The sands of Omaha Beach were at their feet and tears flowed from their watery eyes, inevitably, knowing they were on the venerable shores of Normandy, France, where so many young Americans died on D-Day 80 years ago.
World War II veterans, many of them over 100 years old and possibly returning to France one last time, made a pilgrimage Tuesday to the bloodiest of the five beaches where Allied forces landed on June 6, 1944. They remembered fallen friends, relived the horrors of battle, thanked themselves for their good fortune to have survived and mourned those who made the ultimate sacrifice.
They also delivered a message to future generations to whom they owe a great debt: “Don’t forget what we accomplished.”
“If we hadn’t been successful, they probably wouldn’t be here,” said Lilburn “Bill” Wall, a World War II bomber pilot who celebrates his 101st birthday this week. Wall spoke as world leaders gathered in France to pay tribute to the Normandy invasion generation.
As the decades have passed, the anniversary of D-Day in Normandy has become increasingly festival-like, with World War II enthusiasts dressed in military uniforms and driving around in restored period vehicles clogging the region’s leafy roads. But with fewer and fewer veterans around, the commemorations have become more real, inevitably raising questions about whether the memories, pathos and lessons of World War II will fade without them.
“There are things worth fighting for. I wish there was another way than killing each other. But sometimes you’re asked to do something and you just do it, you know? That’s what it is. These guys looked death in the eye and they just kept going,” said Walter Stitt, who turned 100 in July and survived the tank battle, which saw three tanks destroyed.
“All those young people who never got a chance to come home and find the love of their lives and hold their children in their arms,” he said in Omaha, wiping away tears.
At the Normandy American Cemetery, a neatly tended site of 9,387 graves on the Omaha Bluffs, 100-year-old Bob Gibson paid tribute to his fallen comrades on D-Day, the day he landed on another, less bloody, American landing beach codenamed Utah.
“I don’t want this to happen to anyone else,” he said. “Believe me, I’ve seen so many boys who couldn’t even go to the beach. We were all 18, 19 years old.”
“I’m glad you could come. The old lady upstairs looked after you,” he said, pointing to the sky.
On the beaches of Normandy, where the largest land, sea and air fleet in history smashed through Adolf Hitler’s defenses in Western Europe on the day of the Normandy landings and helped bring about his downfall 11 months later, Allied veterans are among the VVIP attendees at 80th anniversary celebrations this week.
On Tuesday, many more veterans took ferries across the English Channel from southern England, where 23,000 Allied paratroopers planeloaded across the channel to land in Normandy on the day of the invasion, and more than 132,000 more aboard thousands of boats that traversed the vast expanse of water to land on Utah, Omaha and three other beaches codenamed Gold, Juno and Sword.
“It felt like we could use the boats as stepping stones and walk across the channel,” recalled Robert Pedigo, 100, a nose gunner on a B-24 bomber that flew over the Normandy beaches and attacked German forces from the air on Normandy Day. Pedigo was part of a group of veterans who visited Omaha on Tuesday as part of an 80th anniversary trip to France organized by American Airlines.
Returning to base on the evening of D-Day, we were told that the Allied forces had suffered thousands of casualties.
“It was overwhelming,” he recalled. Of the 30 bombing missions he flew over occupied France and Nazi Germany that day, it was “one of the easiest,” but “the emotional impact was the greatest.”
More than 4,400 Allied soldiers died on D-Day, including over 2,500 Americans, and the ensuing Battle of Normandy saw Allied casualties rise staggeringly, with 73,000 killed and 153,000 wounded.
Now, 80 years later, the veterans are creating happy new memories along with the painful ones from the past.
On a ferry bound for Mont Saint-Michel in France on Tuesday, about 20 British veterans gathered on deck, waving like rock stars to well-wishers.
A pipe band played a stirring rendition of “Brave Scotland.” Sailors stood at attention. Fireboats sent hoses flying in sweeping arcs. A military transport plane flew nearby twice.
Bernard Morgan, a retired RAF soldier who worked in communications on the day of the Normandy landings, laughed and said: “I feel more comfortable coming here today than I did 80 years ago.”
