Gallows Humor

D-Day, June 6, 1944, Gold Beach, one of the five assaulted by Allied Forces with the goal of liberating France from German occupation:


“Boat after boat got hung up on the obstacles. Of the sixteen landing craft carrying the 47th Royal Marine commandos in to Gold Beach, four boats were lost, eleven were damaged and beached and only one made it back to the parent ship. Sergeant Donald Gardner of the 47th and his men were dumped into the water about fifty yards from shore. They lost all of their equipment and had to swim in under machine-gun fire. As they struggled in the water, Gardner heard someone say, “Perhaps we’re intruding, this seems to be a private beach.”

- from The Longest Day, “The Day”, chapter 2, by Cornelius Ryan