, England would be lost.