_Nicholas Lamia’s outfit from the Naval Combat Demolition Unit’s (NCDU) Assault Force 'O' of the Western Naval Task Force assaulted Normandy Beach on 6 June 1944. DUHA-29 had 16 Landing Craft’s Mechanized (LCMs) that were the initial assault force and was the first force to reach Omaha beach on D-Day. Nicholas Lamia’s LCM was full of engineers and demolitions to clear the beach of obstacles (20 Army 20 Navy). His job during D-day was to land the men on the beach during the amphibious assaults while he manned the .50 caliber machine gun. Lamia’s LCM approached the beach under terrible fire from German emplacements. As Lamia (with the initial assault force) approached the beach they received fire from a two story building on the hill. Nicholas Lamia and Joey Kuntz both focused their .50 caliber machine gun fire on the building’s window. They saw an explosion in the building and the firing from the building ceased. The boat was cleared of the Engineers under _heavy fire_ and the ramp was lifted. The moment Lamia’s ramp reached the top closed position, the LCM was hit by a German 88mm round and tore the ramp open like a tin can, but the LCM did not sink. Of the 16 LCM’s in NCDU, 13 were sunk or out of commission. Later that day (D-Day) Nicholas Lamia attended to the dead on the beach. The next few weeks Lamia transported Army Engineers back and forth from the mainland of France to the home base ships where they slept and ate. A bad storm hit France on the 20th of June 1944. Nicholas Lamia’s LCM hit against the transport ship and the water was so rough that the soldiers’ legs were in danger of being crushed by the boats’ when embarking the transport ship. Lamia decided to bring the soldier’s back to shore for safety. As they approached the shore, Lamia’s LCM encountered eight to ten foot waves and the storm beached his LCM permanently on Omaha Beach. Lamia then went up to the front line in an attempt to further help the war effort._

Nicholas Paul Lamia