William D Franko

Cpl William Franko was killed in action on 06 June 1944, serving with Company B, 37th Engineer Combat Battalion. On the morning of June 6, 1944, Company B came ashore from LCI 88 at 0730 near Exit E-1 on Omaha Beach, the route it had been assigned to open for the troops and vehicles pinned down below the bluffs by enemy fire. Under fire, a mine-detector crew cut through barbed wire and pushed into an open field to clear and mark a path through a minefield, opening a gap through which infantry could move off the beach. Other members of the company expanded that route for vehicles, cleared wrecked equipment from the sand, directed traffic inland, and kept newly landed men moving across the exposed shingle, while an afternoon patrol pushed inland to clear snipers from the fields above and took several surrenders. By evening the exit was operating despite continued sniper fire, and the company had cut three additional paths through the dunes in addition to the original trail, helping turn E-1 into a working route off the beach. Cpl Franko was killed in action that day; the report does not specify the individual circumstances.