The D-Days Of Europe

About the Book

What is this book about?

This book is my memoir of leading the men and assault boats that charged ashore in the great invasions of Europe:  Sicily, Salerno, Anzio, Normandy.  D-Day Sicily was just as big as Normandy and, for battles, Salerno was for us much fiercer and our problems at Anzio lasted longer.  We were the guys who hit the beach in the first assault waves.  And after that some of us supported the Army in the Battle of the Bulge and the Rhine crossing.

I was lieutenant junior grade Naval Officer in Charge Assault Boats on Landing Ships Tank 378 and 379.  I got in the middle of everything everywhere. I wound up with a Purple Heart, a couple commendations and eight battle stars.

I was a guy fighting battles from North Africa to Sicily, from Italy to Normandy, and from Le Havre to Belgium, and from the Bulge to the Rhine River. The French called this the Highway of Liberation.

To my knowledge, I was the only Navy man who was in North Africa, France, Belgium and Germany, where I was nearly captured in the Battle of the Bulge.

What's a D-Day?

That's the day for an attack.  LSTs had H-Hours.  LCVPs had M-Minutes.

I and my crews were M-Minute men.

Your title says D-Days of Europe.  I thought there was only one D-Day.

That's a term military planners use to designate the time of going on the attack, the start of an operation.

Yeah, but what is this book about, D-Day wise?

The book deals with my experiences in Operation Husky, the invasion of Sicily; D-Day 10 July, 1943; Operation Avalanche, the invasion of Salerno, D-Day 9 September, 1843; Operation Shingle, the invasion of Anzio, D-Day 22 January, 1945, Operation Neptune-Overlord, the invasion of Normandy, D-Day, June 6, 1945.and Nul Tag the Battle of the Bulge, December, 1945.  That was kraut D-Day.  Operation Dragoon, invasion of Southern France, August 15, 1944 I was not in.  So I have nothing to say about it except that it was a walk in.  The Germans were hauling ass.

Where did all those ships come from during D-DAY, NORMADY the greatest armada ever assembled?

Well, we had been around for a year.  We had 77 LSTs at Sicily;  99 at Normandy.

AMERICA'S SUDDEN NAVY. The greatest invasion force in history miraculously arose not long after Pearl Harbor.  It was a big national secret.  Like the Manhattan Project to build the bomb.

This was bigger.  Ship building plants all over America were used to build this force.  This navy built all kinds of vessels nobody had ever heard of.  Everybody felt the effects of building them because they were made of the steel plate that in peaceful times went into Fords and Chevys

This secret  navy was so secret that even us ensigns had never heard about it in the midshipman school that had trained us.

Strangely enough most people, 50 years and thousands of books later about WWII, do not know about it.

The force included hundreds of LSTs, Landing Ship Tanks, a 328-foot ship that could land tanks directly on the beach while defending herself from enemy small arms fire; hundreds of LCIs, Landing Craft Infantry, with two long ramps that could evacuate soldiers as fast as they could run, LCT, LCVP, LCM, LCR, and all matter of smaller craft.

My assault boats were the LCVP, which supplanted the ineffective Higgins Boats.  They were 36-foot armor clad shallow draft boats with a bow ramp.

Who the hell are you?

I was a recent graduate of the University of Wyoming in philosophy, working in the clearing house of the Bank of America in downtown Los Angeles when Pearl Harbor occurred.  I was romancing my girlfriend Gail and attending UCLA graduate school when the draft called.

Figuring out the best future for me I joined the Navy to get into blimps so that I would not have to hit beachheads.

The

About the Author

Sydney Earl Wright was born July 3, 1914 on a Montana ranch. He graduated from the University of Wyoming with a BA in philosophy. He was a UCLA graduate student when he joined the Navy to get into blimps. The Navy made him an ensign and assigned him to Landing Ship Tank assault boats instead, part of the then secret amphibious force that was to invade European shores. He crossed the Atlantic where wolf packs hunted, helped clear the harbor of Bizerte, hauled ammo in the Sicilian D-Day, was bawled out by Patton at Palermo, and boated a general into Salerno, Italy before H-Hour. He invaded Europe and led assault waves of British commandos at Anzio D-Day. At Normandy D-Day, he evacuated wounded paratroopers, and in the Battle of the Bulge he was nearly captured. Then he joined the Rhine expedition. He has a Purple Heart, eight Battle Stars, and two Commendations.