D-Day Plus 50: Louisiana Remembers

But I do feel a sense of pride in having been a part of the problem of the biggest amphibious and air assault that will ever take place. I can't conceive of another operation that vast taking place with the new weapons and the new technology that they have. I think we saw the biggest one that will ever be in the little part of it. You know, for the life of me, I can't remember the weather we had except that it was not stormy. And I don't remember rain. But it, somehow, it wouldn't like this. After half a century, some memories are fading. But Murray-Revelay, Olter Garden, and other Louisiana veterans will never forget that they were part of the

biggest event of the century, the Allied invasion of Normandy France. It was the biggest military charge in history, an operation codenamed Overlord. It was the beginning of the end of a nightmare that had overshadowed the world, a nightmare bred from anxiety, frustration, and failure. The years leading up to D-Day were plagued by the poverty of the Great Depression. Louisiana, like the rest of the nation, struggled and looked for solutions. And while Huey Long promised to make every man a king, the tides of unrest fill the air. In Europe, the Nazi war machine grew, flexing its

muscle in the face of all of Europe, the death and carnage that had wasted a generation just two decades before seemed to be inevitable once again. It began with lies, and the notion that all men were not created equal. One by one, countries were trampled underfoot. Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Norway, Holland, Belgium, and finally France. By 1940, only Great Britain and Russia stood between the Third Reich and total control of Europe and possibly the world. Hitler began his assault on Britain, the Blitzkrieg, nighttime bombing designed to break the British will and bring democracy to her needs. Celebrated UNO historians, Stephen Ambrose, recalls the political climate of those times. Well, D-Day was the pivot point of the 20th century. The great question of the 20th century was, who's going to prevail?

Democracy, fascism, or communism. It all came together on D-Day when it looked like it was going to be either a communism or fascism that was going to be triumphant in this world. And the democracy from the record of the 1930s was a gunner, the British and the French and the Americans, the only three great democracies were on their backs, their unemployment rates, or 25, 30, 35%, their factories were producing at one third of capacity or less. Meanwhile, Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia look like dynamic states that were really getting their act together and really pushing ahead. Hitler's assault on Britain was relentless. If Britain fell, Americans were warned that they might be next. We are conquered, all will be enslaved. And the United States will be left, single-handing, the gods, the rights of men. But the memories of World War I lingered.

The United States was reluctant to make the battle charge. I hope the United States will keep out of this law. I believe that it will. But then there was Pearl Harbor, the final call to action, when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on December of 1941, killing thousands of American boys, the United States woke up to the rest of the world's nightmare. In just a few years, America transformed her fighting machine. The United States Army in 1940 had 160,000 minutes, that ranked 16th in the world, right behind the name. Four years later, an army of 8 million very well-equipped men, they went across in 6,000 ships of all times, including the Haden Coast. None of which had existed in 1940. They were covered by 11,000 airplanes. None of which had been built in 1940. We just miraculous what American industry did. Hitler knew that the attack was coming.

He had assigned a field marshal Erwin Rommel to the job of bolstering the Atlantic Wall's defenses. More than a million mines were set, and thousands of obstacles were put in place. The obvious place for the attack was at Calais, only 20 miles across the channel from Dover. The Normandy beaches lay 100 miles from the British ports of Southampton and Portsmouth. It was a span that no invader had successfully crossed in nearly three centuries. The original plan called for a 25-mile-wide invasion front. Then, General Montgomery insisted that the front be much broader, at least 50 miles, so that the Allies could land at least five divisions instead of three. But they didn't have enough landing craft. Get them said, Montgomery. And Eisenhower did. He did with a lot of help from a new audience man named Andrew Higgins and thousands of southeast Louisiana workers who mobilized, and sometimes traveled nearly 100 miles a day in order to build thousands of landing craft

needed to win the war. Edna plays on Stanley and her mother went to work outside of the house for the very first time, commuting from St. Rose to New Orleans each and every day. My mom decided that she and I were going to go and go to work at Higgins. We didn't need work much at that time. You didn't hear too many women going out to work, but we did because they didn't have enough men to do all the work, so in the shipyard, and they had to hire women too, so we went and see what we could do. Peggy Moran from Reserve, Louisiana, like thousands of other women and men across the country felt that working for the war effort was her patriotic duty. And I felt that myself, when I went to Higgins, that I was with my part for the war effort. I really sincerely felt that, I was. Dr. Steven Ambrose says that Eisenhower once told him that Louisiana shipbuilding role was crucial. If any Higgins hadn't designed and built those landing crafts,

we'd never cut it on in over an open beach. So he's the man who won the war for us. As America leaped into World War II, Louisiana reacted with vigor, and by 1944, thousands had signed up and for all kinds of reasons. Like their fathers, their grandfathers, and their great-grandfathers before them who had gone to war, some of them began their journey right here at Jackson Barracks. We used to always go down to Jackson Barracks and talk about the different battles that was fought. We went in, me and John Berlin. I mean, it was very interested in the military, it was very interested in the paratroopers. We wanted something dangerous, something behind lines and all that. There was nothing going on in the world, and it was a war, and I just wanted to say what it was all about. Pearl Harbor, I guess, infuriated the whole population of the United States, and we were all as one, and with the idea of

vanquishing our enemies as fast as we could, and everybody wanted to do something, and there was a wild rush to volunteer and to enlist. I was reluctant to do it, to begin with, but after knowing the reason we were doing it and seeing what was happening in Germany and other nations, that I was real glad to be there. On the evening of June 5th, more than 13,000 paratroopers shaved their heads, black on their faces, sharpened their knives, and then prepared to jump into France at night and initiate Operation Overlord. The first planes to take off, carried soldiers who had never seen battle. They were the 101st Airborne Division, known as the Screaming Eagles. They told us this was it that gave us a talk,

Eisenhower came around and talked to us, and all that, though. Eisenhower will on you and give us a big step talk, you know. And when it's going to the plane, I've seen G-Cuntney pass, and that's where my friend was in G-Cuntney, so we're down to have a good log, John, and say, good luck, Lou. Okay, now we went to the plane. So you just sit there and you just kind of contemplate this momentous event that you're a party to after a final of the channel a bit. It got pretty rough. The plane would wave her and the sky and all that up. Oh, I was scared. You have an apparatus in the plane. It's a light fixture that has a green light and a red light, and as long as the red light is on, everybody stands packed. When you get over to it close to your drops on everybody stands up, hooks up your snap fast on this anchor line, and then you're standing in the door,

and you go out, you go out fast. I got to the door, I'll see that. I say, point that pretty. Me at all, Carlos, for that you're live. Flash is all over the place and everything else. That's nice, then, and you're out. John, the shoot opened. I looked up at my shoot and then that's when I realized, those suckers are shooting bullets at me. First thing you do is get in the door and you say, what in the hell am I doing up here? I don't belong here, but that's just a flash. And the next thing you know, you have got pop blast and you're committed. We saw the green light and jumped my ass and said, go, and the other we went. But they must have jumped us about 300 feet. I think he could fall about 80 feet before he shoot opens, and then you make an isolation. And on that first one, I hit the ground. I was not totally on time since. And I woke up, I didn't know where the heck that was.

And everywhere it was laying in the fields there, I went right after we landed. You can see the planes coming over. Oh, I mean hundreds and hundreds of them, with paratroopers all jumping out and everywhere. But all you see in some of them are being shot down. You can see the plane coming in and see that the 24 on the feet, you can see them good. They've arranged to move. And one of those planes wasn't one of my friends who was on John Berlin. They never did find anything of him. He was going, man. He was going with the wet. I woke up, I didn't know where the heck that was. Didn't nobody run me, nobody. And then I couldn't walk up. I had broken my ankle. It was hard to realize that they made what these suckers shooting at me for. I did too many things. I saw a little place looked like a forest. I later found out it was a hedge rope. The hedge rope would big stone walls. Over there, I guess, sentries that they took the stones off the fields

and that's how they mentioned they feel that these stones and they made hedgerows. And Germans behind everyone, I mean, had to take every hedge rope, one after another. They were the opponents. I'll tell you that. And they were good fighters. They were their professional fighters. They gave us these crickets. Now, you just gettin' popcorn. Click, click, like a cricket and makes it not a noise. It's a squeeze with your thumb. They gave us that. And your head, I think, your click twice and if you were a friendly force, your clip may be four times. I've got what the numbers was. The best thing about that, they were the Germans were the two of them. So it was crickets away. You would stand off at a distance. You were here. They were there. They moved to the right. You moved to the left. You flanked them here. They flanked you there. You withdrew. You advanced. They advanced. Shootin' it. Shootin'. Everybody shootin'. Like a bunch of carboys and Indians. Shootin'.

Anything that moves, man. And as they got light and dawns, start comin' and get light. You can see where the parrot, some parrot troops land and trees, hangin' some trees and all the shoots are caught on the trees and all. And where it was all this hangin', they had dead because the Germans had shot them all. And it wasn't until the next morning that actually that we met the soldiers coming up in the beach. The infantry and all that. And they had some tanks and all that. And then they fought with us. Lewis Frye, Walter Garten, and Maury Ravelay fought on through the rest of the war. Ravelay was captured by the Germans during the Battle of the Balls and became a POW at Stellike 13. Garten was wounded but lived. Frye survived every battle of the war without so much as a scratch. D-Day was the first encounter with Germans for many troops,

but our fliers already had flown many, many hazardous missions. And fighter pilot Bob O'Neill was certainly no exception. O'Neill had spent the month before D-Day bombing and scraping marshalling yards near Rouen. In his P-47, which by the way was named Mabelu. At the time that I got overseas there, my wife Betty was pregnant. So I named the plane Mabelu. Her name is Betty Lou. So I named it Mabelu. The reason we hit it was all the yards were filled with ammunition trains and supplies and stuff like that. To tally for that day, the intelligence report showed we destroyed over 28 locomotives alone in addition to just numerous box cars and all because you hit one. If it's loaded with ammunition, it just goes right down the line.

June 6, 1944 was Bob O'Neill's 22nd birthday. And at that age, he was already flight commander of the 406 fighter group. It was a day that he and his men were especially ready. Well, we knew that the invasion was coming off and we surmised where it would come off because we had been busy about a week. Previous die bombing softening up the area where the invasion went on third. And then about a week before the actual invasion, they made a false raid on the Yep to confuse the Germans and make the Germans think they were going to land at the Upper Calais. It wasn't until the the night before on June the 5th on the evening. The assemblers on the 10th and they broke the news to us tomorrow is D-Day. And of course, all of us are late, you know, the whole German Air Force is going to show up. The group took off

and Pascrogyn was signed at 5,000 feet over the beach head and as we crossed the channel, it was sort of broken clouds and all but you could see ships. All over the whole channel looks like they were ships from England completely over to France. So we spent that day in the next day more or less patrolling this air carbon since the German Air Force didn't show up. Then we went back to our routine of strafing and skip bombing and everything else of all the reinforcements that were coming up to the coast. We were flying three and four missions a day. So they finally told us look fellas, you're over here to the end of the war. So you sit down and you figure out there ain't no way with this kind of stuff going on that you can last to the end of the war.

So you say yourself, you're going to go out there and take all this many as you can before they get you. And I think that's what saved a lot of pilots because the more questions you show and combat, the more your chances are surviving. You'll find and if you read a history of all wars, the guy that runs or a scared is the one that gets killed. The American assault from the channel was set for 6 30 a.m. In the first misty light, the sea suddenly appeared full of ships, some 5,000 of them. At each hour, the landing craft, carrying the men of the 29th division and the first infantry, broke their rendezvous circles and hit it for the Normandy beaches. Omaha was the crucial beach, the link between Utah beach on the

west and the British beaches to the east. Omaha was physically difficult to cross because the troops were now faced with 100 foot high bluffs. American troops faced an uphill journey to try and take the German strong plants. That was bad enough, but there was another reason why the offensive at Omaha was especially difficult. The planners of the assault had assumed that the innovative fences would be manned by second-rate German troops. The allies knew that Rommel was saving his best field of visions and reserve, ready to move them where they were needed the most. But shortly before the invasion fleet sailed, one of Rommel's divisions was moved to Omaha to practice invasion defensive maneuvers. So this well-trained division was right on the bluffs, exactly where the Germans needed them. Suddenly, the German maneuvers became the real thing. Lushin Lebord from Hamburg, Louisiana, was with the inexperienced, but well-trained twenty-night division. Tom McCann from Enro, was with the

battle-proven first infantry, known as the Big Red One. They were to hit the eastern part of the beach. Bruce and Jean Ottomar, Cajun brothers from Homa, where CB's attached to the first wave. They both piloted rhino barges that were to ferry in troops and equipment. Navigating through shallow waters was a job they had been familiar with, most of their lives in the Louisiana swamps. Most of the cages from around Homa and that area used to draw out in Morgan City and they drew up, they steered a shrimp boat, oyster boats, tugs. They knew how to handle and operate small, small, small equipment, up to 85 feet. And they could get well if people couldn't. But what Bruce and Jean could ever be prepared for was what they encountered at day break that morning. The things they saw and did would stay with them, the rest of their lives. D.J. June 6, we went in and in the first wave. As it goes, we had a little rough, it was a little rough because we had to move the bodies so we could lower our ramps to unload the first now.

And they were floating from right to left as the waves that can occur. It would go, they would move with the car. This german and the pil box and fun. I've just pressed one button and wiped out the hole and anything they're valid there. And this is a must have been in between 1775 minutes, one time just behind the desk. There are two boys from Homer that passed on and we knew them when they were on their sodas. And they went to the cello and followed where we were from. And they went on through this little valley. This one, we sat at the flamethors here on as he was walking in the valley and killed both of them. And it made say integrity got you. Many of the first wave approached the beach with no problem. Nothing, no artillery, no

modifier, nothing. And they thought that this was going to be a cinch. But the german's held our fire until the ramps were down on the landing craft. And as soon as our ramps went down and the troops began to file off, all hell broke loose. And the machine guns from every direction trained on these boats as the men were coming off. And they slaughtered them. Leboards boat, like so many others, ran into an underwater obstacle and sank. My boat struck an underwater obstacle about 50 or 60 yards from the beach. And began to circle. The Navy man on the boat told us to get off. We worked our way into the beach by letting the waves, the wave action

carriers, as we danced on our toes. We had these packs on our back and holding our car beams over our head to keep them from getting wet. And gradually, if we worked our way into where we were on, we could walk in the rest of the wave. When the board finally did make land, he found even more chaos. When we hit the beach, we scattered out until we were able to appraise the situation. And it wasn't good. Most of the men dug a hole into the sand with their bare hands to get some protection until something happened. And we didn't know what was going to happen. Many of the Germans had rushed to their battle stations of the network of interconnecting trenches along the tops of the bluffs. And enemy fire continued to be as heavy as it was at HR. Artillery and border shells pounded the allied boats as they came in. Machine gun fire swept the vast beaches. And sharp shooters picked off individual

soldiers, especially those who were stopped at the water's edge. Nothing seemed to be going according to plan. Men were lined up against the sea wall. The gravel sea wall. In all stages of compared to not wounded, that's when the commanders made every possible effort to get people to get killed crossing the beach or accomplishing something rather than getting killed doing nothing. By the time Tom McCann reached the beachhead, he found himself in the midst of what appeared to be total chaos. It was a grand junkyard. All these boats, they were boats that couldn't move in them. I mean, they they was far, they got stuck because of the tide going out and things like it. They were shell and they were hit.

And some of them would turn over. And they just, it was just awful. We didn't know what was going on in the beaches. All we knew that we was to go in get there and go forward and go as far as we could. But most of the roads off the beach and the key to the Omaha attack were still controlled by the enemy. I said this that if I could survive the beaches, I believed I would live through the morning. Oh, Despite the bloodshed

on the beaches, many feel that the most difficult assignment of the invasion was given to Lieutenant Colonel James Rutter, his assignment captured point to hook. That was a 100-foot high cliff upon which sat six large 155-millimeter guns, guns that were aimed at Omaha and Utah beaches. This assignment required a very special breed of soldiers, the rangers. Harvey Koenig of New Iberia was one of Rutter's men. I was a ranger. I joined the rangers when I first organized in the United States. And I did that because I wanted to get the damn war over with. The mission at point to hook required these well-trained soldiers to knock out crucial enemy defenses. It was had to be invaded because you had six big weapons, 155 rifles. They could use those weapons on Omaha, Utah, or the ships at sea, mainly the beaches.

When they found them, they was headed for the Utah beach. If they could have fired them at Utah beach, then Utah beach would not have been made. They said we couldn't do it. However the word can't was not in the ranger vocabulary. In the early morning hours of June sixth, the rangers boarded ship and sailed into rough seas. The seas was rough. We bailed water, hauled away in with our helmets. We lost some ships. We lost some men. We lost one man. It was the best swimmer in our company. We lost him at sea. Once they reached land, the rangers had one focus and that was to scale the cliffs. Yes, they got some of our men. They cut some of our ropes, some of our people fell. But once we got the man up there with a B.A.R. a running automatic rifle. Once they got him up there, then he in turn settled a German down and then he could climb on

out there one right after another. Sergeant Coney, using only a grappling hook and ropes, climbed to the top of Point de Hock. While his comrades eliminated the big guns, he destroyed the German communication center. When I got up there in the lines I cut with communication line from Utah to Omaha, Utah Beach, Omaha Beach. They don't have communication one to the other. They're out of luck. By the time the cliff was taken, only 90 of the 225 men were still able to carry arms. But to the Rangers, it was the mission that mattered. The whole mission was complete mission. It couldn't bend no more completed. In fact, I think the second range of Italian completed their mission before any other military organization did. We lost some men? Yes. We always lose men. We lost men every place we go. If you don't lose men, it's a shoe end. What are we there for? We didn't get medals.

Where other people would get them? We trained to do that. They had to have guts. They had to have, I won't say nerve willpower. They've got willing to get after them. Ready to do it. Ready to give them the heart and soul for it. After taking Point de Hock, the Rangers then pressed on to liberate the town of Grand Camp. It was behind the cliffs. The Rangers gave everything for the freedom of these French people and their sacrifice has forged a bond between them and the citizens of Grand Camp. I know this when you go to Brown Camp, that city there loves the Rangers because the Rangers went down there and freed their people. After half a century, he says they haven't forgotten. They haven't, they never will.

I haven't, never will. No. The 50th anniversary of D.J. was an international look there. And once again, the eyes of the world were focused on the Normandy beaches. World leaders flew over the famous beaches, codemamed Omaha and Utah and gathered for ceremonies to honor the living and mourn the dead. Now we come to this hallowed place

that speaks more than anything else in silence. Here on this quiet plateau on this small piece of American soil, we honor those who gave their lives for us 50 crowded years ago. And so let us now ask them all the veterans of the Normandy campaign to stand if they can and be recognized. The days surrounding the 50th anniversary were days of reckoning for everyone.

Americans stared at the cliffs in total awe of the men who scaled those granite walls as the Germans fired straight down on them. Veterans who were now in the twilight of their lives made their way to the beaches for perhaps a last look at the hallowed ground and the waters that for a few hours ran red with human blood. Others wanting something to take home that would remind them of this day grabbed up fistful of sand as it keeps saying. Marvin Brett was one of them grasping for pieces of his past on Utah beach. Perhaps remembering all that he did as the operator of a landing craft on that longest day.

I'm very distinctly remember my very first trip into the beach. I am in this assignment of watercraft and I'm looking ahead and I see the machine gun bullets spraying the water in my path cascading the water 10-12 feet up in the air and as I'm driving ashore I'm looking right down death's call and your first reaction is let's get the heck out of here. I'll go right or left or whatever. Just turn it back but there's no way you can do that. You must go on so consequently and I don't know how I did it. I don't think I could do it today but there's a young man 18 and with an assignment and a duty to perform I would tell you that all of us came ashore in the hail of gunfire. This was gunfire I could see

and making no mistake about it. I am unable to tell you at this moment how much of it went by I could hear you know whizzing them but you just say well you know miss that one or they miss me and poor shot probably you know but as I said I had just turned 18 on this time that I was coming ashore and for the most part I was just a young man or one might say a kid but I felt that overnight certainly I became a man. Today as Marvin Brett walked the beach of Utah he thought not only the price that he had paid but the price that the world had paid that day 50 years ago and I would imagine many persons here today are here to reflect on the price of war. I would hope that many lessons will have been learned from this moment in time for all nations.

Some veterans chose to relive their D-Day experience in a literal way. Many paratroopers jump once again into the fields where they had dropped 50 years earlier. But hey jumping by child we jump. Boy jumped at 600 feet. They look like they're more than a thousand feet of it but see them all together. New Orleans, Ed Whelan was back in Normandy for the first time in 50 years

and being there helped him bring back vivid memories of the day that he jumped as a member of the 82nd Airborne. He had one on top of that and they had no space just like this. Really? Yeah. They pushed each other out the door. Yeah but don't push me. Modern-day Airborne Troops re-enacted the D-Day drop in order to salute those who had done it 50 years ago. We went all around the peninsula and came in from the other side and came back to the drawers and the rod was good. It wasn't as windy as the other one was windy as it is here. The only thing when we hit the hot guy in the aircraft, the guy just panicked. And I don't know what I said. I read that article of paper quite a few planes at that because the pilots had never been in combat when I saw that and the aircraft coming up, it's just, you know,

a lot of time, that's what I said. It's just natural. Either, you don't have it. In St. Merrick-Lets and in other small towns surrounding the beaches, there was continuous celebration. Church bells rang, mass was held, and prayers were sent. Mary P. Hart from Bunky, Louisiana was there in behalf of her deceased husband who jumped on D-Day with the 82nd Airborne. I think it is just wonderful. I'm happy to be able to honor the help on of these men who gave us our freedom. These uncommon men were treated as celebrities by the French, who thanked the old soldiers for liberating their towns. How many were hurt in the heart and flesh forever?

How many mothers, wives, and children upset forever because of the deal one they would never see again. We have no right to forget their bravery and sacrifice have to be marked forever in her memories. New Orleans fighter pilot Bob O'Neill's mission on D-Day was to fly up and down the beach of Normandy and protect the Allied invading forces from the Luftwaffe. Only two German planes, however, showed up that day and they made only one pass. In the days and weeks that followed, O'Neill's job was to engage the enemy's ground forces, which was attempting to halt the Allied march. It was on one of these missions that O'Neill finally encountered what was left of the German Air Force in France. Unfortunately, a German pilot was the better man that day and O'Neill's P-47 Thunderbolt was shut up from beneath him.

His burning aircraft tragically came down in the village of V&E, killing a small boy and injuring a number of people. Now that you were told me she died. That's where your airplane gave me no gate call. There was an old shed. A shed here. And this was a good shed. And that was the booty shot. Well, it came through this way. Yes, because it turned when it hit. When it hit the trees, it probably made it turn. It must have trimmed them off like that. German defenders who followed his shoot from a distance discovered that they were too late when they arrived at his landing site. Anger then determined to find the American pilot. Though not to commander threatened to kill one villager each day until the French handed over the downed American pilot. And what happened with the parachute? Somebody probably told you about it. One thing is that when the German came, there was nothing left. He did such an abel theatre.

And everything disappeared, like as we say French, like a male in the mailbox. And when they came, and he just had the tip of his nose coming out of the hay. There you saw it. Nothing else that was the only thing. The German passed by and they didn't see a thing. No, never. And we were frightened. What would have happened? Kiski's is a bit of a bit of a way. But you don't want to be afraid of a ghost? They would have killed us, which means in French you said they would put our weapon on the wrong side. Yeah. They would have killed us. And why did they hide them? They would have killed us. They would have killed us. Well, you've got to do what should be done. They're all good. They have killed us. You've got to save what has to be saved. Despite the threat, no villages were shot. And weeks later, O'Neill's life was finally secure when American forces over and the village of Viene.

O'Neill did not have much of a chance to say thank you in the excitement of the liberation. But now, 50 years later, he has returned to say just that. One of the most responsible for saving Bob O'Neill's life is now the mayor of Viene. He and the townspeople have planned a full day of activities just for Bob O'Neill. And the first stop was a French grammar school. It's your father playing and another one there. That's wonderful. Here, O'Neill is introduced. And let's all ask questions. If you will be seated in your first week, you will be there.

Where do you force to come to France or did you volunteer? Was I forced to come to France for the violence? I assure you, not. We are all willing to come. On O'Neill, we are all willing to come. On the summit, if I say, that's his after. Wait, it's his after. It's his after. It's his after. You might explain to them that back when America was under the heel of the British. Estimates of the Canadian tirelessly will not be born again. The French government came to the help. May be exhausted. It's possible even, to be featured in any city, unstable hands, or elsewhere. That's all we have to do. It was our purpose was you had a man who was threatening the whole world. The whole world was the only way to protect our children, as well as...

It was the only way to protect our children. Next, O'Neill returned to the wrong near the Chateau where he was hidden, and it is here that he acknowledges his debt to Eve's caragan. I had no fear of being killed once I got in the hands and was up here. I felt that I was saved. Everybody was so friendly and they've already risked their life to secret me and Jaime here. When you say to people to save your life, that risked their own life to save me. He's like a brother to me. I'm not more than the brother to save you to me. Later in the evening, the townspeople gathered to celebrate the special bond

that has developed between them and the American fighter pilot. At dinner, Eve's caragan presents Bob O'Neill with an honorary citizenship and a silver medal. A less conventional gift follows that. At first, it is a piece of your own claim. My brother, Philip, and he took it on the church space after the crash, the 19th August 1944. We are very happy to give it all the way over. From America to here, I dreamed of finding a piece of my play. Thank you very much. Thank you. O'Neill, in turn, has gifts for caragan. I will now officially make him a member of the squadron. My daughter is so much mad now at the clinical curriculum of O'Neill. This category is good.

Today, the door was finally closed in an unfulfilled mission that has rested in the corner of Bob O'Neill's mind all of these many years. Now, he had returned to say thank you for saving his life, only to find warm and grateful people thanking him for what he had done. Once again, Bob O'Neill would leave the village of V&E to embark on the rest of his life. Just look at me young fellas while here and look at them. You see, they didn't live very long, and that's the shame. And it's just, you might say, the youth of the country that's laid out here.

Just being near the beaches was a poignant and emotional experience for the veterans who fought here 50 years ago. You see, look at the flags here, and you see some flowers. Some you don't. The feelings were almost overwhelming for Tom McCann, as he searched the cemeteries for graves of friends that he once fought beside. It's, as I say, you know, I'm looking for people with the first division. And, you know, very few up now that I see, I've seen here, we're the first division. There's, you see, the airborne. There's the fourth division that landed on Utah Beach.

Now there's one from the first division right there. Now that's the fourth division. The ninth division. But it felt nice to see these flags here, the American flags and the French flags. Put the ball up. Gooddoin' for him. More like that. The first helm But it's really something seeing all these crosses, just amazing. Tom McCad of Enro was a member of the famous first infantry's big red one, who stormed Omaha Beach.

He was the recipient of a bronze star. But in Tom's own mind, he is not a hero. It's just awful that these young men had to die. It's just awful, especially the youth, you see. When they get old as I am and they die, that's all right. But I mean, we've had a good life. I've had a wonderful life. I wouldn't change it. But I mean, these people didn't enjoy the things that I've enjoyed. One thing people in our country don't realize, you know, what people have gone through to give them what they've got. And this is it right here. The town of St. Loa was literally leveled by American artillery of the 29th Division 50 years ago. Yet members of the 29th were given a hero's welcome. The local people insisted that children of the town march alongside these aged American

veterans. So it's not to forget the lesson that is being retold here 50 years later. It's overwhelming. And the applause, you just can't read it. It's just, you don't know what to say to them. You really want to thank them and can't thank them enough. They're really great. You know, I don't feel like a hero, I feel, I feel grateful for all of this. I really do. Wonderful. This is the most beautiful demonstration of French American relationship that I've ever seen. And these kids represent the future. They are the people that keep this country pretty. The most vivid lesson came from Lucian LaBord of Hamburg, Louisiana, to his children and grandchildren. You've a little path coming up to a break in there. Uh-huh. You know, I don't have it in that vicinity. Today he has brought 18 of them to the exact spot where he was pinned down on Omaha Beach

in the bloodiest incursion of the entire operation on the morning of June 6th, 1944. I'm thinking of how many didn't get up here. There was so many stacked out on the beach that it just was unbelievable. It was very distressing, even to make it to the top, very happy to get up here. But you knew how many had left behind that would never make it. LaBord choking back his emotions, relive for his family, that terrible day when he instys way on his stomach, up the beach under a deadly crossfire from enemy machine gunners, machine gunners who were positioned, where his family is now standing. You didn't run. You crawled across the sandy part, because until you felt that you could begin to put a little headquarters group together, then we had to stand or sit or kneel together to make

plans to take new objectives, because the objectives that we were assigned were two miles out of our area, so we had to make another attempt to get to sail around, which is what we wanted to do. And there was no getting up and running, by the sure death, because the whole beach was laced with machine gun fire from all directions. Perhaps the most important aspect of this emotional return for LaBord was seeing his own children right before his eyes, passing on the story of D-Day, and especially the agony of Omaha Beach. Family members had heard some of these stories before, but here and now overlooking the

very spot-a-lutional of boards, most trying moment in life. They came to fully understand what he had gone through. I want them to think back of his beach and encourage these young men up here at showed when they cross that beach, to be able to make this world safe for him. And when the time comes, the same situation comes up, you have to be prepared to give your life a freedom. Lucian LaBord's story of courage, valor, and individual leadership, rang with a certain moral clarity and a sense of common purpose that has all but been lost today. In the months following D-Day, more than a million men went into France and pushed forward

to finally defeat Hitler. Their path was laid by a few men, whose spirit was unstoppable. That first wave was really just awful, but they kept coming. Now they kept coming not because they were out to impose an ideology on anybody else. They kept coming, not because they wanted a conqueror territory. They kept coming because they wanted the world to live in freedom. When can their glory fade, Tennyson asked about the men of the light brigade, and so asked a guy about the men of D-Day? When can their glory fade, oh the wild charge they made, all the world wondered, honor the charge they made? In their way.

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