#ALVIDA D DAY VDEO STORY FREE#

There were no mines, just a ploy to slow the advance. His unit went over the field with a bulldozer, expecting explosions вЂ“ only to find that the Germans had sowed the field with scrap metal to fake out Allied metal detectors. He found the rest of his unit stopped at the top of the hill by a sign that said вЂњACHTUNG MINEN!вЂќ вЂ“ the warning of a German minefield. This was hours after the Rangers had fought their way off Dog Green through Erwin RommelвЂ™s beach defenses, but as Mooneyhan rode up to the high ground, he still saw infantrymen crawling on their bellies. Eventually, a barge took them off the LST and to the beach, where MooneyhanвЂ™s Jeep splashed ashore. The Navy commander of their LST refused to get in close enough to land their unitвЂ™s equipment. There, as a platoon leader in the 502nd Engineers, a light ponton company, he trained on the rapid assembly of Bailey Bridges as well as other means of overcoming obstacles infantry would face in the invasion.ДЄfter their long months of training, Mooneyhan and his men were eager to get into the fight, but on D-Day itself they encountered hours of frustration. In the video, the veteran told the story common to so many of his generation вЂ“ how he went from small-town life of Elliott, S.C., into the Army and eventually to England.

#ALVIDA D DAY VDEO STORY FREE#

The free program, part of the museumвЂ™s Lunch and Learn series, is open to the public.

But before he passed away in 2011, he sat down with his daughter Barbara for a video interview.Д«arbara Mooneyhan will present that video on Friday, June 7, at noon at the South Carolina Confederate Relic Room and Military Museum in Columbia. James Richard Mooneyhan landed on the stretch of Norman shoreline code-named Dog Green вЂ“ the same sector of Omaha Beach depicted in the harrowing opening minutes of вЂњSaving Private Ryan.вЂќДЇor most of the rest of his life, like so many soldiers who have been face-to-face with history, he didnвЂ™t talk about it.

Alvida d day vdeo story