Posted on 06/06/2016 7:40:57 AM PDT by Alas Babylon!
A 91-year-old man lifts off in a commercial airliner bound for France and for a moment can imagine himself in the cabin of a Douglas C-47, preparing to leap into moonlit darkness.
Norwood Thomas was just a boy, really, the first time he arrived in Normandy. Now he is returning for the last time, once again mindful of his own mortality.
More than 100,000 Americans were there at the start of the campaign to retake Europe from Hitler. Only a few hundred are expected to return this week. Thousands more, many too frail to travel, will mark the 70th anniversary of D-Day back home.
Thomas flew out of Norfolk last week. Grant "Gully" Gullickson isn't far behind. Cary Jarvis and Eddie Shames wish they could join them; they'll spend the day with family in Virginia Beach.
None of them knew one another on that day, yet they are forever linked by it. They are among the lucky few - the ones who survived brutal fighting and then the merciless march of time. Almost all of their buddies are dead.
Memories dull with age, but certain moments stick with them: The feel of cool sand against the face; the cries of grown men struggling for air; the smell of exploded gunpowder and burned flesh.
The tales they tell sound improbable and, with few living witnesses, some details are elusive. But these men were there; this is how they remember it.
For at least one more day, the world will pause and listen.
Thanks for the post. Some memories remain until the grave.
It sounds like just the book I need. I’m putting it on my list; thanks!
He didn't say much about it. A boat next to his was 'blown out of the water'. A German round hit his boat in the little office. Luckily, he wasn't in there at the time. His jacket, draped across the back of his chair, was shredded, and several cartons of cigarettes in the locker were 'turned to snuff'.
My grandfathers best friend was a sailor on the Arizona. He NEVER talked about it, but I found out after he killed himself that he was haunted by it his whole life, he was 68.
The page looks like it is marked July 5.
Yep, apparently the date was due to human error.
Grab it at Amazon. I’m thinking of getting the updated version since the one I have is from the 1980’s and the new one has lots of updates. I must have read it five or six times and I still find new stuff.
PFL
The first landings went in at three hours past low tide.
Well, since tides are 6 hours, that would be halfway tide, no?
I wonder how many boats and men had to eat Rommel's beach defenses because of that?
My uncle was an engineer on the first wave at Omaha beach. He remembers passing by the battleship Texas as she cut loose with a 14 inch gun salvo into German positions. He speaks of the invasion at times. He said on that day he had several buddies who were standing there one second and the next second they were just gone, nothing left from the mortar or artillery round that landed right on them.
He talks some about the hedgerow fighting and how vicious it was. He had a low opinion of Patton saying he pushed too hard on the right flank after the breakout at St. Lo and got a lot of GI’s killed by friendly fire which he thought could have been avoided by just a slight pause in the advance before then going hard and fast.
At one point him and his buddy captured a few Germans right after the landings and they took the Germans to a collection station and the officer in charge told them this is a collection point for dead krauts only do you understand and motioned for them to take care of them being live krauts. They said yes sir and moved on down the line where they turned them into a position where they were taking POWS.
He was at Sainte-Mère-Église and passed a tree where a US paratrooper had landed and got shot by the Germans. He said a group of German POW’s were walking by, about 15-20 of them and they were pointing at the dead GI and laughing and a couple of paratroopers were enraged and took the Germans out behind a building and he said he heard a bunch of gunfire and the GI’s walked back and there were no more German POWS.
He is 94 now and currently battling pneumonia.
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