Bernard Sterno enlisted in the United States Army on February 3, 1942. Originally from Georgia, he had moved to New York in search of work. New York was not what he thought it would be, so when the war started, he volunteered. His objective was to get into the paratroopers. He was 19 years old. This is his story of D-Day, June 6, 1944.
Just before D-Day, they sent us to a marshaling area. We were held behind barbed wire, kind of like a prison camp, almost. They had guards outside. You weren't allowed to communicate with anybody. You weren't even allowed to talk with the cooks. When you'd go through the mess line, when they'd put the food in your tray, there was no conversation. You'd say thank you, or talk about the food, or something like that. They were very careful. The NCOs and officers were always there. There were armed guards on the fence area. They didn't want you to go out of there. There was no chance to talk to anybody.
They took us in for a briefing before we made our jump. They had a sand table made just like the area we were going to jump into. They gave us large scale maps of where we were going to jump. We were a couple of days getting briefed, where we were going to jump, what we were going to do. The plan was that we were to jump near St. Martin-De-Varreville. We were supposed to attack some barracks that were there, and round up all the Germans. After that, we were to head down the causeway and keep it open so when the ground troops got there, it would be a little easier for them. Earlier we were told we had four gun installations to destroy, gun installations that could fire on people on the beach. But, the next day when they briefed us on it, they said there were only two of them there. The air corps knocked out a bunch of them the day before.
They postponed D-Day one day because the weather was too rough. Then the next day, it was it. They had a meeting before dark and General Eisenhower came out and walked right among us. It was very informal. Usually, when a general comes up they have you at attention. But as soon as Eisenhower walked up, the company commander was briefed. He said, "At rest." That meant you could stand around. Eisenhower came browsing through us, talking to us, joking with us, asking questions, where we were from, what did we do in civilian life, and things like that.
After he left, they took us, and all our heavy equipment, down to the C-47s, and we loaded up. We took off before dark on the fifth of June. I don't know how long it took us to get into formation. I was sitting next to one guy and we got tired and fell asleep. It was dark then, we were still flying. When I woke up and looked down, I could see a light flashing up at us. We were over the English Channel. It must have been a submarine or something like that that was flashing.
They took us in for a briefing before we made our jump. They had a sand table made just like the area we were going to jump into. They gave us large scale maps of where we were going to jump. We were a couple of days getting briefed, where we were going to jump, what we were going to do. The plan was that we were to jump near St. Martin-De-Varreville. We were supposed to attack some barracks that were there, and round up all the Germans. After that, we were to head down the causeway and keep it open so when the ground troops got there, it would be a little easier for them. Earlier we were told we had four gun installations to destroy, gun installations that could fire on people on the beach. But, the next day when they briefed us on it, they said there were only two of them there. The air corps knocked out a bunch of them the day before.
They postponed D-Day one day because the weather was too rough. Then the next day, it was it. They had a meeting before dark and General Eisenhower came out and walked right among us. It was very informal. Usually, when a general comes up they have you at attention. But as soon as Eisenhower walked up, the company commander was briefed. He said, "At rest." That meant you could stand around. Eisenhower came browsing through us, talking to us, joking with us, asking questions, where we were from, what did we do in civilian life, and things like that.
After he left, they took us, and all our heavy equipment, down to the C-47s, and we loaded up. We took off before dark on the fifth of June. I don't know how long it took us to get into formation. I was sitting next to one guy and we got tired and fell asleep. It was dark then, we were still flying. When I woke up and looked down, I could see a light flashing up at us. We were over the English Channel. It must have been a submarine or something like that that was flashing.
The next thing I knew, I could hear what sounded like a bunch of gravel on the plane. I could see streaks of tracer bullets coming up from the ground. I said, "Look there. It looks like tracer bullet fire or something." The guy next to me said, "It's just fire from the exhaust of the engines."
Then we started rocking. They told us to stand up and hook up and we parachuted into Normandy at night.
We were scattered all over and mixed in with the 82nd Airborne. It was just all mixed up that first night. Every time another plane would come over the Germans would start shooting. We got as close to them as we could and threw some hand grenades at them. That quieted some of them down. When it got daylight and we started seeing some of our own people. We stayed together and when we ran into groups of Germans, we'd get rid of them. Some of them would run and roll. It was nip and tuck.
When we came to a village, we hit it along with other companies. We were all mixed up with the 82nd Airborne. We were just disorganized. After a couple of days we all got together as people wandered in. Some of the men landed further away from our objective than we did. One plane load landed in the channel and were never seen again. They were from Company A, First Battalion, 502 Parachute Regiment. Their company commander was on the plane that went down.
I don't know how many days we were there. After the 10th, we were supposed to go and take Carentan. The whole company slept in a barn that night. The next morning we started out toward the open causeway. We had to rush in bunches and hit the ground and roll because the Germans were shooting at us and it was all in the open. We'd go across one of those bridges, hit the shoulder of the road, and lay down low. Some of the bridges were blown out. We strung ropes across them and pulled ourselves across the water on the ropes. We were all day long there.
When it got night, a dog-gone German dive bomber came over and was firing bullets. He was hitting the paved road and everybody there. He knocked several people of G Company out. He just got them. A British night fighter came in behind him and knocked him down. The dive bomber looked like a torch in the air. I could see it going over and hit the ground over on the other side of Carentan. You could see it burning all night long.
We were scattered all over and mixed in with the 82nd Airborne. It was just all mixed up that first night. Every time another plane would come over the Germans would start shooting. We got as close to them as we could and threw some hand grenades at them. That quieted some of them down. When it got daylight and we started seeing some of our own people. We stayed together and when we ran into groups of Germans, we'd get rid of them. Some of them would run and roll. It was nip and tuck.
When we came to a village, we hit it along with other companies. We were all mixed up with the 82nd Airborne. We were just disorganized. After a couple of days we all got together as people wandered in. Some of the men landed further away from our objective than we did. One plane load landed in the channel and were never seen again. They were from Company A, First Battalion, 502 Parachute Regiment. Their company commander was on the plane that went down.
I don't know how many days we were there. After the 10th, we were supposed to go and take Carentan. The whole company slept in a barn that night. The next morning we started out toward the open causeway. We had to rush in bunches and hit the ground and roll because the Germans were shooting at us and it was all in the open. We'd go across one of those bridges, hit the shoulder of the road, and lay down low. Some of the bridges were blown out. We strung ropes across them and pulled ourselves across the water on the ropes. We were all day long there.
When it got night, a dog-gone German dive bomber came over and was firing bullets. He was hitting the paved road and everybody there. He knocked several people of G Company out. He just got them. A British night fighter came in behind him and knocked him down. The dive bomber looked like a torch in the air. I could see it going over and hit the ground over on the other side of Carentan. You could see it burning all night long.
When it got daylight, we were out on the end of the bridge. They sent Company H up ahead because the other companies had already taken a beating. There was a big steel gate there and they pulled the gate open. They needed somebody to go so they said Company H, that was our company. Our commander says, "Come on Company H, let's do it."
The battalion commander, who was Colonel Cole, Robert Cole, from Texas, was standing there in the bald open with a .45 pistol on him. Our company commander was talking in a little whisper, and Colonel Cole said, "Damn it, Simmons, those Heinies know you're here. There's no sense whispering."
Our company commander, Cecil L. Simmons, was from Grand Rapids, Michigan. He was a captain. After the war, he became the head of the Michigan National Guard and made brigadier general. I've seen him twice since then. I saw him at the Orlando reunion about 15 or 20 years ago and again when we were in Holland in 1989, at the celebration they had in memory of the liberation of Eindhoven. That's the place where we jumped in Holland. I knew the Germans were sitting there waiting, because all day long we had been trying to get to them. When we started to cross over a hedge, all hell broke loose. I mean, they just opened up.
We sent one patrol out across an open field to a farm house. No sooner had they gone out, I was just getting ready to go over the hedge, and, man, the bullets and crap started flying. We laid down in a ditch. The rest of the battalion was up and down the ditch too, just pinned down.
It was just starting to get daylight when I noticed artillery shells started going into them, our artillery. I said, "The next artillery man I meet I want to shake his hand." Those heavy aerial bursts would burst over the foxholes and trenches the Germans were in. They would explode and hit them even though there were in slit trenches. They kept pouring that on them.
Finally the Colonel said, "When the smoke gets here," we would fire smoke shells which would hinder the Germans' visibility, "I want you to fix bayonets and charge." I couldn't believe it. But, sure enough, why, I looked over and saw Colonel Cole leading the dog-gone battalion. He was the one that gave the order. And then the rest of us, we jumped up and started going. I went about a hundred or a hundred and fifty feet and I was looking for an German to shoot at. One had his head right up there in the slit trench, I could see his helmet. I aimed at it and got him. He had a P-38 pistol and I wanted that son-of-a-gun. I was laying on my stomach so I wouldn't get hit. I reached up and got my trench knife out of my boot to cut the pistol loose. I went to cut it, and my hand just jolted like that, and blood started to come out both sides of my finger. A bullet had gone through my finger just as neat as anything. I cut the pistol loose and crawled over to a more secure spot.
A medic happened to come by, Land, was his name, a guy from Tampa, Florida. Zephyr Hills, I think. He saw my hand bleeding and he said, "Let me bandage that." I said, "Aw, it's not bothering me at all. It's just throbs a little."
He said, "Yeah, I want to bandage it."
The battalion commander, who was Colonel Cole, Robert Cole, from Texas, was standing there in the bald open with a .45 pistol on him. Our company commander was talking in a little whisper, and Colonel Cole said, "Damn it, Simmons, those Heinies know you're here. There's no sense whispering."
Our company commander, Cecil L. Simmons, was from Grand Rapids, Michigan. He was a captain. After the war, he became the head of the Michigan National Guard and made brigadier general. I've seen him twice since then. I saw him at the Orlando reunion about 15 or 20 years ago and again when we were in Holland in 1989, at the celebration they had in memory of the liberation of Eindhoven. That's the place where we jumped in Holland. I knew the Germans were sitting there waiting, because all day long we had been trying to get to them. When we started to cross over a hedge, all hell broke loose. I mean, they just opened up.
We sent one patrol out across an open field to a farm house. No sooner had they gone out, I was just getting ready to go over the hedge, and, man, the bullets and crap started flying. We laid down in a ditch. The rest of the battalion was up and down the ditch too, just pinned down.
It was just starting to get daylight when I noticed artillery shells started going into them, our artillery. I said, "The next artillery man I meet I want to shake his hand." Those heavy aerial bursts would burst over the foxholes and trenches the Germans were in. They would explode and hit them even though there were in slit trenches. They kept pouring that on them.
Finally the Colonel said, "When the smoke gets here," we would fire smoke shells which would hinder the Germans' visibility, "I want you to fix bayonets and charge." I couldn't believe it. But, sure enough, why, I looked over and saw Colonel Cole leading the dog-gone battalion. He was the one that gave the order. And then the rest of us, we jumped up and started going. I went about a hundred or a hundred and fifty feet and I was looking for an German to shoot at. One had his head right up there in the slit trench, I could see his helmet. I aimed at it and got him. He had a P-38 pistol and I wanted that son-of-a-gun. I was laying on my stomach so I wouldn't get hit. I reached up and got my trench knife out of my boot to cut the pistol loose. I went to cut it, and my hand just jolted like that, and blood started to come out both sides of my finger. A bullet had gone through my finger just as neat as anything. I cut the pistol loose and crawled over to a more secure spot.
A medic happened to come by, Land, was his name, a guy from Tampa, Florida. Zephyr Hills, I think. He saw my hand bleeding and he said, "Let me bandage that." I said, "Aw, it's not bothering me at all. It's just throbs a little."
He said, "Yeah, I want to bandage it."
He bandaged it up okay. He had my whole hand just wrapped with the darn thing. Then we moved on forward to where the Germans were. Colonel Cole looked over at me. He remembered me, and he said, "Sterno, get back there and get some more medical attention. You can't sit up here with that."
I said, "It don't bother me."
He said, "Get back," and I said, "Yes, sir."
I went back and found a friend of mine, who was a sergeant. We used to go into London together. He was on his back holding his stomach. I crawled over to him, and I don't know whether it was a shell, or a bullet, or what hit him, but some of his intestines were showing. I heard somebody grunting and groaning and looked over and it was our medic. He got one in his back. He died right there. I got his first aid kit and started putting sulfathilamide powder and sulfa on the sergeant's wound with big, heavy pieces of gauze. I gave him some morphine shots, from the little tubes of morphine they issued us. I squirted that into him and he felt better.
Vehicles started coming up because they patched up the bridge. One weapons carrier came driving in with more ammunition for us and they used that to pick up wounded. There were a couple of medics on it. They came over to where we were and got the wounded. I told them, "There's one over here,” and they got the sergeant on a stretcher and got him out of there. Another guy there was on his back. His name was Reiley, and he was shot. A bullet went completely through his chest.
He said, "I can't breath, I can't breathe." He was begging me to shoot him. I thought he must be in pretty bad shape. I said, "No, I can't do that." A couple of medics came up and set him against a tree. They saw there was not much they could do with him. Later on, after a little more excitement, we found him on his back, dead.
A lieutenant who was there said, "Get back. You're wounded. We've got enough people here." My hand didn't bother me. It was just because the darned hand was bandaged all the way, but I went back. I really wasn't hurt bad.
I got back to the trench we started from, and there were three or four wounded people in there. One guy, I'll never forget, had a handlebar mustache. When Eisenhower was walking among us before we jumped that night, he said, "What did you do in civilian life?" He said he was a waiter or something. Eisenhower said, "I think he was a pirate, the way he looks." He was joking humorously. But he was there. He apparently had been wounded, he had his arm in a sling leaning back smoking a cigarette.
I kept hearing these mortar shells. I thought they were 88s at first. I figured they were mortar shells, because you could hear pumph, pumph, and a short while thereafter, you'd hear the things whiz over. They started hitting close to us. I crawled into a little trench that was there. It sounded like one hit real close to us and it felt like a board hitting my butt, tore my groin up a little bit. My ears were ringing and when everything cleared, I could hear this one guy saying, "My eye, my eye." His right eye was completely torn out. I said, "Just be thankful you have the other one." I put a piece of gauze and bandage on it for him. Another guy, he had a submachine gun, was sitting there, his head lolling back and forth, blood coming our of both his nose and ears. I don't know how he turned out. But the guy who had the handlebar mustache, I wouldn't have recognized him if it hadn't been for that. All that was left of his face was from the nose down. The rest of it, it had shaved his head completely off, in two.
I was hurt then, really hurt. I could hardly stand. I could get up and limp. I didn't know how bad I was hurt. I had blood all over me, and my hip was aching. I had shrapnel in my groin, my butt. So I crawled on back to the iron gate. I got back across the bridge and saw this little foxhole and got down in it.
There were other people back there who were wounded, and some who hadn't got up to the front yet. The lieutenant from our company was there in a little foxhole about 10 feet from me. All of a sudden, boom, it was a small caliber shell, I think a 55-mm mortar that the Germans had, that hit right between us. It grazed my neck enough to make it bleed. That didn't hurt bad, but it also go me in the chest. There's still a little piece shrapnel in there now. The lieutenant caught most of it in his arm. I heard him over there moaning.
Finally, they had a truce. They told all walking wounded, “If you can walk, get up and get to the rear." We couldn't have any weapons or anything. Our supply sergeant was there and he said, "I'll take care of that P-38 for you." I said, "Okay." I asked him later on back in England what happened to it. "Well, I went across a river and lost it," he said. I don't know what he did with it. So they sent me back to England.
Carentan was taken on June 11, 1944.
I said, "It don't bother me."
He said, "Get back," and I said, "Yes, sir."
I went back and found a friend of mine, who was a sergeant. We used to go into London together. He was on his back holding his stomach. I crawled over to him, and I don't know whether it was a shell, or a bullet, or what hit him, but some of his intestines were showing. I heard somebody grunting and groaning and looked over and it was our medic. He got one in his back. He died right there. I got his first aid kit and started putting sulfathilamide powder and sulfa on the sergeant's wound with big, heavy pieces of gauze. I gave him some morphine shots, from the little tubes of morphine they issued us. I squirted that into him and he felt better.
Vehicles started coming up because they patched up the bridge. One weapons carrier came driving in with more ammunition for us and they used that to pick up wounded. There were a couple of medics on it. They came over to where we were and got the wounded. I told them, "There's one over here,” and they got the sergeant on a stretcher and got him out of there. Another guy there was on his back. His name was Reiley, and he was shot. A bullet went completely through his chest.
He said, "I can't breath, I can't breathe." He was begging me to shoot him. I thought he must be in pretty bad shape. I said, "No, I can't do that." A couple of medics came up and set him against a tree. They saw there was not much they could do with him. Later on, after a little more excitement, we found him on his back, dead.
A lieutenant who was there said, "Get back. You're wounded. We've got enough people here." My hand didn't bother me. It was just because the darned hand was bandaged all the way, but I went back. I really wasn't hurt bad.
I got back to the trench we started from, and there were three or four wounded people in there. One guy, I'll never forget, had a handlebar mustache. When Eisenhower was walking among us before we jumped that night, he said, "What did you do in civilian life?" He said he was a waiter or something. Eisenhower said, "I think he was a pirate, the way he looks." He was joking humorously. But he was there. He apparently had been wounded, he had his arm in a sling leaning back smoking a cigarette.
I kept hearing these mortar shells. I thought they were 88s at first. I figured they were mortar shells, because you could hear pumph, pumph, and a short while thereafter, you'd hear the things whiz over. They started hitting close to us. I crawled into a little trench that was there. It sounded like one hit real close to us and it felt like a board hitting my butt, tore my groin up a little bit. My ears were ringing and when everything cleared, I could hear this one guy saying, "My eye, my eye." His right eye was completely torn out. I said, "Just be thankful you have the other one." I put a piece of gauze and bandage on it for him. Another guy, he had a submachine gun, was sitting there, his head lolling back and forth, blood coming our of both his nose and ears. I don't know how he turned out. But the guy who had the handlebar mustache, I wouldn't have recognized him if it hadn't been for that. All that was left of his face was from the nose down. The rest of it, it had shaved his head completely off, in two.
I was hurt then, really hurt. I could hardly stand. I could get up and limp. I didn't know how bad I was hurt. I had blood all over me, and my hip was aching. I had shrapnel in my groin, my butt. So I crawled on back to the iron gate. I got back across the bridge and saw this little foxhole and got down in it.
There were other people back there who were wounded, and some who hadn't got up to the front yet. The lieutenant from our company was there in a little foxhole about 10 feet from me. All of a sudden, boom, it was a small caliber shell, I think a 55-mm mortar that the Germans had, that hit right between us. It grazed my neck enough to make it bleed. That didn't hurt bad, but it also go me in the chest. There's still a little piece shrapnel in there now. The lieutenant caught most of it in his arm. I heard him over there moaning.
Finally, they had a truce. They told all walking wounded, “If you can walk, get up and get to the rear." We couldn't have any weapons or anything. Our supply sergeant was there and he said, "I'll take care of that P-38 for you." I said, "Okay." I asked him later on back in England what happened to it. "Well, I went across a river and lost it," he said. I don't know what he did with it. So they sent me back to England.
Carentan was taken on June 11, 1944.
