Human memories fade. But the memory of June 6, 1944, will live forever with Salt Laker Woolas Macey.
"It was like it was yesterday," Macey, a retired sales representative, said of D-day.Known as the Longest Day, D-day was perhaps the most important and most famous day of World War II. It began the heroic invasion of Europe at Normandy, France, and marked the beginning of the end of Hitler's reign of terror. Germany surrendered 11 months later.
Then 22 years old, Staff Sgt. Woolas Macey, a Logan native, was with the first assault wave that landed on the piece of French shoreline that became "the bloody Omaha."
Planning for the invasion, which had the code name Operation Overlord, started two years earlier. Once the massive invasion actually began, under the command of Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, it involved more than 3 million men - mainly Americans, Canadians and Britons - 5,000 large ships, 4,000 smaller landing craft and more than 11,000 aircraft.
For 10 months before D-day, Macey, a member of the 37th Combat Engineers, Company A, Army 1st Division, was stationed in England, waiting for the invasion. Three times, his unit went on maneuvers, landing on English beaches similar to those at Normandy.
"Every time we went on maneuvers, we thought, `Oh, this is it.' On the last maneuver, however, they issued us ammunition. They also started feeding us pork chops. Before we'd been eating C rations and K rations. We knew this was it," he said.
The invasion had been scheduled for June 5, but stormy weather forced Eisenhower to postpone it one day.
June 6 dawned overcast. The choppy sea had 10- to 12-foot swells, and the small landing crafts bounced in the waves. Many soldiers were seasick. "I wondered why we were landing on a day like that," he said.
As they approached the beach, the 21 soldiers crammed onto Macey's landing craft could hear only the Navy guns behind them. But as they got closer to the shore, it was evident that the battle-hardened 352nd German Division, from bunkers overlooking Omaha Beach, were pounding the Allied assault troops with deadly fire.
"They used to bring in majors and colonels of the air corps to talk to us (before D-day). They'd say, `We have them beat up and softened up so bad. Don't be surprised if they're serving coffee and doughnuts on the beach.' That's what I envisioned, coming in and having someone hand me a doughnut," Macey said.
But Macey's comrades in the 1st Division, veterans of North Africa and Sicily, knew that it wasn't a German tea party that awaited them.
At 6:30 a.m. Macey and his comrades waded ashore to the horrors of war.
Scores were cut down by machine gun or mortar fire. The sea and the beach were soon littered with the bodies of the dead and dying.
"One of my best buddies was hit by the Germans. I grabbed him, pulled him up, but his head was wide open, " he said.
He also saw his company commander, a college all-American football player, die in the chaos and carnage that was Omaha. "He said, `Let's get off this beach or we're going to get killed here.' He raised up and got it right between the eyes."
Macey's orders were to blow holes in the barbed-wire fences and help clear a path on the heavily mined beach for the troops who would follow. But German resistance was fierce. For hours, he was pinned down on the beach. "I was lying there shaking," he said.
When a German came out of a bunker, Macey fired his rifle, killing his enemy. "It didn't bother me at the time. But I've thought about it lots since . . ." Macey's voice became choked with emotion at the memory of his part in death.
By nightfall, the Allies finally secured a toehold on the bloody beach. Thousands had died to get it. D-day casualties for the Allies were estimated at 10,000, including 2,500 dead. "I lost a lot of good buddies that day," Macey said.
Nine days later, after his unit had moved several miles inland, Macey returned to the beach with a mine detector. Shortly before noon on June 15, 1944, Macey stepped on an Italian box mine. The Utahn was critically wounded. The two soldiers with him were killed.
In the days that followed, he drifted in and out of consciousness. There are gaps in his memory. He can remember his protests to the Catholic priest who tried to give him the last rites and the German sniper attack on the Jeep that carried him to a temporary Army hospital.
He was soon flown to England for treatment. Because of his extensive injuries, one leg was amputated just below the knee. For a while, the doctors doubted they could save his other leg, but they did.
To prevent gangrene, the physicians put maggots in his wounds. "The maggots will eat the dead flesh but not the live flesh. When the live flesh is exposed, they'll start crawling out . . . I felt them crawling. I took a yardstick and poked it down the cast on my leg. When I pulled out the yardstick, there were about 20 maggots on it. It really scared me," he said.
To complete his recuperation, Macey was transferred to Bushnell Army Hospital, Brigham City, 25 miles from his hometown. On his route home, he was transferred to a different transport plane at the last minute. The original plane crashed in Iceland, killing all aboard.
"I have nine lives. I've used up quite a few of them," he said.
In the last days of the war, Macey finished his Army career by traveling throughout Utah and Idaho on a war bonds tour with another soldier amputee.
It's been 48 years. Macey has never been back to Normandy, but someday he hopes to visit the Omaha Beach cemetery. He wants to properly pay his respects to his fallen comrades.