War Diaries (May 5) (nonfiction)
Diaries
Garwood Dains: May 5, 1918
One must see these trenches to realize what they are like. In our sector the mud and water was up to our knees & if you raised your head over the top a Boche sniper would take a shot at it ...
—Corporal Garwood Dains, Somewhere in France
Duane Nelson: April 1, 1944
Well things really started happening about 0400 this morning and we are near the sea. ... The Nips made a landing about 2,000 yards from our position and all hell broke loose with machine guns, the destroyer and amphibians. We got our gear ready again and pulled out at about 4:30 to a place about 1,000 yards from the beach. We are still having heavy fire and it was rugged going. Getting close up you could see the tracers going every which way. At approximately 0600 we got shelled by Jap artillery. So many of their shells were duds and boy our fellows were sure thankful of that.
—Duane Nelson|Duane "Swede" Nelson served in the Marines from 1943 to February 1946, and he participated in some of the biggest and bloodiest battles of the Pacific theater. He kept three small diaries documenting his experiences.
- Excerpts from Duane Nelson’s WWII diaries @ spokesman.com