Click here: to donate by Credit Card
Or here: to donate by PayPal
Or by mail to: Free Republic, LLC - PO Box 9771 - Fresno, CA 93794
Thank you very much and God bless you.
Posted on 06/06/2026 7:09:48 AM PDT by Leaning Right
This being the 82nd anniversary of D-Day, I thought I’d post a story of my experience with a D-Day veteran.
Perhaps other Freepers have stories they’d like to share here as well.
|
|
Click here: to donate by Credit Card Or here: to donate by PayPal Or by mail to: Free Republic, LLC - PO Box 9771 - Fresno, CA 93794 Thank you very much and God bless you. |
Back when I was in my early 20s I worked security for a major university. One of the campus cops - I’ll call him Bill - was older than most of us. He was also fat and slow.
Some of the younger campus cops made fun of him. And they just wouldn’t stop. Bill never said anything back. He just took it.
Well, one day Bill brought a briefcase to roll call. He didn’t say a word. He just opened his briefcase in front of us. In that briefcase were citations and rows of medals. Bill was an Army Ranger who landed on D-Day.
Nobody made fun of Bill after that.
The greatest generation! Thanks for sharing.
My real name I was given at birth is the name of an uncle I never knew. He was killed in France shortly after D-Day by a landmine. He was only 19 years old and is buried in France. He was the youngest of three sons of my Grandfather’s first wife who had died of TB several years before. Three sons went to war, but only two came back..........
Great story about a great man. I have one: Back in the early ‘90’s, we’d just moved into a newly finished subdivision. The guy next door, Gene, was in his ‘70s, and had a couple of cats and an engraving business out of his garage. We hit it off, and I often hung out with him. One day, I noticed he’d put up a map of the world, with different colored push-pins all over it. “What’s that?” “Oh, just me remembering my time in the Navy during the war, and where I went.” “What do the different colors mean?” “Green means memorable shore time. Yellow means we sighted the enemy. Red means we engaged the enemy.” Red pin on Pearl Harbor. At the time of the attack, the Captain of his ship was ashore. Gene and one other sailor were sent in a skiff on a mission to locate him, and bring him back. After a thorough search, they returned without him. All the while, the attack raged around them, with bodies and wounded men everywhere. Gene was in the Navy 12 years, including six months in a hospital out in the countryside (somewhere in North Carolina?) to ‘ease my nerves’... He had a career in sales with the Falstaff Beer company, and did good by both his family and his country. I miss Gene, and all the great guys like him.
Nobody made fun of Bill after that.
> He should have deserved their respect even without that. <
True that. But I guess there are a few young punks in any organization. Bill’s briefcase sure shut up the ones who were in that room.
Not a D-day story but reminded me of when I was a grad student. Working in my office late at night, the janitor was a former high ranking officer from the South Vietnamese army. Doing some lowly work for his citizen ship and proud to do it.
Wow...what a great story.
Mine involves a German soldier. He was not happy that day.
He and his squad (they were launching buzz bombs into England.). They loaded up their stuff and started moving south. He said they’ve never moved faster before.
He was not a fan of the Army Air Corps.
My second on is a neighbor who jumped into Normandy. The was a quiet guy who never really stood out in a crowd. He had a little limp. My Dad (also a paratrooper) once commented that he limped because his big iron balls were so big they got in his way. 12 year old me thought that was funny.
Had an uncle with Patton in Europe. He loved the guy. Lost my Dad’s brother, a Naval pilot who went down in a Corsair. Several other uncles and my Dad were scattered throughout the various services. They were of that Generation!!
> Had an uncle with Patton in Europe. He loved the guy. <
A friend of the family was with Patton’s 3rd Army in France. He hated the general. Turns out that Patton himself fined our friend for being out of uniform - he was not wearing a tie. This happened near the front lines, not in some back rest area.
I was going to gently defend Patton’s decision to our friend. Esprit de corps, and all that. But what do I know? So I kept my mouth shut.
Great story
A friend of mine was a fighter pilot in WW2. He flew his very first mission on D-Day.
I k ew a guy who was Navy UDT. He and some others swam in the night before to plant time bombs on some of the iron hedgehogs to soften the landing zone. Then they swam back to the ship.
My father was crew on an LST D-Day.
Ship was beached. Battle station was an AA gun.
Dad seldom talked about his time in the Navy. If he did it was only amusing incidents.
He did talk about the Atlantic crossing in the flat bottomed LST. It was one of the most miserable experiences in his life he claimed. Everyone sea sick for days on end.
Didn’t learn until very late in life that the speckling on his legs was from burns caused by a nearby burst of a phosphorus shell on D-Day.
It was my older brother’s wife who finally got him to talk more openly about his combat experiences.
He made several Atlantic crossings on Destroyer Escort duty.
After VE Day, served on another destroyer doing island hopping in the Pacific. Often part of shore party checking for Japanese presence.
Interesting (to us) footnote. The LST was built in Evansville Indiana. Where my father and grandparents lived and me and my younger brother were born.
Brother and I went back a few years ago . Visited with a few surviving relatives. Toured a moored LST similar to what dad served. And visited the museum dedicated to Evansville’s war contribution. Which was more substantial than we realized.
Another good story:
Perhaps it was the way he carried himself in an unassuming and humble manner, but day after day hundreds of Air Force Academy cadets would pass this janitor in the hall oblivious to the greatness that was among them.
In the mid-1970s, William Crawford might spend one day sweeping the halls and another cleaning the bathrooms, but it was a day approximately 30 years prior that would create for him a special place in the history of war. The cadets would report that the shy janitor they only knew as Mr. Crawford simply blended into the background as he did his job without much fanfare.
However, when one of the cadets began reading a book detailing the Allied advance through Italy he came upon the story of a medal of honor recipient named William Crawford. Talking to his roommate, Cadet James Moschgat, Class of ’77 made the connection and said: “Holy cow, you’re not going to believe this, but I think our janitor is a Medal of Honor [recipient].” The next day, the cadet took the book to Crawford and simply asked if this was him. Perhaps weighing whether it was worth it to expose his gallantry, Crawford stared at the book for a while then simply said, “That was a long time ago and one day in my life.” He then recounted the story to the cadet.
On September 13th, Company I was assaulting enemy positions on the hill when the entire company was pinned down by intense machine-guns fire and mortars. Serving as the squad scout for third platoon, Private Crawford was near the front of this assault and located the first of the gun positions wreaking havoc on the company. Without orders, he took it upon himself to eliminate the threat single-handedly. Under heavy fire, he crawled forward to within a few yards of the gun placement and lobbed a grenade directly on top of the three defenders. Meanwhile, the rest of the company finally made it to the crest of the hill when they were again coming under fire from two more machine gun nests entrenched in a higher ridge. Again on his own initiative, Crawford set out to destroy the threat.
Moving on to the second gun, he was able to take it out of action causing the rest of the defenders to flee as they opted not to stick around for a visit from the man they had just watched single-handedly destroy three entrenched positions. Thanks to Crawford’s gallant actions, Hill 424 was successfully overtaken and the Allied advance continued. Unfortunately for Crawford, his position at the front of the assault would eventually lead to his capture by the Germans during the chaos of the battle.
But later in 1944 when a group of soldiers was rescued from German captivity, it turned out William Crawford was among them, oblivious to the fact that he was now the recipient of the nation’s highest military honor. The rest of the company had believed Crawford was killed in action as reports of his gallantry advanced up the chain of command. And for his actions that day in Italy, William Crawford was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor, but that is not where the story would end.
Crawford would continue to serve in the military after World War II and retired in 1967 at the rank of Master Sergeant. After his distinguished and yet humble career in the military, this unassuming man would take a job as a janitor at the United States Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs.
Crawford related the point that he never personally received his Medal of Honor with any ceremony due to his captivity and presumed death. The students and staff of the Air Force Academy would remember this fact and see to it that he had his day. In 1984 when Pres. Ronald Reagan came to speak at that year’s graduation ceremony; they had arranged for their gallant janitor to finally stand face-to-face with the President of the United States and receive his due commendation.
William Crawford died at the age of 81 in the year 2000 at his home in Colorado. And although Crawford was a veteran of the Army, he would become the only non-U.S. Air Force enlisted person buried at the United States Air Force Academy Cemetery in Colorado Springs.
wy69
I had a relative who landed on D-Day, and who was in the Battle of the Bulge. He lived to be 90.
But he never spoke about his wartime experiences.
Comedian Mel Brooks was in the Battle of the Bulge. When asked about it, Mel said “It was very noisy. I could hardly get any reading done.”
Gotta love Mel.
Since we’re on the topic...when I lived in San Mateo i had a neighbor who lived by the park, an wizened old filipino guy who was always seemed to be out working in the yard whenever I happened to stroll by. Over the years I would greet him and maybe chat a little, sometimes help out lifting, or just wave and get a wave back.
One day he was lounging out front, and still waiting there when I returned. So I ask him what’s up and he says he’s waiting for his ride to the VFW, but she hasn’t left the house yet and she’s on the far side of the bridge in San Leandro. No problem, I go get my car and come by to pick him up, drive him to the VFW. I’m a little hazy on the drive, but we went up to San Bruno, I think we passed the time chatting about the rose bushes and how my kids were doing in school. When we arrived I helped him out of the car and with his walker.
He puts on a cap that says “USS Indianapolis” and my jaw just dropped. I can remember feeling a strange sense of surprise that left me a little choked up.
He saw my expression right away and says, “oh, you know about the Indianapolis”, says he was a mess steward when it was torpedoed, cause that’s what filipinos did in the Navy those days. I says, “well sir, you served our nation in the US Navy then and that’s something that can’t be diminished or forgotten.”
> the janitor was a former high ranking officer from the South Vietnamese army
I worked in a plant in Milpitas, many nationalities including Vietnamese. There was a worker there, older Vietnamese gentleman, everyone was very deferential towards him. Turned out he was a former South Vietnamese Air Force Major, commanded a helicopter battalion, lost his hands in the line of duty rescuing pilots, helped a great number of members of his command escape with their families. Many worked in the plant. He was captured, spent years in “re-education” camp.
Major Nguyễn Quý An
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.