But as it turned out, it was the LSTs (landing ship tank), supported by the myriad of specialized landing craft, that did the most carrying and unloading LSTs at every beach, their great jaws yawning open, disgorging tanks and trucks and jeeps and bulldozers and guns and mountains of rations and ammunition, thousands of jerry cans filled with gasoline, crates of radios and telephones, typewriters, and forms, and all else that men at war require. The LSTs did what no one had thought possible. The LST was in fact the Allies' secret weapon.

Through June the Germans continued in the face of all evidence to believe LSTs could not supply the Allied divisions already ashore, and therefore Operation Overlord was a feint, with the real attack scheduled for the Pas-de-Calais later in the summer. A continuing campaign of misinformation put out by SHAEF reinforced this German fixed idea. So through the month, Hitler kept his panzer divisions north and east of the Seine River.

Hitler had recognized that his only hope for victory lay on the Western Front. His armies could not defeat the Red Army, but they might defeat the British and Americans, so discouraging Stalin that he would make a settlement. But after correctly seeing the critical theatre, Hitler completely failed to see the critical battlefield. He continued to look to the Pas-de-Calais as the site where he would drive the invaders back into the sea, and consequently kept his main striking power there. To every plea by the commanders in Normandy for panzer divisions in northwestern France to come to their aid, Hitler said no. In so saying, he sealed his fate. He suffered the worst humiliation of all-he had been outwitted.

THE MISSION of the 101st Airborne Division was to take Carentan and thus link Omaha and Utah into a continuous beachhead. One of the critical actions was led by Lieutenant Colonel Robert Cole, CO of the 3rd Battalion, 502nd PIR. Cole was 29, an army brat, and a 1939 West Point graduate, born and trained to lead. On D-Day he had gathered up seventy-five men, moved out to Utah Beach, and was at the dune line to welcome men from the 4th Division coming ashore. From June 7 on he had been involved in the attack on Carentan. The climax came on June 11.

Cole was leading some 250 men down a long, exposed causeway. At the far end was a bridge over the Douve River. Beyond that bridge was the linkup point with units from the 29th coming from Omaha. The causeway was a metre or so above the marshes on either side. On the far side of the inland marsh, about 150 metres away, there was a hedgerow occupied by the Germans.

Once Cole was fully committed along the causeway, the German machine guns, rifles, and mortars along the hedgerow opened fire. Cole's battalion took a couple of dozen casualties. The survivors huddled against the bank on the far side of the causeway.

They should have kept moving. But the hardest lesson to teach in training, the most difficult rule to follow in combat, is to keep moving when fired on. Every instinct makes a soldier want to hug the ground. Cole's men did, and over the next hour the Germans dropped mortars on the battalion. The GIs were pinned down.

Then Cole could take no more and took command. He passed out an order seldom heard in World War II: "Fix bayonets!"

Up and down the line he could hear the click of bayonets being fitted to rifle barrels. Cole's pulse was racing. He pulled his .45 pistol, jumped onto the causeway, shouted a command so loud he could be heard above the din of the battle-"Charge!"-turned towards the hedgerow, and began plunging through the marsh.

His men watched, fearful, excited, impressed, inspired. First, single figures rose and began to follow Cole. Then small groups of two and three. 'Then whole squads started running forward, flashing the cold steel of their bayonets. The men began to roar as they charged, their own version of the Rebel Yell.

The Germans fired and cut down some, but not enough. Cole's men got to the hedgerow, plunged into the dugouts and trenches, thrusting, drawing blood and screams, causing death. Those Germans who dodged the bayonets fled to the rear. Paratroopers took them under fire and dropped a dozen or more.

Cole stood there shaking, exhausted, elated. Around him the men began to cheer. After the cheering subsided. Cole got his men down the causeway and over the bridge to the far side of the Douve River. There, the following day, Omaha and Utah linked up.

THROUGHOUT First Army, young men made many discoveries in the first few days of combat-about war, about themselves, about others. They quickly learned such basics as keep down or die, to dig deep and stay quiet, to distinguish incoming from outgoing artillery, to recognize that fear is inevitable but can be managed, and many more things they had been told in training but things that can only be truly learned by doing- in the reality of combat.

Captain John Colby caught one of the essences of combat, the sense of total immediacy: "At this point we had been in combat six days. It seemed like a year. In combat, one lives in the now and does not think much about yesterday or tomorrow."

Colby discovered that there was no telling who would break or when. His battalion commander had run away from combat in his first day of action, and his company CO was a complete bust. On June 12 the company got caught in a combined mortar-artillery barrage. The men couldn't move forward, they couldn't fall back, and they couldn't stay where they were-or so it appeared to the CO, who therefore had no order to give and was speechless.

Colby went up to him to ask for orders. The CO shook his head and pointed to his throat. Colby asked him if he could make it back to the aid station on his own, "and he leapt to his feet and took off. I never saw him again."

Another thing Colby learned in his first week in combat was "Artillery does not fire for ever. It just seems like that when you get caught in it. The guns overheat or the ammunition runs low, and it stops. It stops for a while, anyway."

He was amazed to discover how small he could make his body. If you get caught in the open in a shelling, he advised, "the best thing to do is drop to the ground and crawl into your steel helmet. One's body tends to shrink a great deal when shells come in. I am sure I have gotten as much as eighty per cent of my body under my helmet when caught under shellfire."

About themselves, the most important thing a majority of the GIs discovered was that they were not cowards. They hadn't thought so, they had fervently hoped it would not be so, but they couldn't be sure until tested.

After a few days in combat most of them knew they were good soldiers. They had neither run away nor collapsed into a pathetic mass of quivering jelly (their worst fear, even greater than the fear of being afraid).

They were learning about others. A common experience: the guy who talked toughest, bragged most, excelled in manoeuvres, everyone's pick to be the top soldier in the company, was the first to break, while the soft-talking kid who was hardly noticed in camp was the standout in combat. These are the cliches of war novels precisely because they are true. They also learned that while combat brought out the best in some men, it unleashed the worst in others-and the distinction wasn't always clear.

On June 9 Sergeant Arthur "Dutch" Schultz of the 82nd Airborne was outside Montebourg. That morning he was part of an attack on the town. "I ran by a wounded German soldier lying alongside of a hedgerow. He was obviously in a great deal of pain and crying for help. I stopped running and turned around. A close friend of mine put the muzzle of his rifle between the German's still crying eyes and pulled the trigger. There was no change in my friend's facial expression. I don't believe he even blinked an eye."