D-Day: A Time to Remember | Eastern North Carolina Now

   Publisher's note: This day, June 6, 1944, was the day the free world held their collective breath as the allied forces embarked on Operation Overlord, which was fortunately the beginning of the end of the Third Reich.

   Articles by really good writers, like Diane Rufino, who endeavor to bring to our readers these most important subjects, on our proprietary delivery system, is what BCN is all about.

    Every year on June 6, our nation pauses to remember the thousands of brave Americans and American allies who stormed the beaches of Normandy to launch the campaign to liberate Europe from the oppression and extermination by the Nazi regime in World War II. We reflect on D Day for its devastating statistics and the casualties, but we ultimately remember the victory it helped to secure. 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. But we sometimes we overlook the personal stories - the ultimate sacrifices of beloved sons, brothers, uncles, cousins, husbands, classmates, and neighbors..... boys. Most were mere boys, who died with a life yet unlived. Their sacrifice was and continues to be immeasurable. Their sacrifice must continue to be the basis for the ideals we hold dear.

    At the beginning of World War II, Germany invaded Poland, causing France, Great Britain and Canada to declare war on Germany. By the spring of 1940, the German army was ready to invade France, defended by not only the French military, but also a sizable British force as well. Within six weeks, the Germans defeated the Allies and seized control of France. By 1944, the Germans knew that the Allies, also now including the United States, among others, would attempt an invasion of France to liberate Europe from Germany. The Allied forces, based in Britain, decided to begin the invasion by landing a huge army along a 50-mile stretch of heavily-fortified French coastline - Normandy Beach - to fight Nazi Germany. Code-named "Operation Overlord", and commanded by American General Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Allies landed on June 6, 1944 at five beaches in the Normandy area with the code names of: Utah Beach, Omaha Beach, Gold Beach, Juno Beach and Sword Beach. Prior to the actual amphibious invasion, Allied planes pounded the Nazi defenders and dropped thousands of paratroopers behind German lines during night before the seaborne landings. Local French Resistance forces, alerted to the imminent invasion, engaged in behind-the-lines sabotage and combat against the occupying Germans. General Dwight D. Eisenhower called the operation a crusade in which "we will accept nothing less than full victory."
United States's force and sheer will was best personified in the American warrior that dropped out of low flying planes over Wehrmacht occupied Normandy. Here a young paratrooper listens intently to the Allied Supreme Commander, General Dwight Eisenhower, on D-Day, minus 1: Above. American paratroopers: 82nd Airborne or the 101st Airborne preparing to drop out of the shrapnel ladened skies over Normandy: Below.
    General Dwight D. Eisenhower met with the troops just hours before the allied invasion of D Day, and he gave them this message:

    "Soldiers, Sailors and Airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Force. You are about to embark upon a 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.

    Your task will not be an easy one. Your enemy is well trained, well equipped and battle hardened, he will fight savagely.


    But this is the year 1944! Much has happened since the Nazi triumphs of 1940-41. The United Nations have inflicted upon the Germans great defeats, in open battle, man to man. Our air offensive has seriously reduced their strength in the air and their capacity to wage war on the ground. Our home fronts have given us an overwhelming superiority in weapons and munitions of war, and placed at our disposal great reserves of trained fighting men. The tide has turned. The free men of the world are marching together to victory!

    I have full confidence in your courage, devotion to duty and skill in battle. We will accept nothing less than full victory!

    Good Luck. And let us all beseech the blessings of Almighty God upon this great and noble undertaking."

   More than 5,000 Ships and 13,000 aircraft supported the D-Day invasion. 156,000 American, British and Canadian troops met heavy resistance from the German forces defending the area, but were able to punch inland, securing safe landing zones for reinforcements. By day's end on June 6, the Allies gained a foot- hold in Normandy. The D-Day cost was high - more than 9,000 allied soldiers were killed or wounded - but more than 100,000 Soldiers began the march across Europe to defeat Hitler. The German failure to successfully defend the Normandy area from the Allied liberation forces in essence doomed Hitler's dream of a Nazi controlled "Fortress Europe" and marked the beginning of the end for Germany.

   US forces - US First Army - landed at Omaha and Utah beaches. In total, the First Army contingent totaled approximately 73,000 men, including 15,600 from the airborne divisions. Omaha was particularly devastating. To understand the horror and carnage of that amphibious landing under fire from German guns firmly entrenched further up on the beach, we can look at the fates of Able and Baker companies, 116th Infantry, 29th Division.

    ABLE Company, riding the tide in seven Higgins boats, was about five thousand yards from the beach when it first took on artillery fire. The shells fell short. At one thousand yards, Boat No. 5 wass hit dead on and foundered. Six men drowned before help was able to arrive. Second Lieutenant Edward Gearing and twenty others paddled around until picked up by naval craft, thereby missing the fight at the shore line. It was to be their lucky day. The other six boats rode unscathed to within one hundred yards of the shore, when a shell fired into Boat No. 3 killed two men. Another dozen drowned when they forced to jump into the water as the boat was sinking. That left five boats.


    His men were at the sides of the boat, straining for a view of the target. They stared but said nothing. At exactly 6:36 am, the ramps were dropped along the boat line and the men jumped 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 had 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 tried to do it but were ripped apart before they could make five yards. Even the lightly wounded died by drowning, doomed by the waterlogging of their overloaded packs. From Boat No. 1, all hands jumped off in water over their heads. Most of them were carried down. Ten or so survivors got around the boat and clutched at its sides in an attempt to stay afloat. The same thing happened to the section in Boat No. 4. Half of its people were lost to the fire or tide before anyone reached shore. All order had vanished from Able Company before it was even able to fired a single shot.


    Already the sea ran red. Even among some of the lightly wounded who jumped into shallow water the hits proved fatal. Knocked down by a bullet in the arm or weakened by fear and shock, they were unable to rise again and were drowned by the onrushing tide. Other wounded men dragged themselves ashore and, on finding the sands, lay quiet from total exhaustion, only to be overtaken and killed by the water. A few moved safely through the bullet swarm to the beach, then found that they could not hold there. They returned to the water to use it for body cover. They turned their faces upward, so that their nostrils were out of water and they crept toward the land at the same rate as the tide. That is how most of the survivors made it. The less rugged or less clever sought the cover of enemy obstacles moored along the upper half of the beach and were knocked off one-by-one by machine-gun fire.