A short story about my big brother

My brother Donald Bitgood was inducted into the army on June 9th 1942. After taking his basic traning at Fort Eustis Virginia he and his division were shipped to Iceland. He landed at Reykjavik and traveled on to his base at Seydisfjordur on the east coast of Iceland. He spent the next year and a half training  for the invasion of Europe. In March of 1944 he shipped out to England in preperation for the invasion soon to come. While waiting and training in England he was able to go and visit his brother Clifton who was with the 29th division also getting ready for the invasion.

On D-Day June 6th 1944 Donald and his batallion landed on Utah beach behind the US Ranger batallion who had been charged with scaling the high cliffs and destroying the big guns up on top of Point du Hoc that were trained on Omaha and Utah beaches. When the rangers got to the top all they found were the gun enplacements but no guns. The Guns were found about a half mile inland in an apple orchard.. The six guns were ungarded so the Rangers were successful in destroying the guns by placing phosphorus gernades in the breeches  rendering them usless. After the war Donald told me of this incident and said that much bloodshed was avoided by rendering the guns usless by the Rangers.

Donald was sort of vague on relating his storys to the family after he came home. According to his service record he fought wirh Pattons 3rd Army through France and on into the rhineland of Germany. He helped to liberate a nazi death camp while in Germany. Donald was awarded the Good Conduct Metal, The WW2 victory medal and the European African middleeastern campaign medal. He returned home on November 6th 1945.

Fred Bitgood

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