Refreshing the memory of D-Day

National Guard, Jun 1999 by Calvert, Brian R

As Americans forget June 6,1944, veterans remember

Ocean City, Md., is a strip of a town on the Atlantic coast. Snugged against the beach is a boardwalk, an amusement park, and various restaurants, hotels and bars. Early last month, the hordes of tourists had not yet arrived. The wind was cold enough to drive a visitor indoors, to a nearempty cafe along the boardwalk.

Talk of the weather tumed to talk of a war long ago, and a near-failed invasion on a similar coast, Normandy, in the north of France. Donna Collins, a 34-year-old bar manager could remember little from school about D-Day, the beginning of the end of Germany's occupation of Western Europe. The 55th anniversary was less than a month away, though Collins didn't realize that.

The last time she learned about World War II was in 9th grade. She knew about the Holocaust, but not about the June 6, 1944, battle where American and British forces crept across the English Channel on a mission to gain a foothold in Europe.

Matt Morrison, her 35-year-old coworker was a history buff in college. He knew more about D-Day, including where it took place and when.

"People our age don't appreciate veterans," Morrison said. "No one gives them the respect they deserve." About 14 blocks from the bar, nearly 60 such World War II veterans gathered, members of Maryland's arm of the 29th Division Association.

The veterans vividly remember D-Day and the war even as the rest of America is forgetting. They remember a coast 4,000 miles away, on a cold day in June. In 1944, Normandy would become the secret to Allied victory. Failure to secure the Normandy beaches would mean the likely extinction of democracy and freedom in Europe. Planners of the operation, dubbed Overlord, including Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Supreme Allied Commander of nearly 3 million troops, chose Normandy for its proximity to England. It was less heavily defended than other parts of Adolf Hitler's `Atlantic Wall."

German forces overran Europe in 1941 and had four years to dig in. They constructed concrete bunkers and walls, flooded the lowlands and precisely sited their mortars to specific points throughout France.

Overlord planners scheduled a threeday window when the moon would be bright enough for a preliminary airborne assault and the tide low enough for a beach assault.

EARL WILKERSON WAS A 21-YEAR-OID buck sergeant, a 29th division infantryman with the Virginia National Guard's 3rd Battalion, 116th Infantry Regiment. The broomsticks for rifles and stovepipes for mortars the battalion had trained with three years earlier at Fort Meade, Md., were now assault rifles, flame-throwers and mine detectors. Just after dawn, Wilkerson was on the water, being ferried toward shore in a landing craft.

Technically, he was to assault the German defenses in the third attack wave, but first, second or third waves didn't seem to matter He watched the German guns, mortars and mines annihilate Alpha Company. He pushed through the cold surf, finding refuge behind a destroyed landing craft near the shore. The burning wreckage provided cover from small-arms fire and warmth against the chill of the water

"I looked down at my chest and saw blood and meat," Wilkerson said. "I thought it was me. On closer inspection, I realized I wasn't hit, so I moved on."

Crossfire on the beach pinned down scattered units, causing a sea traffic jam as more waves of troops arrived. Men lay behind a 45-degree shelf of flat stones at the end of the beach. All the while, the tide was rising, shortening the battlefield, drowning the wounded.

The howl of machine guns and the cries of dying men were drowned out by the constant barrage of Allied naval battleships and the hammering of airplanes pounding the Wall. The shells and bombs caught the grass on fire, filling the air with black, acrid smoke. German mortars and land mines gobbled up lives.

ARTHUR VAN COOK WAS AN OFFICER for the New York Guard's 11 lth Field Artillery Battalion supporting the 29th that day. But not for long. Eleven of their 12 guns were shot up or useless at the bottom of the turbulent sea. He and his unit then joined the infantry.

Many men were still pinned down as the battle continued. Those who stood still were picked off by mortar crews. Those who moved were put down by machine gunners.

"What saved our ass on the beach were the senior officers," Van Cook said. "They were up and down the beach like they didn't know what fear meant."

The senior leaders rallied the survivors, gathering them into small groups and organizing charges against the German pillboxes. They pushed through barbed wire, mine pits, sweeping guns and mortar fire. More were killed.

By nightfall, the assault on Omaha Beach had broken through in several places, and the precious foothold held. In the darkness, soldiers huddled together, disbelieving. By then, 34,000 troops were alive at Omaha, more than 1,000 dead.

RETIRED BRIG. GEN. LEONARD WARD was an intelligence major for the 112th Engineer Combat Battalion supporting Army V Corps' 1121 st Engineer Combat Group. He had enlisted in the Michigan Guard's 107th Combat Engineer battalion, now designated the 254th Battalion. Ward remembers the launch of the offensive June 4 from England across the English Channel, "in the middle of the night: no lights, no sound." The fleet turned around in the storm-tossed sea and returned to England, then re-deployed for the invasion on June 6. Ward remembers looking over the side of the boat to see scattered pieces of paper floating in the choppy sea.