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OMAHA BEACH: Last Living 1st Wave D-Day Officer on Storming Normandy | 34:07American Veterans Center | 269K subscribers | 227,941 views | June 6, 2023

A 99-year-old World War II veteran who became a viral TikTok star while opening up about his wartime experiences has made an emotional return to Normandy in order to honor the thousands of his fellow soldiers who died on D-Day. Jake Larson joined the National Guard when he was only 15 years old - more than 80 years ago - and participated on the June 6, 1944, battle on Normandy beach in France which saw the 'land, air, and sea forces' come together for the 'largest invasion in human history' according to EisenhowerLibrary.gov - also known as D-Day. Now, the...

Heroes STILL walk among us...just a little slower, and there aren't many of them anymore. God bless the greatest generation

I am taking the to Normandy and can pretty much pick my arrival date to coincide with the D-Day anniversary. Was wondering if any of y'all have toured area. Looking for recommendations for reputable tour companies, BnB and places of interest not to be missed that are accessible and open to the public.

Soldiers, Sailors and Airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Force! You are about to embark upon the Great Crusade, toward which we have striven these many months. The eyes of the world are upon you. The hopes and prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere march with you. In company with our brave Allies and brothers-in-arms on other Fronts, you will bring about the destruction of the German war machine, the elimination of Nazi tyranny over the oppressed peoples of Europe, and security for ourselves in a free world. I have full confidence in your courage and devotion to duty and skill in...

Soldiers, Sailors and Airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Force! You are about to embark upon the Great Crusade, toward which we have striven these many months. The eyes of the world are upon you. The hopes and prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere march with you. In company with our brave Allies and brothers-in-arms on other Fronts, you will bring about the destruction of the German war machine, the elimination of Nazi tyranny over the oppressed peoples of Europe, and security for ourselves in a free world. I have full confidence in your courage and devotion to duty and skill in...

Hal Baumgarten was a 19 year old private on D-Day. Jewish and originally from NYC, Baumgarten was in Company B of the 116th Infantry Regiment of the 29th. He landed in the 2nd wave on Omaha Beach in one of the most heavily defended parts of Omaha, the Dog Green sector below the village of Vierville-sur-Mer (as depicted in the movie Saving Private Ryan). Hal was wounded 3 times on D-Day and twice more on June 7th. He had 23 surgeries after June 6, 1944, to repair wounds suffered on the Normandy coast of France. Hal has written several books...

Robert Luther "Bob" Sales Sr. enlisted in the National Guard at the age of 15, lying his way into the service. It was 1941, before the bombing of Pearl Harbor. “My father told my mother, ‘don’t worry, because he won't last a week,’ but I lasted five and a half years, won many decorations, killed a lot of Germans, done a lot of things,” he had said in a 2011 interview with The News & Advance recorded in his Madison Heights home. Sales, an Amherst County native who landed in France on D-Day at the age of 18 and then...

Ehlers was awarded the Medal of Honor ‘for conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty’ on June 9 and 10, 1944, according to the Congressional Medal of Honor Society. He ‘repeatedly led his men against heavily defended enemy strong points exposing himself to deadly hostile fire whenever the situation required heroic and courageous leadership.’ Ehlers heroically defended his unit from ‘withering machine gun fire’ and mortars, personally killing at least seven Nazi soldiers, taking out multiple enemy positions

Robert Siesky was my wife's step father. He was in a coma the last 2 months. He never talked about his service until he was in the hospital. He told me he worked on tanks and landed at Omaha Beach. I got a copy of his DD214 (I'm not sure if they were called 214s in 1946 when this was dated)which is very faded. He told me he was in Europe his whole service. I need help in understanding the awards listed because there is not a complete database on the internet that provides citations of each medal and there...

President Barack Obama spent a few hours as a tourist this weekend, seeing Paris with his wife and two young girls after his trip to the Middle East, Germany and the beaches of Normandy. Obama on Sunday was wrapping up a six-day trip abroad that took him to Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Germany and France. The tour included a speech to Muslims on Thursday and a trip to a Nazi concentration camp a day later. On Saturday, he marked the 65th anniversary of the Allied invasion at Normandy. After the D-Day ceremonies at Omaha Beach, Obama returned to Paris with wife...

President Reagan was a master of stagecraft. But this speech transcends appearances and breaths with sincere and powerful emotions no other President can match.Reagan's Pointe Du Hoc speech delivered on the 40th anniversary of D-Day from the cliffs overlooking Normandy beach in France is widely cited as his best D-Day speech. As powerful and emotional as that speech is, there is a second address he delivered later in the day that is even more touching. The speech delivered on the grounds of the Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial centered around the story of Private Robert Zanatta, of the 37th Engineer...

Every D-Day, I like to re-read the S.L.A. Marshall article “First Wave at Omaha Beach” to remind me of the great sacrifices made by real American heroes on this day. I was glad to see someone post the link to the article earlier (http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/196011/omaha). However, every year, I attempt the same unsuccessful search for more information on the “forty-seven immortals” referenced in the article

A bullet tore through Staff Sgt. Leonard Lomell's right leg as he stepped into the frigid Atlantic at Omaha Beach. "I had stepped in a bomb crater, and went to the bottom," Lomell, of Toms River, N.J., said this week. "As I came up, my guys pulled me [out] and pulled me onto the beach." It was June 6, 1944 -- D-Day. Lomell and his men were among the first American Soldiers to step out of landing craft and into the murderous German gunfire at Normandy. Today, 65 years later, the nation pauses to remember the largest water invasion in...

‘Obama Beach’: British Prime Minister Makes Major Slip at D-Day Ceremony "So next to Obama Beach we join President Obama..."

The sea swelled, the rain came down in torrents, but the skies were clear. Sixty-five years ago, when the first men of the 29th Infantry Division waded onto Omaha Beach, they faced terrible resistance – crack German troops, mines, mortars and artillery. There was, however, one vital element that was blessedly missing. There were no German airplanes flying above them on D-Day. This did not happen by chance. It had been planned long before – at the very start of the war – and it came at a terrible price. Just two years earlier, the Luftwaffe was the strongest and...

'As their landing craft touched down on the shoreline at 6.30am, they stumbled forward into Hell. Some 1,500 soldiers died in the bloody battle by the Americans to take Omaha Beach on D-Day - under fire from a well-disguised German gun emplacement. The onslaught memorably featured in the memorable opening scenes of the film Saving Private Ryan. But military experts remain divided over exactly where the battery that laid down such a murderous bombardment was sited. But now, a chance discovery by an amateur historian appears to have finally revealed the answer more than 63 years after the Allied invasion...

Crumpled map solves mystery of German gun behind D-Day massacreLast updated at 17:03pm on 4th January 2008A baffling mystery of the D-Day landings was solved by an amateur historian - after he found a crumpled map at a fair in Stockport.  Experts have long disputed the location of the main Nazi gun battery which caused carnage on Omaha Beach, in terrible scenes which were recreated for the Hollywood film Saving Private Ryan.  The Germans had built a decoy gun emplacement overlooking the area while the location of the real guns which blasted the beach, where 2,000 men lost their...

Cary Lee Jarvis, 84, reflects on his experiences on Omaha Beach and about the D-Day invasion. "It seems like 10 lifetimes ago," the Virginia Beach residents says. Rich-Joseph Facus / Special to The Virginian-Pilot Cary Lee Jarvis in 1943 Click the button below to hear Jarvis describe his experience during the invasion of Normandy on June 6, 1944. Free Flash player required. VIRGINIA BEACH - Cary Lee Jarvis, 84, knows D-Day. He knows why mines were called "bouncing betties" and how booby traps worked. He knows about being a staff sergeant whose lieutenant was newly dead, leading men in...

Nazis' secret base found Revealed ... the Nazis’ untouched secret bunker     By TOM NEWTON DUNN Defence Editor A WARTIME bunker used by Nazis to bombard Allied troops during the D-Day landings has been unearthed untouched — after 60 years. British treasure hunter Gary Sterne found the base exactly as it was when German troops fled after the Normandy invasion in June 1944. Gary, 41, said: “It’s truly incredible. Apart from damage to the radio room, the whole place seemed to escape bombing unscathed.”   Treasure hunter ... Gary with RAF medals   The bunker sprawls over 20 acres...