211785 Peter Fantacone United States Navy Landing Craft Infantry Peter Fantacone was only 17 when he joined the Navy out of Manayunk. His mother refused to sign the enlistment papers, but his father did.
His war-time home was LCI-492 (landing craft infantry) the Navy's smallest ocean going vessel, which could put troops directly on the beach. He remembers a Mass the afternoon before the invasion: "When the priest gave us absolution, I knew this was not another practice run." Seas were rough during the channel crossing, and with the smell of diesel in a tossing flat-bottomed boat it was as nauseating ride.
Before the troops went in, the accompanying battleships let loose with their 14-inch guns. When his ship went in, "there was much smoke and wreckage burning on the beach."
His landing craft was carrying about 200 soldiers. Although he could not see the beach from his battle station, the ship's signalman told him he saw the troops racing into almost certain death, with more following them.
LCI-91, which landed nearby, ws hit by a shell from shore and the crew had to abandon ship. The LCI-91 burned on Omaha Beach all that day. But 492 survived the landings.
The German defenses at Omaha Beach exacted a terrible toll on the assault force, with machine-gun and cannon fire raining down on the arriving troops. Bombing attacks by B-17's had been expected to soften the defenses, but the bombs overshot the beach because of the bad weather. Fire from battleships also did not neutralize the bunkers. Most of the amphibious tanks meant to support the invasion force sank to the bottom when lauched in the storm-tossed water.
What saved the day, Fantacone said, is the destroyer captains who brought their ships in so close they almost grounded, then turned and rode along the beach, their guns blasing the concrete bunkers.
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