When we landed at Omaha Beach, it was all the chaos.
But we were constantly under fire. Constantly.
And you try to forget all that. It's something you can't forget.
My full name is Onofrio Zicari. They call me NoNo.
My father was a shoemaker. In fact, I still got one of those machines out in the garage.
And I grew up in an Italian family. I lived in the town Geneva, New York.
I remember Pearl Harbor. It was snowing. It was in the winter time of course.
When it happened I felt like I should go, I mean go into the service.
But I had to stay and help support the family.
And so I just stayed out as long as i could. I didn't volunteer for anything.
And then I was inducted. Of course, I had to go.
I left New York and went to California and took all my desert training in Goffs, California.
We thought we were gonna go to Africa.
General Patton was out there taking his maneuvers at the time. All his tanks were there.
And when we saw that we thought we were going to go to Africa.
You know, it's a desert - we had desert training.
So we were there maybe about six months and they shipped us back to Virginia.
We hopped on a ship. It took us about 14 days and we landed in Scotland, rather.
I said jeez, this isn't Africa, this is Europe. We thought we were going to the desert.
Now they're training us for an amphibian. Of course,
they were preparing us for the invasion is what they were doing.
That went on for about six months, but I don't think we had enough training though.
In June of 1944, after four long years of German dominance throughout Europe,
the Allies were prepared to invade the French coast and bring Hitler's forces to ruin.
D-Day was the open door by which American, British,
and Canadian forces would bring liberation to the European people.
But first, they must face the beaches of Normandy, heavily fortified with German might.
We knew what we were going into, we just didn't know when.
A lot of times we would go out, stay out on board ship for two or three days.
"Is this going to be it, or not?" We didn't know when the real thing was going to happen.
Then they told us, "This is the real thing now. There's no playing around."
We landed in the fifth wave, and everybody was nervous, of course.
I was in a state of grace. I don't know if you're Catholics or not, but I was Catholic.
And I was in a state of grace. I wasn't afraid of dying. I was scared but i wasn't afraid of dying.
If I die, I die. That's all.
We only had five ducks in the outfit - just five - and that was the company.
But they got knocked out immediately. They didn't even make one landing.
So we were without any equipment or anything. We were soldiers, that's all.
When we landed, we landed in water up to our necks. Lost all our equipment.
When we landed we landed with just our rifles - that's it.
We didn't know who we were, we lost our outfit, we're all scattered.
And all we kept hearing was "We got to go inland, got to go inland." So, we had to go.
When we landed at Omaha Beach, it was all chaos. But we were constantly under fire. Constantly.
Our first casualty was Don Simmons. He was the last one off the landing craft and he was killed.
And that was my first - you know - death that I saw.
I saw a lot of dead soldiers. A lot of dead soldiers.
You try to forget all that. It's something you can't forget.
This G.I. was sitting in the corner, and he was sitting on this helmet.
He was a redhead. I'll never forget him. And he was holding his guts.
He was just torn apart, and he's holding his guts like this.
And he kept saying "I'm going home, I'm going home. I'm going home."
I said, "I wish you luck." I don't know if he made it or not.
Me
and Frank Floriano, we had crawled up to this landing craft that was knocked out,
and a shell had just landed behind us.
That's when I got hit, and I caught a piece of shrapnel in my leg.
I don't think we had that good of training, really.
But there were a lot of soldiers. I know that.
Wave after wave, the Allied troops continued to pour in.
Although they suffered some 10,000 casualties, the Allies landed over 150,000
troops on the beach, overwhelming German forces and eventually winning the day.
And maybe two or three days later, we had to go back and clean up the bodies and whatnot.
And they used to throw the bodies up in the pickup and bring them
up to where they were going to bury them.
And they were piling them on top of one another. And Father Flanagan said, "No."
He said, "You lay my boys down flat, individually." He's said, "They're my boys."
Every time I think about it I get choked up.
He was always - tears running down as he's giving the last rights.
That's one of the things I really remember.
Of course, we had to sleep. You got to sleep.
But the Germans wouldn't let us sleep, flying the low planes, coming down real slow.
We thought we were going to get strafed. They were just keeping us awake.
I slept though. I could sleep. I could really sleep.
I'd just make the sign of the cross, say a good prayer, and say,
"If I wake up, I wake up. If I don't wake up, forget it."
I was in a state of grace and I was all right. But other than that, I was all right.
NoNo's state of grace would keep him throughout the war, from the push across
France to the Battle of the Bulge where he joined with 101st Airborne at Bastogne.
Though he suffered frostbite due to the bitter cold, grace would eventually see
him safely to the end of the war when German forces finally surrendered in May of 1945.
So we finally boarded ship. I don't remember even coming home from Europe.
It's weird. I don't remember the boat, I don't remember anything.
All I remember was that I landed in New York and was discharged by an officer. And that was it.
In June of 2019, NoNo was afforded a trip back to the beaches of Normandy,
exactly 75 years after the D-Day invasion.
This momentous occasion not only brought on a torrent of memories, but also much needed closure.
It was quite interesting. That's when I found Don Simmons.
I found his grave there, and I said a little prayer.
I talk to kids. I go to some schools a lot of times, and I keep telling the kids,
"There's nothing glory about wars. Believe me. It's horrible. Horrible."
I was wounded in Normandy. I didn't care whether I got the medal or not, but my kids wanted it.
My brother had one - a Purple Heart. They said, "Dad, you deserve it. You should get it."
I said, "Alright, we'll try."
Nobody believed me. They wanted medical history. They said it had to be written down by medics.
The medic that took care of me, he saw that I was wounded, so he wrapped me up and fixed it up.
But he was killed. My medic was killed shortly after that.
Two days later, I caught infection. I had another medic look at it. He looked at it, cleaned me up.
They never made a report. There was never a medical report.
I didn't go to what they call sick hall every morning.
You know, who the hell's gonna go sick hall every morning at Normandy, you know what I mean?
I had a couple buddies, they wrote letters stating that i was wounded.
Then I had my commanding officer, he wrote a letter. This went on for many, many, many years.
That's where Zach came in. And he worked two or three years.
He wouldn't give up. In fact, I gave up. It was Zach.
I gave up. He said, "No, no! I'm not going to give up." And he worked hard.
I finally got it. And they presented me with the award down here in Vegas.
Now my kids are happy. I'm happy.
So, I survived. My kids thank God I did.
You wouldn't be here if it weren't for me.
hi everyone i'm josh from memoirs of world war ii and i just want to say thank you for watching this
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