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Posted on 06/06/2003 5:21:10 AM PDT by SAMWolf
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FReeper Foxhole  are acknowledged, affirmed and commemorated.
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| Our Mission: The FReeper Foxhole is dedicated to Veterans of our Nation's military forces and to others who are affected in their relationships with Veterans. We hope to provide an ongoing source of information about issues and problems that are specific to Veterans and resources that are available to Veterans and their families. In the FReeper Foxhole, Veterans or their family members should feel free to address their specific circumstances or whatever issues concern them in an atmosphere of peace, understanding, brotherhood and support.
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UNLIKE what happens to other great battles, the passing of the years and the retelling of the story have softened the horror of Omaha Beach on D Day.  How they fought and what they suffered were also determined in detail during the field research. As published today, the map data showing where the troops came ashore check exactly with the work done in the field; but the accompanying narrative describing their ordeal is a sanitized version of the original field notes. This happened because the Army historians who wrote the first official book about Omaha Beach, basing it on the field notes, did a calculated job of sifting and weighting the material. So saying does not imply that their judgment was wrong. Normandy was an American victory; it was their duty to trace the twists and turns of fortune by which success was won. But to follow that rule slights the story of Omaha as an epic human tragedy which in the early hours bordered on total disaster. On this two-division front landing, only six rifle companies were relatively effective as units. They did better than others mainly because they had the luck to touch down on a less deadly section of the beach. Three times that number were shattered or foundered before they could start to fight. Several contributed not a man or bullet to the battle for the high ground. But their ordeal has gone unmarked because its detail was largely ignored by history in the first place. The worst-fated companies were overlooked, the more wretched personal experiences were toned down, and disproportionate attention was paid to the little element of courageous success in a situation which was largely characterized by tragic failure. The official accounts which came later took their cue from this secondary source instead of searching the original documents. Even such an otherwise splendid and popular book on the great adventure as Cornelius Ryan's The Longest Day misses the essence of the Omaha story.  Men from Company E, 16th Infantry, 1st Infantry Division are in the initial wave to assult the beach at OMAHA. In everything that has been written about Omaha until now, there is less blood and iron than in the original field notes covering any battalion landing in the first wave. Doubt it? Then let's follow along with Able and Baker companies, 116th Infantry, 29th Division. Their story is lifted from my fading Normandy notebook, which covers the landing of every Omaha company. ABLE Company riding the tide in seven Higgins boats is still five thousand yards from the beach when first taken under artillery fire. The shells fall short. At one thousand yards, Boat No. 5 is hit dead on and foundered. Six men drown before help arrives. Second Lieutenant Edward Gearing and twenty others paddle around until picked up by naval craft, thereby missing the fight at the shore line. It's their lucky day. The other six boats ride unscathed to within one hundred yards of the shore, where a shell into Boat No. 3 kills two men. Another dozen drown, taking to the water as the boat sinks. That leaves five boats. Lieutenant Edward Tidrick in Boat No. 2 cries out: "My God, we're coming in at the right spot, but look at it! No shingle, no wall, no shell holes, no cover. Nothing!"  At low tide, the assaulting troops had to cross more than 300 meters of completely exposed beach to gain entrance to the Vierville draw. His men are at the sides of the boat, straining for a view of the target. They stare but say nothing. At exactly 6:36 A.M. ramps are dropped along the boat line and the men jump off in water anywhere from waist deep to higher than a man's head. This is the signal awaited by the Germans atop the bluff. Already pounded by mortars, the floundering line is instantly swept by crossing machine-gun fires from both ends of the beach. Able Company has planned to wade ashore in three files from each boat, center file going first, then flank files peeling off to right and left. The first men out try to do it but are ripped apart before they can make five yards. Even the lightly wounded die by drowning, doomed by the waterlogging of their overloaded packs. From Boat No. 1, all hands jump off in water over their heads. Most of them are carried down. Ten or so survivors get around the boat and clutch at its sides in an attempt to stay afloat. The same thing happens to the section in Boat No. 4. Half of its people are lost to the fire or tide before anyone gets ashore. All order has vanished from Able Company before it has fired a shot. Already the sea runs red. Even among some of the lightly wounded who jumped into shallow water the hits prove fatal. Knocked down by a bullet in the arm or weakened by fear and shock, they are unable to rise again and are drowned by the onrushing tide. Other wounded men drag themselves ashore and, on finding the sands, lie quiet from total exhaustion, only to be overtaken and killed by the water. A few move safely through the bullet swarm to the beach, then find that they cannot hold there. They return to the water to use it for body cover. Faces turned upward, so that their nostrils are out of water, they creep toward the land at the same rate as the tide. That is how most of the survivors make it. The less rugged or less clever seek the cover of enemy obstacles moored along the upper half of the beach and are knocked off by machine-gun fire. Within seven minutes after the ramps drop, Able Company is inert and leaderless. At Boat No. 2, Lieutenant Tidrick takes a bullet through the throat as he jumps from the ramp into the water. He staggers onto the sand and flops down ten feet from Private First Class Leo J. Nash. Nash sees the blood spurting and hears the strangled words gasped by Tidrick: "Advance with the wire cutters!" It's futile; Nash has no cutters. To give the order, Tidrick has raised himself up on his hands and made himself a target for an instant. Nash, burrowing into the sand, sees machine gun bullets rip Tidrick from crown to pelvis. From the cliff above, the German gunners are shooting into the survivors as from a roof top.  American assault troops in a landing craft huddle behind the protective front of the craft as it nears a beachhead, on the Northern Coast of France. Smoke in the background is Naval gunfire supporting the land. 6 June 1944. Captain Taylor N. Fellers and Lieutenant Benjamin R. Kearfoot never make it. They had loaded with a section of thirty men in Boat No. 6 (Landing Craft, Assault, No. 1015). But exactly what happened to this boat and its human cargo was never to be known. No one saw the craft go down. How each man aboard it met death remains unreported. Half of the drowned bodies were later found along the beach. It is supposed that the others were claimed by the sea. Along the beach, only one Able Company officer still lives -- Lieutenant Elijah Nance, who is hit in the heel as he quits the boat and hit in the belly by a second bullet as he makes the sand. By the end of ten minutes, every sergeant is either dead or wounded. To the eyes of such men as Private Howard I. Grosser and Private First Class Gilbert G. Murdock, this clean sweep suggests that the Germans on the high ground have spotted all leaders and concentrated fire their way. Among the men who are still moving in with the tide, rifles, packs, and helmets have already been cast away in the interests of survival. To the right of where Tidrick's boat is drifting with the tide, its coxswain lying dead next to the shell-shattered wheel, the seventh craft, carrying a medical section with one officer and sixteen men, noses toward the beach. The ramp drops. In that instant, two machine guns concentrate their fire on the opening. Not a man is given time to jump. All aboard are cut down where they stand.  Members of an American landing party lend helping hands to other members of their organization whose landing craft was sunk be enemy action of the coast of France. These survivors reached Utah Beach, near Cherbourg, by using a life raft. Photographer: Weintraub, 6 June 1944 By the end of fifteen minutes, Able Company has still not fired a weapon. No orders are being given by anyone. No words are spoken. The few able-bodied survivors move or not as they see fit. Merely to stay alive is a full-time job. The fight has become a rescue operation in which nothing counts but the force of a strong example. Above all others stands out the first-aid man, Thomas Breedin. Reaching the sands, he strips off pack, blouse, helmet, and boots. For a moment he stands there so that others on the strand will see him and get the same idea. Then he crawls into the water to pull in wounded men about to be overlapped by the tide. The deeper water is still spotted with tide walkers advancing at the same pace as the rising water. But now, owing to Breedin's example, the strongest among them become more conspicuous targets. Coming along, they pick up wounded comrades and float them to the shore raftwise. Machine-gun fire still rakes the water. Burst after burst spoils the rescue act, shooting the floating man from the hands of the walker or killing both together. But Breedin for this hour leads a charmed life and stays with his work indomitably. By the end of one half hour, approximately two thirds of the company is forever gone. There is no precise casualty figure for that moment. There is for the Normandy landing as a whole no accurate figure for the first hour or first day. The circumstances precluded it. Whether more Able Company riflemen died from water than from fire is known only to heaven. All earthly evidence so indicates, but cannot prove it.  OMAHA BEACH France Joseph Gary Sheahan, 1944 By the end of one hour, the survivors from the main body have crawled across the sand to the foot of the bluff, where there is a narrow sanctuary of defiladed space. There they lie all day, clean spent, unarmed, too shocked to feel hunger, incapable even of talking to one another. No one happens by to succor them, ask what has happened, provide water, or offer unwanted pity. D Day at Omaha afforded no time or space for such missions. Every landing company was overloaded by its own assault problems. By the end of one hour and forty-five minutes, six survivors from the boat section on the extreme right shake loose and work their way to a shelf a few rods up the cliff. Four fall exhausted from the short climb and advance no farther. They stay there through the day, seeing no one else from the company. The other two, Privates Jake Shefer and Thomas Lovejoy, join a group from the Second Ranger Battalion, which is assaulting Pointe du Hoc to the right of the company sector, and fight on with the Rangers through the day. Two men. Two rifles. Except for these, Able Company's contribution to the D Day fire fight is a cipher.
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VACATION, hush up now! Don't give him any ideas. ;)
WASHINGTON, Oct. 20 -- The Coast Guard is honoring World War II veterans of Flotilla 10 for their part in the invasion of Normandy.
The Flotilla will receive the Coast Guard Unit Commendation Oct. 21 at a reunion of "LCI" sailors in Albuquerque, NM, for their efforts at the invasion of Normandy June 6, 1944.
Flotilla 10 landing craft (LCIs), working under heavy fire, delivered troops and tons of equipment to the beaches, while also clearing channels through mine fields and hedgehogs so the rest of the Allied forces could get through. The flotilla also served as rescue platforms recovering and transporting injured soldiers and sailors to hospital ships off shore.
Flotilla 10 consisted of 24 LCI(L)s -- ocean going landing craft with a crew of 25 men and four officers. They were capable of transporting 200 assault troops and landing directly on the beach. These Coast Guard manned ships were veterans of the invasion of Sicily and Salerno and had landed troops at both assaults without loosing a single vessel.
The Coast Guard LCI(L)-85, battered by enemy fire after approaching Omaha Beach, prepares to evacuate the troops to the U.S.S. Samuel Chase. She sank shortly after this photograph was taken. The LCI(L)-85 was one of four Coast Guard LCIs that were destroyed on D-Day. "Throughout the invasion four of the LCIs, numbers 85,91,92 and 93, were lost while distinguishing themselves in the heat of battle," reads the award citation. "LCI 85 was one of the first to ram its way through sunken obstacles and successfully clear a path to the beach before being hit by an 88-mm shell that penetrated the hull and exploded in the troop compartment. After unloading troops to smaller landing craft, LCI 85 struck a mine and was simultaneously struck by 25 artillery shells." The crew managed to unload its wounded before it sank.
Three other LCIs were lost after making it to the beach under the barrage of enemy fire. The remaining LCIs of Flotilla 10 rescued over 400 injured allied personnel.
"These [LCIs] were instrumental in the successful invasion of Normandy and turning the tide of World War II," reads the citation.
Flotilla 10 was originally designated Flotilla 4 during the invasions of Sicily and Salerno prior to D-Day. The surviving ships went on to serve in the Pacific Campaign as Flotilla 35.
USS Samuel Chase (AP-56) The USS SAMUEL CHASE was my Father-in-law's ship.
He ran an LCVP to Omaha Beach in the inital assault wave.
Thanks Dad.
The Samuel Chase, accompanying attack transports and LSTs of Assault Group O-1, sailed from England and were joined by five LCI(L)s from Flotilla 10 and 10 craft from the matchbox fleet. All safely arrived in the transport area, and the Chase's anchor dropped into the channel at 3:15 a.m. The remaining LCI(L)s from Flotilla 10 were dispersed with the other Omaha assault groups and made the voyage across without incident.
Coast Guard LCVP on the way to Omaha Beach. All was quiet on the Samuel Chase when the order to "lower away" was given at 5:30 a.m. All that could be heard was the squeaking of the davits and the quiet whispers of the soldiers as they loaded into the LCVPs. The landing craft were lowered into the swells and headed towards France. Here too, as at Utah, they were well away from the coast and subjected to the unsheltered waters of the Channel. All of the Chase's boats got away without incident but seasickness soon overtook most of the soldiers. They had to go through 11 miles of rough seas, strong currents, and minefields. They soon passed the battleships on their journey in and the soldiers winced as the 14-inch guns fired. Ernest Hemingway, author, in one of the LCVPs, later wrote about the men, "Under their steel helmets they looked like pikemen of the Middle Ages to whose aid in battle had suddenly come some strange and unbelievable monster."
Imlay, as the deputy assault commander of the Coast Guard's Omaha Assault Group O-1, went in with LCI(L)-87 to act as a traffic policeman and to ensure that all went according to plan. He cajoled, threatened and encouraged the ships and craft all up and down the waters off the Omaha assault area all morning, making sure that they landed on the correct beaches at their appointed times.
The landing craft formed up for the assault on areas code-named Easy Red and Fox Green on the eastern end of the assault area and their colorful code-names belied their deadly nature. These landing craft, manned by Coast Guard and Navy crews, carried the troops of the 1st Division, otherwise known as the "Big Red One." This was to be the Big Red One's second journey to France but no bands greeted them this day as they had for their first arrival during World War I.
Five-thousand yards from the beach, LCTs released amphibious tanks which, as at Utah, were to "swim" through the water and land one minute before H-Hour. But their canvas sides caved in under the heavy seas and those destined to support the eastern landings began to founder. Rescue-craft CGC-3 rescued the crew of one tank but most of the sinking-steel coffins took their crews with them straight to the bottom. Only five out of 32 amphibious tanks made it ashore to the Coast Guard's assault area.
The LCVPs from the assault transports circled 4,000 yards off the beach at the line of departure, shepherded by the control vessels, as they waited for H-Hour to proceed to their assigned landing areas. These small boats brought the first waves ashore. The LCIs and LSTs landed their troops and equipment later. The rescue cutters circled here as well.
The Coast Guard coxswains anxiously awaited the signal to move in. The beaches that comprised these two landing areas stretched for 3,000 yards. There were six boats for each area and every boat had a specific landing point within those 3,000 yards. Besides having to keep all of that straight, the coxswains also had a timetable to keep.
After the first wave of eight assault battalions landed, the second wave carrying 14 demolition teams landed a mere two minutes later. They had 30 minutes to blow up the exposed obstacles so that later assault waves would have clear channels. Then a new assault wave would arrive every 10 minutes until 9:30 a.m. It was a well-choreographed affair, ripe for problems sure to be brought out by the "fog and friction" of war.
At the appointed time, the crews of the 12 boats of the first wave of Assault Group O-1, under the command of Coast Guard LTJG James V. Forrestal, formed up and headed towards France. The cliffs behind the beach appeared menacingly through the early-morning haze as water splashed into the open craft. When they closed to within 500 yards of the beach the Germans opened fire with machine guns, mortars and heavy artillery. The fire was heavy and accurate. Bullets struck the landing craft with metallic pings and columns of water shot high into the air as they raced towards shore. One Coast Guard coxswain noted, "We knew we were going to catch hell when we saw machine-gun fire spraying the water before us." Omaha Beach: LCVPs from the Samuel Chase approach under fire.
The bow doors dropped as soon as the craft touched bottom on sand bars well away from the shore line. The soldiers disembarked into three feet of water and ran for the shore. Intense enemy fire cut down many as they jumped off. Others drowned after being wounded in the surf, weighted down by their heavy packs. Most of the officers were killed, and those troops that actually made it to the beach huddled near the sea wall after a tortuous 400-yard journey across open terrain under fire.
The demolition teams fared little better. The Germans killed everyone in two of the 14 teams in minutes, and the rest suffered crippling casualties. The survivors managed to blow five channels clear, but the tide rose too quickly to mark them. By 8 a.m., all of Rommel's obstacles were covered by a blanket of water, invisible to the eye. They would claim many lives during the day, including a number of Coast Guardsmen and their vessels.
As the demolition teams braved enemy fire, the Coast Guard-manned LCVPs from the Samuel Chase, carrying 1st Division soldiers, made their way to Easy-Red beach in three waves. As each wave lowered their ramps German machine guns and mortars opened up.
A Coast Guard coxswain said, "You have no idea how miserable the Germans made that beach. From a half mile offshore we could see rows upon rows of jagged obstructions lining the beach ... When our ramp went down and the soldiers started to charge ashore, the (Germans) ... let loose with streams of hot lead which pinged all around us. Why they didn't kill everyone in our boat, I will never know."
Another Coast Guard LCVP skipper said, "My eyes were glued to the boat coming in next to ours, and on the water in between, boiling with bullets from hidden shore emplacements, like a mud puddle in a hailstorm. It seemed impossible that we could make it in without being riddled."
By 8 a.m., the troops on the beach were virtually leaderless and pinned down by heavy, concentrated machine-gun and mortar fire. German 88s continued to pick off landing craft. No troops had penetrated the German defenses and the continuing waves of assault troops began backing up in a huge traffic jam. At 8:30 a.m., the LCIs moved in at their appointed time and added to the confusion.
To save time and avoid the risky journey in through the obstacles many disembarked their troops into smaller landing craft well offshore. One of the instruction manuals given to the crews during training noted, however, that "Hedgehogs, stakes, or tetrahedra will not prevent your beaching provided you go flat out. Your craft will crunch over them, bend them and squash them into the sand and the damage to your outer bottom can be accepted. So drive on."
With those comforting words on their minds, a few risked the journey right to the beach and found that, in fact, the obstacles did crumple like paper toys when rammed by an LCI, as long as they were not mined. After observing a few landing craft make it through successfully, many more began charging the beach like knights at a medieval joust. For instance, the LCI(L)-89 rammed its way through the obstacles, grounding at exactly 8:30 a.m., on Easy Red beach. Six minutes later, an 88mm shell penetrated the hull and exploded in the forward troop compartment, wounding six men. The crew backed it off the beach and unloaded the troops into LCVPs from the Chase.
The LCI(L)-85 struck a mine and was hit by at least 25 artillery shells. Its commanding officer stated, "The 88's began hitting the ship, they tore into the compartments and exploded on the exposed deck. Machine guns opened up. Men were hit and men were mutilated. There was no such thing as a minor wound." It returned to the Chase and off loaded the wounded before she sank.
Further to the west the LCI(L)-91 grounded and the troops disembarked. The LCI moved forward as the tide came in and it struck a mined obstacle. The commanding officer backed it off the beach and moved 100-yards west and ordered it in again. The Germans found the range and repeatedly hit the vessel with 88mm artillery fire. One shell exploded in the forward troop compartment and killed everyone there. The ship caught fire and burning men leapt into the water. The crew abandoned the ship and the beached LCI(L)-91 burned all morning. Seven of its Coast Guard crew perished and 11 were wounded.
The LCI(L)-92 with 192 troops aboard, approached the beach shortly after the LCI(L)-91, and the men saw it burst into flames. The crew beached the LCI in the lee of the burning Coast Guard ship in the hope that the smoke from its fire would help cover the landing. The ship grounded near the LCI(L)-91 but the German shells still found their mark. An explosion ripped through the forward compartments and it burst into flame. The crew fought the fire while the disembarking troops were cut down by German machine gun fire. Shells continued to hit the LCI and the fire spread despite the crew's efforts to contain it. They fought to save their ship until 2 p.m. when the order to abandon ship was finally given. Eleven crewmen were wounded that day. The funeral pyres of these two Coast Guard-manned LCIs served as landmarks that day for the incoming craft and German artillery spotters.
Down the beach, the LCI(L)-93 delivered its first load of troops and emerged unscathed but on the second trip grounded on a sand bar off the beach and took 10 direct hits. Thus, in a few minutes, four Coast Guard- manned LCIs were lost after they made it to the beach. Thus Flotilla Ten lost four LCIs that morning, their first losses of the war. Their sacrifice made clear the strength of the German defenses and the bravery of the crews who risked enemy fire to get their troops directly to the beaches.
There were no further losses although two more Coast Guard-manned LCIs were damaged. The LCI(L)-83 struck a mine close to the beach and settled into the shallow water. Later, when the receding tide exposed the punctured hull, the Coast Guard crew patched it and made it back to Great Britain for a complete repair. The LCI(L)-88 was also extensively damaged, but the crew managed to disembark their troops and return to port. But the four Coast Guard-manned LCIs were lost, the only Coast Guard-manned LCIs lost during the entire war.
The Chase launched 15 assault waves and by 11 a.m. all of the 1st Division troops aboard had disembarked. LCTs maneuvered alongside and soon all of their equipment was on the way to the beaches as well. The LCVPs and LCMs returned with casualties who were cared for by the Chase's Public Health Service doctors. Some of the small boats became rescue vessels.
One Coast Guard LCVP skipper said, "We didn't think twice about going to help out a shipmate in distress. Ship spirit is at its best when the enemy is making it tough for us." He had pulled a landing craft to safety while carrying wounded soldiers back to the Chase. Such incidents were common along the shores of Normandy on D-Day. All in all, it was a successful morning for this Coast Guard-manned ship. But the day was not without loss. Six LCVPs did not return. One impaled itself on an obstacle before it made it to the beach. Four swamped in the heavy surf and one sank after taking a direct hit from a German 88, killing one Coast Guardsman outright. A total of 18 crewmen were missing.
Fortunately, many were alive and had made it to the beach where they huddled with the troops and waited for a chance to get back to their transport. One later reported that after he safely landed his troops a control vessel instructed him to begin offloading waiting LCIs. As he was headed back in with a fresh load of troops "We saw two British landing craft get direct hits by 88s. One of them blew up in a great gust of flame ... (as for us) I really dreaded the thought of facing those machine guns again ... but we beached the troops on dry land. Again they cut loose on us, but this time they hit home. Bullets sprayed into the stern of my boat as I was getting ready to back off. Then my engine conked out." Uninjured, he managed to hitch a ride back to the Chase later in the day.
and congrads to Sam on SIX MONTHS of foxhole duty.
free the southland,sw
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D-Day Remembered
 One year before major ceremonies marking the 60th anniversary of the allied D-Day landings in Normandy, a team of eight workers begin the task of cleaning each grave marker in the American War cemetery in Colleville-sur-Mer, June 4, 2003. REUTERS/Pascal Rossignol  One year before major ceremonies marking the 60th anniversary of the allied D-Day landings in Normandy, a team of eight workers began the task of cleaning each grave marker in the American War cemetery in Colleville-sur-Mer, June 4, 2003. REUTERS/Pascal Rossignol  One year before major ceremonies marking the 60th anniversary of the allied D-Day landings in Normandy, Edmond Mariani, a 79 year old WWII French veteran who fought beside American troops in the First Special Services Force in Provence, visits the American War cemetery in Colleville-sur-Mer, June 5, 2003. Next year's June 6th ceremony is expected to be attended by leaders of the allied countries and includes a re-enactment of the landings. REUTERS/Pascal Rossignol  One year before major ceremonies marking the 60th anniversary of the allied D-Day landings in Normandy, a team of workers place flags U.S and French flags on each grave marker in the American War cemetery in Colleville-sur-Mer, June 5, 2003. Next year's June 6th ceremony is expected to be attended by leaders of the allied countries and include a re-enactment of the landings. REUTERS/Pascal Rossignol  WWII and D-Day veteran Marcel Gauthier, right, originally from Niagara Falls, Ont. and currently living in Belgium, comforts his longtime friend Maurice Stefens, originally from Edmonton and also living in Belgium, as he breaks down upon entering the Canadian war cemetery Beny-Sur-Mer, some 3 miles from Juno Beach in Reviers, France Thursday June 5, 2003. The cemetery has over 2, 000 Canadian war dead from the Normandy invasions and is part of a ceremony Friday marking the opening of the Juno Beach Center on the 59th anniversary of the D-Day landings. (AP Photo/Tom Hanson)  WWII veteran Paul Merriman from New York, who landed on Normandy beaches with the 736th Artillery Division, touches a cross during D-Day commemoration ceremonies at the Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial of Colleville-sur-Mer, Friday, June 6, 2003. U.S., Canadian and British troops fought their way ashore 59 years ago to liberate France from Nazi occupation. The French flag, left, and the U.S. flag are seen in the foreground. (AP Photo/Franck Prevel)  WWII veteran Paul Merriman from New York, holds a rose during D-Day commemoration ceremonies at the Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial of Colleville-sur-Mer, Friday, June 6, 2003. U.S., Canadian and British troops fought their way ashore 59 years ago to liberate France from Nazi occupation. Merriman landed on Normandy beaches with the 736th Artillery Division. (AP Photo/Franck Prevel)  A Canadian mounted policeman stands guard as French schoolchildren place flowers on grave markers at the Canadian war cemetary at Beny-sur-Mer, in Normandy, June 6, 2003. Ceremonies marking the 59th anniversary of the allied landings took place along the stretch of Normandy coast today. REUTERS/Pascal Rossignol  Canadian veteran Phil Cockburn gives pins to French schoolchildren who placed flowers on grave markers at the Canadian war cemetary at Beny-sur-Mer, in Normandy, June 6, 2003. Ceremonies marking the 59th anniversary of the allied landings took place along the stretch of Normandy coast today. REUTERS/Pascal Rossignol  A Canadian World War II veteran pauses before grave markers at the Canadian war cemetery at Beny-sur-Mer, in Normandy, June 6, 2003. Ceremonies marking the 59th anniversary of the allied landings took place along the stretch of Normandy coast today. REUTERS/Pascal Rossignol
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