The 75th anniversary of D-Day on Thursday is likely to be the last major commemoration attended by the brave men who stormed the beaches of Normandy on June 6, 1944. The youngest of them then are in their mid-90s now.
These veterans will soon pass into history, joining comrades who never got to grow old. Their heroism lives on, as long as Americans pause to honor it.
World War II recedes in our national memory as the men who fought it die at a rate of 348 every day. Only a handful of the 73,000 Americans who participated in Operation Overlord — as the invasion was called — are expected to attend commemorations in France this week. When they are gone, who will tell the story of how they saved the world? That sounds overly dramatic, but it’s fair to say the outcome of the war was riding on their shoulders.
The Allied invasion of Europe was the largest land, sea and air operation ever conducted, before or since. Two million troops waited in England, ready to pour into France once an expeditionary force of 150,000 established a beachhead.
Imagine a formation of planes, flying nine abreast, that extended nearly 230 miles from end to end and required almost an hour to pass over the target area. Picture huge glider trains, towed by hundreds of airplanes. Picture thousands of troops floating to the ground under parachutes. Imagine transport by air of hundreds of tons of military equipment. And all this in spite of bad weather.
The invasion was one of the largest amphibious military assaults in history and required extensive planning. Prior to D-Day, the Allies conducted a large-scale deception campaign designed to mislead the Germans about the intended invasion target.
By late August 1944, all of northern France had been liberated, and by the following spring the Allies had defeated the Germans. The Normandy landings have been called the beginning of the end of war in Europe.
The human cost of the invasion’s first day: 10,000 killed, wounded or missing in action. More than 6,000 of them were Americans. Once they had gained the beach, scaled the cliffs and defeated Hitler’s defenses, Allied troops faced one grueling fight after another on their march to liberate Paris and topple Berlin. The Battle of the Bulge lay ahead. Victory in Europe finally was achieved on May 8, 1945 — 11 difficult months after D-Day. War in the Pacific raged on. Victory over Japan would not come until August 1945. After the war, the foundation for a lasting peace in Europe was indeed laid. America’s leadership and aid helped to rebuild the shattered continent, spread democracy where dictators once ruled, and made allies of our enemies in a trans-Atlantic alliance that endures to this day. After two world wars in the space of 30 years in the 20th century, we have not had another well into the 21st.
Carter County soldiers were among those who stormed the beaches of Normandy. Company A, 117th Infantry, 30th Division came ashore in France on D-Day and from that day until the end of the war, these soldiers were deep inside the Reich and almost never out of contact with the enemy. They fought from the beaches of Omaha and Utah, through the hedgerows and swamps of Normandy to the glad day of liberation of a fantastically happy Paris.
One Carter Countian, Broadway Valentine Sims, a member of the 101st Airborne Division, would die in Normandy on June 11, 1944, just days after D-Day in the bloody battles before the breakout of Normandy.
Other old soldiers like Sonny Mottern, Wright Swanay, Roy J. McKinney. Dallas Byrd, Harry Ritts, Capt. Ed Mottern, and so many more helped keep the D-Day memory and those of other battles alive. But, now, they, too, are gone, and we who are alive must tell their story and that of freedom.
It is an inheritance left to us by the soldiers of D-Day and all their comrades in arms. We must never forget their service and their sacrifice.