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Visit the D-Day special section.

SERVICE:Drafted into the Army in August 1942; among the medals awarded him were the Bronze Star and the Purple Heart

RANK:Sergeant

WHERE LANDED: Mr. Reynolds, a mortar man with the 8th Infantry Regiment, 4th Infantry Division, Company L, landed at Utah Beach. The night before the invasion, Mr. Reynolds contracted blood poisoning and spent the remainder of the night in the medical ward. But as soon as it was time to move out, the medical ward emptied. "Nobody stayed," he said.

Departing from landing crafts, the soldiers waded or swam through water up to their noses, Mr. Reynolds said. The soldiers carried backpacks full of equipment and mortars that weighed as much as 50 pounds. A shorter buddy of Mr. Reynolds slipped beneath the surface of the water. Mr. Reynolds had to pull him back up so he wouldn't drown, he said.

"You had no time to get nervous," Mr. Reynolds said. "But it was a sickening experience."

MOST VIVID MEMORY: The troops made it to shore, and that night they advanced under fire. The next day, Mr. Reynolds watched Germans fire machine guns at American gliders that had dropped in facing enemy lines.

- Kate Lewis

Editor's Note: The stakes were high and well understood. To Allied Forces - and the Nazis - the success of World War II rode on the outcome of the invasion of Northwest Europe on June 6, 1944, better known as D-Day. Code-named Operation Overlord, the invasion of Normandy landed more than 150,000 U.S., British and Canadian troops along a 50-mile stretch of coastline in 24 hours. Six divisions assaulted five code-named landing beaches - Omaha, Utah, Gold, Juno and Sword. Those who survived that hellish day will never forget what they saw. The Augusta Chronicle talked to a number of Augusta-area D-Day veterans and will present their stories this week.

Related Stories

• Dennis Trudeau: A delay that proved costly
• Samuel Norris: Danger in the water
• Bennie Bolgla: 'Everybody had religion that night'
• James Scoggins: 'The first wave, they were just slaughtered'
• C. R. Harbuck: Chow time in the field
• Dwight Parken: 'The invasion was the key, the crucial key'
• Roderick Turnbull: Journals tell soldier's story
• Charlie Wendt : 'I didn't want to do it, but had to do it'
• Harry Reynolds: 'You had no time to get nervous'
• Willis Irvin Jr.: 'We had all prepared ourselves to die'
• Albert Lee Nix: 'I have no regrets for what I done, what I seen'
• Roy Raborn: 'I didn't even get a scratch. I guess I was lucky'
• Vardia Brewer: 'The Lord was with us. He had to be'
• Jay Pearlstein: 'It was mass confusion'

--From the Friday, June 4, 2004 printed edition of the Augusta Chronicle