Posted on 06/06/2008 10:23:11 AM PDT by BnBlFlag
Southeast Texas seniors describe storming beach at Normandy as young men By: ROSE YBARRA, The Enterprise 06/06/2008 Updated 06/06/2008 09:57:18 AM CDT
Arlie Horn stands by a display of medals he received while serving in the U.S. Army. On the evening of June 5, 1944, Arlie Ray Horn and his fellow soldiers from the 175th Infantry Regiment, 29th Division were fired up.
Their adrenaline was pumping as they prepared mentally and physically to invade Omaha Beach - the code name for a spot on the shores of Normandy on the French coast. The troops were ready for immediate battle against the Germans.
Then the plan came to a screeching halt.
"We were told the conditions were too rough and that we were going the next day," said Horn, 83, of Beaumont. "So we stayed in England and waited."
The next day, all systems were go and more than 150,000 Allied soldiers landed on the shores of Normandy, the culmination of months of careful planning and coordination.
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That date, June 6, 1944, lives in history as D-Day.
Today marks the 64th anniversary of the event, and the assault remains the largest single-day beach invasion in history.
Jack R. King, 84, of Beaumont, a retired judge who as a young man was with the 116th Infantry Regiment, 29th Division, remembers storming the coast and seeing American soldiers dropping by the dozens.
"Another soldier and I were running side by side and he fell," King said. "I thought he had just tripped, but when I stopped to give him a hand up, I saw that he had a bullet between the eyes. I had to leave him there and keep going."
On that first day, the casualty rate was 50 percent, King said.
"I saw dead Americans by the truckload," he said. "It was something that I couldn't talk about for a long time."
The horrifying scenes from the invasion also remain in Horn's mind.
"I saw my buddies get killed one right after the other," Horn said.
Horn, a native of Magnolia Springs in Jasper County, said he sometimes thinks back to that time and scarcely can believe he endured all that at such a young age.
"I was just a 19-year-old soldier boy, a farm boy, but I grew up overnight," he said.
Both men were on death's doorstep more times than they care to remember.
On that first day, King said he almost drowned when he was pinned down in the water by a downed telephone pole.
"Every time I tried to get up, the pole kept pushing me down," he said.
King made it through that scare but was severely wounded a little more than a month later on July 15, 1944, when he and his platoon came under mortar attack.
He fractured his cranium and had shrapnel wounds all along his left side.
"I remember being hit and then waking up in England five or six days later," King said.
King said he desperately wanted to contact his mother back in Port Arthur, but he was too badly injured to write.
He dictated the letter to a friend who, in turn, wrote and mailed the letter home.
King said his mother received the letter the day before the official telegram arrived from the Army informing his family of his injuries.
"I was glad she heard about it from me and not the military," he said.
King remained hospitalized for a year recovering from his injuries and still gets severe headaches.
Horn said he was shot three times on three different occasions - once in the chest, once in the leg and finally in the buttocks. But each time, he made a full recovery and returned to the front lines.
Horn said even back then, he knew it was all for a good cause, and given the chance to do it all over, he would do it again.
"I'd do it today," he said.
Updated 06/06/2008 09:57:18 AM CDT ©The Beaumont Enterprise 2008
I remember the quest of the 38 D-day veteran paratroopers to restage their jump for the 1994 50th anniversary.
The French went bonkers for them and they totally stole the thunder of the big 101st airborne event.
Title cleanup on aisle 2027168...
My uncle, who made was in the Seabees at Utah Beach, died just two weeks ago. Pretty soon there won't be many of these men left.
May G-d bless and keep these men.
Cut and paste is your friend
:)
Fortunately we do have young men and women today who will carry on the spirit of Messrs King and Horn, but they are a minority. The “greatest” generation gave way to the “me” generation that raised the ‘entitlement’ generation. Responsibility and sacrifice to and for a greater good than oneself seems something of a bygone era.
I have walked on Omaha Beach. The American Cemetery is on the cliffs above that beach. There are ten thousand white crosses and stars of David. It is very awe inspiring. I was walking through the cemetery and they started playing TAPS.....I cried like a baby.
There are five Medal of Honor recipients buried there. The price paid by the Greatest Generation.......
I am not sad that they are dying, so much as I am grateful that they lived.
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