Sat, June 21, 1943
No entry.
Mon, June 21, 1944
Left after breakfast & drove to La Mare Angot & photographed some field installations where the Rangers had a bloody battle. Then to Isigny & photographed it for it was too dark when we were there before. Then on to Carentan. This town was such a shambles. Then on to Ste Mere Eglise & Montebourg. These towns were taken & retaken so many times & some parts of them were pulverized. After leaving Montebourg we hit roads then that hadn’t been cleared of mines & had to take it easy. All along the way we passed trucks, tanks, field pieces that had been put out of the action & were still smoldering. We arrived at Valognes just before lunch & took several reels of pictures here. The center of town had an underground telephone exchange & the Air Force laid it flat. The roof & walls of the exchange were 6 ft. reinforced concrete & some parts of it had been blown up & out into a park. After lunch we photographed the engineers blowing down a building that was unsafe. We left then and headed for the front & went as far as d’Isagri(?). You could here the machine guns & the artillery shells going over our heads into the enemy. We photographed the 315 Infantry of the 79th division going up to the front. Had quite a talk with Chaplain Capt. C. F. Frith about the battles his outfit had been in. The lines were on both sides of the road for miles & trucks, tanks and etc coming down the center. On our way back, we stopped at Volgnes & while the Col. was scouting around I looked into several places & got 4 qt. of Champaign. We were back in Grandecampe at 6:00 ate & drank our Champaign & then after loading our magazines hit the sack & I was sure tired out. Slept in fits & jerks for Jerry was over several times in the night.