D-Day
At 2100 hours on Thursday evening, June 1st the 540 got the order to proceed to R-3 Hard to load the vessel. Jablonowski on the Throttle, and Mueller steering the craft got the 540 to the dock quickly. The fog thinned and the crew could see the tremendous amount of activity all over the wharf. The LCT had been through this routine a few times now, but the crew felt that this was more than another dress rehearsal. From the sailors on the pier to the grim faces of the soldiers, waiting to load, the crew immediately realized this was different. They all knew this was it. As soon as he 540 tied to the wharf at 2350 hours a radio tech came aboard and sealed the radio. It was official. This WAS the invasion.

The crew stood watching the soldiers come aboard. They learned that these men were combat veterans, members of the 5th Engineer Special Brigade (ESB) of the Big Red One; men who had been part of the invasion of Sicily who had seen combat many times before in Italy. These guys had developed one hell of a “skill set”. Part “Demolition Specialist” Part “Combat Infantryman”, Part “Wildman”.

In slightly less than 2 hours, the 540 loaded 14 vehicles, and 57 men of the Big Red One, and these guys from Company B, 37th Engineers, and 5th ESB would be in the early action. 25% of all the troops which landed on Omaha Beach would be engineers, and these guys were in the front of the line. The 3 half-tracks on board were huge vehicles measuring 20’ by 7’ wide, almost the same size as the enlisted quarters where 12 guys slept. Dad and the crew joked with the soldiers about that. Critical parts had been waterproofed,, and the jeeps had been altered to travel under water with 6 feet long snorkel tubes over their carburetors.

The 540 pulled out from the yard at 0135 hours on Friday, June 2nd to get water, and then moved alongside the LCT-542 to get additional fuel. At 1930 hours they brought a food supply aboard, and they were now fully supplied. Their cargo of men and machine was loaded, and the 540 was “good to go”. Like all their practice runs, they tied to await the launch orders. Next to LCT-624 on T-6 . They sat all day on Saturday awaiting order that never came. No General Quarters. No fire drill. No routine work. Nothing. Just waiting!

That evening, Ensign Nye Moses, Skipper, called the crew together for a briefing. He knew they were ready and he told them so. He outlined to us just what they should expect to encounter in the grim, tough battle ahead of them. They had practiced, but now the Germans would throw everything they could at them. The landing will be deadly. Allied command thought there was a possibility of the Germans using poisonous gas, so the gun crews were told to wear the gas permeable outerwear which has been issued to them. They were hot and bulky but did offer some measure of protection. Allied Command expected a heavy German air attack so skipper told the gun crews to be prepared for a busy day. The picture he painted was no rosy one. It sounded plenty tough and there were lumps in the throats of each of the crew as they listened to skipper. He told the crew of the mighty allied forces and of the gigantic armada, of which we were a part, and it was a source of real encouragement to us.

The soldiers had been provided no comforts for sleeping and it was truly a sight to see them sprawled all over the ship, wherever they could find a space in which to lie down. They slept under trailers, on top of jeeps, and in the half-tracks. The manner in which they resigned themselves to their situation, rolled up their blankets to make a pillow and laid down on the tank deck was typically “G.I.”.

Omaha Beach would present a formidable challenge to these brave young guys. The beach is about four miles wide. With a 24’ tide, there is 150 yards of exposed beach from the low water line to high water mark. The rear of the beach is made up of steep hills ranging from 300 to 500 feet high, and accessed by four unpaved exits from the beach leading to villages located on a road running parallel to the beach.

The Germans had counted on stopping an invasion on the beaches. Extensive obstacles placed in the tidal-area of the beach had been designed to stop amphibious craft from landing. Many were connected to others so that triggering one could set off many. The beach itself was mined extensively. The Germans had established a well-thought out plan for the placement of machine-guns, mortars and mines, and as my dad would experience, 88mm canons whose initial development was as an anti-aircraft defensive weapon, proved very effective as an anti-tank or anti-landing craft weapon . 88mm cannons, placed at either end of Omaha Beach with a panoramic view of the beach, helped to strengthen the German plan to kill as many invaders as possible before or after landing. 50mm and 75mm guns were positioned along the beach every 1,000 yards.

The 540’s job was to deliver the folks on board from the 5th ESB to Easy Red at Omaha Beach. These were the guys who would secure the exit from the beach leading to St. Laurent and start to clear the obstacles, so the following waves could come in safely. There were about 40 guys who seemed to be in the same engineer group with 2 officers and about 38 army and navy enlisted men. They loaded a couple of half-tracks and two trucks filled with 1,000 pounds or more of explosives, demolition accessories, mine detectors, mine gap markers. Each of the enlisted guys seemed to be carrying over 70 pounds of equipment, including what looked to be about 40 pounds of explosives.

H-hour was established as 0630, and the 540 was due at the beach at H-hour +60. 0730 hours. The order of the allied invasion landing at Easy Red Sector of Omaha beach on the morning of June 6 was as follows:

At, 0620, with the tide just starting to rise from its low point, a wave of Sherman Tanks DD were launched 10,000 yards from the beach. This was a disastrous decision since 27 of 29 tanks of the 741st Tank Battalion were lost. Additional losses were avoided when the radio crews from some of the sinking tanks were able to warn following units not to launch so far out. In fact after this initial disastrous attempt LCT's brought all tanks onto the beach.
H-hour: 4 LCT's carrying tank-dozers from Company A 741st tank battalion with orders to proceed against obstacles as directed by the Army combat demolition unit officers
H-hour +1 minute 12 LCVPs carrying six naval combat demolition units were to land on Omaha Beach each charged with clearing a gap 50 yards wide through the band of obstacles and markets so that subsequent waves of soldiers knew where to land.
H-hour +3 minutes 6 LCM's carrying the engineer special task force.
H-hour +8 minutes 3 LCM’s carrying support teams of the engineer special task force
H-hour +25 minutes 4 LCM’s carrying support teams of the engineer special task force
H-hour +30 minutes 13 LCVPS carrying company G 16th infantry
H-hour +40 minutes 6 LCVPs and 1 LCM carrying Company H 16th infantry.
H-hour +50 minutes 8 LCVPs and 1 LCM carrying Co A 81st Chemical Mortar Bn
H-hour +60 minutes 5 LCT's carrying 5th Detachment ESB Together with four other LCTs, the 538, 539, 541, and the 542 formed “Wave 8” onto Omaha Beach. These 5 LCTs were to “go in”, hitting the beach together at 0730.
The orders came at 0324 hours on Sunday morning. Proceed to the transport area. The LCT 540 pulled out a harbor and into the channel . Three hours later, at 0634 hours the 540 got word that the invasion was postponed and they were ordered to return to T-6. Which they did, tying back up at 0930 hours. The men again sat and waited. It was the following morning, after many anxious and tense hours of uncertainty and wearisome waiting that they again got the order to “shove off” for the big offensive.

At 0300 on Monday, June 5th the yard erupted into a cacophony of diesel engines! 150 LCTs each with three diesel engines all roared to life simultaneously. It was deafening! It was exhilarating! The soldiers spread over the tank deck jumped awake. This was it. The soldiers were ready to go.

The trip to Normandy would be a 20 hour trip although the weather was considerably better than the previous evening. One by one the LCT's pulled away from the dock and formed a line out of the north entrance to Portland Harbor. They preceded in column on a course at 095° at 0800 changed course 109°. At 1230 hours crew sited the Isle of Wight on the port side about the 300 yards. Just after they passed a spar buoy 2025 hours the craft changed course to 210° and was now heading straight to Normandy. In six hours the 540 would arrive at the final staging area.

The size of the allied effort was breath-taking. The sea was full of craft, mostly landing craft, from horizon to horizon, and overhead hundreds bombers were on their way to France. The 540 reached the rendezvous at about 0440, and the wave of landeing craft left the transport area for the beach at 0500. At about that time, the flashes from battleship, destroyers and cruisers lit the sky behind up as they fired on German positions. Thousands of white hot shells were clearly visible overhead, fired in pairs of shells from twin gun turrets of the US Navy. As the 540 got further away from the warships, their flashed looked more like lightening in the distant sky, but their shells were constant. At 0633 the sixteen assault gapping teams landed on OMAHA, and their support craft followed them over the next five minutes. The demolition teams, with the help of the tank-dozers, had just under half an hour to open gaps in the exposed obstacle belts before the main body of the infantry hit the beaches. The initial work went very slowly. While the ordeal of the gapping teams was still in progress, a second phase of engineer operations on Easy Red at Omaha was scheduled to begin with the arrival of the first elements of the 5th Engineer Special Brigade on the 5 LCTs including the 540.

At about two in a half miles from the beach the crew was ordered to general quarters stations with steel helmets and impregnated anti-gas outer clothing and gas mask nearby. The gun crews were in place in each 20 mm was ready to fire

Between the beach and the incoming LCTs lie numerous underwater obstacles and mines. The demolition squad was scheduled to land at H-hour to clear a pathway for incoming craft, but the markers had not yet been spotted. The five LCT's scanned the beach for the marker, but the smoke was dense.

1760 YARDS – 1 MILE
As the 540 was about a mile from the beach, the gun crews got the word to put on their protective gas permeable gear. Guns were ready, but the worries about German planes were unfounded…no German aircraft had yet been spotted. Skipper and my dad continued to search for the Easy Red landmarks. The rise in the easternmost part of the beach was where they expected the “E” marker to identify Easy Red.

1200 YARDS – 2/3 MILE
Jerry Binder, the ship’s cook who also served as medic, undertaker and clergyman, and Carl Ireland were standing in the 2 foot-wide space between the galley and the crew’s quarter looking toward the beach. Binder would be leading the first-aid team and both were anxious about what was coming. Binder noticed some splashes in the water to the port side of the craft, and realized that they were now within range of the German guns.

Ireland, an engine-ramp operator went below to his battle station and Binder, as primary “first aid” man, remained on the tank deck, between the galley and the crew’s quarters. Looking upward toward the conning tower, he saw that the skipper had opened the door to yell instructions to the guys forward on the tank deck. Skipper was half in the pilothouse and half out, with the door of the pilothouse between him and the enemy. Skipper yelled over to my dad asking if dad could see the marker yet. Just then the smoke lifted at the marker came into sight. When Skipper saw the big “E” marker he turned to Elmer Mueller, who was on the wheel at that time, and instructed him to head straight in to the beach. Full power!

At 900 YARDS - ½ MILE
Skipper nodded to my dad, and just as he turned back toward the beach, a German 44mm shell passed through the door he was standing behind, taking off the skipper’s left leg just below the knee and burst on the bulkhead behind him. Rebounding shrapnel caught him in the back and the groin, and the blast threw Skipper a few feet forward onto the deck above the officer's quarters. My dad’s position on the port gun was 15 feet away from where the skipper fell. With only the open space of tank deck some 10 feet below, between them, dad saw the agony on skipper's face. Binder, down on the tank deck also saw the Skipper get hit, and attempted to run to his aid, but the enemy fire was too intense. In utter disregard for his own personal safety, and in the face of the unrelenting enemy fire concentrated on the Pilot House area, Bill Wilhoit, the Executive Officer, who has just joined the seasoned crew a few weeks ago immediately dashed out to the Skipper’s aid. Wilhoit picked up the skipper and brought him safely back to the pilot house. Bill who was celebrating graduation from Georgia Tech just a month before, assumed command of the LCT-540 900 yards off the coast of Normandy.

BOOM!! An 88mm shell slammed into the bow 540

BOOM! A 50mm shell hit the starboard gun tub, stunning but not wounding the crew. Keeping his head, Sherwood Harris made a quick assessment that the gun was inoperable. He and Libby decided to abandon the gun.

800 YARDS – 2/3 MILE
There was a very strong right to left 5 knot current along the shore line. The assault team had only been able to clear a path that was 50 yards wide. The strong current, combined with rough seas required a major effort to keep the craft heading straight into the beach. The net effect of the current however, was to shift the eventual landing sites of the LCTs further west on the Easy Red Beachhead. BOOM!! An 88mm shell slammed into the starboard side of the Officer’s Quarters and cut the communication lines to the Pilot House above.

Forward of the Pilot House another shell struck the starboard gun-tub, just after the men had abandoned it. Sherwood Harris, the gunner, had had a hard time getting out of the straps holding him to the gun and almost didn’t make it out of the tub before a second shell hit his position. The enemy fire was too intense to go very far so he crouched behind the gun tub to keep out of fire.

600 YARDS
BOOM! BOOM! Two other shells struck the 540 in the bow. Fire from beach intensifies as the craft get closer to the beach. A shell ricocheted off one of the half-tracks and took the left arm of one of the soldiers slamming him into the back of a jeep. The force of the impact separated four hand grenades which were attached to the soldiers belt from their pins. Before soldiers around him knew what happened, the four grenades exploded and wounded 12 other soldiers. Jerry Binder rushed 30 feet along the tank deck to reach the injured soldiers. The guy initially hit by the shell by blown beyond recognition. Binder was able to quickly assess two guys who needed attention, and organized a small crew to carry them to the galley.

400 YARDS
BOOM! A shell hits port gun-tub and exploded a 20 mm magazine, which rocked the gun-tub and the crew. Bob Kearney was dazed, and after jumping out of the tub, fell down behind the tub for cover. He looked over at Sherwood Harris in a similar position 15 feet away behind the starboard gun-tub. The exploding magazine, had knocked dad to the floor of the tub. In a daze, dad raised himself off the floor and onto his shaky feet. Now he truly was a “ 6 foot target behind a 3’ wall. Standing in the tub, he shook the cob webs and quickly realized his protection was on fire. He straightened himself upright, and he slowly, calmly removed the flaming hood as if to mock the German effort. Then the snipers opened up on him. Bullets starting raining down around the gun tub. Dad jumped over the 3’ wall to get out of the tub, and then lept up onto the 4’ high anchor wench located just behind the port gun. Dad sprinted aft for about 25’on top of equipment and crates, which had been stored topside of the galley. With dad running across the deck, enemy snipers continued to concentrate their fire on him, just like in the movies, with bullets bouncing dangerously close to his heels. At the end of his gauntlet, dad had nowhere to run. Sniper fire continued to shower down around him, and he dove through an opening in the anchor assembly. Dad was able to snake down to the tank deck where Jerry Binder treated him.

200 YARDS
This errant German fire although missing my dad was able to set fire to a 5-gallon “Gerry Can” filled with gasoline which had been lashed to the tank deck above the head. Sherwood Harris, from his spot just behind the starboard gun-tub had watched my dad’s run for life 20 feet away, and saw the German fire ignite the gasoline explosion. He didn’t think twice, before he jumped up and raced aft towards the fire. He might have been the hotshot gunner, but he immediately realized the danger which the fire presented. Elmer Mueller was steering the craft, and felt the concussion from the explosion. He wasn’t aware of the danger until he saw Harris race towards the rear of the craft. Mueller told the ensign, he was going to fight the fire and Bill Wilhoit took over the helm. Mueller quickly joined in the fire-fighting effort. As Harris approached the fire two more cans erupted into a forty-foot high ball of fire and thick black smoke at the rear of the craft. The rear part of a half-track loaded with explosives was engulfed in flames. Everyone thought this was the end. Too much fire…. Too little time… too many explosives.

Harris (a gunner) and Mueller (the helmsman) with little training in fire fighting outside of the impromptu lessons the Skipper had asked the fire team to provide to the crew a few weeks before, were able to put the fire out before any serious damage was done. Both would later receive the Silver Star for their actions and quick thinking that day.

The smoke however continued to pour from the back of the craft, and it certainly helped the German soldiers aware the craft was in trouble. Another shell went through the rear of a trailer and exploded next to a jeep killing two men in the jeep and wounding 15 others. As the craft churned the last few yards to the beach, the dead soldiers were taken out of the jeep and replaced by others.

LCT-540 slammed onto Omaha Beach at 0720 hours to deliver the 57 men, 3 half-tracks, 10 jeeps with trailers and thousands of pounds of explosives. The 14 vehicles on board had their engines going… Shells were slamming into the craft non-stop. Soldiers were keeping down, but they were too close. They wanted at the Germans.

Everyone’s adrenalin was pumping. Drivers gunned their engines. Bill Wilhoit gave the order “Lower the ramp” to Tom McKay, another Philly guy who was the petty officer in charge of the Ramp Detail. No response. Bill gave the order again. No response. One of the 88mm shells had disconnected all communications between the bridge and the rest of the ship, and consequently the order to lower the ramp could not be received by the seamen in the ramp engine room. With the craft beached, the 540 was a sitting duck on Omaha. They landed 1,000 yards away from where they were expected to land, but unfortunately they were within 700 yards of an 88mm cannon, 3 – 75mm guns, 3 - 50mm guns, 8 machine guns placements and 2 mortar positions. The shells kept raining down on the beached craft. No communication with the ramp crew located 50 feet away from the Pilot House and almost certain death to try to get word to them. After ten minutes of sitting on the beach, taking fire and not being able to unload the men and equipment Ensign Wilhoit gave the order to pull off from the beach.

According to the ship’s log, LCT-540 “hit the beach at 07:20, receiving 9 direct hits from German 88mm cannon, skipper Nye Moses & 3 soldiers killed, 8 crewmen received shrapnel and burns. 27 army wounded. The log also shows 07:30 Pulled off still loaded. Bill Wilhoit gave the order to pull back to the AP area in order to make necessary repairs to the communication system and get medical attention for the wounded.

The skipper lived only about an hour and a half and died at approximately 0830. He didn’t last long enough for the crew to get him to a doctor. As he lay there in the pilothouse, knowing that he was going to die, he spoke with the crew and gave them instructions and urged them to press on with the mission. It was too important! He then asked crew members to write to his folks and to comfort them. When he died, Jerry Binder got out his prayer book and said some prayers for him; also read the twenty-third Psalm.

The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want.

He maketh me to lie down in green pastures:

He leadeth me beside the still waters.He restoreth my soul:

He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for His name' sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil:

For thou art with me;

Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me.

Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies;

Thou annointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life,

and I will dwell in the House of the Lord forever.

Bill Wilhoit, Jerry Binder and Carl Ireland treated approximately twenty-nine soldiers and eight sailors for their wounds. LCT-540 pulled up to the APA to drop off crew members army personnel who were wounded, and at 1015 hours the 540 headed back to Omaha. Then came the realization that they were going to face the enemy once more. They were all scared and no one was anxious to return, but the crew realized that their duty lie ahead of them.

Navy brass realized the aerial bombardment and pre invasion shelling from the battleships and destroyers had not been as effective as needed. LCTs were ordered wait a few miles offshore, while a few destroyers whose captains saw the predicament of the troops on the beach came within a few hundred yards of Omaha and pounded the German defensive positions enough to allow landings to resume. LCT-540 hit the beach and retracted fully unloaded in 5 minutes. After they discharged the soldiers, they surveyed the 540, and it was a bloody mess. The bodies of the three dead soldiers and the skipper were just lying on the deck. It wasn’t until 10:30 hours the next day that a Coast Guard Cutter came alongside to take the bodies. Ensign Moses was already in a stretcher, so it was a simple matter to place his body aboard the cutter. However, the soldiers were in a rather poor condition to be handled, so the crew of the 540 were informed that we would have to bury these soldiers at sea themselves. It was a messy, bloody job. The crew placed the soldiers in blankets and wrapped them in the traditional Navy manner for burial, taking each man individually and burying him with an individual prayer. At 13:00 hours Jerry Binder, the 540’s cook, officiated at the burial. He did not know what these men’s religions were. They may have been Protestants, Catholics, or Jews. Therefore, in order to give them proper burial, he read them a prayer from each creed. The crew of the 540 continued to transport men, machine and material to Omaha Beach over the next few days.

German fire had caught my dad with a nasty wound to the buttocks just as he dived through a small opening in the frame brace, supporting the anchor cable at the stern. Because the 540 had not laid anchor, there was very little space for my dad to fit through. The next day, he examined the brace, through which he had dived and discovered that it was utterly impossible for his body to pass through it. “I must have been scared skinny,” he remarked to the crew and gave the crew the first belly laugh that they had in days. When it was later announced that Mueller and Harris were being awarded the Silver Star for their heroic action in fighting the fire on deck, dad, the comedian, popped up with, “I got robbed, and I think I should rate a Silver Star too. After all, if the Nazis weren’t shooting at me, there wouldn’t have been any fire for them to put out,” That was just like dad always joking.

For their participation in the “D” Day invasion, Ensign William L Wilhoit was awarded the Navy Cross. Ensign Nye Moses, Sherwood Lee Harris (Gunner’s Mate Third Class), and Elmer Mueller (Electrician’s Mate Second Class) were awarded the Silver Star. Nine men were awarded the Purple Heart, including my dad. The entire crew of the LCT 540 was awarded the Presidential Unit Citation, which is the highest award which can be awarded to a military unit which must have displayed such gallantry, determination and esprit de corps in accomplishing its mission under extremely difficult and hazardous conditions to have set it apart from and above other units participating in the same campaign. The degree of heroism required is the same as that which would be required for award of a Navy Cross to an individual. The Navy Cross is second only to the Congressional Medal of Honor as an individual award.