The Normandy Invasion

Gerald C. Braud Sr., 94, says that between Saving Private Ryan and The Longest Day, the prior was closest to portraying what it was like on D-Day in Normandy, France when the Higgins boats dropped their ramps for the Allied invasion.
“The Longest Day showed them (Allied troops) hollering and running up the beach,” said Braud. “It wasn’t like that. We crawled up there.”
Then a Private First Class, Braud was an Army combat medic who was wounded on Omaha Beach during the invasion on June 6, 1944.
He recently received the French Legion of Honor medal during a commemoration of the 74th anniversary of D-Day at the National World War II Museum in New Orleans.
For Father’s Day this year, Braud’s daughter and son-in-law, Lisa and Tom Bertrand, gave Braud a shadow box in which he displays his medals from his years of service: the Bronze Star, Purple Heart and French Legion of Honor among them.
Braud served in three campaigns: Normandy, Rhineland and Central Europe. He served in the 1st Squad, 1st Platoon, Company A, 116th Infantry Regiment, 29th Division, 1st Wave.
His company was the first group to land on Omaha Beach during the invasion.
In an article about Braud’s landing, written by his granddaughter, Rebecca M. Bertrand, and published in 2000 by the Banner-Tribune, she wrote, “Around 6:30 in the morning they jumped into the water which was over their heads. Their captain was shot in the head before he could get off the boat.
“My grandpa could not swim and his life preserver did not work. He had to use his gas mask to keep from drowning.
“He lost his helmet but found it when it bobbed to the surface. Then he let go of his first aid bag, which he had been assigned to carry, because it was pulling him under.”
Braud said he was off the boat for only 15 minutes before he was wounded by German machine gun fire from a “pill box” at an elevated position.
“My buddy asked me to help him get a wounded man out of the water,” he said, “and I was on my stomach, so I went to where he was, and I turned over onto my back, and that’s when the machine gun got me… shot me in the left leg.
“There were a bunch of bullets landing between my legs, and my buddy said, ‘Come help me get this man out of the water,’ and I hollered, ‘Well, I’m hit. I can’t.’”
Braud’s buddy was fellow medic Cecil G. Breedon who, after helping the wounded soldier for whom he had requested Braud’s assistance, came to Braud’s aid.
Breedon bandaged Braud’s leg, gave him a shot of morphine, and dragged Braud to higher ground as the tide came in. Braud said he later found out that Breedon made it all the way through D-Day “without a scratch.”
After three hours lying on the beach, a landing craft came to collect the wounded. Braud said they left him behind because the boat was full, but as the boat backed up, it ran into a mine.
The explosion killed all on board and the concussion knocked Braud unconscious.
He said, “When I came to, I was swinging in a litter on the hospital ship.”
Shortly thereafter, Braud had an operation that saved his leg from gangrene.
Once transferred to a hospital on land, he underwent another operation and stayed for five months, until he was well enough to return to the front.
Of Company A, 96 percent were wounded or perished at Omaha Beach on D-Day. Braud is the last surviving member.
He smirked as he told the story of coming back home to Franklin after the war.
He said there was no room on the bus for him to sit down, so after three European campaigns and a machine gun round to the leg, Braud had to stand during the bus ride from Mississippi to Franklin. Even then, he said the bus stop was nine miles from his house. The driver had to be convinced to drop him off at the house, so he wouldn’t be forced to walk the rest of the way, with his duffle, in the early a.m. hours, down the dark stretch between the station and his house.
He snickered after recalling that one, and said that he never thought he was going to see the Statue of Liberty again, and that all kidding aside, he remembered being happy to be home and glad to be alive.
When asked what his first meal was once he got back, he thought about it briefly and said he remembered it being his mother’s fried chicken.
His father had been his idol since childhood, and since his father worked in a grocery store, Braud became a butcher for the next 34 years, and worked in a grocery store too, before retiring in 1993.
After having been back at home for a year, or so, he met Dot Landry of Ricohoc, and married her. They stayed married 69 years until her passing in 2016.
Braud said they didn’t travel, but that his wife knew how to help him with the effects of war.
She convinced him to finally put his service cap away and she didn’t chide him if he tossed in the night.
“She was good,” he said.
Another boon which Braud said assisted with post-war stress was that he and several other local veterans used to visit local schools and talk about their experiences overseas.
Braud said he thought this was like a form of therapy for him.
When asked what advice he could offer for younger generations on their rise to maturity, it would be to “put the guns down. If you want to shoot, go shoot in war.”
When asked for a concluding thought, he said, “Freedom isn’t free,” and he knows what it cost him, and he saw what it cost others.
These days, Braud’s favorite pastime is watching television and watching youngsters play ball.
He said that on television, he prefers to watch war movies, westerns and “shoot ‘em ups.”
And as for watching the youngsters, he said he prefers watching young boys play ball because they are not yet old enough to “fight like those big ones.”