JUNE 6, 1944 D-DAY

My best friend, who is now 75, lost her father in Normandy on D-Day. The family was living in Protection, Ks. Her mother was working in the family garden. My friend was watching her brother and sister, 6 month old twins. Her mother came into the kitchen calling for her own mother, crying because the air around her had suddenly turned blood red and she heard her husband calling her name. It was days before they had the telegram but they knew on that morning. The story always gives me goosebumps. My own dad was a teenager in the South Pacific. Thank God that he came home. So many of my generation were fatherless--s6

When I went to France in 2009, I met an old Polish man at the D-Day museum named Rick (he was named Heinrich, but refused to be called that after Heinrich Himmler started doing his thing). He fled the country before the Nazis and Soviets took it, was able to join the Royal Army at 17 because he got help from an officer who had married a Polish girl. Served with a tank crew and landed on Sword beach. Wounded, woke up in England and married the nurse who tended to him, Margaret, the woman who told me his story.

By a strange coincidence yesterday I was reading (not for the first time, I might add) about D-Day. When you notice that street names are named after a date, and even military units of a foreign nation it is obvious that something very important happened there on that date.

We should all be extremely grateful that we are in a position to celebrate the liberation of Europe. Especially those who gave their lives.

This day is also my birthday. And the day my best friend's father died in Normandy--Hugh Melrose. And the day another palymate's father--Ervin Tournear- landed on Sword Beach. Even as a little kid, this day held deep memories for me. I always knew it was important beyond my birth.

My own father, a marine, operated an amphibious tractor in the South Pacific. He managed to get in on Iwo Jima, Saipan and Tarawa. Our next door neighbor, Elvie Gray, was lost in the Battle of the Bulge. Another neighbor, Carl Soden, was stationed at Pearl Harbor on that Sunday morning in history. My father in law, John Thomas Smith, a radio gunner, flew missions over Germany, too many. He was a changed man after the war. An adult friend's father, Forrest Burdue, was hidden out in a church basement after his tank unit was attacked at the Battle of the Bulge. A French girl hid him and smuggled him milk and bread. She didn't speak English. He didn't speak French. He thought she was about 12-14. The girl's name was Denise. Every girl in that family has the middle name Denise to this day.

I knew these guys. They didn't bluster. They didn't brag. In fact, sometimes they cried. They were ordinary, every day dads. They mowed the lawns and yelled at us for leaving our bikes in the drive. Sometimes they drank a little too much, around a kitchen table on a weekend, talked war, but only when they were with each other.

That's how we, the kids of the fifties, the baby boomers, learned about heroism. It's not bluster. It's not about glory. It's about respect for the weak. It's about taking a little girl to one side and telling her about the people who died to make her birthday safe. It's about doing what you have to do, every day of your life and not bragging, not whining.

My friend who lost her father on Normandy, lost him when she was four. He also left 6 month old twins he had only seen once. My friend was raised by a feisty widow who had to scrape and struggle all her life. My own grandmothers made huge sacrifices during the war. My dad--the son of a deceased vet WW1, was the sole support of the family but refused to take a deferment. My grandmother said that they had a big garden, chickens and a small WW1 pension so they could get by without her 17 year old son's paycheck. My maternal grandfather served as a mechanic in the Army Air Corp, even though he was nearly 40. My grandmother and great grandmother managed the farm ground and raised my mom and uncle. But that's another story--so proud of our dads and our moms. --s6

Just found this thread. Growing up in the 50's we all had fathers and family who were veterans, and friends families who were the same. It was uncommon to know of someone who was not a veteran family. WWII II had uncles who died. WWI, my great-uncle was killed by a German submarine which torpedoed it. Often it is not thought of, but for a few of us, we had ancestors killed in earlier years, mine from the Revolutionary War on. Salute for all who have lost loved ones in war and lost ancestors in defense of our country.

I think about those beaches every single week, I am always researching the bleak tundra of warfare throughout our history up to the present day, the courage to float across the channel and face that barbaric contraption known as the third reich... can only be ever thankful and perpetually aware of the task they faced so that we could exist as we do today. Of course not forgetting every single portion of the allies that contributed to the defeat of those creeps, especially the soviet union which absorbed a truly unfathomable amount of Hitler's unhinged energies... they truly fought for their very survival. Shame omaha was manned by the 352nd wehrmacht, we were lucky the atlantic wall could not be even a fifth as formidable as they intended it to be. I know stalin had been pleading for a second front for a long time but I think it was as much about us getting to Berlin ourselves and stopping wily uncle joe swarming the whole damn continent. I do wonder how different things could have been if adolf had actually been woken up early enough to release the panzers, due to the success and complexity of our tricks prior I don't think they truly believed it was the main invasion force blazing in until it was too late to effectively react. Still put up a hell of a fight delaying matters in the bocage terrain.

One of my favorite D-Day stories came from Cornelius Ryan (the author of The Longest Day). The 101st was in the middle of parachuting into France the night of June 5th/6th, when a young captain heard someone shout from above. He looked up just in time to see a set of size ten boots hitting him in the face. He went tumbling into the bog with a broken nose. When he could see straight, he realized the guy who'd hit him's parachute hadn't opened. He rushed over to provide aid, just as the man sat up, brushed himself off and said something like, "Well, that was a heck of a first step."

Then the captain looked at the man's collar to see the crosses there.

Yep, only the unit Chaplin could fall 600 feet into Normandy, and land on the only person within twenty feet to break his fall, and suffer no injuries. The captain made sure to stick near the Chaplin the rest of the day -- just in case. *grin*

We often think about the men who hit the beaches, and the horror they went through.

We don't usually consider the men in the gliders who landed beyond the beaches. "Yep, you're an Army pilot Your plane is made of wood, has no engine, guns, or armor. After you land, you'll be an infantryman for a while."

17,000 men parachuted or landed via glider behind enemy lines, even before the landing craft had hit the beach.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_airborne_landings_in_Normandy

So much is owed by so many.

regdog said:

Thank you, to all those who did so much on that history changing day.

Click to expand...

Hear hear!

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regdog said:

Thank you, to all those who did so much on that history changing day.

Click to expand...

Hear hear!

There's very few of them left now, but when I was in business and had to visit folk, if I discovered one was a vet I always said 'Thank you. For what you and your comrades did for us during the War. Thank you." I say 'discovered' because they didn't advertise the fact. I only realised one gentleman was when I was leaving his house and spotted a picture of a Wellington Bomber on his wall. He only admitted to being a rear-gunner when I asked him if he flew in that one.

He did. Tucked away in a tiny turret with a machine gun.

"Thank you."


And posting this reminds me when I was a teenager and started work in London in 1953. I had to travel to Piccadilly and there was always a small fellow selling newspapers at the top of the exit steps to Piccadilly Circus tube station. He had no nose.