On June 6, 1944, Allied Forces launched the largest amphibious assault in history against Nazi-occupied Europe. In this episode, Rip Bounds of Hattiesburg describes piloting a Utility Landing Ship to the beaches of Normandy.

As Allied Forces landed on the beaches of Normandy, they faced devastating fire-power from the Germans. Bounds recalls how the eighty-eight millimeter artillery shells decimated both men and equipment.

Thousands of American soldiers were wounded or killed as they stormed the beaches on D-Day 1944. Bounds remembers how they bravely worked to save wounded troops from the rising tide. In the weeks that followed D-Day, Bounds and his crew ferried wounded soldiers to awaiting hospital ships for treatment. He recounts how Red Cross workers attempted to give aid and comfort to these men as they lay on the deck of his ship.

WARNING: CONTAINS GRAPHIC DESCRIPTIONS OF WAR AND CARNAGE.

PHOTO: USA Today