Soldiers come ashore on Utah Beach on D-Day (National Archives)
By George Morris
In the dim but rising light of about 6:30 a.m., Leonce Haydel, of Gramercy, Louisiana, became one of the first Allied soldiers to step on the French beach. He was not expected to return.
“It was a suicide mission,” Haydel said. “What they sent us in on, we weren’t supposed to survive at all.”
If German Gen. Erwin Rommel had his way, that’s how it would have worked out.
WW2: The Big One 