On Red Beach, an Army major thought he had found a way to discourage the strafing attacks. Summoning one of his noncommissioned officers, he issued orders to organize a detail and raise a barrage balloon. Carpenter’s Mate Donald Palmer saw what happened next: ‘No sooner did the barrage balloon rise above the sand dunes than the Germans fired one 88 shell over, one short and then one dead center of the balloon. I was standing next to the major when the sergeant reported back to him. ‘Sir, I lost all nine of my men.”

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As if this were not enough, the sailors had to dodge friendly fire. Excited gunners aboard landing craft, aiming at low-flying German planes, would shoot wildly toward the beach. Errant fire from ships in the bay hit a British Supermarine Spitfire, and the smoking plane passed over Red Beach before crashing. The pilot bailed out and waded ashore to everyone’s applause. In addition, shells fired from ships offshore occasionally fell short, producing casualties and caving in the sailors’ hastily dug foxholes.

Aware that there were likely to be casualties on the beach, a 4th Beach Battalion medical team had landed with the assault troops and immediately set up an aid station. After treating the wounded, the medical staff took them to LCTs for transport to ships in the bay. Medical units would remain on the beach for 12 days, supervising the evacuation of more than 1,400 wounded men. Due to a shortage of Army medical personnel, even after the beach was secured Navy medics went inland to treat Army casualties.

Corpsman Johnstone’s performance was typical. As the sky rained 88 shells, Johnstone placed a gut-shot shipmate, Seaman Robert Dorey, on a litter. With a reluctant boatswain’s mate helping, he carried Dorey more than a mile along an exposed beach to a waiting LST for evacuation. Sadly, Dorey died while undergoing surgery in the officers’ wardroom of USS Woolsey. One lieutenant recalled: ‘Very few officers showed up for dinner at the wardroom that night. The thought of the young seaman dying on the dining room table a few hours earlier was too much to endure.’

As the morning wore on, there was no movement at all on Blue Beach–nor would there be for much of the day. The sailors there tried to get a boat from Yellow Beach to evacuate casualties, but mortar fire wrecked the craft as it approached. Under heavy small-arms fire, Seaman Andrew Alardi swam 100 yards out to sea with a life jacket to help wounded men in the boat. Two other craft also attempted to land but turned back due to enemy fire.

Meanwhile, increasingly heavy fire shut down Yellow Beach for hours. Mortar shells peppered the area. Artillery pounded landing craft along the shoreline and in the water. One or two tanks had arrived near the Torre di Paestum and added their firepower to the defenders.

The situation for the Americans was desperate. Ironically, it was only the Germans’ own minefields that stopped them from charging down on the pinned down attack force and pushing it into the sea. The word was passed down to the soldiers and sailors on the beach to fix bayonets in anticipation of a German infantry attack. The Germans, however, aware of the extent of their minefields, chose to simply keep pummeling their opponents with shellfire.

About 10 a.m., in an effort to reinforce the men ashore, a wave of nine landing craft approached Yellow Beach. German fire forced them to turn back, but not before a British LCM (landing craft, medium) received a direct hit from an 88. The disabled craft drifted toward the beach, running aground on a sandbar. Braving enemy fire, Seaman Robert Danke rushed to the shoreline and helped pull two badly injured survivors from the burning wreck.

With artillery and armor unable to get ashore, the men on the beaches were dependent upon naval gunfire support from the ships offshore. Unfortunately, a number of radios had been lost in the landings or malfunctioned. With fewer radios available, communicating with Allied ships was difficult. Further complicating the situation was the fact that fire-control parties were scattered and pinned down–some unable to get ashore at all.

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