Every time the boat returned to the beach, German planes would buzz by and drop football-sized mines in the water.

The only way off the sand was a road that was cut through a forest and ran up a steep hill. Many French women who had married German officers became snipers and fired on the Allied convoy. Many troops were killed, and ditches along the road were filled with wrecked equipment, Mohr said.

The shooting stopped after seven snipers were caught and hanged over the road.

Mohr spent seven Sundays walking through the temporary Allied cemetery at Normandy, reading each of the approximately 4,000 dog tags that hung from white wooden crosses. Watches, rings and other jewelry were also on some grave markers. He was looking for the grave of a cousin but didn't find it. He came across the graves of a man from Manning and a man from Templeton.

During some other free time, Mohr toured the German artillery bunkers that lined the coast. He walked over a mile into a set of tunnels and found a German uniform in an ammunition pit.

Licensed by the Navy to drive, Mohr was once allowed to take half of the 537's crew to Paris for a two-week furlough. Mohr didn't smoke but he took along his ration of three packs of Raleigh cigarettes and " lived like a king." He could get a meal or a night's lodging by trading just one smoke.

While walking from the Eiffel Tower to the Arc de Triomphe, Mohr and a buddy were stopped by a Frenchman who owned a clothing store. He paid them to put on new suits and act as mannequins in the front window to draw shoppers. The man put out a sign that read "American Marines."

Near the end of the war when Mohr and his crew were chugging toward La Havre, France, the sea became so rough it lifted an abandoned PT boat and dropped it on the 537's empty deck.

At La Havre, the boat was ordered to reload and prepare to sail for the Rhine River and await invasion orders. It was there Mohr got handshakes from Generals Eisenhower and Montgomery and praise for the "successful" landing at Normandy.

"I thought to myself 'He didn't know that we sat on that beach. There were only 13 of our boats left and about half the crews from the other ships were gone. I wouldn't call that too successful,"' Mohr said.

Clad in a dirty coat and even dirtier boots, Eisenhower "looked just like us. He really made us feel good," Mohr said.