Walter Huff, 86: D-Day Veteran, airline executive from East Point
It was tough and scary spending that first night on Omaha Beach in a foxhole after the Normandy invasions of June 1944, but Walter Horace Huff was just grateful to be there and alive.
He couldn’t swim. And it wasn’t easy getting ashore from his landing craft after jumping into the waves.
But the East Point native not only survived, he thrived, fighting across Normandy and through the Battle of the Bulge, the Germans’ last-ditch offensive, says his wife of 59 years, Jane Ann Huff, also born in East Point.
And on his return, she says, he didn’t complain, but instead started a long career in commercial aviation, holding management positions with Southern Airways, Republic Airlines and Northwest, and raising his family.
Although always a religious man, it must have been that wartime experience that affected him most, though he talked little about it, says older son, Walter D. Huff, now chorus master with the Atlanta Opera. He says he could see the emotion in his dad’s eyes when the family returned to that once-deadly beach decades later.
Walter H. Huff died Jan. 3 at age 86 of complications of dementia. A funeral is planned for 1 p.m. Saturday at Jefferson Avenue Baptist Church in East Point. Donehoo-Lewis Funeral Home is handling arrangements.
Nobody knows what influences people, Jane Huff said, but her husband always said that “being in the Army was the best thing that happened to him to develop into the kind of person he wanted to be.”
He developed into a man dedicated to others after starting a second career in 1981 as minister of education at First Baptist Church of College Park, says son Walter, and he took his job seriously, concentrating on developing programs aimed at young people.
Mr. Huff toured Israel five times, once baptizing fellow pilgrims in the Jordan River. His religion, said son Walter, was not just the Sunday kind, and he found spirituality everywhere.
“He got to sit with my mom on Omaha Beach in 1997, and it was pretty emotional,” Walter Huff said. “The Atlanta Opera was invited to go and performed at Normandy and Caen. It was strange. You hear the waves, it’s a tranquil picture, and then try to flip it back into the chaos he saw.”
Mr. Huff wasn’t musically inclined, but life’s experiences changed that, and he ended up attending 40 to 50 operas.
“It’s kind of touching to see him go from D-Day to a person who could enjoy opera,” his son said. “He loved it.”
Mr. Huff, his wife says, changed lives, making people appreciate religious faith, but also just the art of living.
Mary Jo West, now of Phoenix, says she had known Mr. Huff since she was 9, some 50 years ago, and was inspired by his ceaseless zeal and selflessness.
“Every time I went back to Atlanta to visit somebody in the hospital for the past 35 years, he would be there,” she said. “If you were sick, he was always there. He was a true holy man, always giving to others. He was my inspiration.”
In addition to his wife and son Walter, Mr. Huff is survived by another son, Dr. Peter Huff, chairman of ethics, religion and society at Xavier University in Cincinnati; a grandson, George Malcolm Huff; and daughter-in-law Mary Patricia Huff.
The family asks that memorial contributions be made to the Over & Above Fund of Jefferson Avenue Baptist Church.
