The Sounds of Time
Keith Nightingale
Medical experts say that the sense of sound is usually the last to go among the living. So very few among those are the veterans of D Day and the sounds of their youth. What did they hear as their last memories fade away? At the Hotel DeVille, the city hall of St Mere Eglise, France, the latest memorial ceremony highlights how tenuous is our hold on these first person participants. A single small row populated by six men is the focus of the best we had to offer on 5-6 June 1944. What do they hear? It’s a near endless serial of choices.
The drone of the more than 4,000 aircraft taking off from the south of England on that ebbing twilight day. The sound of the wind loudly coursing by the open door frames with a mix of moisture, exhaust and gasoline with a partial view glimpsed by the six in the waning kaleidoscope of light across the English countryside. Unheard and unseen by the six, were the thousands of faces upturned throughout the land, knowing that the source of the endless noise was the beginning of their final deliverance by these six and their companions. The six soldiers were an integral part of that noise. For the seaborne elements it was the coalescing of more than 4,500 vessels in a relatively narrow passage each throbbing and grinding away in the indigo-black surging sea-moving as swiftly as possible to meet those six soldiers passing above. Together, all would initiate the sound of the guns, signaling the culmination of their purpose.
Unheard by both elements would have been the church bells, rung all over England on Churchill’s order, calling the congregations to prayer for this penultimate endeavor. A bit later, on the American East Coast, beginning around 4AM Eastern Daylight Savings Time, a similar event was occurring-a reaction to the initial news broadcast by the German’s of the invasion and confirmed by CBS. However, as the American peals rang out, almost half a day had transpired and the beaches, fields and watercourses had already been littered with the violently and loudly disposed shattered detritus of battle. Our six would have been engulfed in those mortally fatal sounds.
The cocoon of noises generated by the aircraft engines began to be interrupted by the random slap of bullets on the fuselage. As gravel or rain on a tin roof, it ebbed and flowed depending more on chance than German acuity. The individual anxiety within each aircraft could not be heard but was universally felt. The jump commands broke the rhythm, curbed the anxieties and suppressed for a moment the sounds outside. Each of the six would have heard through personal initiation, the rough rasp of the static line snap fastener against the cable and the clunk of boots against the floor as each of them moved toward the door and new sounds. A bright green light followed by the loud command of GO released the six and their companion chain of jumpers uniformly rasping along the cable heralding the sounds of the rest of their lives.
For a very quick moment, the exit sounds broke the internal fears, the wind and noise wrapping each soldier in its own cocoon. Then, just as quickly, the parachute serially snapped out of the container, the sound lost to the six but bringing each to a uniformly sudden definitive stop. A loud grunt of compressed air and a pop of the now inflated canopy swung each below his suspension lines. Moments before, there may have been a tearing sound he heard as his equipment bag or other gear was ripped from his body by the combination of airspeed and the violence of the opening shock. For a very brief interlude, the sounds of silence at this moment brought a mental focus as the long prior training and experience individually activated.
The next sounds could have been the quick pop of a bullet passing through canopy or snapping by an ear. For many of their brothers, it was the dull thunk of a strike on flesh, unheard except by the recipient who would hear no more.
Next came the contained slam into the soft Norman earth or a splash into the Merderet and the sounds of water and air quickly closing overhead. Some of the fortunate would exhale loudly as lungs were collapsed and recovered. Others, at least 32 underwater, would never hear the sound of inhalation again.
Perhaps a cow was deeply snorting and investigating this incursion into the herd, its breath, grunts and steps communicating to others. The soft fall of ripe apple blossoms, disturbed by the soldier’s descent, would, like snow, fall unheard but visually obvious. The parachute would softly encompass the area-its existence more sensed than heard. Now the sounds of soldiers at work would begin.
Initially, it is the grunting, snapping and rasping cuts of a soldier getting out of the parachute. Then a moment of silence as he tries to orient himself, find a friend and locate the foe. The sound of movement through the nettles, hedges and vegetation is equal and neutral to both. The sound of human voices, shattering in the stillness but truly low in volume, override the non-human sounds of the night. A friendly accent, a familiar language or metallic click, or the sliding and closing of a bolt signal friend or foe.
The whole experience and the overload of adrenalin is draining. Some, after divesting the parachute, reach for a canteen and quench a newly generated thirst. The black Bakelite cap, if not carefully held, impacts on the aluminum container and makes a loud clang-sounding like a dull church bell but probably lost within several feet. The water is draughted down and the canteen returned to its pouch with the grinding sound of newly emplaced grit between the cup and the container.
A German Mauser has two or four distinct sounds, depending on whether or not it has been fired. The supremely lethal MG 42 has a distinctive ripping cloth sound that clearly distinguishes friend and foe on the field. It is a sound that sticks. Chance encounters are sudden stabbing sounds laced with the heavy breathing and adrenalin-filled shouts of the respective participants. This is followed by a moment of relative quiet as the combatants sort out their mortality and the results.
For some, the encounter can be auditorily mortal with the tenuous sounds of ebbing life. The impact of a bullet striking flesh is a distinctive thud. Possibly unheard by others but overwhelming to the recipient. An extremity hit emits more human verbalization as its non-mortal mass impacts, but heat and damage registers immediate reactive pain to the recipient. Blood hisses and bubbles slowly from a lung shot and speaking is difficult. For the deeply visceral wound, there is little in the way of sound with the occasional exception of a slow death rattle of air bubbling by the trachea.
An M1 has a capacity for 8 rounds in the clip which can be very satisfying to the firer with its comforting repetitive fire. But, at the end of the sequence, it emits a sound unique to it identifying the user-it is a sharp metallic clank as the empty clip is ejected from the rifle. A deep and excited exhale is emitted as the user slams a new clip into the open bolt face and closes it-renewing its capacity in the endless cycle of close combat. Our six would have great experience with this sound.
All this recedes in the minds of the six old soldiers. Assisted by hearing aids and canes to limit the effect of life’s infirmities, they sit in silence and polite attention as the ceremony honors their life. Massed bands play respective National anthems-this time including German’s in their distinctive Fallshirmjager uniforms-friends and fighting allies now. Enemies of high professional regard earlier. The six remember and respect.
In time, the program reaches its conclusion. The six old soldiers arise and stand as the bands leave in mass. All march in silence but one, that of the Germans. Reverberating through the narrow streets and softened by the effect of more than 10,000 people from a myriad of nations, the strains of the 5th Movement of Beethoven’s Ninth, The Eroica with its paean to faith and hope, lifts over the scene and flows past the six standing soldiers. They knew at this moment, with the sights and sounds of the scene telling them, that they insured everyone had won.