Community Corner

Remembering the Heroes of Omaha Beach

68th Anniversary of D-Day

On June 5, 1944, 175,000 men, a fleet of 5,000 ships and landing craft, 50,000 vehicles, and 11,000 planes sat in southern England, poised to attack secretly across the English Channel along a 50-mile stretch of the Normandy coast of France.

Three years ago a handful of those 175,000 men who, as teenagers, had crammed into that armada returned to the beaches of Normandy to celebrate the 65th anniversary of that historic day.

They returned as granddads to remember lost friends and comrades. To again receive the thanks of the French. To put a few ghosts to rest. To let their grandchildren know that grandpa, in his youth literally saved the world.

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I traveled to Omaha Beach for the 60th and 65th anniversaries of D-Day. We traveled with the veterans of the 29th Infantry Division. The 29th, a National Guard unit from Maryland and Virginia, along with th First Division, The Big Red One, landed in a hell known as Omaha Beach that morning.

Today we'd like to thank the heroes whom we are honored to know: Earll Arden, Harold Baumgarten, John Barnes, Sam Dixon, Gale Garman, James Lockhart, Lester Lease, Don Null and Steven Mlnikoff.

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From The National World War II Museum in New Orleans: In the early morning darkness of June 6, thousands of Allied paratroopers and glider troops landed silently behind enemy lines, securing key roads and bridges on the flanks of the invasion zone.

As dawn lit the Normandy coastline the Allies began their amphibious landings, traveling to the beaches in small landing craft lowered from the decks of larger ships anchored in the Channel. They assaulted five beaches, code-named Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno, and Sword. The bloodiest fighting occurred at Omaha, where the Americans suffered more than 2,000 casualties.

Thus began the long-awaited Liberation of Europe. World War II would end less than a year later on May 8, 1945.


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