Omaha Beach

Vogt got off a landing craft just like this one. He had to charge forward through the dead bodies around him. He remembered "mines, smoke, yelling, crying, noise you can't believe, blood at least fifteen feet in the channel."

Vogt found it difficult to return to a "normal" life after the war. He called the war "traumatic" and felt responsible for the deaths of men in his Company. He had nightmares for years, reliving the battle on Omaha Beach.

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American soldiers wade through water into German machine gun fire on Omaha Beach, June 6, 1944
Courtesy of the National Archives
# 26-G-2343

Roland Vogt describes to his son, Jeffery, the horrors of landing on Omaha Beach in the cover of the best selling novel, The Longest Day, written by Cornelius Ryan, 1959
Courtesy of Jeffery Vogt

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"After a very rough crossing of the English Channel, most of the men vomited but I was lucky. Jumped into the water off the LCI (Landing Craft Infantry) into four to five feet deep water, mines, smoke, yelling, crying, noise you can't believe, blood at least fifteen feet in the channel water; very heavy German machine gun, rifle and mortar fire and trying to run forward in the deep water, then trying to find cover after stepping over mines and barbed wire being very scared. [sic] Deep behind two of my men and tried to urge them to follow me out of the water onto the beach only to find they were both dead. Now very scared - [22] years old. I tremble, I shake, I'm very disoriented.
Don't know how long I lay there for it seemed like hours but it was only a few minutes. My mind said go for I have to reach the safety of the beach and the cliff only 50 yards away but I freeze with fear. My mind said go but my body would not move. Go, go, go, freeze, freeze, freeze for I am so scared. Finally something happens and I get up and charge forward toward the cliff to temporary shelter. I make it, I am now a man as most of the fear is gone. I am now a soldier and I'm mad at the enemy and now gather some men around me and we move up the cliff, the men firing their weapons as we move forward, gathering more men as we advance."