What Campbell was sure was a very minor incident in the face of the greatest invasion effort mankind has ever known, "...but with the danger of combat only hours and a few watery miles away, [and] even though he did not say a word, I am sure Lt. Kerns and I were on the same wavelength. This is war, and you do what you have to do."

They reached Utah Beach late in the afternoon, and climbed down rope nets into the "Higgins boats" or LCIs for the final short leg of the journey that started at the golf course camp in Manchester, to the sandy, bloody and battle-scarred beach of Normandy. The six-mile journey started over a narrow path, crossing sand dunes that engineers had cleared and marked throughout the mine field. After they had marched about a mile laden with all the equipment assigned to a soldier embarking into uninvited territory, "...we looked up and there went George Boyer, a 6x6 truck driver from our Company." A few men from the Company had preceded their arrival by a couple of days. Boyer was headed to the beach on a supply run, and with that mission accomplished, stopped long enough for as many who could get on to jump aboard on the way back. "Man! We were sure glad to see him!" Campbell recalls. The ride surely neutralized what seemed like hundreds of pounds of ammunition, two layers of clothing, a jacket, a full field pack, the gas mask, a rifle and any other necessary articles a combat soldier required.

The advance party had picked an area near Blosville for the Regimental HQ Company, and Campbell arrived there around 7:00 pm. The very first thing to do - dig a fox hole. He picked out his spot and started immediately. The Corporal of the Guard, Rex Spratlin, a six-foot-plus young man from Mississippi, approached Campbell with an assignment to help dig the officer's slit trench - their outdoor toilet facility. "I told him no way, not until I had my fox hole dug!" Spratlin did not reply, he just walked off. Later, he returned with a proposal: If Campbell took Spratlin's midnight guard duty, Spratlin would dig the trench in his place. Campbell agreed; by then he'd have his own fox hole dug, and would have a place to sleep. Spratlin had been with the advance party, and had already completed his own fox hole earlier. "Looking back, I realize they could have made an example out of me with a court martial, but at that moment I did not give that a thought. I just could not see digging a trench for officers to relieve themselves in when I did not have a hole to put my butt in..."

Campbell says he will never forget that first night in France. His post was on the other side of the hedgerow that bordered the field where the advance party placed the Company CP. He had to patrol back and forth between two corners of the hedgerow. "The night was so black and dark you could not even see yourself. I knew a German could sneak up and cut my throat and I would never know what happened. I was so scared you could not have driven a nail between my teeth with a ten pound sledge hammer." Later, all hell broke loose. The Germans sent a plane over to observe movement on the beachhead, and from the sound, it was flying in low. All of a sudden, the sky lit up with anti-aircraft and machine gun fire. The dead silence of the night was shattered by the explosive firing of the guns and the constant stream of bullets slicing the air headed toward the plane. "The tracer bullets painted a picture of bright red ropes strung out across the sky in a pattern that can not be described. I would be surprised if that Jerry survived. Thank God, this scared G.I. did!"

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