D-Day: LCI 489

I was an 18-year old sailor on the LCI 489. I am now 74 years old. LCI 489 was built in New Jersey. Our captain was Harry Montgomery, a "90-Day Wonder.î

"Most of us had been transferred from another LCI skippered by an old-Navy man who reminded us of Humphrey Bogart. "These men aren't even going to get their feet wet when we hit the beach," he used to say. Needless to say, some of us were a little nervous about going from Humphrey Bogart to a young, inexperienced captain.

After a small training cruise, we set sail for England on Christmas Eve, 1943. We arrived in Falmouth, England in January, 1944. We made our way to Weymouth, England which was to be our operating base while we trained for the invasion. During German air raids, our captain sent us below while he steered the ship to safe water. The other guys would look at me (the sailor with a German last name) and say, "Those are Bischoff's relatives up there!" "Let's get that son-of-a-bitch!" I think they were just kidding.

When the time came for the invasion, we went to Weymouth where we took aboard 220 First Division soldiers who had already fought in North Africa, Sicily and Italy. At approximately 0600 on June 5, 1944, we set sail for Omaha Beach. Our ship's mess prepared a meal of roast beef and potatoes for these men, but since most of them knew what they were in for, they didn't eat any of it. We arrived at Omaha Beach at daybreak and started to hit the beach.

One of our sailors was given the job of carrying a long rope to the beach to give the soldiers something to hold onto as they made their way through the water. I believe his name was Allen. He carried wounded men back up the ramp to safety, under enemy fire, the entire day.

It was approximately 1:00 p.m. before we were able to get these men on shore. I was an engineer in the engine room and was unable to see any of the terrible action that these men encountered. At approximately 10 a.m. there was a terrible crash as we hit obstacles on the beach and received large holes in the bottom of the craft.

I had to run from the engine room to the bow to switch the fuel-oil ballast tanks. In doing so, I passed the mess which was turned into a first-aid station. This is where I saw wounded soldiers for the first time. I had seconds to take this all in. In the engine room we never saw the action that was taking place above us.

At this time, we also had our anchor cable wrap around one of the propellers. Although our ship was in bad shape, we were still able to go alongside a transport and take our second group of men into the beach.

It was just getting dark when we backed off for the last time that day. We then went alongside a big ship and transferred the wounded men who had been on our LCI all day. It was a sad day for all our crew to see these wounded men being hoisted to the big ship. I have often wondered if these brave men survived their wounds.



	I eventually got to go topside and see the terrible destruction along the beach. It's a site that I've never forgotten. What I'll also never forget was an LCI burning on the beach. It was the LCI skippered by our former captain, the old navy man. His soldiers didn't get their feet wet. They and the crew got something worse. When we saw that LCI burning and realized that would've been us if we'd stayed with Humphrey Bogart...well that's the day our 90-Day Wonder, went from "Captain" to "Skipper." The second day started at approximately 7 a.m. when the USS Susan B. Anthony (a troop transport) struck a mine just off the beach. We were one of the first craft to reach her and stayed there until she almost sank. Hundreds of men crossed over our craft to other craft tied alongside us. Many of them didn't make it, as they had to time their jump from the sinking ship's nets to our deck. Those who didn't were crushed between the ships. At approximately 1 p.m. we took these men to the beach. Our deck was littered with men who were hurt during the unloading process and again we went alongside a big ship and transferred these brave men. Later in the afternoon, we put an ammunition barge up on the beach. On the third day, we were told to anchor out of the way as they didn't want to use our badly damaged craft. We made our way back to England for repairs and then made 21 trips back and forth from England to France. We were successful in transporting hundreds of men to France. In November, 1944, it was decided we were in pretty bad shape and no longer seaworthy. The craft was decommissioned at Edinburgh, Scotland, and turned over to the Royal Navy. We didn't lose a single man during D-Day. Our crew was broken up and reassigned to new ships. I was going home on leave before going to the Pacific. That was the last I saw of old LCI 489. While I was home on leave, I woke up one morning and heard...nothing. That could only mean the engines were dead. I didn't realized I was home until I was in the kitchen and saw at my father drinking his morning coffee before going to work. He didn't know what the hell was going on! I also served on LST 1040 in the Philippines and at Okinawa. I was in Buckner Bay, Okinawa when the atomic bomb ended the war. Later, I served on LSM 60, which was used as the underwater atomic bomb platform during the Crossroads B atomic bomb test at Bikini Atoll. Karl J. Bischoff

Editor's Note: With every reunion, my dad's memory gets sharper. Here are a few things I learned since this site began:

After the invasion, the men who had been topside were vomiting from the stress and horror they had witnessed. My dad, who had been in the engine room for almost 72 hours straight, didn't actually witness the action on the beach, although he could hear the guns firing. The other crew were amazed that he, alone, had no trouble eating his meals!

Following the evacuation of the wounded, my dad came across an officer who was emotionally spent. His job was to go through the bloody clothing that had been cut from the wounded soldiers and remove their personal effects, which would then be sent to them in the hospital. The officer couldn't bring himself to go into the cabin where the wounded had been treated. Being a Navy officer, he couldn't order my father to do something that he himself couldn't do. My father, sensing this, volunteered to help him. They went into the cabin, and the officer was able to point out the various tasks that needed to be done.

Later in the evening, the impact of what he'd been through -- the battle, the engine room stress, and sorting through the soldier's bloody clothing, got to him. He jumped out of his bunk and ran topside. As he was vomiting over the rail, the officer he helped leaned out of the conning tower and yelled, ìYou're not as tough as you thought, Bischoff!î

At Home
My father's father was born in St. Louis but raised in Germany. He was a waiter in Jacob Wirth's, even then one of Boston's landmark restaurants, . In his younger days, before having seven children, he was a labor organizer -- not a good thing to be in the early part of the 20th century, especially when you had a German accent. There were several times prior to D-Day when he would serve Navy officers. He proudly told them about his son, serving on a Landing Craft. He dn't know it, but he was actually being investigated. Early on the morning of June 6, 1944, as he was opening the restaurant, a Navy car pulled up to the restaurant. The officers, his customers, came into the establishment, and told him that the invasion of Europe was underway. They told him to go home and be with his family as they needed him more than the restaurant that day. Thus, my grandfather, the labor-organizing, left-wing, socialist waiter knew about D-Day before the Boston newspapers!

The Human Skeletons
The Germans used slave labor in Europe. After the initial invasion, many of these slaves made their way to the beach as ìPrisoners of War of Prisoners of War.î To my dad they were ìhuman skeletons.î They had an MP guarding them, and, he said, ìevery sailor on our ship brought them something to eat. But the guard wouldn't let us feed them, as their systems could not yet accomodate so-called real food.î

These soldiers and sailors were the first US troops to bear witness to what we would later know as the Holocaust. And every single one of them wanted to show compassion to these slave laborers.

The Return Home
Following the decommssioning of LCI 489, the crew was sent home for reassignment. My dad returned to the US on a troop transport. The ship docked in New York Harbor, where there were ambulances as far as the eye could see waiting to take the wounded to hospitals. The sailors and soldiers on the ship had to wait until the wounded were offloaded first.

My dad figured he'd be on the ship for at least a couple of days before getting his furlough papers. He wandered down to the administrative section of the ship on a whim...where he was able to get his transfer early! He ran from the ship to Grand Central Station and caught the next train to Boston, without even the time to notify his parents that he was coming home. Upon arriving in Boston, he grabbed a streetcar to his neighborhood. He ran into the house and into his parent's bedroom. His father, not having seen his sone since before Christmas, 1944, jumped up and hugged him, crying. My dad told me this story in April, 2000, as our mother was dying. He cried, remembering his father's embrace.

During his visit home, there were times he'd wake up, and, not hearing the engines of the ship, would run through the house, only to awaken in the cellar. Years later I mentioned this to Chuck Phillips, LCI 489's engineering officer. Phillips nodded his head and said, ìI woke up every time the engines on that ship changed speed.î