The story of WWII Weather Gliderman
Eugene Levine
In his own words
My Experiences As A Weather Observer With the 82nd Airborne Division
During the Normandy Invasion
By Eugene Levine
I entered the U.S. Army in April 1943. After receiving basic military training in Fort Dix
and Atlantic City, New Jersey I was sent to Chanute Field, Illinois, operated by the U.S. Army
Air Corps for training as a military weather observer. On April 6, 1944 I left for England from
New York City on the SS Aquitania, a former lavish passenger ship owned by the Cunard Line,
converted into a troopship for the U.S. Army. The Atlantic crossing was still dangerous at that
time because of German submarines. But since the Aquitania was fast and could outrun
submarines we didn't travel in a convoy nor did we have to zigzag to avoid presenting an easy
target for subs. The actual crossing took less than 7 days but another 2 days had to be added to the
trip for loading and unloading.
As we approached the United Kingdom we were told that we were part of the buildup for
the invasion of Europe. No further details were given and we all had our own scenarios of how
the invasion would take place. The troopship landed in Glasgow, Scotland on 15 April 1944.
From there those of us on the troopship in the Air Corps were taken by rail to Lakenheath AFB in
east central England. I remained there for about three days in which we given our assignments.
The cushiest assignment was to be stationed in the weather department, made up of observers and
forecasters, of an 8th Air Force base. The 8th Air Force was responsible for strategic bombing
with large planes---B17, B24---and an assignment at one of those bases was almost like being in
the States. The 9th Air Force was responsible for fighter planes, and the 9th Tactical Air
Command (TAC) was the unit that was to give close-up bombing and strafing support to infantry
divisions, somewhat like an artillery unit, thus, their bases were to be set up close to the front. A
component of 9th TAC was the Air Support Party made up of radiomen and weather observers
whose job it was to provide linkage between the infantry division and 9th TAC. The air support
party was attached to the infantry division and served, essentially, as artillery spotters, informing
9th TAC of targets that needed to be strafed or bombed, giving exact locations and weather
conditions. There were 12 air support parties, assigned to the infantry divisions that would lead
the invasion of Europe, including the five divisions that would spearhead the invasion by landing
in France on D-Day, the day the invasion of Europe would begin. These divisions were the 1st,
4th, 29th, 82nd Airborne and the 101st Airborne.
When we were given our assignments I learned that I was assigned to the 82nd Airborne
Division. On 16 April, 1944 I was sent to the headquarters of the 82nd Division which was
located in a park, called Braunstone Park, in Leicester, England. There I joined up with eight
members of two air support parties that were assigned to the 82nd Airborne Division. The eight
air support party personnel consisted of two weather observers, five radiomen, and a driver. I was assigned to gliders while the other observer was assigned to the paratroops and would land on D-
Day in a parachute. For the next six weeks I took intensive training in loading and tying down
equipment in gliders for which I received the glider badge. We were introduced to the American
made CG4A Waco glider, which was primarily used to carry equipment. The CG4A was made of
canvas on a metal frame and, if used as a personnel transport which it rarely was, could carry
about 10 soldiers plus two glider pilots. The other type of glider was the larger, British made
Horsa glider, which was primarily used to carry personnel. Constructed of plywood it could carry
up to 30 soldiers plus the two glider pilots. It was known as the "flying coffin" because it was
difficult to handle and easy to crash and when it crashed it splintered into small pieces that acted
like artillery fragments.
Learning how to properly load the CG4A was important for me since we were told that in
our glider mission we would be transporting a very important piece of equipment---a large VHF
radio transmitter that would be mounted in a jeep trailer. This precious transmitter, using the latest
electronics, would provide communications between 82nd Headquarters and the fighter-bombers
of 9th TAC. The transmitter and the trailer would be loaded into the glider in which I would be
located, and a jeep would be loaded in another CG4A glider, and, according to the plans (which
like many well-made plans would not work) the two gliders were supposed to land close to each
other and after the gliders were unloaded the jeep would pull the radio transmitter to wherever the
82nd Division Headquarters would be established on D-Day.
Also included in the glider training were several flights in a glider in which the gliders
were towed by the C47 (DC3) transport planes. I enjoyed the flights since being in a glider while
it was being towed felt like floating in air. The six weeks at Braunstone Park passed very quickly
and pleasantly. The food we were served was quite good and our evenings were free and we had
access to jeeps so we drove to a nearby town, Coalville where we were adopted by the residents..
We spent many a free evening in the local pub drinking numerous pints of warm British beer.
Several of us acquired girl friends. Mine was a 16 year old (I was 19 years of age), blond and
pretty, who had a thick Midlands British accent, and was fun to be with. I also had an overnight
pass to London, which wasn't very enjoyable since the night I was there an air raid took place.
Although I didn't hear any bombs fall, anti-aircraft guns were being fired as German planes flew
by and all the pubs shut down even earlier than their usual 10PM closing. Also a lot of buildings
in London were severely damaged by previous air raids, which made a depressing sight. The only
other time I ran into a German air raid in England was one night driving back from Coalville to
Braunstone Park when suddenly the sky over Leicester in the distance was lit up with searchlights
and I could hear occasional explosions as bombs fell and anti-aircraft guns were fired.
Our glider training ended on 28 May 1944. We were told that the mission we had been
training for was imminent. We packed up and left Braunstone Park in jeeps and trucks with all
our equipment without saying goodbye to our Braunstone friends on 30 May. We drove south to
Greenham Commons AFB, where we had taken some of our glider training, and where we now
were put in total isolation for security reasons. For the next week we intensively trained for our
glider landing on D-Day, which we were told, would take place on 5 June. The D-Day invasion
was to take place on the beaches of Normandy, France between Caen and the Cotentin Peninsular.
The mission of the 82nd ABN Div. was to land behind the beach code-named Utah, which was to be invaded by the 4th Infantry Division and capture the city of Ste. Mere Eglise, located about six
miles inland from Utah Beach. The men of the 82nd would drop behind Utah Beach in parachutes
and in gliders beginning shortly after midnight on D-Day with a drop of a small group of
paratroopers, known as pathfinders, who would light up the landing areas for those who would
follow. The glider landings were divided into six missions with the first one taking off from its
airbase at 1 AM and land behind the German lines guarding Utah Beach at about 3:30 AM well
before the beach landings which were to begin at 6 AM. Our two air support parties were
assigned to two separate glider missions: One was assigned to the 1 AM mission and mine---the
11th Air Support Party--- was assigned to the mission code-named Elmira that would take off
from Greenham Commons Airbase at 6 PM in the evening of D-Day. In our mission were the two
gliders, mine with the VHF transmitter and the other with the jeep, which were supposed to land
close to each other so that the jeep could tow the transmitter. We were assigned to the 6 PM
mission so that we would land in daylight (England was using double-daylight saving time and it
was the period of longest daylight hours) which would make it easier to safely unload the
precious transmitter The landing area for the gliders was the hedgerow country of Normandy,
small fields used for agriculture that were divided by very dense and almost impenetrable hedges
and trees. If a glider smashed into this vegetation when it landed it was usually badly damaged or
demolished.
On June 4th we loaded the two Waco gliders, mine with the transmitter mounted in a
trailer, and the other with a jeep to pull the trailer. I was given aerial photographs of the field that
our two gliders were assigned to land in since I was to serve as the "navigator" who would find
our assigned landing area after we were cut loose from our C47 tow plane. Located about a mile
and a half southwest of Ste. Maire Eglise it looked fairly small, and the hedgerows surrounding it
were ominous. Also, in some of the fields "Rommel's asparagus" had been installed by the
Germans as a defense against the gliders. These were tall metal rods planted in the ground to form
hazardous barriers to gliders attempting to land.
On the evening of June 4th, which was on Sunday, we were instructed to prepare a simple
will giving instructions about the disposition of our "estate" in case we didn't survive the landing
(the casualty rate was estimated to be 35%, but actually for the glider landings it was over 50%).
Since we were too excited to sleep we listened to the radio for news of the invasion. At midnight
we were told that the invasion would be postponed from June 5 to June 6 because of bad weather
in the English Channel area consisting of heavy rain and high winds. As we finally crawled into
bed in the early morning of June 5 we thought about the poor GIs in the infantry divisions that
were to make the beach landings and who were being bounced around on the landing craft in the
rough waters of the English Channel for a whole extra day. That was one time that I was grateful
that the transportation for my participation in the D-Day invasion was a glider.
At 1 AM on 6 June the 82nd Division air support party assigned to the 1 AM mission left
for Normandy. We spent the day listening for reports from the invasion area. We had no
information on the status of those who dropped into Normandy before the beach landings began,
but we did hear disturbing news about the difficulties at Omaha Beach, the beach just east of Utah
Beach. Actually, the landings on Utah Beach, the beach behind which we were to land seemed to
be going well for the 4th Division, which was a major relief for us.
At 4 PM on 6 June we marched to our gliders, armed with our weapons and field rations
for a few days. I also carried 4 hand grenades taped to my backpack straps. The backpack
contained my mobile and somewhat miniaturized weather instruments to measure temperature
and dew point, barometric pressure, and wind direction and intensity. In addition to the
transmitter my glider consisted of the two glider pilots whom I met for the first time when we got
ready to take off for Normandy, and a paratrooper from the 82nd Div., also new to me, who was
to serve as my "bodyguard". With a rank of corporal I was elected to be in charge of the glider as
well as the "navigator" since I held the highest rank on the ground (the glider pilots had the rank
of warrant officers when we were in the air, but reverted to private on the ground).
At around 6 PM we were lifted into the air by a towline attached to a C47 two-engine
plane. The glider carrying our jeep and our driver took off just before we did. Flying at several
thousand feet above the Channel the sensation was rather pleasant, like floating in a kite, although
my "bodyguard" did get airsick and he grumbled a lot about being in a glider since he was a
paratrooper trained to jump out of planes. As we approached the Normandy coastline after being
towed for about two hours we could see the many ships and landing craft in the water as well as
occasional bursts from the guns of our cruisers and battleships. As we flew over the beach I
started to look for our landing field. About two miles inland a few bullets came whizzing through
the canvas skin of the glider from German ack-ack guns, but, fortunately, no one was hit. It was at
that point that the glider pilots told me to quickly locate our landing field since our C47 tow plane
was about to cut us loose. I looked down, compared the terrain to the aerial photographs, but for
the life of me couldn't see anything that looked like our designated landing field. In fact, the only
field that had any resemblance to the photograph was packed with gliders from the 1 AM mission,
and some of them had crashed on landing and their parts were scattered over many fields. Finally,
the pilot of the C47 tow plane indicated that he couldn't tow us any longer and we were let loose
to glide down. During our downward glide I held my breath expecting a crash landing, but the
pilots, using maximum skill, landed us intact in a field that from the air looked no bigger than a
postage stamp but included several other gliders including a big Horsa that was smashed up. Our
glider skid across a very narrow open patch of the field and was stopped just a few feet from the
hedgerow that bordered it. We quickly exited our glider and looked around for the glider with the
jeep, but it was nowhere to be found. In the difficulties in trying to find the assigned landing field
and then making an accurate glider landing it would have been a miracle for the two gliders to
land in close proximity. We later found out that the glider with the jeep had actually been shot
down near Utah Beach killing both glider pilots and seriously injuring our driver who when found
the day after D-Day was shipped back to England for extensive medical care.
Without a vehicle to pull the transmitter we left it in the glider and jumped into the ditch
under the thick hedgerow that surrounded the field in order to plan our next steps. The glider
pilots, reverting to privates, grabbed their Garand rifles and took off to "find the war". The
bodyguard also took off to find a vehicle to pull the transmitter. I stayed to watch the transmitter.
Although by then it was almost 9:30 PM it was still quite light because of double daylight savings
time and the northern latitude we were in. The weather was good but there was lots of smoke
around and noise from artillery and small arms. While waiting I inspected the damaged Horsa and
discovered an 82nd gliderman lying among the ruins. He was still alive, but with a very damaged leg that looked completely crushed. He said he was waiting for the medics to return to take him to
a field medical unit. They had already picked up the other Horsa passengers who were injured or
killed and had given him a strong dose of painkillers. While I was talking to him I noticed that an
elderly French woman had entered the field slowly driving a little cart filled with several large
cans that was pulled by a very small horse. As she came close to where I was standing I told her,
using my knowledge of the French language that I learned in school, that the soldier next to the
smashed glider was badly injured and needed medical care. (Il est blesse, I said) I was very happy
that she seemed to understand what I was saying. Then, I explained that the invasion had begun
which would liberate France. This made her very happy and she offered to move the wounded
soldier in her cart. I told her it would be best to leave him for the medics, and, then I asked her
what she was doing with the cart. She said she was looking for her cows so that she could milk
them. That was very sad since many cows and other livestock were killed during the invasion,
and, I've always wondered if she found any of hers alive. But the amazing thing was that this
lovely old lady, who looked very strong and determined, appeared to be oblivious to all the
mayhem that was taking place around her and completely unafraid of the dangers.
As I was talking to the milk-cart lady my bodyguard drove up in a jeep with two other
paratroopers. He borrowed the jeep from an 82nd Division military policeman who was directing
traffic on the road to Ste. Mere Eglise. We quickly hooked up the trailer to the jeep and drove to
the assembly area for the 82nd Division Headquarters located on the outskirts of Ste. Mere Eglise.
There I learned that the other weather observer, who landed by parachute, was missing. He was
found two days after D-Day in a medical aid station with both of his legs broken when he landed.
Like our jeep driver, he was shipped back to England and then to the USA for medical care.
Thus, I became the sole weather observer for the 82nd Division during the Division’s operations in
Normandy. In fact, I became the sole weather observer in Normandy since the weather observer
assigned to the 101st Airborne Division, Warren Wolfe, was killed during the landing of his glider.
At the assembly point I was startled to see General Matthew Ridgeway, commanding
general of the 82nd, in full control of the situation. He was very concerned about the lack of
communications at the headquarters since a number of the 82nd's own radio Communications
Company had been killed or injured in the glider landings. He asked if we could use our
transmitter for ground-to-ground communications as well as ground to air. Our air support party
radio technician was able to find the proper crystal for the needed radio frequency and, thus, our
transmitter made it possible for the first major communication linkage to be made between the
82nd Division and General Eisenhower’s headquarters back in Portsmouth, England. I also used
the transmitter to send out the first weather report from the Ste. Mere Eglise area at about 11 PM
on D-Day for which I later was awarded the bronze star medal
At close to midnight of my very eventful D-Day we were told to expect an attack by the
German troops who were being pushed inland from Utah Beach towards our position which was
straddling a main road from the coast, less than a mile east of Ste. Mere Eglise. One regiment of
the 82nd Division was in Ste. Mere Eglise, which, along with Bayeaux, were the first cities in
Normandy to be captured by American troops on 6 June. The one hundred or so of us in the
assembly area were spread out along both sides of the road. Although I was very tired from the
excitement of D-Day, the thought of meeting up with German soldiers kept my adrenalin running.
At about 2 AM of June 7, among the sounds of sporadic rifle and artillery fire we could hear the
roar of trucks. At first we thought it was the sound of tanks but were relieved when the old timers
who knew their sounds told us that it was trucks and not tanks. Ten minutes later as we crouched
along the side of the road we saw the first truck appear, a personnel carrier filled with German
soldiers. We all let loose with a barrage of rifle, machine gun and mortar fire which brought the
lead truck to a halt and the passengers leaping out in all directions with their arms up in the air to
surrender. There were six additional truckloads of Germans and all surrendered within minutes as
we kept up our lethal gunfire. My career as an infantryman was over in 15 minutes. German
casualties were 36 dead and 20 wounded. 200 additional surrendered unhurt. Our side didn't get a
scratch. As it turned out many of the "soldiers" we captured were actually Ukranian prisoners of
war who volunteered to work for the Germans on the fortifications of the Normandy beaches.
Since some of them had planted "Rommel's asparagus" which killed some of my fellow
glidermen I didn't shed any tears for those who were killed in our ambush.
During my six weeks with the air support party with the 82nd Airborne. Division I had
several opportunities to meet with General Ridgeway who referred to me as his weatherman.
General Ridgeway was a very intelligent man and a fine leader who was always concerned about
the welfare of his troops. Since I was the only weather observer with the air support party I was
kept very busy making weather observations around the clock and transmitting them to 9th TAC.
During this time the 82nd was being used as a regular infantry division in the campaign to capture
Cherbourg and drive out the Germans from the Cotentin Peninsular. I took my observations very
close to the front so I had to do a little dodging of sniper bullets and artillery shells. Occasionally
I had to take cloud height measurements at night by shining a large searchlight straight up until
the beam of light hit a cloud. Then using an instrument that measured the angle of inclination as I
scoped the beam of light, and applying a little trigonometry, I could accurately measure cloud
height. One night the beam of light attracted a German plane---one of the rare ones to fly over the
area---who used my light as a target to drop his bomb. Since the Germans were still using
whistles on their bombs to make them more menacing as they fell I got enough warning to jump
into the nearest foxhole. A few seconds later I felt a heavy load drop on top of me. My first
thought was that I had been hit by the bomb, but it turned out to be the first sergeant of our air
support party, whose foxhole I had used. The bomb landed fairly close to our foxhole but did no
damage. I apologized to the first sergeant for using his foxhole, but he didn't mind it because he
said I cushioned his landing. After that experience I made sure that the light was positioned a long
distance from where I took the angle measurement.
As to the light side of my post-D-Day experiences, for several weeks after D-Day we were
stationed next to a beautiful old farmhouse near Ste. Mere Eglise that was home to an elderly
farmer and his wife, and his daughter and granddaughter. The farmer’s son had been captured by
the Germans in the early days of the war and was in a German prisoner of war camp. With my
high school French I was able to communicate with these people and they invited us for meals on
several occasions. The meals were wonderful compared to our C and K rations. The teenager
granddaughter did much of the food preparation including slaughtering the chickens and geese
that were served to us. She spent all of her time working at the farm, oblivious of the sounds of
warfare that were so close...the front lines were only a few miles away. She was a pretty young
lady, solidly built, very capable and hard working, with a no-nonsense attitude. One evening, after a sumptuous dinner, she and I were sitting around on the huge porch that circled the farmhouse.
Somehow she ended up in my lap and we kissed. At that moment the grandfather appeared and
indicated that the granddaughter and I were now technically betrothed. I said that there was some
misunderstanding that we were only engaged in playful affection, and while I thought that his
granddaughter was a wonderful young lady, I couldn't get think of a serious relationship until the
war was ended. We abruptly changed the subject when I told him that I had discovered that one of
his farm workers (he had several older men who worked around the farm) had been employed by
the Germans in building the fortifications of Cherbourg. This worker, who was forced to work
for the Germans on the fortifications, did have useful information about them and I referred him
to the 82nd intelligence staff who were happy to interview him. His information was very helpful
in what for the 82nd Division was their final operation in Normandy, the battle for Cherbourg.
Sadly, like my girlfriend in Coalville, England, I never saw my Norman young lady again after
Cherbourg was captured and I moved out of the Ste. Mere Eglise area.
The 82nd Division remained in Normandy until mid-July. They were only scheduled to
take part in the D-Day invasion and then return to England. But because they were such a
superlative fighting machine they remained in Normandy to participate in the capture of
Cherbourg. When the 82nd started shipping back to England to prepare for the next airborne
mission, which turned out to be the ill-fated invasion of Holland, (Operation Market Garden) I
was reassigned to the air support party of 1st Army Headquarters, located at Grandcamps Sur Les
Bains on the Normandy coast near Omaha Beach. Compared to the small air support party
attached to the 82nd, this was a large organization with about thirty personnel including about a
dozen weather observers and forecasters. I stayed with this group until the end of the war on May
8, 1946. This was a good place to be since First Army Headquarters was always close to the front
lines and we moved with the First Army Divisions as they progressed from Normandy to Paris to
Brussels to the German border through the Battle of the Bulge, and then across the Rhine into the
heart of Germany finally ending our eastward movement...and the European war...when we met
the Russians at the Elbe River. As I tell everyone who asks about my wartime experiences, I had a
front row seat to the war in Europe.
When I joined the First Army Headquarters Air Support Party we lived in foxholes dug in
close to Omaha Beach while the Headquarters. was housed in a building that had been used for
the government offices for the town of Grandcamps sur Les Bains. When I had a little free time
from my weather observer duties I would go down to Omaha Beach and watch the unloading of
cargo ships that were bringing in a huge amount of supplies for the build-up in Normandy in
preparation for the breakout into France and on to Germany. Since the port of Cherbourg was still
in German hands the beaches were the main "port" for unloading supplies using sunken landing
craft (Higgins boats) and prefabricated ports (code named mulberries) as piers. In the middle of
July a major storm hit the Channel dropping huge amounts of rain on the beaches and on our
foxholes. The temporary piers were mostly destroyed (you can see the remains of a mulberry
today at Omaha Beach). I recall feeling wet and chilled all the time during this period and feeling
a little depressed because we weren't making any progress breaking out of Normandy. But the
rains finally stopped, the sun came out, and I was enjoying working as a full-fledged weather
observer with professional meteorologists from whom I could learn about the physics of weather.
I also learned how to use the Manx code with which we encoded all our weather observations before we transmitted them. The coding system used templates and random numbers as the
coding scheme which would require at least 24 hours for the Germans to break the coded
information by which time the weather was old news.
I was responsible for supplying much of the recreation for my buddies. Almost by
accident I found the leading "house of ill-repute" in Grandcamps, run by a madame who said that
I was the spitting image of her young son, Auguste, who was missing in action since the
beginning of the war. She gave me his name and showered me with good food and wine, but her
ladies of the night were off-limits to me (but not to my buddies) because she wanted me to remain
pure as her son was. To the end of the war I was known by the nickname Auguste, and although
my buddies wanted me to duplicate this feat of lining up a private brothel for them in other
locations that we passed through on our way to Germany I wasn’t able to meet their desires.
.
The breakout of the Cotentin Peninsular began on 24 July with a gigantic air
bombardment, combining the 8th and 9th Air Forces, of the German line guarding the neck of the
peninsular. It lasted for many hours, and we had an excellent view of it from 1st Army
Headquarters. Following this bombardment divisions of the First and Third armies broke out
towards Paris and Brittany, known as the St. Lo breakthrough. As the infantry moved towards
Paris we followed closely behind, moving five to ten miles a day, setting up our temporary
weather station and the tents in which we lived in a variety of places. We didn't have to dig any
more foxholes since there was no danger of artillery shelling or air raids by the Germans. On 19
August we reached the grounds of the Palace of Versailles where we set up our camp. Paris was a
few miles down the road and First Army divisions could have easily entered it. But the order from
SHAEF was for French troops to have the honor of capturing this wonderful city. So we settled in
at Versailles and endured several days of extreme hunger since our dash from Normandy to Paris
outran our supplies and food became very scarce. On 23 August, against strict orders several
buddies and I drove into Paris to see if we could find some food and to do a little sightseeing. It
was a thrilling sight approaching the entrance to Paris on the road from Versailles that curved
around a hill and then we saw the whole beautiful city spread out before us and we recognized
familiar sights, such as the Eiffel Tower and Notre Dame Cathedral. Although German troops
were reputed to still be in Paris we didn't run into any, and we were warmly welcomed by the
Parisians who showered us with bread and wine. When we returned to our camp at Versailles, our
commanding officer scolded us but then asked us to fill him in on what we saw and did.
On 25 August Paris was officially liberated and the following day we visited it again. This
time we took a tour of the City with a very humorous and cynical tour guide who asked us if we
thought Napoleon was "any less dead" because of the very elaborate and ornate tomb in which he
was interred. We also got into a scrap in a bar with several British GIs who said American
soldiers were very spoiled (overpaid, oversexed, and over here...was the popular saying). During
the ensuing brawl the barmaid accidentally hit me over the head with a bottle (empty), which
caused me to bite the inside of my mouth causing blood to run. Thinking that I was bleeding
from a fractured skull my buddies ran me over to a nearby medical aid station where the true
nature of my injury was discovered, but the medic insisted that I should be awarded the purple
heart for it.
On August 27 First Army Hqs and our air support party was on the move again. We
headed north from Paris in pursuit of the Germans who were retreating towards the German
border. On 10 September we reached Brussels, Belgium and on 17 September we reached the
German border at Aachen, passing through the Siegfried Line. That was a very exciting feeling
walking through the stone tank barriers of the Siegfried Line and knowing that we were on
German soil with the end of the war definitely in sight, hopefully we thought, before the end of
the year. But, again, we outran our supplies and the orders were to pull back into Belgium and
wait until the supply lines get fully established. Thus, our air support party was assigned to the
Belgian city of Verviers, a few miles west of the German border where I was stationed until the
Battle of the Bulge in December/January, 1944/45. After the Battle of the Bulge 1st Army
Headquarters moved steadily through Germany finally ending at Weimar, Germany where we
were when the Germans surrendered on May 8, 1945.
During the war I revisited Paris several times but did not return to Normandy until January
1976 when my wife and I took a train from Paris for a tour of the Normandy invasion beaches and
the cemetery at Omaha Beach. We returned to Normandy in June 1994 to participate in the
celebration of the 50th Anniversary of D-Day. During that time we were very pleased and honored
to have been invited to attend a lovely ceremony in Caen sponsored by the Mayor during which
we received the Commemoration Medal of the Jubilee of Liberty in the name of the people of
Lower-Normandy. In 2003 we also received a certificate from the French Embassy, in
Washington DC, awarded to American Servicemen who served in France In World War II.
My wife and I plan to return to Normandy in June 2004 for the 60th Anniversary of D-Day
celebration.
11 August 2003/el.