Yes, They Do—“Gang Aft Agley!”

By Earle W. Jacobs

This is an account of the circumstances and events that lead to the authors landing on Utah Beach during the invasion of Normandy by the Allied Forces in World War II as he has remembered them, sixty-some years later.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Nov 1, 2011
• ISBN: 9781467053617

Earle W. Jacobs

Earle Jacobs has been a long time resident of Southern California. He lives’ there with his wife, Alla Mikhaylovna, a native of Kiev, Ukraine and their one-eared cat Barrabashka, a native of St. Petersburg, Russia. Alla is a US Citizen. Barrabashka so far still has only her entry visa. He was an Army Lieutenant during WWII and was awarded battle stars for his ETO Campaign Ribbon for Normandy, Northern France, Rhineland and Central Europe. He has been writing adventure novels since 1989.

Book preview

Contents

Foreword

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Foreword

I really don’t know what prompted me to write this

after all these years but—

it is a true account of my life from July

1939 to April 13 +/- 1944.

Of course, this is written from the perspective

of

the sixty-some years

that have

elapsed since

April of Nineteen and Forty-four.

Fortunately,

I am

blessed with a

very good memory.

I hope you find it interesting.

Poet, Robert Burns, inspired the title,

as you no doubt have surmised.

Chapter One

Well, now what? Here I am, lying on my back, staring up at the sky; my left leg jammed down between layers of barracks’ bags and I can’t move! Who was the genius who decided to load this tub with some outfits luggage before dumping us on top of them? I have on a field pack with a shelter half and jammed full of what feels like a hundred pounds of stuff. I’m wearing my new mesh-covered steel helmet. I and everyone else, is wearing these special olive drab uniforms impregnated with something supposed to protect our skin from a gas attack of some kind. Whatever that stuff is, it’s stiff, smelly and uncomfortable. Oh yes, and of course, the gas mask; It’s big and bulky enough, I wonder if it will really work in a real attack? I feel like I must weigh a ton! (‘Just great if I had fallen into the water climbing down into this scow, right?)

We have one man, the biggest in this squad, (I’ve forgotten his name—a nice chap though) carrying the BAR. (Browning automatic rifle) Another totes the barrel for the 50 cal. machine gun, another carries it’s receiver and yet another, its tripod. Believe me, all three are heavy suckers. Hopefully, if necessary, they can get it all assembled and set up if we are attacked by the deadly German horde that surely must await us on Utah beach ahead of us on the shores of Normandy. I hadn’t seen him but hopefully we should also have someone with the guns ammo box. They and the rest of us, including me, have also been issued the now standard 30 caliber carbines. (Deadly accurate, I later discovered, on anything within 50 feet.) Assuming we must all be direct descendants of Annie Oakley, in addition to the clip of 20 cartridges that we had in our carbines, in a spirit of unbridled generosity, we all had been given an extra clip of ammunition; surely more than enough for an expert marksman, if used judiciously. We were also each issued a trench knife, for hand-to-hand combat I assume; they are rather attractive in appearance, with a sharp point and guaranteed to cut butter if that were left out to soften just a tad.

A few Doubting Thomas’s, of which I must confess I was one, not being supremely confident in the efficacy or sufficiency of the Army’s equipment had also augmented that issued equipment with items we had purchased some time before departing on this expedition. I don’t know what some of them may have added but, right now, I also had a revolver in a shoulder holster and an extra hunting-knife on my web belt, this one razor sharp. (I still have it.)

We had, some time previously, practiced climbing down cargo nets to prepare us for this part of our excursion; (TWICE) I had hated it. Those practice towers must have been forty feet tall. Wearing all our gear, we climbed ladders, en mass, up one side and then down the cargo nets hung down the other side. During this exercise, you had people stepping on your head or hands, sometimes both simultaneously, as we all made our descent, again en-masse. A most unpleasant experience, both times. This however, should amply prepare anyone for the actual disembarkation when it occurred, right? WRONG!

Those practice towers had been anchored firmly on DRY LAND! I had stood by watching as the rest of the men, individually, climbed down the ten to fifteen feet of net to the small landing craft that was going to