In 1944, they came from every corner of America, young patriots answering their nation’s call. From Massachusetts to California, Minnesota to Texas, they left for the front lines, not yet initiated into the hells of war.
On Friday, 26 of them will travel again, departing after a hero’s send-off in Atlanta for the windswept shorelines of Normandy, France.
As the world approaches the 81st anniversary of D-Day — and the number of living World War II veterans able to make the return trip dwindles — the stories of these extraordinary men and women should leave Americans humbled with gratitude and awe.
On board the chartered Delta flight will be the nationally adored “Papa Jake” Larson, a 102-year-old Minnesota infantryman who landed on Omaha Beach on D-Day. He said he still hears the gunshots and sees the fallen.
Today he uses his platform on TikTok — where he has more than a million followers — to honor the Greatest Generation.
Their sacrifices ensured the war would not be prolonged
Hilbert Margol, 101, will be returning to Europe without his most devoted battle buddy: his twin brother, Howard. The two were originally assigned to different infantry divisions, but their distraught mother wrote the president, begging him to allow them to fight together. President Franklin D. Roosevelt intervened; the Margols remained side by side through France and Germany. They were among the first to discover the Dachau concentration camp, taking pictures that now hang in the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. Howard died in 2017.
Edward Berthold, 105, from Illinois, William Becker, 99, from California, and Harold Terens, 101, from New York, will be making the trip. Pilots with the 8th Air Force, they fought for liberty high above the battlefields.
Berthold’s service was marked by a series of close calls. On his first mission, the plane’s engine caught fire; on his second, the prop governor seized up. His third sortie was D-Day, and it resulted in the successful bombing of a bridge in the strategic city of Saint-Lô. Terens flew several emotional missions to bring home released American and British POWs. And Becker served on a B-24 bomber with a squadron of special operators who flew covert operations to drop supplies to French, Norwegian and Danish spies collaborating against the Nazis.
“We were told that if we didn’t do what we did, the war would have lasted another two years,” Becker has said of his service.
George Mullins, 100, a paratrooper with the 101st Airborne, landed on Utah Beach on D-Day. Mullins crashed landed into Operation Market Garden — the largest airborne drop of the war. He battled through the Bulge, survived being surrounded at Bastogne and eventually arrived with the 101st at Hitler’s infamous “Eagle’s Nest” in Berchtesgaden.
“Victory didn’t come cheap — for anyone,” Mullins, of California, wrote in his war memoir, “Foxhole.”
Enoch Woodhouse, 98, a soldier with the Tuskegee Airmen, will make the trip, too. Commissioned into the first all-Black fighter pilot squadron at age 19, Woodhouse’s service remained on the homefront, overseeing the finances and payroll of the Tuskegee Airman flying combat sorties in Europe.
After the war, Woodhouse became one of just four African Americans to graduate from Yale in 1952, earning a law degree. He embodies the attitude of many veterans, focused not on himself but on those who did not make it home. “People aren’t interested in me because I’m special,” he quipped. “It’s just because I’m one of the last SOBs left.”
The solitary female veteran traveling will be Betty Huffman-Rosevear of California, who will turn 104 during the trip. The former Army nurse well knows the trauma front-line troops endured. She worked in an Army psychiatric ward for those with combat fatigue and brain injuries. She also knows the profound loss. Her husband, 2nd Lt. Billy Huffman, was shot down over Demark and killed in action.
‘Thank you for your service’ is not enough
This is just a snapshot of the heroes who will be on Friday’s flight — a true roll call of heroes.
First Army, the organization I am proud to lead today, once commanded all American forces in France under the great Gen. Omar Bradley.
I’ve thought a lot about what I want to say to these veterans when I host their visit to the somber yet stunning Normandy American cemetery, where so many of their friends lie under stark white granite. “Thank you for your service,” seems woefully inadequate.
Credit: Spc. Joseph Martin, U.S. Army
Credit: Spc. Joseph Martin, U.S. Army
So, for now, as these remarkable Americans prepare to travel, I’ll simply quote the promise Gen. Omar Bradley made to his troops before the invasion: “I’ll see you on the beaches!”
Lt. Gen. Mark Landes is the acting commander of First Army, the historic unit that commanded all ground and airborne forces on D-Day.
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