D-Day and the eternal fight for liberty

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(Note: This editorial ran today in the Orange County Register. I wrote it for them a year ago and they updated the date references. My father, three uncles, a great uncle and a cousin fought in the U.S. military in World War II. They survived, but some friends and army buddies didn’t. They always remembered D-Day, the Sixth of June.)

The American heroes who stormed onto Normandy Beach 81 years ago to free Europe from Nazi tyranny are almost all gone now. Yet their heroism will never be forgotten.

One who was there and survived was Walter D. Ehlers, who lived in Buena Park until his death in 2014. Writing for us in 1997 on the 53rd anniversary of D-Day, he remembered, “My brother had returned from the hospital in Africa. At the embarkation was the last time I saw him. He was killed in the D-Day landings on Omaha Beach.”

He continued, “I went on to receive several decorations including three Purple Hearts and the Medal of Honor. I am a survivor. My brother and many of my close friends paid the supreme sacrifice. Because of them, hundreds of thousands of them, you and I are here today.”

Beginning with his occupation of the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia in 1938, followed by his invasion of Poland in September 1939, Hitler had enslaved almost all of continental Europe, imposing tyranny and mass death, including the Holocaust deaths of 6 million Jews. But his doom was sealed when he declared war on the United States on Dec. 11, 1941. That brought our vast Arsenal of Democracy and 16 million troops into the war against him.

Using the United Kingdom as a base, 73,000 American, 60,000 British and 15,000 Canadian troops trained for months before the June 6, 1944 invasion. It never was a sure thing penetrating Hitler’s “Atlantic Wall.” The weather that day crossing the English Channel was harsh. Supreme Allied Commander Dwight D. Eisenhower even prepared a speech taking responsibility for a potential failure, which said, “any blame or fault … is mine alone.”

Fortunately, the invasion succeeded, but at an immense cost. Time magazine tallied more than 2,500 Americans killed, plus 1,900 British and Canadians. Over the entire Battle of Normandy, codename Operation Overlord, which lasted until Aug. 30, 73,000 Allied troops were killed and 155,000 wounded. Freedom has a price in blood.

The invasion led to another 11 months of intense combat until Hitler killed himself in a Berlin bunker on April 30, 1945, followed by Germany surrendering on May 7.

It’s not known how many D-Day veterans survive today. But 66 of them flew over to France for the 80th anniversary observance on “an honor flight aboard a chartered Boeing 787 provided by American Airlines,” reported USA Today. The youngest was 95, the oldest 107. And the average age was 100.8. It’s likely the last time they will pay remembrance to the comrades who fell next to them on the beachheads codenamed Omaha Beach and Utah Beach.

The beaches secured, the troops moved inland to begin the long slog of liberation, first of France, then on into Nazi Germany. For America, the final toll in both Europe and the Pacific was 405,399 dead and 670,846 wounded.

It’s estimated only 1% of the 16 million American men and women who served in the U.S. military during World War II remain alive. Their heroism always will be remembered so long as the love of liberty remains in the hearts of men and women.