This Sept. 14, 1946, photo provided by the Dunham family shows Stanley Armour Dunham with his daughter Stanley Ann vacationing at Yosemite National Park, Calif. Dunham, who Barack Obama would one day call Gramps, was a supply sergeant in the Army Air Force when the Allied invasion of Normandy at last began, headed to California after the war, and enrolled at Berkeley under the GI bill.
This undated photo provided by the Dunham family shows Ralph Emerson Dunham, second from left, his English wife Elizabeth 'Betty' Smith Dunham, during their honeymoon visit with his maternal Aunt Doris Armour, third from left, in Kansas after World War II. The man at right is an unidentified friend. Dunham, later became the great uncle of Barack Obama.
This 1947 photo provided by the Dunham family shows Stanley Armour Dunham after WWII. The man Barack Obama would one day call Gramps, was a supply sergeant in the Army Air Force when the Allied invasion of Normandy began; the family headed to California after the war, and Dunham enrolled at Berkeley under the GI bill.
This Nov. 7, 2008, file photo shows the grave site of then President-elect Barack Obama's maternal grandfather, WWII veteran Stanley Armour Dunham, at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific at Punchbowl in Honolulu.
This 1920s photo provided by the Dunham family shows the last family photo of Ralph Waldo Dunham, left, with his wife Ruth Armour Dunham, and sons Ralph Emerson Dunham, left and younger brother Stanley Armour Dunham, right, future grandfather of Barack Obama.
This Aug. 1945, photo provided by the Dunham family shows Army Sgt. Stanley Armour Dunham, his wife Madelyn Payne Dunham, and 2-year-old daughter Stanley Ann, future mother of Barack Obama, in Augusta, Kan. The man Barack Obama would one day call Gramps, was a supply sergeant in the Army Air Force when the Allied invasion of Normandy began; the family headed to California after the war, and Dunham enrolled at Berkeley under the GI bill.
Ralph Emerson Dunham, 92, President Barack Obama's great-uncle on his mother's side, looks at an old address book while talking to the Associated Press at a retirement community Tuesday, May 26, 2009, in Springfield, Va. The military address of his brother Stanley, Obama's grandfather, is crossed out on the bottom left page.
Ralph Emerson Dunham, 92, President Barack Obama's great-uncle on his mother's side, holds mementos of his deceased brother Stanley Armour Dunham, grandfather of Barack Obama, during an interview with the Associated Press at a retirement community, Tuesday, May 26, 2009, in Springfield, Va.
This undated photo provided by the presidential campaign of then-Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., shows Obama's maternal grandparents, Stanley and Madelyn Dunham, in Cambridge, Mass., during World War II. Dunham was a 26-year-old supply sergeant in the Army Air Force when the Allied invasion of Normandy at last began.
Ralph Emerson Dunham, 92, President Barack Obama's great-uncle on his mother's side, talks to the Associated Press during an interview at a retirement community, Tuesday, May 26, 2009, in Springfield, Va.
This March 1943, photo provided by the Dunham family shows Army Lt. Ralph Emerson Dunham, while serving during World War II. Dunham is the older brother of Stanley Armour Dunham, the man Barack Obama would one day call Gramps.
Ralph Dunham, 92, President Barack Obama's great-uncle on his mother's side, holds a photograph during an interview with The Associated Press at a retirement community Tuesday, May 26, 2009, in Springfield, Va. The 1944 photograph taken in London and shows Ralph, right, and his younger brother Stanley, who borrowed a uniform jacket for the photo. In the months before the invasion the brothers met up twice in England while on leave, once at the Russell Hotel. 'I walked down the steps and there was my brother sitting on a settee,' Dunham said.
This Oct. 26, 1944, photo provided by the Dunham family shows Stanley Armour Dunham, while serving in the U.S. Army somewhere in France during World War II. Dunham, the man whom Barack Obama would one day call Gramps, was a 26-year-old supply sergeant in the Army Air Force when the Allied invasion of Normandy at last began."
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BIG APObama article
Obama's Gramps: Gazing skyward on D-Day in England
*snip*
On this coming Saturday, the 65th anniversary of D-Day, Obama will visit the gravesites and beaches of Normandy, and look out across the channel that his grandfather crossed from a staging area at Southampton, England.
"I knew him when he was older," Obama said of his grandfather in 2007. "But I think about him now and then as he enlisted — a man of 23, fresh-faced with a wise-guy grin."
To the 75 men of Dunham's company, he was a good guy to have around.
For one thing, he taught the men how to use their new gas masks.
He also came up with a radio, games and books for a day room that Dunham's commanding officer described as "a swell place to spend an evening."
And when the 1830th had a party in the gym three days after D-Day, they had Dunham to thank for it.
On May 31, 1944, payday, Dunham had taken up a collection of 35 British pounds — about $150 in today's dollars — to finance the event. He lined up a convoy of girls from Southampton who, the men hoped, would be "simply smashing," as his commanding officer, Frederick Maloof, wrote in his diary.
"The party was a huge success, except that the beer ran out about 10:30 p.m.," 1st Lt. Maloof later reported. "All agreed that the orchestra was good. A few of the die-hards were still crooning over the empty beer barrels at an early morning hour."
For all the good times, the strains of war were ever present for Dunham and his fellow soldiers.
On the evening after D-Day, Dunham's unit dug 27 foxholes.
"This was done in case of a retaliation by the Germans," Maloof wrote.