The largest land, air and sea invasion in history occurred on June 6, 1944, on the sands of Normandy, France, when more than 152,000 Allied ground troops and 23,000 paratroopers from the United States, England and Canada, stormed the beach to drive back the occupying Nazis. By the end of that fateful day, known as D-Day, about 10,000 troops were killed in action.
The battle, two years in the making, has been called the "decisive battle" of World War II by historians and scholars alike who point to Operation Overlord one of two tactical plans that were the beginning of the end of Adolf Hitler's genocidal reign of tyranny.
"Before this battle, the German Army still firmly occupied France and the Low Countries, the Nazi government still had access to the raw materials and industrial capacity of Western Europe, and local resistance to Nazi rule was disorganized and not very effective," according to the National WWII Museum. "Overlord proved a psychological and physical blow to German military fortunes from which they would never recover."
The horrors of World War II still linger in the minds of area veterans, many who still are unable to discuss the events that shaped their future and many whose admiration of those veterans who perished or returned home as heroes, prompted them to serve in a branch of the U.S. military.
One such man, Richard Doyle, a Hobart resident, recalls his old neighborhood in Long Beach on Long Island. Doyle, who was an elementary school student when World War II veterans returned home, said he admired those neighborhood heroes, and because of them, he joined the U.S. Marine Corps.
Recounting the names of those who returned to the neighborhood, as well as those who were killed in action, Doyle's eyes well with tears as if it were yesterday, not some 65 years later. "I've known a lot of veterans over the years. One man from my neighborhood, Frederick Nuesser, parachuted into France on D-Day with the 82nd Airborne. He went through the entire European Theater, got shot up twice and received a Purple Heart with one cluster," Doyle said. "Also, my next-door neighbor Ferdinand Bidden went in with the infantry on Omaha Beach. He was captured by the Germans during the Battle of the Bulge. He escaped, returned to his outfit and continued fighting until the end of the war."
Doyle recalls the celebration and parades in Long Beach after the men returned; however, he sadly recounted the despair of neighbors who had lost sons or brothers during the invasion of Normandy.
"I was just a little boy at the time, but I remember my neighbors' grief when they learned of the death of their son Martin Duffy," Doyle said.
"Martin was killed in action on Omaha Beach," Doyle said. "His parents were destroyed."
Despite this, Doyle said his hometown heroes, upon returning home, joined the local VFW, where he would listen to their stories of the war.
"I hung around and talked to these guys. Nuesser had a strong personality. While he wouldn't go into much detail because of the horrors he had witnessed, Nuesser used to talk about how difficult it was to get past the hedgerow," Doyle said. "They were all heavy drinkers. I understood why after I enlisted and saw the horrors firsthand in Korea."
During World War II, the Germans believed the Allied forces would attack, but thought this would happen closer to England While they had some fortification and protection from attack on the shores of Normandy, the tactical planning and full-on Allied assault proved too much for the Nazis, who by the end of the day had retreated.
The troops, the youngest of whom today would be about 82 years old, braved many obstacles to get ashore, including six-foot waves, 6 million mines the Nazis had installed on top of telephone poles in the shallow surf, and waves of machine gun fire. They landed in five separate locations in Normandy: Omaha, Utah, Juno, Sword and Gold beaches, named by the Allies for tactical purposes.
The naval component of Operation Overlord was Operation Neptune.
This was composed of large numbers of warships, auxiliaries and landing crafts, which carried troops, tanks, equipment and supplies to Normandy.
In all, the Allied Forces, as well as exiled navies of France, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland and Greece, supplied 1,213 warships for the invasion, according to the World War II Museum in New Orleans.
"Their main task was to provide shore bombardment firepower for the troops going ashore, to guard the transports, and to conduct mine-sweeping and antisubmarine patrols on the flanks of the invasion corridor," according to the museum.
The museum owes its location in New Orleans to the "hometown innovation" of Andrew Jackson Higgins, who designed the LCVP (landing craft, vehicle personnel) flat-bottom vessels and other ships that made the invasion of Normandy possible.
Higgins Industries not only designed the boats but they produced nearly 20,000 LCVPs and other vessels for the Allies during the war. By the end of June under the leadership of Supreme Allied Commander General Dwight D. Eisenhower, 850,000 troops and 150,000 vehicles, including Sherman tanks, were on the shores of Normandy.
Because of his admiration for those who served at Normandy and World War II, Doyle enlisted in the Marines when he was 17 years old. He called himself a "grunt," or an infantry soldier. He served during the Korean War, from 1952 until 1956, when he received an honorable discharge from duty.
He is now involved with local Delaware County veterans groups, as well as the VFW in Long Beach. Doyle was a grand marshal for his hometown's Memorial Day parade this year.
"This is such an honor, to be one of the Grand Marshals of the Memorial Day Parade that is honoring Korean War veterans," he said.
It is hard to imagine what the world would look like today had Hitler not been stopped.
And memorials and celebrations are but a small token yearly to remember the brave soldiers who secured the freedom of Europe and subsequently the world from a madman who had already killed millions of Jewish people.
While the shores of Normandy, France, are no longer littered with the debris of war, and perhaps society takes for granted the tremendous accomplishment of the Allied troops some 65 years ago, there are still countless numbers of veterans, family members, friends and current military troops who have not forgotten and know the debt of gratitude due.
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