ryan_box024-tld_f05_03

- for Cornelius Ryan 2 -

Your name Clifford Dunn

Did you by any chance keep a diary of what happened to you that day? No.

Were any of your friends killed or wounded either during the landing or
during the day? Yes. Some were wounded and died later. And some
were killed outright, mostly by land mines on the
beach

Do you remember any conversations you had with them before they became
casualites?
I remember chatting with one of the fellows on the
barge (L.S.T.) before landing. He was telling me about his last
leave in England and he hoped to go back to the same place again. He
gave me a photo of himself taken in England. I never saw him
again as he was one of the casualites, who died in a dew days.

Were you wounded? No.

Do you remember what it was like--that is, do you remember whether you
felt any pain or were so surprised that you felt nothing?

Do you remember seeing or hearing anything that seems funny now, even
though it may not have seemed funny at the time?
I can remember that we were delayed in landing
because our barge was stuck on a sand bar and
we couldn't get in close enough to land until the tide
came up. While waiting, we could see plenty of action
on shore. When we did land our Commanding Officer who
went in on the first wave, was having the jitters because
we were so long coming in as he didn't know the reason
for our delay (this was the second wave)

Do you recall any incident, sad or heroic or simply memorbale, which struck
you more than anything else?
It was nearly dusk befire we got to shore (9 30 P.M.) as we
were going in, the Germans were bombing our ships. I can
remember seeing one ship afire. The air was full of flak
from out anti-aircraft guns. In fact I got under one of
our trucks for protection. Our trucks were loaded on a big
raft from the L.S.T. From the raft we drove our lorries
through water, to the beach. We had everything water-proofed
about 3 weeks before time.
The 3rd Canadian Divison was picked for the spearhead
of the invasion. We had the British Army at our left flank
and the American Army at our right. We invaded in 3
different waves.