Just another D-Day white cross

A Stodghill Says So blog:




Al Bright took a bullet to his forehead when the ramp dropped on his landing craft. That made him the first man in G Company to die 65 years ago today.
Staff Sergeant Bright from Paris, Tennessee was doing what infantry squad leaders do: go first and yell, "Follow me!"
I didn't know Al Bright because it was a few days later when I joined G Company in Normandy. Three weeks after D-Day I was one of two men assigned the job of opening 150 casualty rolls stacked along a wall in Cherbourg. These were the blanket rolls that had been left behind with the company kitchen. No one had returned to claim them. Inside was all a man possessed aside from what he carried on his back.
With me was Mike Spinelli, another 18-year-old rifleman. It was a miserable job. Boots in one pile, pants in another, all the government issue items that soon would be handed out to someone else.
It was the personal stuff that got to you. A framed photo of a pretty girl, another of young childen with their mother, a packet of letters in a feminine hand, a half-read paperback book that would never be finished, a candy bar that someone else would eat. None of it worth a damn except to the man who thought he'd be coming back to it again.
Mike said, "Look at this," as he handed me a small bible opened to the title page. On it was written: "To Alton C. Bright from mother. Read it and be good." The gold leaf on the top of the pages was stuck together. Al Bright hadn't read it. Was that why he was the first man to die? Only an idiot would believe that.

Today I shed a tear for a man I never knew...Thanks Dick for helping us to NEVER FORGET!

Dick,

I hope his mother was not an idiot. I wonder why she had to say "Be good," instead of, " be safe."

The poor woman was probably haunted for the rest of her life.

From The American Patriots' Almanac:

The general gave the order: "O.K., let's go." Then he went to his portable desk, scribbled the following note, and slipped it into his wallet to use in case things went badly.

Our landings in Cherbourg-Havre area have failed to gain a satisfactory foothold and I have withdrawn the troops. My decision to attack at this time and place was based on the best information available. The troops, the air, the Navy did all that bravery and devotion to duty could do. If any blame or fault attaches to the attempt it is mine alone.

Rather then tears over fallen, we should have anger. Ernie Pyle wrote of their death as a dirty foul deed. I think so long as story tellers of war call it's victums hero's...other young men will want to fill the ranks of the fallen...and other Ernie Pyles will write of their death...as a dirty foul deed.

Alice, the mother had no way of knowing that the bible was never opened. We just threw away all the personal stuff that wasn't edible. In any event, the words would have had no effect on the outcome regardless of what she wrote.

If Hitler had kept his nose out of it, Rommel would have had his panzer divisions closer to the landing beaches. If they had been, Eisenhower would have had to use that note in his pocket. Even a month later it wasn't a dead-certain success.

Domenic, I don't recall Ernie Pyle ever using those words. Who was responsible for "the dirty foul deed?" Not the German soldiers who were just doing their job.

Alice, the mother had no way of knowing that the bible was never opened. We just threw away all the personal stuff that wasn't edible. In any event, the words would have had no effect on the outcome regardless of what she wrote.


I understand that Dick. It is just that mother's feel so guilty when they lose a child.

Mu mother -in-law lost her son on a motorcycle and felt forever guilty because as he was moving out of her house he was taking a rug with him.

She woudn't let him have it.

She would say Why didn't I let him have it?"

She never got over it.

Thanks Dick. You were there. The rest of us can only try to understand from what we read and it is not the same.
Here in Europe there was much publicity about these events. Many who were there, regardless of what side they were on, still remember their fallen comrades. It is sad.

I think it is easy to see folks in uniforms, all lined up in perfect rows, and forget that we are not looking at Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, but flesh and blood, spirit and hope. Your words touched me, Dick. Thank you.