Hello all. So I was swept with this sudden inspiration to write about D-Day, from the perspectives of our much beloved Francis, Arthur, Matthew, and Alfred. I figured that, if I was going to do that, I might as well turn this into a sort of story about WWII. I'm going to do my absolute best to stay true to fact, I promise you, and if you notice anything off, please do tell me. I want to remain as accurate as possible in retelling something this serious, and this emotional.

Attention

I realize that some of you may have seen this chapter accompanied by another one, but I decided that I'm going to take this story in a different direction than I had the second chapter. I have four viewpoints to tell here, and the second chapter, the one concerning the Battle of the Bulge, wasn't going to help where I wanted to take this. So, I decided to split them. This is the one that is going to be continued into however many chapters it takes to get to the end of the war in Europe. The other one, A Silent Night of Frozen Fingertips, will remain a oneshot.

Disclaimer: I do not own the Hetalia franchise, so the vast majority of characters that appear in this work are not of my making. Any real people mentioned are exactly that; real people. The only thing I own is the words that I knit together to write this.


D-Day, Jour-J

The world must know what happened, and never forget.

-General Eisenhower


D-Day was different for Arthur and Alfred, Francis and Matthew.

Alfred came ashore with the American troops on Omaha.

Arthur was a commando in the British forces attacking Gold.

Francis was on Sword Beach, with other French commandos.

And Matthew was with the Canadian Battalions on Juno.

All four had completely different experiences.

Alfred was a part of the first wave of men who were rushing the beach. He could hear the coxswain swear quietly under his breath. Those hushed words had Alfred aching to peer over the tall sides of the LCVP that was taking him and his fellow soldiers to France. He couldn't possibly see what could be so bad about getting off of the blasted thing, as his feet were planted in the throw-up of the other men on the boat, he was bailing water and that morning's breakfast with his helmet, the sea-foam was blasting down on him, and he was pretty sure that his sides were completely and utterly battered from being slammed into other men, and the heavy metal side of the Higgins Boat. His hundred pounds of gear was also beginning to weigh heavily on his shoulders. All in all, this had been no pleasure ride, and Alfred wanted off. The other men in his boat group were of the same opinion as him and they began to pressure their coxswain to just 'land the damn boat already.'

The British coxswain really was taking his time, though this was more because he was seeing what was happening to the LCVPs to the left and right of him. Mines were hit, boats were blown sky high, or they'd finally let down their ramp, and all the men would be dead in the first five seconds. Needless to say, the coxswain didn't want this to happen to himself or the men on his Higgins boat, so he was taking his time finding a good spot. There was always the risk of mines, though, and he couldn't exactly avoid all the machine gun fire.

Eventually the boy, Richard was his name, just gave up and ploughed into the beach as close as he dared, holding his breath the entire time, and dropped the ramp. The first few soldiers who leapt off were immediately fell into the trough that the coxswain had been so kind to let the door out just in front of. Richard had chosen the wrong spot, but he was far too concerned for his own safety to pull away and find a better one, choosing instead to yell at the rest of the now protesting men to just get off.

And really, they had no choice. Machine gun fire was pockmarking the area around their LCVP and ploughing directly into it, scraping along the sides and burying into the warm flesh of the stagnant men.

Alfred shoved his way through the huddle, but fell sideways off of the ramp, a move that could very well have saved his life that day, splashing fantastically into the water next to the boat. Immediately, he was drowning, unable to swim under the weight of all the equipment loaded on his shoulders. He began to tear off the heavier items. The flame thrower was gone, so was his rifle, and other things. By the time he dragged his sorry, water-logged ass on shore, he was bereft of most of his offensive equipment. His helmet was still on his head, luckily enough, but his gun was at the bottom of the English Channel, and he could only assume that that's where the rest of his stuff was.

At the moment, he only had a few hand grenades with him. Not that he had much time to check what he still had left to fight with, as the minute his feet hit sand, he was being shot at. One bullet tore through the flesh of his thigh, leaving him gasping and gritting his teeth to try to quell a scream of pain. Slowly, he began to move, walking as fast as he could and zigzagging and falling and slipping and tripping and crawling, and scrabbling at the sand, getting it in his mouth, eyes, hair, breath rasping, fear dominating. Anything to avoid getting shot. Stepping over bodies, stepping on bodies, throwing himself behind obstacles. He was pumped with adrenaline, but single-minded and of a narrow vision. He had to get to the cliff. That was his main target. The seawall would protect him; he'd be safe there.

He'd given his glasses up before he even joined the army, as weak eyesight wasn't exactly something they were looking for in their soldiers. His eyesight wasn't horrendously poor, but he had certain trouble navigating. This lack of motor skills was affecting him tremendously now.

Once more he threw himself behind one of the obstacles on the beach that were keeping boats from beaching. It was known as a "Hedgehog" and it would tear into the hull of whichever unfortunate naval vessel happened to roll over it during high tide. As he was hiding there, he finally allowed himself to calm and take a breath. His legs were trembling with exhaustion, and he was pretty sure that his face was pale, his eyes wild with an instinct to protect himself. The sand was sticking to every bit of him, under his fingernails, over his hands, throat, face. And as he watched other disembark, he realized how lucky he was.

The men getting off of LCVPs were being mowed down as soon as the doors dropped. Machine gun fire veritably flew in, selecting its targets with the cocky knowledge that it was going to hit at least someone. Those few men who would survive that hurdle were almost always targeted as soon as they hit the beach. The many DD tanks that were left in crippling remains on the sand were hindering and aiding several of the soldiers. Nothing was getting accomplished, it was complete mayhem, and men were falling right and left. Screams of pain echoed out as their forms bent in uncomfortable, unnatural ways, arching back to slam into the sand after being rammed with machine gun bullets. Some men were ripped open, others were quietly taken out. The few that made it to the seawall were being targeted by mortar rounds. His comrades were falling around him, their bodies slumping in awkward shapes and piles on the sticky sand. Some of them were still alive, jerking and blubbering about the need to get their helmets, or their guns, which lay yards from their owners. Blood would bubble in rivers, pushing through the backs of their teeth, clumping at the bases of throats, or matting in sweat and seawater dampened hair.

Alfred slid further into the sand, burying his face in it. He realized that he was crying, sobbing, gut wrenching things that had him aching for air, safety, comfort, his home. He wanted away from warfare, away from the Krauts, off of the beach. Anything to be safe. No tears were coming, just sound, the terrifying resonance of someone on the verge of sanity. He couldn't get enough air, he was curling in on himself, gripping and tearing at his sand-logged hair. Another dead soldier dropped near him. His head was gone. Alfred wanted to die.

After about five minutes of this, Alfred managed to regroup himself. His chest hurt, pressing down on him, but he had come to the realization that he couldn't get out. The only way out, was in. He had to get past that damned seawall, because if he died there, he had a higher chance of dying here. And the only way to do that was to move. So he looked about, found the dead soldier, blood staining the sand around him, with his cold fingers wrapped around a .30-caliber rifle.

Alfred made a quick decision. He was crawling forward, wrenching the rifle out of the man's still soft grip, and beginning to crawl and towards the seawall, hearing the bullets snapping and whizzing about him. Christ must have been with him, as he was not hit. He slid against that cliff, crashing into a couple of other soldiers who were huddling there.

Some of the injured had been towed into the temporary haven as well, the medics that had survived were going around tending to them with what little they had in the way of supplies. Some of their injuries were grotesque. Faces were missing, eyes gone and in their places, a bloody, mucusy mess. Their hands were ripped apart, their arms just unfortunate strings of flesh. Their legs didn't exist, or they were missing one, or their feet were gone. Numerous injuries that Alfred couldn't list were decorating these men in permanent badges.

It was these sorry souls that had Alfred determined to get up that seawall, if it killed him. And it most likely would. Turning to the wire coated rocks, he swept his gaze over the men who could still function properly, aside from the fear and lack of order that was confusing them. Though he may just be a private, Alfred figured that he could do this. He could organize something, at least. He called for an engineer who had the equipment necessary for blowing the barbed wire on the shingle that was blocking further progress up. The man leapt forward and did just as asked, after which, with a renewed sense of purpose, he went about blowing up obstacles on the beach until he was taken out by machine gun fire.

The men, having seen this small amount of progress, began to flock behind Alfred, fresh determination marking their faces. Not all were for going up that cliff, closer to German fire, but the few that were was enough for Alfred. He began to take them up the sea wall, avoiding as many thick patches of wire as he could. As soon as they got past that, though, they had a swamp and beach expanse replete with mines to get past. And Alfred wasn't quite sure how they were supposed to work through that without getting themselves blown sky high. Eventually, he pulled a small trench knife out and began to hesitantly probe forward. The mines weren't always conspicuous. About ten other men were trailing behind him, doing their own probing with different equipment pieces. No one had made it ashore with their original rifle, and few other useful pieces of equipment existed on any of their persons. And so they continued moving. One man was trailing tape behind them, marking the so far clear trail that they were making.

Then one of the men closer to the back hit a mine. He stepped on it, thinking that the way was clear, as his buddy had gone through the area just before him. Within seconds, the only parts of him left were limbs. The men were spaced far enough out for this one explosion to not really affect anyone else, but it was still nerve wracking. That one event was starting to wear even more at the men's already fraying nerves. Their breaths were close and shaky, their weapons trembling, and their muscles tensed and quivering from constantly being used.

The men were tired, and they were getting sloppier. One more of their group was lost before they made it to the German trenches, and even once there, they had to drop as bullets whizzed over their heads. Machine gun nests were all over the place, most concentrated on the beach. And so, Alfred decided that they had to start taking some out.

He rushed the first one after two failed attempts at shooting from a distance. Taking one of his five grenades, he chucked it into the little opening and listened to the satisfying boom that emanated from inside the concrete emplacement. The other men, emboldened by their new leader's movements, began to strike out in their own directions, some getting hit, and others managing to either take prisoners or destroy. And as all of this was going on, more men from the bottom joined them, led by Sergeants, and Officers, and even other Noncoms. Things were beginning to change. Tides were turning, destroyers were starting to take down the gun emplacements along the sides of the cliffs around Omaha, the 88mm weapons being taken out successfully, but slowly. By the time those trenches were cleaned out, other men were making headway up, off of the beach. D-Day on Omaha was almost over, but the American troops had finally completed their mission of securing the beachhead.

But now that the adrenaline rush was falling from Alfred's mind, the pain of his thigh injury was beginning to take full attention. He'd done even more damage by moving around with the bullet still embedded in his leg, and it was now dangerously close to his artery, having worked its way further into its victim. A medic noticed the bleeding soldier and moved over to help him, checking the injury and urging Alfred to get down to an LCVP to be carted back to the major ships and then taken back to England.

Alfred wasn't having any of that. He wanted to finish this war, and he'd be damned if a flesh wound stopped him. "Just take it out and bandage it up, doc," he told him, teeth gritted. The medic looked at him a moment before sighing and doing as told. They tried to be as gentle as they could, but of course it was an incredibly uncomfortable and painful experience for Alfred, and by the time the medic was done, he was pretty sure he'd invented a couple of new swear words. Sweat was dripping from every pore, darkening his blond locks and sliding into his bluer-than-blue eyes.

The end of the day rolled around, and Alfred settled into a foxhole with a group of men who were from all over Omaha; Fox Red, Fox Green, Easy Red, coxswains off of LCVPs, and so on and so forth. They were a motley group, but they had all survived. They had gotten past D-Day. They were scheduled to get to the Vierville draw, or any many of other goals, but the only one they'd secured that day was the beachhead.

Vehicles still littered the beach, blown tanks, tanks that didn't work, broken down jeeps. Bodies cluttered the sand. But the American troops had prevailed. Omaha beach was the bloodiest beach on D-Day, the German fortifications and fighting forces were not what the Allied forces expected. The air and sea bombardment that took place before the infantry were put on the beach was a waste. Nothing went according to plan. But it was the men's training, drive, and bravery that got them through the obstacles that were standing in their way. Eisenhower: 1, Hitler: 0.


On Gold beach, things were a bit different. The first things on shore were "Hobart's Funnies," the tanks that had some modifications to them that were meant to help the British soldiers take over Gold beach. And they did their job fantastically. The mine sweeper went straight to work. Then the engineers were dropped, and the infantrymen. Things were running like clockwork. Obstacles were being taken out, mines were being neutralized. There was little gunfire on the beach that day, and it was all doled out by the less-than-effective Ost battalion, which was made up of POWs that Germany had taken from its fight with Russia in the East. These men, in that battalion, had no inclination to fight against the liberating Western troops. They wanted to be free. And so, they were more than pleased to be made prisoner when they got the chance to surrender.

By the time that Arthur hopped out of his LCT, the beach was pretty tame. Men were being dutifully unloaded, some were dying because of machine gun fire further up, but it was a surprisingly small amount at the end of the day. He trudged along the sand with the other men in his boat group, one hand looped in the strap of his rifle, which was still resting comfortably on his back. He honestly couldn't see a problem with getting shot and dying at this point. He was sick of this stupid war. The fresh boys in front of him were jumpy, twisting and turning everywhere they saw motion. Arthur almost felt a little sympathetic, but he supposed that was just the excitement of your first day at war.

The men at Gold had a smaller bluff to scale than Omaha, and with less opposition. They were making more progress towards their objective than their American counterparts. Arthur scaled it, head down as he walked miserably along. This really wasn't a very fascinating beach, not in his opinion. It wouldn't start getting interesting until they got to the German forces. By the time they were up the bluff and attacking the German troops, it was close to tea time. And, in fact, many soldiers did stop to have their everyday break, brewing tea in whatever manner possible to them. They had already gotten off the beach, and in the minds of many, that was more than enough work for one day.

Arthur was no exception. He'd fought in Africa. He knew the pain of war, and he was not interested in hurtling headlong into yet another one. So he took more than enough time to make and sip at his tea. He watched the younger, more excited men hopping around him, eager to mow down some Jerries. But they weren't to have a lot of luck today, not just yet.

After the mandatory tea time, Arthur picked himself up and went along with the rest of his new platoon, finally switching to holding his rifle in an expert grip. The men he'd fought with in Africa had all either died, or been dispersed to other platoons to spread the experience around. A couple of tanks were accompanying them, as the seawall had been cleared quickly in the Gold Beach sector, and a road was being cleared for jeeps, while the hardier vehicles managed to get past on their own without assistance.

Hobart's Funnies quickly dealt with antitank ditches, and things were sliding along smoothly. Any fire taken by Germans was returned in equal force and with even more vigor. Many of the younger boys were very trigger happy, and Arthur was happy to say that he didn't have to fire a single bullet that day. Most of the Germans had been stationed in houses, and those houses had proven themselves to be very susceptible to air bombardment. Arthur's gem green eyes got to see some of the flaming craters that was left of those flammable houses, he got to step around cavities made by bombs that had been dropped. The air force had done their work on Gold Beach, and they'd done it expertly.

The day was pulling to a close, and few British troops had made it to their final objectives. But that was okay as well, because they'd gotten the beach.

Arthur had landed with the No. 47 Commando unit on Item sector of Gold beach. The unit's goal was to move ten miles east, take Port-en-Bessin, and link up with the American troops that would be there from Omaha. They chose to dig in on Hill 72, as the Longues-sur-Mer battery had halted them.


Juno beach was the job of the Canadians. And many of those men were itching to get revenge for Dieppe, where the Germans wiped nearly half of a combined task force of Canadian and British soldiers out.

When the door dropped on Matthew's LCVP, he and the other men rushed, screaming out; and then machine gun emplacements quickly mowed down most of them. Matthew was smart enough to drop, faceplanting into the sand. The gritty texture of the beach material raking at his skin as he very nearly lost it. The sand around him was practically weeping with dark blood, the fine crystals drinking in and crying out the substance.

Matthew will never know how he managed to pick himself up off of that nice, protective sand and fight his way to the seawall. But he did it. He was forced to walk, as the weight of water and his gear was keeping him from moving at an exceedingly fast pace. But when he arrived, he found a British commando unit there to greet him. Their job, once they got off of the beach, was to go link up with the British 3rd Infantry Division on Sword Beach.

When Matthew came slugging up to them, they exchanged looks before focusing back in on the sandy Canadian, his blond hair hanging in straggles about his face, and those innocent violet eyes peering blankly about. "You speak French?" one of them asked, voice gruff. Clearly these guys weren't fazed by the bullets whizzing around them. Matthew nodded slowly in response, wondering why they were even asking him. The men exchanged a look once more before one reached out, locking Matthew's forearm in his grip, and beginning to drag the sorry Canadian along as they moved inland. Evidently the machine gun bullets weren't going to impede these men from getting their objective done that day. Once they'd gotten mostly out of immediate harms way, the man dropped Matthew's arm.

"Eh, if you don't mind my asking," said Matthew, his voice soft and quiet, barely heard over the sounds of battle still echoing from the beach, "but, why are you taking me?"

The man, who seemed to have been ordained the leader after the ordeal, responded slowly, "Our Lieutenant Colonel's dead, and he's the only one who could speak French of the group of us."

Matthew looked around, noticing that there were only about fifteen or so men. "Ah, I see," was all he said in response, and then the group fell back into silence once more.

They were walking this way for some hours, pausing only for tea time. During this pause, Matthew found out that these men were veterans of the Dieppe incident. That would no doubt explain why they had no problem with walking directly towards the machine guns in interest of getting off of the beach. Their group had avoided the fight at WN27, or so it seemed, as more men began to filter past them, a good few covered in blood. Everyone quickly stood up, put their stuff back together, and trudged along with other soldiers of the No. 48 Commando and North Shore Regiment.

Then they reached Lagrune, where there was a good bit of resistance from the German forces. They had a 50mm gun in there, and they were using it exceptionally well.

Men were starting to scream, pain making blood flee from the cage of flesh it had been trapped in, arching like some liberated bird out of the dead or injured bodies. It was horrendous, and Matthew's first desire was to drop everything and run. Those bullets were hitting his allies more than they were missing.

But he couldn't do that, and so the Canadian stood and raised his gun, sighting and shooting at a German soldier in one of the house's windows. The Kraut disappeared and his gunfire seized. And in this way, the afternoon passed. It was turbulent, confusing, but coordinated in some efforts. But no one could breach that stronghold, and when word came out that the 21st Panzer Division was counter-attacking, the men settled in for the night, though few slept well. They were exhausted, but they were on edge, being so close to the enemy; a well-trained enemy, at that; not the contemptible Ost Regiments.

Lagrune would eventually be taken on June 8. The link was connected, and there was finally an Anglo-Canadian line stretching from Sword to Gold.


Francis didn't have much trouble getting off of his LCT. There was very little resistance on the beach, and the combined British and French forces made quick use of securing the beachhead. Tanks were unloaded quickly, which had the unintended effect of clogging the beach. There was very little room for other vehicles to be dropped.

Not that Francis would know. He was a part of the No. 10 Commando, which landed with the No. 4. He was one of a group of about 176 French Marine Commandos who were all too happy to get their feet back on the soil of their homeland. Laughs bubbled out from their lips, uncharacteristic sounds in a war environment, and some even began to sing the national anthem, La Marseillaise.

But their joy was short-lived. As soon as the troops got past the beach, they were met with thick patches of resistance.

The first heavily defended area Francis stumbled upon, they lost a few men. It was a nasty hornet's nest of Germans, and they all had some pretty nasty weapons at their disposal. Bullets were zipping, ringing, and biting; nipping at stray fingers, toes, ears, and legs, arms, guns. Anything they could get a taste of. A bullet nicked Francis's ear, buzzing past his long blond hair and burying into the ground just behind him. Warm red blood dripped down the side of the Frenchman's face, but he didn't notice. He didn't notice anything but the way those Jerries were sitting on France, his country, his home. Not theirs. They could get the fuck off it, and get their German asses far, far away, all the way back to Germany.

With a furious snarl, lips peeling back from his teeth in a feral grin, Francis began to fire furiously in response to that one threat, anger making him rash in his actions and choices. His muscles burned from clenching and moving and constantly, constantly tensing. He had to hold himself still and steady to get a proper shot going, one that had even a chance of burying itself in some Kraut's forehead.

Francis didn't notice the 21st Panzer tank regiment until big rounds began to hit his fellow soldiers. More blood was flying, though this time it was more French and British blood than it was German, and Francis was forced to abandon his offensive in favor of finding some form of a hiding place. This Panzer division, this specially trained pet of Hitler's, was vicious, and effective. Within seconds, the British and French halted their attack and ducked down, hid, avoided those crunching tank treads and lethal guns.

Francis couldn't say how long he spent fighting, how many men he killed. It was all hidden behind a blur of rage. A blur of teeth-gritting rage. He can remember the hatred, simmering, boiling, burning his lungs and chest, searing through his veins and pulling the trigger on his gun. But that's it. He can't remember much more than that.

The British and French forces from Sword Beach were forced to wait to take Caen until July 20. They received the only armored Panzer counterattack on D-Day.


So, what does everyone think? Did I do this day justice?

I know that a few of the point of views seem crazy, confusing, too quick, and not enough detail, or time to it. And others don't. Others seem organized.

But I did that on purpose. Alfred's is disjointed, a mess of words and letters, and that's because this is his first time in actual battle. Everything's going to be different, scary, and confusing, especially on the hell of Omaha beach.

Arthur, on the other hand, was more calm, and collected. Things were simple, laid out, and described with precision and with a removed sort of concern. He's been in his fair share of battle, and so he's less confused and panicked. He can keep collected.

Francis loses it because, I mean, come on, that's his country that he's having to fight to get into. He has a right to be pretty damn pissed if he so pleases.

Matthew is beleaguered. Things aren't a blur, like in Alfred and Francis's points of view, but it's not as concise and punctual as Arthur's. He's confused, but not hopelessly so.

So this is D-Day. Next we'll have the Battles for Caen and Port-En-Bessin. I'm going to have to stretch history a bit in order for our boys to meet up, but it won't be too bad, I promise.