D-Day: If Marines Stormed the Beaches of Normandy

Marine Corps Gazette correspondent Hanson Baldwin was sent to France in 1945 to cover the Allied beach invasion from a Marine Corps officer's perspective.

Here are a few of his observations as they pertain to the Marine Corps:

When Allied forces first came ashore, they faced heavy machine-gun fire from Germans in heavily-fortified positions inland.

During the invasion, Baldwin wrote, "The lack of Navy and Marine Corps aircraft trained to close support work in amphibious operations was felt."

Because the Allied bombers didn't want to hit their own, they bombed too far inland, leaving the German pillboxes, and inside them German gunners, unharmed.

Also, Marine amphtracks, or amphibious tanks, would have been much more effective in negotiating the wet, sandy terrain, Baldwin wrote. The Army's DUKW, an amphibious truck, had a hard time driving on the beach.