Eighty-One Years

Yesterday marked the 81st anniversary of the D-Day landings on the Cotentin Peninsula of Northern France.  The next step in wresting tyranny from the Axis powers and returning freedom to the people of Europe after years of occupation.

My father landed on Utah Beach as an infantry replacement following the initial invasion.  He was a machine gunner in a weapons platoon.  He spent more time training for his assignment  than fulfilling it.  He was wounded in September in the liberation of Belgium.  Repatriated to England to recover from his wounds he returned after the surrender of Germany to serve briefly in the Army of Occupation before returning stateside.

Quite the adventure for a 20 year-old man who came of age in the depression years.

Anyway, on our first trip to France we traced his unit's movements In the Bocage of the Norman countryside.  Some photos from the beachhead and the first objective; the town of Sainte-Marie-du-Mont....

 

At The Movies

In 1914, Sir Ernest Shackleton embarked on a voyage to cross the Antarctic.  In 2022, the wreck of the Endurance was finally discovered.

Combining masterfully-restored archival footage from that voyage juxtaposing it with the modern-day quest for the remains, Endurance brings one of history's amazing stories of survival to life like never before.

Its from the people over at The National Geographic Society; so what's not to like.

If you have streaming service you'll find it on Hulu and Disney....

On This Day In History

 

Sixty-three years ago, February 20, 1962, John Glenn became the first American to orbit the planet Earth. 

Time flies when you pay attention to a lifetime of advances in space exploration.

He went on to become a United States senator and flew to space again on the Space Shuttle STS-95 mission. 

John Glenn passed away at the age of 95 on December 8, 2016; a true American hero.

The Right Stuff is what made America great...... 

D-Day Advance

80h anniversary - then and now....

Quote Of The Day

We in America have learned bitter lessons from two World Wars: It is better to be here ready to protect the peace, than to take blind shelter across the sea, rushing to respond only after freedom is lost. We’ve learned that isolationism never was and never will be an acceptable response to tyrannical governments with an expansionist intent . . .

But for now, particularly today, it is good and fitting to renew our commitment to each other, to our freedom, and to the alliance that protects it. 

Here, in this place where the West held together, let us make a vow to our dead. Let us show them by our actions that we understand what they died for.

-President Ronald Reagan - D-Day 40th Anniversary

D-Day

80th Anniversary. 

 

Sgt. Joseph Gorenc, assistant S3 of HQ/3, 506th PIR, 101st Airborne Division, climbing aboard C-47 Dakota 8Y-S “Stoy Hora” of the 440th Troop Carrier Group at RAF Exeter, Southwest England, for the D-Day airborne assault on Normandy - June 5, 1944.

 

Joseph F. Gorenc Jr. was born on April 24, 1923 in Sheboygan, Wisconsin. 

 

Two days after D-Day, Sgt. Gorenc was taken prisoner near St. Côme-du-Mont and reported as MIA. He later escaped from a prison train, joined the French Resistance blowing up bridges and other sabotage, then made it back to the UK in time to rejoin the 101st Airborne for 'Operation Market Garden'.

 

Gorenc returned home after the war, married, had two daughters, and was involved in a new startup manufacturing firm. 

 

In October 1957, Gorenc was severely injured in an industrial accident when an oil tank exploded. He passed away from his injuries two weeks later at the age of 34 on October 30, 1957. 

 

Gorenc is buried at Greendale Cemetery, Kohler, Wisconsin.

 

D-Day

Utah Beach - click on images to enlarge

 

Soldiers, Sailors, and Airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Force: 

You are about to embark upon the Great Crusade, toward which we have striven these many months. 

The eyes of the world are upon you. The hopes and prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere march with you.

In company with our brave Allies and brothers-in-arms on other Fronts you will bring about the destruction of the German war machine, the elimination of Nazi tyranny over oppressed peoples of Europe, and security for ourselves in a free world. 

Your task will not be an easy one. Your enemy is well trained, well equipped, and battle-hardened. He will fight savagely. 

But this is the year 1944. Much has happened since the Nazi triumphs of 1940-41. The United Nations have inflicted upon the Germans great defeats, in open battle, man-to-man. Our air offensive has seriously reduced their strength in the air and their capacity to wage war on the ground. Our Home Fronts have given us an overwhelming superiority in weapons and munitions of war, and placed at our disposal great reserves of trained fighting men. The tide has turned. The free men of the world are marching together to victory. 

I have full confidence in your courage, devotion to duty, and skill in battle. We will accept nothing less than full victory. 

Good Luck! And let us all beseech the blessing of Almighty God upon this great and noble undertaking.   

- Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, Supreme Commander, Allied Expeditionary Forces 

Pfc. Howard H. Gaertner waded-ashore at Utah Beach following the initial invasion as an infantry replacement.  Trained in heavy weapons – mortar and machine gun - he was assigned to M Company, 47^th Infantry, Ninth Division as a machine gunner in a weapons platoon. 

After being bottled-up in the Bocage of the Norman countryside where progress was often measured in a few hundred yards – at the close of July he participated in Operation Cobra - the breakout at Saint-Lô.  In the ensuing weeks his unit linked-up with British troops to out-flank and encircle fleeing German forces.  Straining their supply lines to the extreme his unit later provided infantry support to General George Patton’s armored dash across Northern France. 

Howard was convinced that his squad was the first to liberate Belgium when they surprised and captured a group of unsuspecting German soldiers sipping wine at a Belgian café.  You would have to take his word for it.  Later in September he was wounded in the Meuse River crossing and for Howard the war was over. 

Recovered from his wounds Howard served in the occupation army in Germany, returned home, went to school, got married and raised a family.  If he was alive today he would be 100 years old. 

Funny thing is that other than vague and general terms he rarely spoke of his time in combat as I was growing-up.  It wasn’t until I was in college that the details emerged. 

My first of three trips to France was in 2012 and Jill and I spent time touring the Normandy battlefield in a rental car.  Meticulous records maintained by the US Army allowed us to literally retrace Howard’s footsteps through the Norman countryside.  Spooky stuff for sure. 

I’ve included a couple of photos from the invasion beachhead that are before and after pics of real places he may have walked. 

Raising a toast to the Greatest Generation for liberating continent Europe from fascist rule....

Utah Beach Sea Wall

 

 

Beachhead Bunker

 

Memorial Day

It is, in a way an odd thing to honor those who died in defense of our country, in defense of us, in wars far away.  The imagination plays a trick.  We see these soldiers in our mind as old and wise.  We see them as something like the Founding Fathers, grave and gray haired.         

But most of them were boys when they died, and they gave up two lives - the one they were living and one they would have lived.       

When they died, they gave up their chance to be husbands and fathers and grandfathers.  They gave up their chance to be revered old men.  They gave up everything for our country, for us.  And all we can do is remember.    

 - Ronald Reagan

 

Originally called Decoration Day - Memorial Day is a day of remembrance for those who have died in service to our country.                          

There is an American Cemetery and Memorial located in Colleville-sur-Mer on the bluff overlooking Omaha Beach in Normandy, France.  Dedicated in 1956 the Cemetery and Memorial is situated closely to the site of the temporary American St. Laurent Cemetery, established by the U.S. First Army on June 8, 1944 - the first American cemetery on European soil in World War II.              

This is the final resting place of 9,388 of our military dead - most of whom lost their lives in the D-Day landings and ensuing operations.  If you were to visit this place you will note that upon the walls of the Garden of the Missing are inscribed an additional 1,557 names.  And because old battlefields continue to yield their dead - rosettes mark the names of those since recovered and identified.              

In Plot E Row 26 Grave 37 rests James D. Johnston - Lieutenant Colonel, U.S. Army, 47th Infantry Regiment, 9th Infantry Division.   

Jill and I walked this sacred place on a typical rainy Norman morning and while I have no connection to James Johnston, his life before the war, or his survivors following the war, what you can discern from the marker is that Johnston was from North Carolina and was a commander in the same division and infantry regiment my dad served.  

       

Howard Gaertner landed at Utah Beach as an infantry replacement.  He was a machine gunner in a heavy weapons platoon.  Dad fought in the battle of the hedgerows, the breakout at Saint-Lô and Patton's mad dash across northern France.  

Among the first allied troops to participate in the liberation of Belgium his European excursion ended less than three months later by wounds incurred in combat.  By the grace of God (and fortunately for me) he was not killed.  Following his recovery in England he was redeployed and served for a brief period in the US Army of Occupation in Germany.        

 

Johnston died from wounds suffered from the detonation of a German 88mm shell at the blood-stained Crossroads 114 near Acqueville just outside of Cherbourg.*  Death in combat was fickle in the skirmishes and battle for mere meters in the uneven and mixed woodlands and pastures of the Bocage.  Lt Col Johnston was killed - PFC Gaertner was not. 

Dad returned home from the war and lived a full and rewarding life.  He worked quietly in a public school system and never spoke about his war experiences in any great detail until I was well into adulthood.  I am alive today to muse about this subject because he survived.  James Johnston never had the opportunity to sit on the stoop with a a beer and share closely-guarded feelings about the war with a son.        

This is why Memorial Day is bit more personal for me.        

When it came time for a permanent burial, the families of the dead were asked if they wanted their loved ones repatriated for permanent burial in the U.S. or interred overseas.  Lieutenant Colonel Johnston's remains lie here with approximately 461 graves belonging to 9th Infantry Division G.I.s.           

On this holiday it is useful to remember and honor the lives that brave men and women sacrificed.

Both of those lives.   

 

 

 *Eight Stars to Victory - Mittelman, The Battery Press

 

 

This Is What Governing Looks Like

Bravo Mike Johnson for straight-up votes on foreign policy and global security interests. 

No one likes war yet Russia, China and Hamas are antithetical to basic western values.  

Johnson did the correct thing because, as a leader, he saw a differing perspective than a back-bencher like Marjorie Taylor Greene. His leadership today was courageous and he must be congratulated by all regardless of any other consideration.

This is what governing looks like.

Memorial Day

It is, in a way an odd thing to honor those who died in defense of our country, in defense of us, in wars far away.  The imagination plays a trick.  We see these soldiers in our mind as old and wise.  We see them as something like the Founding Fathers, grave and gray haired.         

  

But most of them were boys when they died, and they gave up two lives - the one they were living and one they would have lived.       

When they died, they gave up their chance to be husbands and fathers and grandfathers.  They gave up their chance to be revered old men.  They gave up everything for our country, for us.  And all we can do is remember.    

 - Ronald Reagan

 

Originally called Decoration Day - Memorial Day is a day of remembrance for those who have died in service to our country.                          

There is an American Cemetery and Memorial located in Colleville-sur-Mer on the bluff overlooking Omaha Beach in Normandy, France.  Dedicated in 1956 the Cemetery and Memorial is situated closely to the site of the temporary American St. Laurent Cemetery, established by the U.S. First Army on June 8, 1944 - the first American cemetery on European soil in World War II.              

This is the final resting place of 9,388 of our military dead - most of whom lost their lives in the D-Day landings and ensuing operations.  If you were to visit this place you will note that upon the walls of the Garden of the Missing are inscribed an additional 1,557 names.  And because old battlefields continue to yield their dead - rosettes mark the names of those since recovered and identified.              

In Plot E Row 26 Grave 37 rests James D. Johnston - Lieutenant Colonel, U.S. Army, 47th Infantry Regiment, 9th Infantry Division.   

Jill and I walked this sacred place on a typical rainy Norman morning and while I have no connection to James Johnston, his life before the war, or his survivors following the war, what you can discern from the marker is that Johnston was from North Carolina and was a commander in the same division and infantry regiment my dad served.  

       

Howard Gaertner landed at Utah Beach as an infantry replacement.  He was a machine gunner in a heavy weapons platoon.  Dad fought in the battle of the hedgerows, the breakout at Saint-Lô and Patton's mad dash across northern France.  

Among the first allied troops to participate in the liberation of Belgium his European excursion ended less than three months later by wounds incurred in combat.  By the grace of God (and fortunately for me) he was not killed.  Following his recovery in England he was redeployed and served for a brief period in the US Army of Occupation in Germany.        

 

Johnston died from wounds suffered from the detonation of a German 88mm shell at the blood-stained Crossroads 114 near Acqueville just outside of Cherbourg.*  Death in combat was fickle in the skirmishes and battle for mere meters in the uneven and mixed woodlands and pastures of the Bocage.  Lt Col Johnston was killed - PFC Gaertner was not. 

Dad returned home from the war and lived a full and rewarding life.  He worked quietly in a public school system and never spoke about his war experiences in any great detail until I was well into adulthood.  I am alive today to muse about this subject because he survived.  James Johnston never had the opportunity to sit on the stoop with a a beer and share closely-guarded feelings about the war with a son.        

This is why Memorial Day is bit more personal for me.        

When it came time for a permanent burial, the families of the dead were asked if they wanted their loved ones repatriated for permanent burial in the U.S. or interred overseas.  Lieutenant Colonel Johnston's remains lie here with approximately 461 graves belonging to 9th Infantry Division G.I.s.           

On this holiday it is useful to remember and honor the lives that brave men and women sacrificed.

Both of those lives.   

 

 

 *Eight Stars to Victory - Mittelman, The Battery Press

 

Noteable Quoteable

I say this to my Republican colleagues who are defending the indefensible — there will come a day when Donald Trump is gone, but your dishonor will remain.

- Liz Cheney (R-WY)

Memorial Day

It is, in a way an odd thing to honor those who died in defense of our country, in defense of us, in wars far away.  The imagination plays a trick.  We see these soldiers in our mind as old and wise.  We see them as something like the Founding Fathers, grave and gray haired.         

  

But most of them were boys when they died, and they gave up two lives - the one they were living and one they would have lived.       

When they died, they gave up their chance to be husbands and fathers and grandfathers.  They gave up their chance to be revered old men.  They gave up everything for our country, for us.  And all we can do is remember.    

 - Ronald Reagan

 

Originally called Decoration Day - Memorial Day is a day of remembrance for those who have died in service to our country.                          

There is an American Cemetery and Memorial located in Colleville-sur-Mer on the bluff overlooking Omaha Beach in Normandy, France.  Dedicated in 1956 the Cemetery and Memorial is situated closely to the site of the temporary American St. Laurent Cemetery, established by the U.S. First Army on June 8, 1944 - the first American cemetery on European soil in World War II.              

This is the final resting place of 9,388 of our military dead - most of whom lost their lives in the D-Day landings and ensuing operations.  If you were to visit this place you will note that upon the walls of the Garden of the Missing are inscribed an additional 1,557 names.  And because old battlefields continue to yield their dead - rosettes mark the names of those since recovered and identified.              

In Plot E Row 26 Grave 37 rests James D. Johnston - Lieutenant Colonel, U.S. Army, 47th Infantry Regiment, 9th Infantry Division.   

Jill and I walked this sacred place on a typical rainy Norman morning and while I have no connection to James Johnston, his life before the war, or his survivors following the war, what you can discern from the marker is that Johnston was from North Carolina and was a commander in the same division and infantry regiment my dad served.  

       

Howard Gaertner landed at Utah Beach as an infantry replacement.  He was a machine gunner in a heavy weapons platoon.  Dad fought in the battle of the hedgerows, the breakout at Saint-Lô and Patton's mad dash across northern France.  

Among the first allied troops to participate in the liberation of Belgium his European excursion ended less than three months later by wounds incurred in combat.  By the grace of God (and explains my writing this) he was not killed.  Following his recovery in England he was redeployed and served for a brief period in the US Army of Occupation in Germany.        

 

Johnston died from wounds suffered from the detonation of a German 88mm shell at the blood-stained Crossroads 114 near Acqueville just outside of Cherbourg.*  Death in combat was fickle in the skirmishes and battle for mere meters in the uneven and mixed woodlands and pastures of the Bocage.  Lt Col Johnston was killed - PFC Gaertner was not. 

Dad returned home from the war and lived a full and rewarding life.  He worked quietly in a public school system and never spoke about his war experiences in any great detail until I was well into adulthood.  I am alive today to muse about this subject because he survived.  James Johnston never had the opportunity to sit on the stoop with a a beer and share closely-guarded feelings about the war with a son.        

This is why Memorial Day is bit more personal for me.        

When it came time for a permanent burial, the families of the dead were asked if they wanted their loved ones repatriated for permanent burial in the U.S. or interred overseas.  Lieutenant Colonel Johnston's remains lie here with approximately 461 graves belonging to 9th Infantry Division G.I.s.           

On this holiday it is useful to remember and honor the lives that brave men and women sacrificed.

Both of those lives.   

 

 *Eight Stars to Victory - Mittelman, The Battery Press

 

Cobra King

77 years-ago, the day following Christmas, 1944,  a Jumbo Sherman tank named Cobra King made history.  Its name - symbolic of the tank corps tradition of naming vehicles with the first letter of their companies’ designations - and its five-man crew from the 37th’s Company C led a column of infantry and armor that relieved the besieged and surrounded soldiers of the 101st Airborne Division at Bastogne, Belgium.   

The Cobra King crew -- 1st Lt. Charles Boggess, Cpl. Milton Dickerman and Pvts. James G. Murphy, Hubert S. Smith and Harold Hafner -- pose for a celebratory photo in the vicinity of Bastogne, Belgium shortly after the tankers led the armor and infantry column that liberated the city in December 1944. 

A word about this vehicle.  

Cobra King is an M4A3E2 Assault Tank nicknamed the Jumbo Sherman for a welded hull and one piece cast nose.  An extra one inch of armor in the front made it more resistant to German 88 millimeter shells.  Production began with Ford in June 1942 with Grand Blanc assuming production in February of 1944.  It sported a vertical sided turret and even with a Ford GAA V-8 engine, because of the weight of the additional armor, top speed of 22 mph was 3-4 mph slower than its predecessors. 

Following the war Cobra King remained in Germany.  Combat damage relegated it to a US Army transportation yard in Hammelburg; its place in military history temporarily lost.  Fortunately, its subsequent reuse as a military base monument saved it from the scrapyard.

Historical footnote:  The 37th Tank Battalion was subsequently re-activated in 1951 and assigned to the 4th Armored Division in 1953 at Fort Hood, Texas. Cobra King's unit would later return to Europe.  

There is a personal tangent to this story.  Some of you know that I was born overseas when my family lived on a US Army base in southern Germany.  In the 1950s McKee Barracks (among other things) was a hardstand for armor during the Cold War.  Coincidentally, the gate monument where we lived was a WWII era Jumbo Sherman.

McKee - 1958

Nobody knew it at the time but the Sherman guarding the headquarters building at McKee in Crailsheim, Germany was of historic significance. 

Later, when the 1st Armored relocated to Vilseck they took their tank with them.  

The division later relocated to Bad Kreuznach, but this time the Sherman stayed behind.  McKee was permanently closed in 1994 and the property returned to the people of Crailsheim.  The base school where dad was the first Principal continues in use as a school by the community.

 

The Sherman maintained its vigil in relative obscurity until Sgt. Brian Stigall of the 5th Battalion, 7th Air Defense Artillery, recognized it after attending a Battle of the Bulge commemoration in 2004.

Research by Army historians in Germany and the U.S. confirmed its identity.  It was indeed Cobra King.  There was also also considerable evidence of battle damage.  An explosion had resulted in a fire, destroying the tank’s interior, and causing the famous “First in Bastogne” tank to become permanently disabled.  

 

After identification Cobra King was returned to the United States in 2009 for restoration at Fort Knox.  The extent of the interior combat damage made any sort of interior restoration impossible yet further research led to what may have been the cause.  

As a consequence of physical and photographic evidence, primary sources and the historical record the restoration crew came to believe that Cobra King may have participated in the disastrous Hammelburg Raid of late March 1945.  

This raid was a secret mission to penetrate behind German lines, liberate the Oflag XIII-B POW camp near Hammelburg, and return safely with US officers held there.  One of the POWs at the camp was the son-in-law of General George Patton who ordered the raid.  This was not without any small amount of controversy.
 
Conducted by Task Force Baum, under the capable and seasoned leadership of Captain Abraham Baum, the Hammelburg Raid failed when it was cutoff by German forces almost 50 miles behind enemy lines. In the end, 32 Americans were killed and some 247 others were wounded, captured or missing with only 35 soldiers eventually finding their way to allied lines.  It was the restoration team's belief that a casualty of the Hammelburg Raid was Cobra King.  

Who knew?

With its historical pedigree intact and an exterior restoration completed Cobra King is now on display at the National Museum of the U.S. Army, located at Fort Belvoir, VA. 

It would be nice to visit Cobra King some day.  Something of a reunion.  What an amazing journey and a small personal connection with big history.

Learn more about the story here. 

Photos - US ARMY

 

Memorial Day

It is, in a way an odd thing to honor those who died in defense of our country, in defense of us, in wars far away.  The imagination plays a trick.  We see these soldiers in our mind as old and wise.  We see them as something like the Founding Fathers, grave and gray haired.         

  

But most of them were boys when they died, and they gave up two lives - the one they were living and one they would have lived.       

When they died, they gave up their chance to be husbands and fathers and grandfathers.  They gave up their chance to be revered old men.  They gave up everything for our country, for us.  And all we can do is remember.    

 - Ronald Reagan

 

Originally called Decoration Day - Memorial Day is a day of remembrance for those who have died in service to our country.                          

There is an American Cemetery and Memorial located in Colleville-sur-Mer on the bluff overlooking Omaha Beach in Normandy, France.  Dedicated in 1956 the Cemetery and Memorial is situated closely to the site of the temporary American St. Laurent Cemetery, established by the U.S. First Army on June 8, 1944 - the first American cemetery on European soil in World War II.              

This is the final resting place of 9,388 of our military dead - most of whom lost their lives in the D-Day landings and ensuing operations.  If you were to visit this place you will note that upon the walls of the Garden of the Missing are inscribed an additional 1,557 names.  And because old battlefields continue to yield their dead - rosettes mark the names of those since recovered and identified.              

In Plot E Row 26 Grave 37 rests James D. Johnston - Lieutenant Colonel, U.S. Army, 47th Infantry Regiment, 9th Infantry Division.   

Jill and I walked this sacred place on a typical rainy Norman morning and while I have no connection to James Johnston, his life before the war, or his survivors following the war, what you can discern from the marker is that Johnston was from North Carolina and was a commander in the same division and infantry regiment my dad served.  

       

Howard Gaertner landed at Utah Beach as an infantry replacement.  He was a machine gunner in a heavy weapons platoon.  Dad fought in the battle of the hedgerows, the breakout at Saint-Lô and Patton's mad dash across northern France.  

Among the first allied troops to participate in the liberation of Belgium his European excursion ended less than three months later by wounds incurred in combat.  By the grace of God (and fortunately for me) he was not killed.  Following his recovery in England he was redeployed and served for a brief period in the US Army of Occupation in Germany.        

 

Johnston died from wounds suffered from the detonation of a German 88mm shell at the blood-stained Crossroads 114 near Acqueville just outside of Cherbourg.*  Death in combat was fickle in the skirmishes and battle for mere meters in the uneven and mixed woodlands and pastures of the Bocage.  Lt Col Johnston was killed - PFC Gaertner was not. 

Dad returned home from the war and lived a full and rewarding life.  He worked quietly in a public school system and never spoke about his war experiences in any great detail until I was well into adulthood.  I am alive today to muse about this subject because he survived.  James Johnston never had the opportunity to sit on the stoop with a a beer and share closely-guarded feelings about the war with a son.        

This is why Memorial Day is bit more personal for me.        

When it came time for a permanent burial, the families of the dead were asked if they wanted their loved ones repatriated for permanent burial in the U.S. or interred overseas.  Lieutenant Colonel Johnston's remains lie here with approximately 461 graves belonging to 9th Infantry Division G.I.s.           

On this holiday it is useful to remember and honor the lives that brave men and women sacrificed.

Both of those lives.   

 

 

 *Eight Stars to Victory - Mittelman, The Battery Press