The following is a report by our intrepid Teutonic correspondent, Bill Donegan:
It was the Summer of 1957. My uncle, Lester Call (Luck), was spending the summer with us in Charleston, West Virginia. He usually lived with us or my Aunt May on Grove Avenue or down on the family farm in Putnam County. So he actually had three homes. He was never married.
I was sitting on the front porch of our house at 213 Lee Street. Uncle Luck, my dad Richard, and my mom, Ann, were renovating the garage apartment we had out behind our house. A Greyhound bus stopped in front of our house. A short man with glasses and blonde hair got off the bus. He was the same age of my uncle, born in 1907 (or there abouts-my memory is fading on dates). The man introduced himself to me and asked if my uncle lived at 213 Lee Street. Long story/short. He was a German soldier, befriended by my uncle in 1944 at the Battle of the Buldge. Again, long story/short he stayed at our house that summer. I heard war stories for the first time!
My uncle was a member of the 325 Glider Infantry, 82nd Airborne. He told me about his experiences at D-Day. Needless to say, that when I heard that a reenactment of D-Day took place at Conneaut Ohio I wanted to participate. If you want to know more about it go to www.ddayohio.us.
My friend Ron Wenig and our wives booked a room at a B&B in Ashtabula only 9 miles away from the event. We went with the 2nd Gebirgsjaeger, Regt.137 which is an Austrian reenactment group.
I understand that there were 312 reenactors and 4,000 spectators this year.
Ron and I were so excited that I was all dressed and ready to roll at 0500! Breakfast wasn’t until 0900 and roll call was at 0800 so we two skipped breakfast. Our wives, Linda Donegan and Debbie Wenig packed left overs and brought them to us around noon after the bridge battle and before the invasion battle.
The section of beach on Lake Erie, which was roped off for the battle, looked erriely just like the Normandy Beach on June 6, 1944. There was a 40% chance of rain. In fact it rained just after the bridge battle, but then stopped about two hours before the beach battle. There was a constant cool breeze blowing down from the lake and there was no humidity!  Ron and I had gone to the drug store and purchased sun block and were overly protected from the sun. Our entire platoon then took up firing positions under a tree in the only shaded area of the beach!
We had also purchased an extra 200 rounds of 8mm Mauser ammo to supplement the three hundred rounds that I had brought with me.
The water was rough so the navy could not load the US reenactors on to the Higgins boats, They marched down one side of the crowd to their starting positions.
We had been told that there would be no fly-overs because last year a flier had accidentally shot himself down by flying too close to the ground and an explosion had taken out his radiator. He landed the plane in a farmers field five miles away. But we had been misinformed! Suddenly three planes appeared! Flieger Alarm! Voller deckung! We hit the dirt. Gilbert White, our Zugfuhrer cranked out the alarm. The beach erupted in a series of explosions. Then all fell silent..We could see the higgins boats circling just off shore. Someone blew a whistle. Here they come, “Sie Kommen! I cried. The Canadians were the first group to attack. We started firing our weapons. Ron was breeaking all marksmanship records for when he fired his Mauser, a runner, who was trying to run laterally from one position to another, fell dead as soon as the shot rand out.
The Canadians kept getting closer and closer. They were so close that I had to scoot across the ground to the edge of the cliff to fire down at them. I saw many fall as I fired at them. While reloading, a Canadian officer managed to climb up to my position and he immediately surrendered to me. I disarmed him and sent him to the rear.
When I returned to my position I realized that I had been laying in dog poop! I stood up and kicked the poop down the hill and resumed firing.
We wiped out the Canadians.
Next ashore came the US 29 ID. They were more agressive than the Canadians had been for they never took any hits. I fired and fired at them and nobody fell. We were ejecting shells like crazy and hitting each other with them but still the buggers kept coming.
The scenario lasted about 45 minutes when I had to take a hit as my end of the line was over-run. While laying dead, a GI used my body for cover as he fired his BAR directly over my head. It was so lound that the ground shook!
As soon as the acting was ended and we all resurrected, a group of yound boys pounced on my position to collect all the spent cartridges.  It is a good thing I did not intend to collect them myself. One boy wanted my hand grenade, another my canteen. I said no and picked up my stuff and left the beach. On the walk to my car another reenactor told me to be on the lookout for a small boy running with a GI helmet.
Later Ron Wenig told me that he had seen the boy with a helmet but had not known that it had been stolen.
Except for the dog poop and the thievery this was a good event and one that I will do again.
Submitted by Bill Donegan
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