“Taylor is a luminous figure in the story of D Day, one of the forty-seven immortals of Omaha who, by their dauntless initiative at widely separated points along the beach, saved the landing from total stagnation and disaster. Courage and luck are his in extraordinary measure”
I’ve seen people ask this question on past D-Day anniversaries with no answer. It seems really ashamed that we’ve lost the ability to identify these great heroes so that we can properly honor their sacrifices.
Haven’t heard of those hero’s.
I once met a man who was a UDT frogman (didn’t need weightbelts)
He swam to the beach the night before to plant munitions on some of those big steel posts in the surf that were there to block landings, then he swam back to the ship.
He was later shot on a Landing Craft so while he had a key part of the invasion, he never actually set foot on the beach.
“waist deep to higher than a man’s head.”
Dad was a WWII vet.
When I was a little kidlet, I remember him telling me how the boats stopped in water that was too deep and men with full packs jumping out and were drowned.
Didn’t make it to the Indy 500 this year ( would have been my 30th race) but patriotism is the BEST part of the race! Respect for our men and women in our military service. I LOVE IT!!!
They deserve the title “The Greatest Generation”. And we are hosed....
Everything keeps coming back to the Atlantic article.
However I did find one that seems to give more information:
https://beelineblogger.blogspot.com/2013/06/the-longest-day.html
This article links to an article with a dead link.
Try doing searches on different search engines.
Joe Dawson has to be one of them. He was one of the first to get his unit up the bluff. His leadership was instrumental in clearing out the German defenses and making it possible for other units to begin moving.