They had 60, 70, 80 pound packs, really who thought that was a good idea? Some landing craft were hit and guys sunk or they stopped short and guys drowned. A lot of guys just dumped those things and ran like hell. Things could have been better, it is amazing the losses were not worse.
Yeah I really hate to think about the number who just drowned in the surf. A lot of the paratroopers drowned too, when they landed in fields that the Germans had flooded.
I think in retrospect a better idea might have been to have the initial assault waves with a very light combat load for good mobility, then resupply them with subsequent landing waves. Everything was a huge question mark though, and I guess they erred on the side of bringing too much rather than not enough.
My granddad was in the Navy and spent the war in the Pacific Theater, piloting the amphibious landing craft. He had a lot of stories about the boats being raked with machine gun fire and shore artillery.
My other granddad spent the war on U-boat patrol, mostly in the Caribbean where the tankers transited out of the Gulf on their way to Europe. His uncle -- which I guess would make him my great-great uncle -- was a tank commander who was killed in action in the battle for Sicily. He was the first person from his county to be killed in the war and the American Legion post there is named after him.
I think it's very difficult for us to truly appreciate how "all in" the whole country was.