Last week the 80th anniversary of the D-Day invasion was commemorated in France. My father was one of the thousands of American troops to make the D-Day invasion but he didn’t live to see this anniversary.
He was 29 years old on June 6, 1944. He had enlisted in the U.S. Army, like almost all of the eligible young men of that era. He had married my mother in Chicago, Illinois in April 1943. After a brief honeymoon, on which she became pregnant for my oldest brother, his unit shipped out from Sparta, Wisconsin where they had completed “winter maneuvers.” As the troop train made its way from Wisconsin to New York City where they would board troop ships bound for England, it passed through Syracuse, his hometown, and where my mother, pregnant with my brother, resided with her parents. He told me that he could see their apartment from the train which was several blocks from the downtown train station. He looked at the apartment building longingly and struggled with the knowledge and the sadness that he might never see his wife again or meet his unborn child.
His younger sister, Margie, was already in England. She was a member of the Red Cross and a Social Worker at the 231st Army Air Force Division Hospital in Wynmondham near Norwich, England.
In May of 1944 Margie learned that her older brother, Jim, was in England and set out to find him. She had a general idea of where his unit was situated but not their exact location. Whitsunday, the day on which Anglicans and Protestants celebrate the Pentecost in England, fell on May 28, 1944. Since it was a public holiday, wartime travel restrictions were relaxed for the weekend and Margie set out on the evening of Friday, May 26th to find her older brother.
Margie had written him letters informing him that she would try to visit but learned they had not been delivered, she boarded a train and shared a compartment built for six with 12 other passengers making sleep impossible. Margie had decided to make Swansea, the second largest city in Wales situated on the southwest coast of England, her “base of operations. ” She arrived there on Saturday morning, May 27th. At the Red Cross station in Swansea, she met two Army Air Corps soldiers looking for their brothers who were in Jim’s unit. They decided to join forces and search for their loved ones together.
There is search was hampered by the fact that all road signs had been removed in order to preserve the secrecy of the troop buildup. Nevertheless, they continued their search by train and bus and arrived at the Unit’s location. Margie impressed a full Colonel with her story of her search and they located my father, whom she described as “hot and bedraggled in fatigues.” They spent the remainder of the day and all of Sunday together walking and talking. She wrote her younger sister, Ellen, describing him as ”…fine and not too unhappy. He described his job to me, so that I know things shouldn’t be too rough for him when they get underway.” It was the last time she would see him before the end of World War II.
Less than two weeks later my father made the landing at Normandy. Anyone who has seen the movie Saving Private Ryan knows of the carnage that occurred on those beaches. My father was a medic and in pictures wearing the Red Cross insignia. He successfully managed the landing at Normandy and survived his units’ trek across France and Belgium. Six months after his landing on Normandy and just as he thought he was safe, his unit was caught in the middle of the Battle of the Bulge. The largest and bloodiest single battle fought by United States forces in the third deadliest campaign in American history.
My father survived World War II, seemingly uninjured, and was honorably discharged. He returned home, reunited with his family and met my older brother for the first time. He had no interest in going to reunions or visiting with the others from his unit. I can only recall one occasion on whichshe was visited by one of his comrades in arms and how strange it was to hear him addressed as “Doc.” If my brothers and I asked him about his combat experiences he would deflect rather than talk about his memories. The only occasion in which he recounted an experience was in telling my brother Chuck about seeing a priest administering the last rites to a dying soldier on the Normandy Beach. When he returned to that location a short time later the priest was dead and his head was missing. To his dying day every loud noise startled him.
After he was gone the movie Saving Private Ryan was released. My brothers and I each saw it separately. Afterward, the first time we were together we discussed the movie. I asked them about their reaction to the Normandy Beach scenes and together they said ”Now, we know why Dad reacted the way he did to loud noises.” Now we all knew why he wouldn’t recount his combat experiences and let those horrific memories that were like an evil genie out of the bottle.
Last week the 80th anniversary of the D-Day invasion was commemorated in France. My father was one of the thousands of American troops to make the D-Day invasion but he didn’t live to see this anniversary.