doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com The Longest Day

Very good hour-by-hour account of D-Day in the latest National Review. I remember clustering around our big radio with my family listening to FDR announcing war on Japan, but not 2-1/2 years later on D-Day. I was probably out in the victory gardens picking potato bugs or hauling paper or metal. I remember we saved bacon grease in soup cans and took them back to the grocery store. One teenager took us out on the prairie to gather milkweed pods for use in life vests and preservers.

M uncle, Tom Whelan, jumped with the 101st on D-day. He was 20 years young. Said he would do it all over again if needed. He passed in 80s. My father served with the Desert Air Force in Egypt 1942, with the “Falcons,” the 79th fighter group USAAF, an American group flying for Montgomery, later the 12th AF. He passed in the 90s. They were without question the greatest generation. We should never forget.

D_day battle lasted 85 days. By that I mean there was constant, heavy combat ever day for almost three months. Early on men were not rotated out of combat unless they were seriously wounded or dead. They just poured in replacements. It was a meat grinder. One tough fight after another. The Germans had years to prepare for their defensive positions and had every inch mapped and sighted in for support. The only way to dislodge the Germans was to flatten things, with them in them. Those men were brave to go ashore but the grind must have been ten times as bad. 30% suffered combat fatigue, PTSD today, but they stayed on the line and continued to fight. Nobody wanted to let their friends down. Those were men and we are forever grateful to them. God bless.

Yesterday a friend of mine knowing my Missouri roots sent me an article about an 102 year old D Day survivor from Missouri that he thought I might be interested in. Boy, was I. Incredibly, the gentleman is a distant cousin on my mother’s side. He was turned down by the Marines and the Navy because of an enlarged heart from childhood rheumatic fever but the Coast Guard accepted him. His unit of “Matchbox” cutters were 83’ wooden boats that were loaded onto Liberty Ships and taken to England. They had no idea what was about to happen. His group of 15 boats was assigned to Omaha beach and their assignment was the rescue of injured men in the water. Because he was one of the two rescue swimmers on his cutter he was in and out of the frigid water all day. (Turns out there was no reason to doubt his heart - both its capacity and its character). His only equipment was a line tied around his waist that his mates used to pull him back to the boat. Together their entire group of 60 cutters saved 1486 injured men and one lady nurse. He readily admits that he was scared to death the whole day with bullets striking the water all around but he said he just kept focusing on swimming to the next wounded man.

One of a group of ordinary men who rose to extraordinary heights of sacrifice and dedication and bravery.

an old friend had a sign in his shop that said....there are no great men, just ordinary men - made great by their circumstances.

best regards,

tom

That's one of those stories not often told. Thanks for posting.

I have great respect for the Marines, but they made some interesting rejections of men who wanted to join. Including Audie Murphy. Much later, the Army temporarily kept me from taking the PT test (how many pushups and situps we could do in 2 minutes followed by a 2 mile run.) The EKG that was part of my physical showed that I had an irregular heartbeat. I went to the clinic to see if I could get a better explanation. The female doctor who looked at my EKG and interviewed me was on the faculty at the U of Illinois college of medicine (as best I can remember. ) She said my profile looked like I was a fairly serious runner. (At the time, I was running about 5-6 miles a day.) She said my case was one she'd show to her students and ask them to offer a diagnosis, and they'd come up with pretty much everything except that my profile was not "normal" because I was doing a lot of running. She had her boss (board certified cardiologist) look at it. After that, every time I had a physical and an EKG, I made sure to tell them I was a runner. Cleared to take the PT test from then on.

The war, everywhere, was hell. My small hometown of Red Oak, Iowa, was home to Company M. They had the distinction, if that's what you call it, of losing more men, per capita , than any other town. The war in Africa is not as well known, but the young recruits got slaughtered there. Men in the neighboring county's Company F were saved by their commander telling them that when it got dark, they should lay down their arms and march out single file. The Germans would think they were Prisoners of War. 480 men made it out in that manner.

If one had his parents sign to allow a man to join the army at age 17 and he landed on Omaha beach and was alive today, he'd be 97. Gil

Daryl, somewhere I missed that you're a fellow native Iowan. You're right: The kind of distinction Red Oak got during WWII is not exactly anything you hope for. I enlisted in the 34th my senior year in high school (1962). HHC, 1/133d Infantry. As the Pentagon sent more and more men to Vietnam, many of us figured our turn was going to come sooner or later. But for whatever reason, the National Guard mostly got left behind during Vietnam. Those of us who knew the 34th's record in WWII were surprised by that That has not been the case in our more recent conflicts. But we can be thankful that casualty figures have not been anything like D-Day, nor some of the battles in North Africa. FDR called up a lot of National Guard units long before Pearl Harbor. A National Guard tank battalion from Minnesota was in the Philippines a year before we declared war. They formed the rear guard for the retreat to Bataan.

I was in the military, stationed in San Diego in the 60s. I was dating this gorgeous girl about 20 years old at the time. One night she took me to her parent's home. While we were there, her parents came home and they had just seen the movie, PATTON. They talked about how great the movie was. My girlfriend introduced me to her mom and dad and he shook my hand and she told him I was in the military. Sailors around San Diego were really hated at the time. But he was so nice to me. He told me to follow him and he took me through his house. I was waiting for one of those, "If I find out that you're sleeping with me daughter", threats. But he took me into his den. He opened the door and this huge room was completely filled with WW2 paraphernalia. German helmets, swords, military rifles completely covered the walls. He showed me pictures of him and George Patton standing next to each other and he told me that he was one of Patton's aides. There was a picture of him driving a jeep with Patton in the back seat. I was blown away!! And I couldn't believe how nice he was to me. This guy had no sons. But five daughters. His first name started with the letter R. All of his daughter's names started with an R. Rachael, Roxanne, Roberta, Randi and Rhonda. He was the superintendent of the school system. She told me that in 13 years, she never missed a day of school no matter how sick she was. And in 13 years, none of her other four sisters missed a day of school no matter what. I figured that was about right for one of Patton's aides. By the way, her mother was in the WAVES. Not many of my relatives were in the military. But, that is one memory I'll never forget.