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Episode Four: “Pride of Our Nation ”
June 1944 - August 1944
With much of Italy under Allied control, the Allies launched a second and much more dramatic invasion of Europe on June 6, 1944 on the beaches of Normandy, France. D-Day was the war’s true turning point, the beginning of a sustained retreat by German armed forces across France, Belgium, Holland, and back into the Fatherland. The Liberation of Paris in August gave many in uniform and back in the States hope that the war in Europe might be over by the end of the year. Halfway around the world, Saipan was the new flashpoint, as the U.S. and Japan were locked in a three-week death struggle for a piece of land only 14 miles long and a few miles wide. Horrified American soldiers watched helplessly as hundreds of civilians, wrongly warned of American barbarity by the retreating Japanese, committed suicide by jumping off the island’s cliffs.
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D Day Rescue, Omaha Beach, Rosenblum, Walter, 1919- photographer.
Photograph shows American soldiers on Omaha Beach recovering the dead after the D Day invasion of France. Prints and Photographs Division,
Library of Congress. |
| D-Day |
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"And I thought of my home, and my mom, and my dog, and my friends..."
Jesse A. Beazley's story |
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"Anybody that wasn't scared or apprehensive at the time, they wasn't telling the truth..."
Charles Luther Blount's story |
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"When [Patton] found out we were glider pilots, he said anybody would be a damn fool to do that..."
Lawrence W. Kubale, Sr.'s story |
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"And so the gate creaked, and here they come, and I felt like they could hear my heartbeat..."
Arch Joseph Lewis, Jr.'s story |
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"... I was able to think it all out and remember from day to day what I had done..."
Charles H. Neighbor's story |
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"... They were going to drop us where the fighting was and let us make up our mind."
Philip A. Russell's story |
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"I took my raincoat off to spread that out to clean my rifle, and my raincoat was full of bullet holes..."
John Robert Slaughter's story
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| Saipan |
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"Found where they were at and we had about 10 or 12 grenades apiece..."
Warren Gordon Beavers' story
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"... You know, nightmares and stuff come back on you from what you hear and see."
Norman Lee Brown's story |
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"There was little use for a dentist on the battlefield."
William J. Dolan's story |
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"... I think if maybe we had become frightened we would have shot each other."
John Raymond Getzel's story |
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"My weapon was my language, and that language probably saved countless lives."
Keith M. Little's story |
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"They rescued the Jap pilot and he spoke English. They asked him what he thought of our defenses..."
Charles D. Mason's story |
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