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Today, we celebrate the 78th anniversary of the largest seaborne operation in history, namely the D-Day landings in Normandy on June 6, 1944. On this fateful day, the invasion fleet of more than 5,000 vessels and 156,000 Allied soldiers stormed the fortifications of the Atlantic Wall built by the Third Reich. Shortly after midnight, the amphibious assault was preceded by landings of paratroopers and glider-borne infantry who suffered great losses while securing key locations on the flanks of the invasion beaches. The success of the meticulously planned operation led to the liberation of France and, eventually, to the Allied victory on the Western Front. This day, we pay tribute to all those who participated in this great endeavor.
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Over the years, I’ve learned that I had distant relatives on both sides of the Normandy operation.
My maternal grandfather’s cousin was a truck driver in the Wehrmacht and in 1971 described to me what the paratroop operation looked like from the German point of view. A lot of credit goes to those airborne soldiers who took alternative actions when their drops were fouled up. The Germans were confused. (His unit was pulled out and after a leave at home he was sent to the Eastern Front where he ended the war as a POW of the Soviets. Because he was an enlisted man and a small-time farmer he was sent home sooner than many others.)
My father’s cousin was a lawyer who was trained as an Artillery officer before WWII started. Most of his class was sent to the Philippines. He was sent to a program that family could not identify when I visited them in 1969. However, he was fluent in French and I think that he had traveled there. He shows up in the St. Lo, France city council minutes as a G-5 officer (military government) a few weeks after that city was a scene of vicious fighting. He was hunting for stay-behinds (German intelligence personnel ordered to remain in the liberated zones or German deserters). Later, he shows up in Army directives ordering that Nazi files that troops found be shipped to his field office, preparing for war crimes investigations. After the war, he worked in DC for the Federal Trade Commission.
-- rwr
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