20 minutes on Omaha Beach

Bob Dickinson dropped out of high school at age 16 to join the Navy at the height of World War II.

A year later, he found himself in the middle of one of the greatest military feats ever.

On the foggy, cloudy morning of June 6, 1944, the 17-year-old, whose shipmates called him junior because of his tender age, left England and helped escort 200 Army soldiers across the English Channel to Omaha Beach in Normandy.

As dawn broke, the 158-foot, flat-bottom landing craft pulled up as close to the French shore as it could. The 200 soldiers, saddled with guns, helmets and other combat gear, walked down the ship's ramps and into water up to their necks.

All but 12 were killed as Germans unloaded on the troops, whose mission was to establish a beachhead for Allied forces and create a second front in World War II.

The Normandy invasion was a success but at a terribly high cost.

Allied losses from men killed, wounded, missing in action or taken prisoner totaled about 10,000. Many of the American soldiers were killed at the heavily fortified Omaha Beach.

One soldier from Dickinson's ship who was carrying a flame thrower went into the water and drowned from the weight of his gear, Dickinson remembered. A war correspondent was killed on his way to the beach with the soldiers.

Machine gun fire poured from German pillboxes. Loud explosions from heavy artillery filled the air. A German obstacle placed in the water just offshore tore a hole in the ship, but the vessel stayed afloat and limped back to England later in the day.

"You wanted to be scared, but you didn't have time to be scared," said Dickinson, a gunner's mate who was stationed at the ship's helm that day. "Everything happened so fast. There were a lot of bodies. We picked some of them up."

Now 81, the retired camera film maker said, "It was quite an experience."

The transport vessel was on the beach for only about 20 minutes, he remembered, but those minutes have stayed with him for the past 64 years.

"You can never forget it," said the New York native who moved to James Island in the early 1990s for health reasons.

Dickinson didn't go ashore that morning, but he quickly added, "If I would have had to do it, I would have done it. Everybody worked together to do what they had to do to win the war."

He didn't really know any of the 200 men who disembarked into a hail of gunfire, but he remembered playing cards and rolling dice with them for five days before the D-Day invasion.

"Most of them were young guys, just 18 or 19," he said. "They were a happy-go-lucky bunch."

Dickinson survived the war and left the Navy in 1946 to return to New York. He married in 1951, and he and his wife, Inez, still are together. They had four daughters and a son, 19 grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.

Of the 30 sailors on his ship who helped with the invasion, four are still living. They held annual reunions until about 10 years ago, when failing health forced many to curtail their travels.

"Only a few of us remain," he said.

Last year, Dickinson finally officially graduated from Union-Endicott High School in New York, after his alma mater awarded him a diploma for helping to defend his country.

"I'm very proud of that," he said. "I'm glad I'm here to accept it. There are so many who did not return."

Reach Warren Wise at 745-5850 or wwise@postandcourier.com.