James Scoggins
SERVICE: Enlisted in the Navy on Nov. 17, 1942
RANK: Gunner's Mate 3rd Class
WHERE HE WAS POSITIONED: The destroyer USS Meredith sat about a quarter of a mile from Utah Beach during the brunt of the invasion. Mr. Scoggins was in charge of one of the ship's quad 40 mm anti-aircraft guns.
Smoke, explosions, gunfire, confusion and death were all around him.
He could see the men landing on the beach flopping onto the sand. He couldn't tell which ones were dropping to a prone position and which ones were dying.
"The first wave, they were just slaughtered," said Mr. Scoggins, of Evans.
"A lot of them didn't even get to the beach. A lot of them were blown up before they even got there."
In the aftermath, Mr. Scoggins recalls spotting six fighter planes heading toward the fleet, coming from the direction of the French shore. He was on the wrong side of the ship to fire at them, but other gunners did. Four of the planes were brought down. It turned out they were Americans.
Mr. Scoggins said he doesn't know how many of the pilots were killed.
One pilot who landed in the water refused to be brought onto the Meredith, angry that Americans had shot at him.
"We didn't know who they were," Mr. Scoggins said. "They weren't supposed to be there. They could have been Germans for all we knew with American insignias on their sides."
MOST VIVID MEMORY: Two days after the invasion, the Meredith hit a mine, and the ocean poured onto the decks in gushing waterfalls. Another sailor casually told him, "I just lost a hand," and Mr. Scoggins helped him down a ladder to the main deck.
Another man was tangled in a cargo net, and Mr. Scoggins used his knife to cut him out.
When he tried to lift him, the man's limbs bent because his bones were shattered.
The mine killed 35 men, mostly from the below decks. Mr. Scoggins' only wound was a piece of shrapnel that lodged in his left middle finger.
He never had it removed.
"What was I going to do? Report it to a medic? Then he would write me up for a Purple Heart?" Mr. Scoggins said. "I wasn't going to take a Purple Heart for a little something like that."
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