Yeates

Pfc Yeates was killed in action on 06 June 1944, serving with Company E, 2nd Battalion, 116th Infantry Regiment. On the morning of June 6, 1944, this company was the first infantry unit to touch down on this stretch of Omaha Beach, arriving on schedule but well left of its intended objective in six landing craft, where it found four Sherman "DD" tanks already ashore, several of which were soon destroyed. The men made it out of the boats without loss, but the dash across open sand to the sea wall proved far costlier - one boat section took a direct artillery hit that killed three men and badly wounded three others, and the company commander was wounded there and later killed while retrieving mortar ammunition on the beach. The survivors who reached the wall cut through the wire with a bangalore torpedo, pushed up through a minefield and climbed the hill beyond, reaching its crest by about 9:30 a.m., where one sergeant would later earn the Distinguished Service Cross for silencing two machine-gun positions. Around 10:30 a.m. a scattered remnant of the company joined a company of the 1st Infantry Division and fought alongside it for the next three days, while a supporting detachment that had landed separately eventually made its way back to its own battalion that evening. Pfc Yeates was killed in action that day; the report does not specify the individual circumstances.