(Troops in an LCVP landing craft approaching "Omaha" Beach on
"D-Day", 6 June 1944, from the Army Signal Corps Collection, [Public
Domain] via Creative Commons)
On June 6, 1944, a coalition
of mainly British, Canadian and American forces launched their ambitious D-Day
invasion. Allied infantry sailed to the beaches of Normandy (Utah, Omaha, Gold,
Juno and Sword) on fairly flimsy landing craft with Allied navy and
the air support, which was often unreliable. It was a good day for the largest
amphibious invasion in military history; Adolf Hitler overslept on that day,
and General Erwin Rommel was away from Normandy, visiting his family in
Germany. Ultimately, the invasion would prove to be a huge success, and become
one of the key turning points of World War Two. Yet, the invasion was costly.
An accepted statistic of casualties suffered by the Allied Powers resulting
from the D-Day invasion is 10,000 dead, wounded or missing. The U. S. D-Day
Memorial Foundation has identified 4,413 total deaths that resulted from the
invasion, with 2, 499 of them being from the United States military.
The remarkable survival story
of U. S. Private Harold “Hal” Baumgarten (1925-2016) demonstrated just how
chaotic and violent the D-Day invasion was and vividly illustrated some of the dangers
and obstacles the invasion force faced in Normandy. At just nineteen years old,
Baumgarten would receive five major injuries—three on June 6 and two more on
June 7. By the time D-Day was over, he and one other comrade would be the only survivors from their
original thirty-person landing crew on Omaha Beach.
(WWII- Europe- France; “Into the Jaws of Death —
U.S. Troops wading through water and Nazi gunfire ”,Omaha Beach circa
1944-06-06, modified, [Public Domain] via Creative Commons)
Hal Baumgarten had
paradoxical good and bad luck. On the one hand, he was exposed to (and hit by)
numerous painful and deadly forces. Yet, he was fortunate to have survived all
of the gruesome wounds he sustained. First, on June 6, German machine gun fire
riddled his landing boat crew. Though many of his company were injured or
killed by the incoming bullets, Baumgarten was saved by his rifle, which took
the brunt of the impact. Baumgarten was alive and uninjured, but his gun was
disabled—it actually snapped in two when he attempted to unjam the damaged
weapon.
Next, an explosive shell hit
near Private Baumgarten, shredding the left side of his face and blasting
shrapnel through his jaw and teeth. Despite half of his face and mouth having
been blasted thoroughly into a bloody mess, Baumgarten continued to fight. He
kept calm and actually went to rescue an injured soldier. It was at this time,
however, that he was once again hit by an explosive projectile. This time, it
was a mortar shell. The shrapnel from the shell managed to puncture through Baumgarten’s
helmet, causing even more damage to the Private’s already mangled head. Hal
Baumgarten shrugged off the blast and succeeded in carrying the wounded soldier
to safety.
The battered and bruised
forces on Omaha Beach continued to press on, despite their wounds. Hal
Baumgarten’s third major injury occurred when he stepped on what he called a
“castrator mine.” The mine was designed to fire a projectile upward when
triggered, usually hitting between the victim’s legs. Fortunately for
Baumgarten, the mine’s projectile passed through his foot, and not his groin,
resulting in an unsightly infection and the loss of a toe.
Despite his face being
blasted apart and his foot ripped open, Hal Baumgarten continued to limp
forward against the Germans. He suffered his fourth major injury under more
heavy machine gun fire. Bullets ripped into Baumgarten’s face, blasting out
even more teeth and jawbone, this time from the right side of his face. Finally,
after having the left, right and top sections of his head hit by bullets or shrapnel—as
well as stepping on a mine—Hal Baumgarten injected himself with a large dose of
morphine and collapsed, resting among the dead and dying.
Soon, medics picked him up in
a military ambulance that had managed to make its way to Omaha Beach. He got
the attention of the medical crew by firing a few shots from a submachine gun
he had scavenged from the nearby dead. The medics stopped and added him to
their already-crowded ambulance. The Germans, however, were not done with Hal—a
sniper fired shots at the medics and a bullet smashed into Baumgarten’s knee,
resulting in his fifth major injury during the D-Day invasion.
Even though Baumgarten’s
final wounds were sustained on June 7, he did not receive official hospital
treatment until June 11, when he landed back in England. While in Britain,
Baumgarten was—unsurprisingly—awarded the Purple Heart for the many injuries he
experienced on behalf of the United States. From there, he began a long string
of surgeries and plastic surgery to mend and reconstruct his head and leg. He
went on to become a teacher and a doctor, and wrote of his WWII experience in
his book, D-Day Survivor: An
Autobiography. Finally, in 2015, Dr. Baumgarten received the Silver Service
Medallion, which is awarded to veterans who served with distinction in WWII.
Written by C. Keith Hansley
- http://www.ww2online.org/view/harold-baumgarten/segment-4
- http://www.cnn.com/2013/06/03/world/europe/d-day-fast-facts/
- http://www.nww2m.com/2016/12/farewell-to-dr-harold-hal-baumgarten-d-day-survivor-and-friend-of-the-national-wwii-museum/
- http://www.ddaymuseum.co.uk/d-day/d-day-and-the-battle-of-normandy-your-questions-answered
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