June 6, 1944: Against all odds

[MillRatUSMC]

Mission accomplished, rendered my small Honors.
While I was viewing that soldier behind the hedgehog, I saw that I had made an error, it's two instead of three.

http://www.geocities.com/millrat_99/cmem.html
The part of the World War II site of the Community Veterans Memorial Park in Munster, Indiana.

The soldier is behind a hedgehog and he is hit , that why his arm is in two parts.
Reminding us of the price paid for our Freedom.
They were given an order on 5th of June 1944;
"We'll go!"
The Airborne parachuted in on the early hours of 6th of June 1944.
H-hour was a few hours away.
We saluted those that died that day we now know as D-Day.

I found this poem when I was viewing the signatures in the guest book;



FREEDOM
Freedom is not Free not by a long shot you see
Our freedom was fought for by soldiers diligently
A high price was paid for you and me
Don't ever take for granted that your freedom was free
The amount is one that cannot be said
Thousands of soldiers ended up dead
The cost you can't measure in any given way
The price you can't imagine that was paid each and everyday
In Harms way they all stood
Armed with old weapons they did the best they could
Hero's, they all are to me
The best in the world who set me free
They asked for nothing in return
Fought for thier country to live and learn
The things they saw, the tasks they performed
All within duty, as their brothers they mourned.
The great loss of life, umimagineable to me
just another day for our Hero's you see
To hell and back did we send our men
Praying for their safety again and again
We as civilians will never understand
what they gave up to save this great land.
So many are ungrateful for the freedom we reap
Their souls are for the devil to find and seek
You need be thankful, have respect and admiration
It's to our Veterans we owe this beautiful Nation

THANK YOU
Sally Johnson
Dedicated to Charles L. Fenolio
USMC A 1 10
1941-1946

Semper Fidelis/Semper Fi
Ricardo

[thedrifter]

Thank You MillRat........


Now Greybeard found something a little interesting......

http://www.leatherneck.com/forums/sh...threadid=14996

Now they are trying to tell me something different......:eek:
and they wonder why our youth are so mix up......


Ellie

[thedrifter]

Once an eagle, always an eagle: Murrieta veteran remembers D-Day

By: JOHN HUNNEMAN - Staff Writer

MURRIETA ---- Bill Galbraith paints eagles ---- "Screaming Eagles." Sixty years ago today, the largest invasion force the world has ever witnessed dropped into and came ashore in France as part of "Operation Overlord" ---- known better as D-Day ---- to try and punch through Hitler's "Atlantic Wall" and begin the liberation of Europe from German occupation.

Among about 175,000 men who crossed the English Channel under cover of darkness on June 6, 1944, was Galbraith, a Southern California high school dropout who'd joined the Army, he said, hoping to impress a girl.

In the darkness, Galbraith, a member of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division ---- the "Screaming Eagles" ---- jumped from a transport plane flying low over the French countryside into a boiling cauldron of anti-aircraft and machine gun fire from below.


"I don't think I ever asked God to spare me," he said last week in his Murrieta home. "I asked him not to let me let my family down or let them know how scared I was."

These days, one room of the ranch home he's owned since 1989 is filled with books, photographs and memories of that day so long ago, including Galbraith's own artistic depictions of the event.

"I've been painting for as long as I can remember," Galbraith said.

Many of those works include eagles, the symbol for the legendary airborne division that, along with the 82nd Airborne Division, jumped into France ahead of the amphibious assault.

Now 80 years old, Galbraith and his wife, Anna, plan to travel to a ship in Long Beach Harbor today and join other veterans of that invasion to watch the anniversary commemoration on television. But his thoughts will be with those overseas, he said, especially with his comrades who never made it back.

Training and more training

Born in Pasadena, Galbraith attended Wilson High School in Long Beach before dropping out in 1942 to join the Army. Patriotism, he admits, wasn't his primary motivation.

"I wasn't doing that great in high school, anyway," he said. "And I think I was trying to impress some girl."

Signing up specifically to be a paratrooper, Galbraith was sent first for training to Camp Tocca, Ga., near the Curahee Mountains. Part of that training included running up and down a mountain trail to build endurance.

"We ran that thing every morning," he said. "Sometimes we ran it twice a day if they got mad at us."

"Curahee" meant "stand alone" in the local Indian language and the troopers adopted the word as their motto knowing that if they were dropped behind enemy lines, that's the situation they'd find themselves in.

In November, Galbraith's "I" company was ordered to Fort Benning, Ga., for a parachute instruction. It was a trek of about 115 miles.

"We marched from Atlanta all the way to Fort Benning," said Galbraith. "We were always trying to outdo the other guys."

From there it was on to Camp MacKall, N.C., for more training, including nighttime jumps.

After additional drilling in Tennessee and at Fort Bragg, N.C., the 506th reported to Camp Shanks, N.Y. and was transported across the Atlantic on the S.S. Samaria, arriving in Liverpool, England in September 1943.

"We had no idea what our mission was going to be," Galbraith said. "But we knew it was pretty important."

June 6, 1944

For the eight months leading up to D-Day, "I" company was stationed in and around the town of Ramsbury, England. Finally in early June 1944, the paratroopers were taken to several airfields to prepare for Operation Overlord, the allied invasion of occupied France.

"By then, everyone knew what was coming next," Galbraith said.

About 1 a.m. June 6, a C-47 carrying the 18 men of "I" company took off headed across the English Channel.

Flying about 500 feet above the water to avoid enemy detection, Galbraith said he could see the allied armada of about 5,000 ships below headed for the same objective.

"It looked like it was solid ships below us," he said. "We knew we were really being backed up."

The invasion force was enormous. In one night and day, about 175,000 fighting men and their equipment ---- which included 50,000 vehicles, everything from motorcycles, tanks and armored bulldozers ---- were moved across 60 miles to 100 miles of open water, wrote historian Steven E. Ambrose in his book about the battle, "D-Day." The equipment and men were carried by or supported by 5,333 ships and almost 11,000 airplanes.

Each paratrooper carried up to 70 pounds of gear on his back.

"If you sat down, someone had to help you get up," said Galbraith whose gear included a machine gun.

As they approached the coast, the German anti-aircraft guns began firing. Galbraith said the men were anxious to get out of the aircraft and away from the shells exploding all around.

"We couldn't wait for that green light to go on," he said. "It was a very rough ride. It looked like you could walk down on the tracers. They were all different colors."

Fog and flak caused many of the plane's pilots to veer off course and away from the paratrooper's intended drop zones.

Unlike other groups, Galbraith's company landed near its intended target.

"We lit pretty close to where we were supposed to be," he said.

While that may seem like a good thing, the reality was the Germans had scouted areas where they believed it might be easier for the paratroopers to land and were dug in at those location.

"Other paratroopers came down miles from where they were supposed to," Galbraith said. "That confused them (the Germans) as much as it did us."

On the ground, Pvt. Galbraith came upon a sergeant who had broken his ankle.

"I stayed with him, because he couldn't keep up," Galbraith said.

Other paratroopers kept moving forward and had just cleared a hedgerow when an enemy flare went up illuminating the dark sky.

"The Germans opened up with a machine gun and cut down many of the men who had gone ahead," he said.

Galbraith was about five miles inland from the beaches of Normandy, where allied forces would begin their attack on the Atlantic Wall later that morning.

By the time the amphibious forces landed, members of the 506th were holding some of the high ground overlooking the beaches.

"I had one ambition: to live through the morning," he said. "In the dark, there was nothing but sheer confusion."

Galbraith spent about 30 days fighting in France before returning to England for rest and more training.

"After Normandy we all got leave, and quite a few of us went to Scotland," he said.

There he met Anna. Following the war, she came to the United States. The couple have been married for 55 years.

Wounded in action

The fighting was not over for Galbraith, not by a long shot. In September 1944, the 506th jumped into hostile territory again, this time in a daring daylight raid into Holland.

The airborne allied troops were to seize roads and bridges in the cities of Eindhoven, Arnhem and Nijmegen and clear the way for a British armored invasion.

As Galbraith made his way along a street in Eindhoven, a German sniper fired a machine gun, killing his captain.

"I stepped into a brick doorway to get out of the way and more shots were fired," he said.

Galbraith was hit in the left leg and shoulder.

"I was crawling down the street trying to get away and a Dutch man opened a door and pulled me inside," he said.

The war ended that day for Galbraith. A hospital ship brought him to South Carolina and during the next four years, he was transferred to a several military hospitals on the west coast while recovering from his wounds.

After the war

In the years following the war, Galbraith worked in the evacuation and demolition business in Southern California.

Bill and Anna raised 10 children and now have 20 grandchildren and six great-grandchildren. The couple moved to a comfortable ranch house in Murrieta in 1989 and Bill retired six years ago.

In 1994, on the 50th anniversary of the D-Day invasion, Galbraith, then 70, was one of 41 paratroopers who re-enacted the parachute jump into occupied France.

This year, several remaining members of that group hoped once again to parachute at Normandy as part of today's anniversary of D-Day.

Last month, Galbraith watched three of his comrades practice jumping in Lake Elsinore in an effort to convince organizers of today's observance to let them participate.

Galbraith had no plans to join them, though.

"I'm getting a bit old for this," he said.

The last word Galbraith heard from his buddies was that they'd be allowed to parachute into France ---- not as part of the official commemoration ---- but on the day after the events.

"I'd do it again..."

Propped against one of the bookcases in his home are three paintings of "screaming eagles" Galbraith recently completed

In September, he and Anna plan to return to Europe for a reunion with some of his Army buddies to mark the 60th anniversary of Operation Market Garden, the daring daytime jump into Holland.

"I painted those for some of the guys," he said. "I think they'll appreciate them."

Looking back over the decades since the D-Day invasion, Galbraith offered his perspective.

"The real heroes are still over there," he said. "I was proud of the outfit I was in. I'd do it again in a minute."


Contact staff writer John Hunneman at (909) 676-4315, Ext. 2603, or jhunneman@californian.com.

http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2004...6_196_5_04.txt



Ellie

[thedrifter]

D-DAY REMEMBERED
By David Eisenhower

Volume 5, Number 3
June 2004

This is the text of a speech delivered by David Eisenhower
on June 2, 2004, commemorating the 60th anniversary of D-
Day. The lecture was sponsored by the Foreign Policy
Research Institute and the West Point Society of
Philadelphia. David Eisenhower is a Senior Fellow of the
FPRI and co-chair of its History Institute for Teachers. He
is also director of the Institute for Public Service at the
University of Pennsylvania and Public Policy Fellow of
Penn's Annenberg School of Communication. His book,
Eisenhower at War, 1943-45, was a New York Times bestseller.

This lecture will be broadcast on the Pennsylvania Cable
Network during the weekend of June 5 & 6. To check for the
time or to view it online (if you're outside PCN's viewing
area), you can visit their website at www.pcntv.com.


D-DAY REMEMBERED

By David Eisenhower

It is a pleasure to be here to remember D-Day. Every year,
June 6 is a special day. What makes it special to my mind
is that on June 6, Americans grant themselves permission to
reflect positively on their history.

Americans do not do so routinely. We are accustomed to
going about our work and our lives in a state of earnest
concern about the manifold problems the experts insist are
all around us. Americans are constantly reminded they are
beset by social, political and cultural divides, that
America is a 50-50 nation, that American history is to be
redeemed, not celebrated, and that there are so many miles
to travel and so many promises to keep.

It is fair to ask how many Americans have NOT lived -- if
informed critics are to be believed -- under the most
corrupt government in their history? How many times have
American policies NOT brought us -- and the world -- to the
brink of shame, disaster, discredit, the apocalypse?

Even our recent history, beginning with D-Day and the Second
World War, can be chronicled as a long series of setbacks
and mistakes punctuated by stunning and complete victories
which seem to catch informed Americans by surprise. And yet
the truth is that Americans are fortunate and know it, they
are envied and undeterred by it; creative, restless,
hopeful, and optimistic, unwilling -- to paraphrase John F.
Kennedy -- to exchange places with any people in any era of
history. With exceptions, Americans suppress such thoughts
except when days like June 6 -- presidential inaugurals are
another exception -- roll around.

This paradoxical truth -- our real-time perceptions
juxtaposed with America's steady record of success -- will
interest historians as far into the future as we can
anticipate. Five hundred years from now, they will perhaps
look back on America in the 1940s and speculate about the
origins of international commerce and involvements, and new
patterns of government and business that will be taken for
granted. Whether Americans are looked back upon as
liberators or merely as seafaring conquerors and pirates,
the implications and lessons of American dynamism will be
explored.

In the context of World War II history, the facts of
American dynamism can be summed up by a single fateful
strategic and military fact. Looking back to 1943-44,
whereas a German invasion of England across the 25-mile-wide
channel was a fanciful concept; and -- to stretch the
imagination slightly -- whereas a Russian, German, Japanese,
Chinese or even British invasion in strength of any place in
North or South America would have been unthinkable,
Americans thought little of mobilizing 16 million men and
women, and of transporting them across the seas to hurl them
against the finest armies of Eurasia 4,000 and even 8,000
miles from home.

But as D-Day commemorations go, the 60th anniversary is
likely to be subdued. Today's news mostly features the
latest problems, the breakdown of wartime and postwar
partnerships, the malaise of NATO, our estrangement from the
UN, the problem of working out exit strategies to salvage
what a number of commentators have decided is the latest in
a long line of American failures there and elsewhere. These
concerns -- legitimate -- are what keep FPRI in business.
I'm delighted and proud to be a fellow at FPRI and it was my
privilege to edit ORBIS. Under the circumstances, voices of
wisdom, discernment, prudence, foresight and action are
needed, and FPRI is such a voice.

The tenor of 2004 (D-Day plus 60) may fit a pattern. The
60th commemoration of America's Civil War in the 1920s
struck a similar tentative note. The new birth of freedom
Lincoln had talked about at Gettysburg -- America's
nineteenth-century Normandy -- had degenerated into Jim
Crow, disenfranchisement, and economic malaise throughout
the conquered American South, which remained determinedly
outside of the American future that Lincoln had so boldly
forecast. One of life's unanticipated lessons is how long
it takes the verdicts of history to take hold. It stands to
reason that when a decisive event happens, that people will
draw the logical conclusions and adjust accordingly, and yet
the stubborn facts suggest otherwise. Not until July 1963,
100 years after Gettysburg, did Alabama contribute a
monument to Alabamians who fought at Gettysburg,
figuratively bringing that battle to a close. On hand in
Gettysburg to officiate was Gov. George Corley Wallace of
Alabama, who continued to wage bitter-end resistance to the
lessons of the conflict for another twenty years before
finally and sincerely seeing the light.

To tour Normandy, America's twentieth-century Gettysburg,
one sees the residue of the war everywhere but also a
conspicuous absence of monuments. After the Normandy
battle, the Normans quickly moved in to reclaim their farms
and to resume their disrupted way of life determined to
forget the battles which have been waged over and around
them. Especially in recent years, there have been almost
willful efforts to forget World War II evident in rising
anti-Semitism, and the professed moral neutrality of various
governments which cloak their current malaise -- or perhaps
a hopeful preoccupation with the EU experiment -- in the
language of international morality and conventions. Again,
it takes decades for history's verdicts to play out and take
hold.

But there can be no question that D-Day was a turning point
for the individuals involved and for millions of others.
One of my favorite stories illustrating the point was told
to me by my great Uncle Milton. In 1954, when Milton was
president of Penn State, his brother, President Eisenhower
was set to deliver the commencement. Penn State is huge and
just as the hour approached, the rains came and the massive
event was going to have to be pushed indoors, a massive
logistical undertaking. A slightly panic-stricken Milton
apologized to Ike for the pandemonium and the makeshift
arrangements, whereupon Ike smiled. "Milton, since June 6,
1944, I've never worried about the rain."

Sometime later, as I was growing up as his neighbor -- and
employee -- on the edge of the farm in Gettysburg, my
grandfather seemed reticent about the war, indeed reluctant
to talk about any aspect of it. Yet he did not discourage
me as a boy from watching and rewatching a lengthy TV
documentary based on his memoir Crusade in Europe. He knew
that the war was the defining period of his life, as it was
for everyone who went through it, and he knew that future
generations would look back carefully on a time when the
lives and hopes of millions -- and civilization itself --
hung precariously in the balance. And he also knew that
even his greatest decisions as the Allied commander often
involved serious costs and sacrifice that would always
invite scrutiny of the historical record.

Dwight Eisenhower was a central figure of the twentieth
century, the first half of which was dominated by a
devastating depression and two world wars. The culminating
event -- World War II -- claimed well over 50 million lives,
imparting an unprecedented legacy of destruction and
pessimism in much of the world. Yet victory over the Axis
marked the first of many more promising chapters to come.

D-Day, June 6, 1944 was the decisive moment of the decisive
campaign to gain victory over Nazi Germany. Early on the
6th, Allied forces backed by airborne elements seized five
Normandy beachheads and opened the vital second front,
spelling ultimate defeat for the Nazis. But in hindsight,
the intangible significance of D-Day is even greater. On
June 6, 1944, after decades of doubt and hesitations,
democracy, freedom, and the humane values championed by the
Western allies resumed the offensive. June 6, 1944 can be
seen as the beginning of a long march to victory that, with
many twists and turns, ending finally with the unification
of Germany in 1990, the centennial of Granddad's birth.

It was a long march indeed. Eisenhower's memoir Crusade in
Europe does not end with the German surrender.
Significantly, the last three chapters of the book --
"Victory's Aftermath," "Operation Study" and "Russia" -- are
devoted to the postwar years. In them, D.D.E. recounts the
celebrations, describes the postwar conferences, and the
development of occupation planning and policy. He described
his several warm reunions with Air Marshall Tedder, Field
Marshall Montgomery, General Bradley, General Ismay, Air
Chief Marshall Portal General Patton and his other
illustrious wartime colleagues, remarking that "even then we
seemed to sense that the future problems of peace would
overshadow even the great difficulties we had to surmount
during hostilities."

continued...........

[thedrifter]

Turning points, even successes of the magnitude of World War
II or the end of the Cold War, always and forever beget new
challenges, as we would see.

As for the wider meanings of D-Day and the Second World War,
based on my study and writing on the subject, two themes
stand out. First, the war demonstrated the possibility of
international cooperation. Second, the war demonstrated the
inherent toughness of free peoples when called to arms.
World War II -- particularly the war in Europe -- was a
victory for the principle of alliances, and it was a victory
of the citizen soldier.

As for international cooperation, as one who knew Dwight
Eisenhower as a grandfather for exactly 21 years, I can't
help reflecting on the unlikelihood, or better put, the
circumstantial aspects, of his career. In 1911, when he
left his home town of Abilene for good, embarking for West
Point and a career which would send him to 30 duty stations
around the world, the last thing on his mind was a lifetime
of achievement that would symbolize international
understanding. He first wanted a free education and second,
a military education, having escaped the tedium of his
hometown by reading about the fabled military captains of
history. Last summer, Julie and I and our youngest
daughter, Melanie, drove through Abilene again, to be
reminded that there are few places in America more remote
from the cosmopolitan centers of the seaboards and the
cities overseas where Dwight Eisenhower achieved fame and
performed his greatest works.

Yet in the final analysis, as he insisted, people in Abilene
are the same as people everywhere. Like all of us, most of
the time, Abileners go about their daily lives, they strive,
they pursue their personal goals and interests, they raise
families, make friends, and make their fortunes albeit with
precious time out to think of the wider world beyond. Young
Dwight Eisenhower fit this mold. He was a Kansan, a very
typical Kansan.

In fact there was no "Dwight David Eisenhower" raised in
Abilene in the 1890s. Granddad was born and christened
"David Dwight Eisenhower." When he entered West Point in
June 1911, he switched his first and second names because he
liked the sound of "Dwight D" better. That was a typical
thing to do in those days.

As he registered at West Point, he listed "Tyler, Texas" as
his birthplace instead of "Denison," evidently because it's
better to be from Tyler. That too was a typical thing to
do.

Registering at West Point, he omitted the fact that he had
played pro ball in the KOM league in the summers of 1909 and
1910, figuring West Point would be none the wiser and he
would thereby be eligible for football. Others hailing from
nowhere did the same. (Parenthetically, for the sake of
consistency, Granddad held to the fiction of amateur
athletic status all his life. In 1947 at a Dodgers-Giants
game at Ebbetts Field in Brooklyn, the Dodger publicist, Red
Patterson, who accompanied him to the park asked General
Eisenhower about the long-standing rumors that D.D.E. had
once played pro ball in the KOM league under the alias of
"Wilson." It had been 1909-10, according to the rumors, but
Patterson told Ike that league records indicated there were
two Wilsons in the league. Which one was he? "The one who
could hit," Ike replied.)

Ike, like so many Americans, needed an edge and so he
changed his name and birthplace, and when no one was the
wiser, he did not fully disclose all of his activities.
America was -- and is -- a place where it doesn't matter who
you are. It matters what you become. And he never forgot
it, or Abilene where he had grown up, and was always proud
of it. Mamie told me once that to the end of his life, Ike
thought Abilene was the best place there was; first in
everything.

The best restaurant anywhere? Kelly's Green Acres in
Abilene was "up there with best," according to Ike. The best
hotel anywhere? Mamie remembers that Ike was partial to the
Sunflower on Third Street and Buckeye in downtown Abilene,
near the movie theater. According to Ike, Abilene had the
prettiest girls and the best stores anywhere, and the best
jewelry store anywhere -- where he had bought Mamie's
engagement ring.

In other words, Dwight Eisenhower was as Kansan and American
as they came, and remained so as he advanced through West
Point and his military career, striving to exhibit "Duty
Honor Country," West Point's motto. Eisenhower rose in the
service of Douglas MacArthur and George Marshall, architects
of the twentieth-century American military, becoming a
military commander of the first order. Their main
challenge, of course, was leadership in the Second World
War, which marked the advent of revolutionary factors in
warfare and international affairs. Among the key strategic
realities faced by the American leadership was the fact that
U.S. strategic objectives could not be achieved by American
power alone. Coalition warfare was new for the U.S., but
essential in those times and in a conflict waged on that
scale.

During the war, thinking in terms of allies, harmonizing
political and military aims within a diverse coalition,
requiring consensus and understanding beyond the letter of
agreements, were the overriding tasks befalling Eisenhower's
command. And history records that in the searing event of
World War II, the most destructive war in history, American,
British, French and Polish forces fought as a single army
and did so in company with the Russian armies in the east.
No one emerged knowing better than he the critical
importance of cooperation, or more profoundly aware of the
possibility of cooperation -- cooperation based ultimately
on loyalties transcending each nation involved.

Eisenhower learned this lesson in large ways and in small
ways. One of his favorite memories involved the King and
Queen of England. On the 26th of May, during the final days
of planning and preparations in London, he took time out to
pay a call on King George and Queen Elizabeth at Buckingham
Palace, a memorable moment to say the least. Few grasped
Eisenhower's reverence for the English royal family, which
had honored him with friendship and hospitality. Yet he was
apprehensive. The King, afflicted by ill health since
youth, was notoriously quiet and shy and hampered by a
speech impediment. Staff members remembered how the King
and Eisenhower in Tunisia had once ridden together in a Jeep
for several hours in complete silence. But in late May,
1944, just days before the invasion, King George was
gregarious.

Over lunch, served buffet-style in an upstairs apartment,
the three reminisced. The Queen told Eisenhower for the
first time about something that had happened on a tour of
Windsor Castle that had been arranged for him two years
before. It turned out that the guide, Colonel Sterling, had
forgotten that the King and Queen were on the grounds. The
couple was sipping tea in a garden when they suddenly heard
Sterling, Eisenhower and General Mark Wayne Clark
approaching. Not wanting to intrude, they had knelt on
hands and knees behind the hedge until the Americans and
Sterling passed by. Eisenhower was delighted by the story
and the three shared a good laugh.

Back at HQ, Eisenhower described the luncheon to his closest
aide. During the dessert course, he did not notice that his
napkin had fallen to the floor. Yet he felt no self-
consciousness or embarrassment when the King had mentioned
it to him. "It could have been like visiting a friend in
Abilene," Ike remarked.

"Kinship among nations is not determined in such
measurements as proximity size and age," Dwight Eisenhower
said in June 1945, while accepting the Freedom of London in
a speech before Parliament. "Rather we should turn to those
inner things_ those intangibles that are the real treasures
that free men possess [and] if we keep our eyes on this
guidepost, then no difficulties along our path of mutual
cooperation can ever be insurmountable_"

Cooperation among nations was the practical lesson he
learned and mastered during the war -- which did not mean
adopting a new consciousness or a brand-new view of human
nature. Dwight Eisenhower was not a different person after
the war, though he was wiser and more experienced. Conflict
is inherent in human affairs, he knew. Every generation
must find its way and rediscover truth as those coming
before have learned it. Personal identity must exist before
identity can merge, and identity is affirmed in striving, in
duty and honor and in fidelity towards family, community and
country. Yet at a deeper level, real diversity based on a
strong sense of personal identity can be the basis of
genuine harmony. Of religious differences, perhaps the most
fundamental differences of all, the theologian Paul Tillich
wrote -- in describing Christianity's twentieth-century
encounter with other faiths:

continued.........

[thedrifter]

"Does our analysis demand either a mixture of
religions or the victory of religions or the end
of the religious age altogether?
"The way_ is not to relinquish one's_ traditions
for the sake of a universal concept which would be
nothing more than a concept. The way is to
penetrate into the depth of one's own religion, in
devotion, thought and action. [For] in the depth
of every living religion there is a point at which
the religion itself loses its importance, and that
to which it points, breaks through its
particularity, elevating it to spiritual freedom
and with it to a vision of spiritual presence in
other expressions of_ ultimate meanings_"

We profess uniqueness, we are all unique, in other words,
and yet the deeper one delves, "particularity" fades and
what we find is described by the word "kinship."

In 1982, my wife and I toured the region and visited the
places described in this book. Along the Normandy coast, we
hiked through the remnants of the Atlantic Wall in the Omaha
Beach area and visited the cemeteries. We strolled through
Ste-Mere-Eglise and along Utah Beach and the British and
Canadian beaches that stretch eastward to Caen. These sites
stand as monuments to the ingenuity, bravery and the highest
ideals of citizenship which the soldiers of D-Day
exemplified. "Right is more precious than peace," said
President Wilson at the outset of World War I expressing a
faith to which the soldiers of D-Day were once again called
upon to bear witness.

On the same trip, we continued on to southern England, which
had been one large military encampment in late May and early
June 1944. We visited the 101st Airborne bivouac area where
Granddad had dropped in on the troops to wish them Godspeed
hours before the attack. We saw Southwick House, still an
active Royal Navy station, where Eisenhower and his deputies
met continuously in the final days before D-Day.

The hills surrounding Portsmouth are peaceful, yet the
mind's eye can easily see the caravans of vehicles streaming
south towards the docks, winding past quaint country homes
with "tea for sale" signs posted, through the narrow streets
of the towns where villagers stepped out to wave goodbye and
good luck. For six fateful weeks, as Eisenhower put it in
the D-Day proclamation, the eyes of the world were on the
soldiers, sailors and airmen of the Allied Expeditionary
Force as they assembled in those places, and the hopes and
prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere marched with
them.

The human perspectives come through in the accounts of
constant meetings, trips, training missions and final
preparations for the event all knew would come in the years
1944. A vivid vignette involves British Admiral Bertram
Ramsay, commander of the Dunkirk evacuation who by the
spring of 1944 served as commander of the Allied Naval
forces on D-Day. One week before the attack, Ramsay and his
driver pulled over to the side of a road on a promontory
overlooking Portsmouth where they could see the convoys
passing and the ships loading in the distance. Ramsay
looked on pensively for what seemed an eternity. Had
everything been done? Were the years of retreat and
humiliation finally over? What would the next few days
bring? Could the Allied forces -- the soldiers of democracy
-- meet the test of battle against the Nazis? "It is a
tragic situation that this is a scene of a stage set for
terrible human sacrifice," he remarked, "but if out of it
comes peace and happiness, who would have it otherwise?"

At a serious price in lives, the morrow did bring victory,
and in the goodness of time, peace and happiness did come.
And would anyone afterwards have had it otherwise?

I believe in the power of speech as both a guide to history
and a tool of citizenship. Each semester at Penn, I review
perhaps the greatest of all speeches, the oration by
Pericles in honor of the fallen Athenians. His famed
"Funeral Oration" is a classic description of citizenship,
and it is addressed to perhaps the first "polis" in history
to resemble our own, to an assembly of free citizens during
the first winter of the Peloponnesian war. It contains
memorable descriptions of the paradox that surrounds
citizenship in a country like ours.

First, it may seem strange, but it is true that the sheer
dynamism of a free society can result inexorably in such
expansion of power and reach of interest that challenge and
reaction become inevitable. In Pericles' day, Sparta was
the challenger in the 30-year Peloponnesian conflict. And
in responding to those challenges, free citizens of Athens
had much to lose. How could a citizen enjoying the fruits
of success in so favored a country risk all for something as
ephemeral as honor? Was there a choice? "Make up your
minds that happiness depends on being free, and freedom
depends on courage," Pericles declared. "Let there be no
relaxation in the face of the perils of war_"

What was it about Athens that made it so different? Or
perhaps in faint outline something like us?

"Let me say that our system of government does not
copy the institutions of our neighbors," the
oration continues. "It is more of a case of our
being a model to others_ our constitution is
called a democracy because power is in the hands
not of a minority, but of the whole people. When
it is a question of settling private disputes,
everyone is equal before the law; when it is a
question of putting one person before another in
positions of public responsibility, what counts is
not membership of a particular class, but ability_

"_here each one of our citizens in all the
manifold aspects of life is able to show himself
the rightful lord of his own person, and do this,
moreover with exceptional grace and exceptional
versatility_

"_here each individual is interested not only in
his own affairs but in the affairs of the state as
well_ this is a peculiarity of ours_ we do not say
that a man who takes no interest in politics is a
man who minds his own business; we say he has no
business here at all.."

Thus Pericles spoke in 431 BCE, at the beginnings of the
Peloponnesian war, which is but a short interlude in ancient
history, and yet is probably more widely recalled by us in
thought word and deed as often as all the other incidents of
ancient Greece put together. Athens inspires, and it warns.
As the ultimate defeat of Athens shows, eras come and go.
The permanency of any country or any institutionalized way
of life is an illusion -- or perhaps more accurately an
"aspiration." How long the United States can retain and
build on her considerable stature today is a question we ask
and it remains to be seen. But Americans can derive
confidence that in recent times, unlike isolated Athens, the
principles espoused and defended by the United States have a
much larger and powerful following.

D-Day was and is a major reason for this state of affairs.

Again, consider the sheer impressiveness of the feat, which
was not possible for any other belligerent in the Second
World War. Indeed, for twentieth-century America, D-Day is
the key moment; the decisive moment of renewal, and
affirmation on which everything else we call positive about
this country has been based; our expanding postwar
prosperity based, in the final analysis on confidence in our
way of life; our startling advances in civil rights and
human rights which distinguish our land from the places
where these things are talked about; our technological
achievements ranging from landings on the moon to the
inventiveness of the American private sector on which the
hopes and dreams of peoples around the world still depend.

And again, D-Day demonstrated kinship and the resilience and
toughness of free peoples everywhere that free principles
are established and enjoyed. To paraphrase Eisenhower's
address at Guildhall, he was not expressing a hope that
Abilene, Kansas and London, England -- separated by
distance, size and history -- were linked by a common
dedication to freedom of worship, equality before the law,
the liberty to act and speak as one saw fit subject only to
provisions that one trespass not on the similar rights of
others -- or a hope that a Londoner would fight for these
principles as would a citizen of Abilene. He was stating
these things as proven facts, facts proven on D-Day, in
Normandy and in the dozens of other battlefields in dozens
of theaters from Burma to the Po River Valley, places where
it was shown that mutual respect and liberty are the true
basis of our common humanity and existence.

So on June 6th, we permit ourselves to reflect on the
positives of our country and of our recent history.

What does D-Day show?

D-Day shows that given a choice, people will choose to live
by the principles of a free society. In the forties, the
Americans, with the clearest choice of all, made it and
defended it.

D-Day shows that in submitting to a test of arms, the armies
of free nations have superior resources and motivation of
the forces opposing them, and will probably win in the end.

D-Day and its aftermath show that free societies, because of
their dynamism, will always incur challenges, but that the
"proud confederation of equals" Americans strive for both at
home and abroad -- an ideal that passed within our reach 60
years ago -- remains within our reach.


Ellie

[thedrifter]

A day to remember

President salutes 'liberators who fought . . . in the noblest of causes'
By Finlay Lewis
COPLEY NEWS SERVICE
June 7, 2004


COLLEVILLE-SUR-MER, France – Six decades after young Americans stormed beaches named Omaha and Utah to help free a continent, President Bush yesterday honored D-Day veterans as "the liberators" whose deeds echo across the generations.

The road to victory in World War II, Bush said, "was hard and long, and traveled by weary and valiant men. And history will always record where that road began. It began here, with the first footprints on the beaches of Normandy."

D-Day veterans came here yesterday to walk in those footprints again and to view the stark white markers in the American cemetery overlooking Omaha Beach. And with Bush and French President Jacques Chirac, the veterans commemorated the 60th anniversary of the Allied invasion of Europe that hastened the downfall of Nazi Germany.

Other D-Day events were held across Normandy, drawing 20 world leaders including German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, the first time a German leader has been invited to such an occasion.

But the loudest applause and cheers were saved for the veterans, the men saluted by Bush as "the liberators who fought here in the noblest of causes."

Sixty years ago, thousands of their comrades died on the beaches or after parachuting into a turbulent night, seeking to catch occupying German troops by surprise.

The ranks of World War II veterans are thinning at a rate of about 1,100 a day. They know it isn't likely they will be able to attend the 70th anniversary commemoration.

"I'll never get here again," said John W. Hall of Little Rock, Ark., a sergeant with an armored unit who revisited the former minefield he had to negotiate as he fought his way off the beach. In 1944, Hall didn't stop at Normandy. He fought his way into the heart of Nazi Germany, where he posed for a snapshot on the porch of Hitler's Berchtesgaden retreat.

Howard Beach, 79, a reconnaissance trooper who went ashore here four days after the first wave hit the beach, said, "This is one experience the likes of which will never reoccur. World wars like that one are a thing of the past."

A Silver Star dangling from his World War II tunic, Beach, a retired industrial appraiser from La Mirada, said German small-arms fire had been suppressed by the time his unit struggled to shore through 200 yards of water under artillery shelling that inflicted heavy casualties.

"It means everything, being here, when you think how blessed I am just to be alive," Beach said.

Bush's message to men such as Beach was that a grateful nation still remembers what they did here.

"We still look with pride on the men of D-Day, on those who served and went on," Bush told a throng that included celebrities such as Tom Hanks, star of "Saving Private Ryan." On this day, the actor was playing a supporting role to the heroes of Operation Overlord, the invasion's code name.

Those who traveled to Normandy for yesterday's ceremony were gathered on a grassy field near the bluff that slopes to Omaha Beach, a tidal flat that was so efficiently covered by German gunners that famed war correspondent Ernie Pyle considered it "a pure miracle that we ever took the beach at all."

"We think of men not far from boys who found the courage to charge toward death and who often, when death came, were heard to call, 'Mom,' and 'Mother, help me,' " Bush said.

He also paid tribute to former President Reagan, who died Saturday and whose speech on the invasion's 40th anniversary immortalized the Army Ranger units that scaled the cliffs between Omaha and Utah beaches. French and American flags flew at half staff in his honor.

The Army's 1st and 29th Infantry Divisions stormed ashore at first light on D-Day, June 6, 1944, in the face of withering machine-gun fire from German emplacements at either end of the beach and from heavy artillery and mortar shelling from farther back along what Hitler proudly called his "Atlantic Wall."

Referring to the first day's fighting, Bush recounted, "One GI later said, 'As our boat touched sand and the ramp went down, I became a visitor to hell.' "

By day's end, the two divisions had moved one mile inland at a cost of 2,500 killed in action.

As dusk fell in England, Elbert Legg of Whispering Pines, N.C., boarded a glider, loaded with nine men and a jeep, that was towed by a C-47 whose pilot cut the craft loose over its drop zone.

Legg, a sergeant, and his men were lucky because they landed safely in a field. Many other gliders the night before had crashed into Normandy's huge hedgerows, resulting in casualties that Overlord's commanders subsequently deemed unacceptably high.

"The enemy was all around, but I didn't see any of them. They didn't shoot at me and I didn't shoot at them," said Legg, who retired after a military career as a colonel and commander of a battalion in the 82nd Airborne Division.

"It is a strange turn of history that called on young men from the prairie towns and city streets of America to cross an ocean and throw back the marching, mechanized evils of fascism," Bush said. "And those young men did it. You did it."

Neither Bush nor Chirac used the occasion to air political differences. Unlike in speeches leading up to yesterday, Bush did not attempt to draw a parallel between Europe's liberation and the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.

Also, Chirac, a critic of the Iraq invasion, did not allude to the policy disputes.

Instead, he paid tribute "to the legendary heroes of Operation Overlord," adding, "France will never forget."

Bush recounted the story of a young French woman finding her parents' house heavily damaged during the invasion's first day only to have her father shout in anticipation of liberation, "My daughter, this is a great day for France."

After noting that the young woman married a GI who landed on Omaha Beach that day, Bush remarked, "It was another fine moment in Franco-American relations."



ADRIAN WYLD / Associated Press
In ceremonies along the coast of Normandy, world leaders and veterans marked the 60th anniversary of D-Day yesterday. A bagpiper played a lament during a ceremony overlooking Juno Beach, which involved Canadian soldiers.




Reuters
French President Jacques Chirac, his wife, Bernadette, President Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin at yesterday's ceremony.




Associated Press
World War II veteran John Long of San Diego (far right) saluted with other Army Rangers who took part in the invasion of Europe 60 years ago.

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/m...9-1n7dday.html


Ellie

[thedrifter]

Surviving D-Day on a wing and a prayer

Oceanside man piloted 'flying coffin' for invasion
By Michael Burge
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
June 6, 2004

It was shortly after midnight 60 years ago today when James Wallace lifted off a runway in southern England en route to his rendezvous with destiny.

Army Flight Officer Wallace's aircraft was not the storied C-47 that dropped paratroopers behind enemy lines in the early hours of the D-Day invasion of France, the largest amphibious landing in history.

His ride was the little-remembered and much-maligned CG 4A glider that was towed aloft by a C-47, then released over the battlefields to descend silently earthward and land among Normandy's hedgerows.

The gliders were aerial trucks intended to deliver troops along with jeeps, howitzers and supplies to the paratroopers on the ground.

The engineless aircraft – 48 feet long, with 83-foot wingspans – were dubbed "flying coffins" by the men who flew them, and for good reason. They were flimsy contraptions made of aluminum, canvas and wood.

About the size of a semitrailer and only slightly less boxy, they could carry about 15 men or a 4,000-pound load.

Behind Wallace and his co-pilot in the hold of his airplane rested 2 tons of nitroglycerin, TNT and dynamite. Because the cargo was so volatile, they took off last.

Wallace, 84, of Oceanside, said flying conditions were terrible in the pre-dawn hours. The C-47s flew with their lights off to avoid detection.

"You couldn't see the horizon," he recalled. "It was just black, and you feel totally alone."

His glider was towed until it was about 1,000 feet over the target, then released.

Many of the gliders broke up on landing, spilling their men and equipment.

Casualties were heavy. Brig. Gen. Don Pratt, assistant commander of the 101st Airborne Division, was killed in a glider landing.

"When we landed, everything was rather still, except there was a lot of shooting down on the ground," Wallace said. "But we came in very quietly and as slow as possible."

Before taking off, they were told they would encounter hedgerows 6 to 8 feet tall. But they weren't told about the 60-to 80-foot-tall poplars that would clip the gliders or snag the paratroopers' chutes.

"As we landed, the first thing we knew was that our right wing hit something and the glider started to go that direction. Then we hit something on our left and we started to roll," Wallace said.

"When we stopped, all we had to do was undo our seat belts and crawl out. There was nothing left" of the plane, he said.

They stepped into chaos.

"There were bodies all over," Wallace said. "There was machine-gun fire over the tops of us, and the bombings. The field was littered with gliders."

Wallace and his co-pilot joined others in pulling the wounded and injured out of the line of fire.

He said his load of explosives miraculously survived the crash, and the troops were able to salvage all of it.

Many soldiers suffered broken legs when their gliders crashed into stone walls. Paratroopers also were injured after their chutes snagged in trees, then dropped the men 40 or 50 feet.

"Men . . . were badly cut up. I had a close friend (who) had his eye shot out," Wallace said.

He wasn't supposed to administer morphine in such a case, but he did.

"I thought if I didn't, he'd just be in pain," he said. Then he added, "He lived."

Wallace and his comrades dug in the night of June 6, isolated and uncertain.

"The next day, I guess about 9 or 10 o'clock in the morning, the beach troops met us, so we were relieved. We were supposed to be expecting them, but we couldn't believe that they would be able to . . . " he said, weeping at the memory.

The arrival of soldiers from Utah Beach, about five miles from where Wallace landed, meant the Allies had begun to loosen the Nazis' stranglehold on France. They had taken the first tentative steps toward Berlin.

Wallace said he was one of a handful of pilots from his group, the 87th Squadron of the 438th Troop Carrier Group, who made four glider landings during World War II and lived to tell about it.

After the war he became an art teacher in San Diego, married and had two daughters.

He said sometimes it bothers him that movies glorify the paratroopers and ignore the glider pilots.

"The people you hear about are the paratroopers, who were terrific," Wallace said. "But they did have support on the ground. . . . We were there."



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Michael Burge: (760) 476-8230; michael.burge@uniontrib.com




CRISSY PASCUAL / Union-Tribune
James Wallace of Oceanside flew a glider full of explosives into occupied France during the D-Day invasion.

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/m...mi6glider.html


Ellie

[thedrifter]

Operation Forager: 60 years ago, Allied victory in Pacific came within sight

By: GARY WARTH - Staff Writer

"Iron Mike" Mervosh witnessed the "worst atrocity" he had ever seen in his 35-year Marine career. Joe Kratcoski remembers an enemy soldier trying to chop off his head with a sword. George Clapper left on a stretcher and was hospitalized and blind for two years.

The nation honored the 60th World War II anniversary of the Normandy invasion last week, but these three North County men remember another D-Day that also happened 60 years ago this month: Operation Forager, which began with the Battle of Saipan on June 15, 1944.

The Marianas Islands were strategically important to the Allies during the war because an air base there would put the new American B-29 Superfortress bomber within striking distance of Japan, about 1,200 miles away. The chain of 15 volcanic islands includes Saipan, Tinian and Guam.


About 25,000 Japanese troops were on Saipan, which also had a large civilian population. The Japanese had told the natives that the invading Americans were barbaric, and many would choose to kill themselves rather than be captured.

By June 15, Saipan and Tinian had been shelled for two days by 15 battleships, 11 destroyers, six heavy cruisers and five light cruisers. In all, 535 ships carried 127,570 U.S. military personnel, and two-thirds of those were Marines.

Eight thousand Marines landed on the beach of Saipan in the invasion's first 20 minutes, and 20,000 American troops were ashore by nightfall.

Hitting the beach

Mike Mervosh of Oceanside had just turned 21 when he came ashore on an LCVP boat with about 30 other Marines.

"It was really intense when we first came in," he said. "That's when the stuff hits the fan. That's when we were bothered by heavy artillery and mortar fire."

Joe Kratcoski of Vista was a 20-year-old Marine sergeant when he landed on the beach the third day of the invasion.

"I was behind a log, and a sniper kept sniping at me for about two hours," he recalled. "I leaned over and lit up a cigarette, and where my head was, a bullet went through and tore the heel off my shoe."

The same bullet hit another soldier's arm and struck a third Marine in the chest.

On June 19, an air battle off the coast of Saipan destroyed 402 Japanese planes and three carriers, while the Navy lost only 17 planes. Japanese pilots in the battle were poorly trained and outnumbered, and the fight became known as the Great Marianas Turkey Shoot because of the number of downed enemy planes. It is remembered as one of the greatest carrier battles of the war.

Disturbing sight

During his 25 days on Saipan, Mervosh said he saw the most disturbing thing of his long career: Civilians jumping to their deaths from the Marpi Point cliffs, about 100 feet above a coral reef, where they had been cornered by approaching American troops.

"It was the worst I'd ever seen, and it stayed in my mind a long time," he said. "They (the Japanese) had the civilians brainwashed. We pleaded with civilians over loudspeakers. We had Marines who spoke Japanese and pleaded with them that we weren't going to harm them, but they were told we'd rape them and kill them."

Kratcoski also remembers seeing civilians jumping from cliffs.

"There were quite a few," he said. "In the hundreds. The Japanese, they passed the word that to be a Marine, you had to first kill your mother."

Mervosh said, "They threw their babies, children and then themselves. That blue sea turned into a red sea. I'd never seen anything like that."

Japanese soldiers in the end also took their own lives, either by their own hand or in suicidal banzai attacks.

"We enjoyed that," Mervosh said matter-of-factly. "I'd rather have them do that than going in and digging them out."

Mervosh said the charging Japanese troops had "complete disregard for their lives," running at Marines who were armed with machine guns.

"There's no way of telling," he said about the number he killed. "We had interlocking fire. You've got your set points to fire. You transverse that gun from left to right, and man, if they're in that zone, they're going down."

'I went in to get him'

While Mervosh doesn't know how many he killed, Kratcoski vividly remembers the first Japanese soldier he shot.

"He was in the woods, shooting at us," he said. "A sniper. I went in to get him."

Kratcoski said he saw the man on the ground, but realized he was just playing dead when he was about two feet away and saw him twitch. Kratcoski shot him.

Another time, Kratcoski remembers advancing up a hill when he encountered a Japanese soldier heading down. He pulled the trigger, but his rifle didn't fire. He madly pumped it until finally he got a bullet off.

Many Japanese soldiers hid in "spider holes" and caves throughout the island. Kratcoski remembers a woman emerging from a hole holding a baby, which she suddenly thrust at him. As Kratcoski instinctively reached for the infant, a Japanese soldier suddenly jumped out behind her, swinging a sword. Another soldier shot him.

"That was pretty scary," Kratcoski admitted.

The island was declared secured on July 9. By then, 3,426 American troops were dead, almost 24,000 Japanese troops had been killed and another 1,780 had been captured. Japanese Prime Minister Hideki Tojo resigned nine days later.

Taking Guam, Tinian

American troops invaded Guam on July 21, and that island was secured Aug. 10.

Japan had invaded Guam, an American possession, less than 24 hours after attacking Pearl Harbor in 1941. The island was the only populated U.S. soil occupied by Japanese during the war. The people of Guam were herded into concentration camps and endured Japanese rule, and sometimes brutality, for 2 1/2 years before their liberation.

American troops invaded Tinian on July 24 and secured the island by Aug. 10.

George Clapper of Vista was in the Navy, working as a hard-hat diver stationed aboard a rescue ship during the Saipan and Tinian invasions.

With a plan to use Tinian as an airfield, Navy Seabees (construction battalions) had to build a pier on the shore to unload ships. Before they could begin, however, divers like Clapper had to see what was underwater.

They found dead Americans, he said, and they decided to leave them there.

"We didn't raise bodies," Clapper said. "We took dogtags from Allied personnel. They'd been there long enough they didn't need to be raised. There wasn't much left of them. Mostly skeletons."

Clapper was on top of a ladder when his ship lurched while offshore Tinian. He lost his balance and fell, plummeting through an open hatch, landing 32 feet down. He broke his neck, back, left arm and left leg.

He ended up hospitalized for two years, and endured temporary blindness during that time, too. He still remembers the morning he heard some men in his room, and he asked them if there was a window at the foot of his bed. After two years of lost vision, he was beginning to make out a faint light, and by the end of that day he could see again.

Except for the time in the hospital, Clapper has been an artist his entire life. At 81, he still puts an easel on his patio and paints, and some of his pictures are on display at Ginger Grayham Fine Arts on Grand Avenue in Carlsbad.

"I went back to a reunion six years ago," Clapper said about his old rescue ship off Tinian. "They said, 'By God, George, we didn't think you made it!'"

Operation Forager had a significant role in helping end the war: After the resignation of Tojo and his war cabinet, the Japanese military began to lose power in the government, and the party opposing the war grew more powerful.

On Aug. 6, 1945, a B-29 Superfortress named Enola Gay took off from Tinian and dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan. Another was dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, on Aug. 9, and Japan surrendered on Aug. 15.

Three and a half months later, the final 47 Japanese soldiers hiding on Saipan finally emerged and surrendered.

Contact staff writer Gary Warth at gwarth@nctimes.com or (760) 740-5410.




http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2004..._286_12_04.txt


Ellie