• Follow us on Twitter @buckeyeplanet and @bp_recruiting, like us on Facebook! Enjoy a post or article, recommend it to others! BP is only as strong as its community, and we only promote by word of mouth, so share away!
  • Consider registering! Fewer and higher quality ads, no emails you don't want, access to all the forums, download game torrents, private messages, polls, Sportsbook, etc. Even if you just want to lurk, there are a lot of good reasons to register!

Retracing the Path of my Uncles

cincibuck

You kids stay off my lawn!
Three of my uncles served in France during WWII. It's always been a dream to retrace their path and beginning last May with a trip to England to find the places where their units trained before being sent to France. This spring I'm beginning in Normandy. On June 25th, D + 19, Uncle Bobby, the youngest of the three arrived in Normandy with the 59th Armored Artillery Battalion, Part of Patton's van. He had just turned 20. Here is how my story begins:

Day One in Caen: I grew up with the story of D-Day repeated on the radio, TV and Movies. Shortly after arriving in Vietnam, I sought a transfer to the First Infantry Division. There my job was to help see that the story of the division was known to the men serving in it and to the American public.

All of that began with the history of the Big Red One and the units that made it up. Part of that history included Omaha Beach.

Yesterday I returned to Omaha to honor the men of the Big Red One who fought and fell there.


We begin with Pont le Hoc, This is where the rangers climbed the sheer cliffs in the face of enemy fire and manged to overtake the gun positions that intelligence believed threatened Omaha and Utah beaches. When they got there they found the artillery men, but the guns had been moved inland following airstrikes and the fortified positions on top of Pont le Hoc had not been completed.
 

Attachments

  • DSC_0781.jpeg
    DSC_0781.jpeg
    89.3 KB · Views: 8
  • DSC_0780.jpeg
    DSC_0780.jpeg
    91.5 KB · Views: 7
  • DSC_0770.jpeg
    DSC_0770.jpeg
    89.9 KB · Views: 7
Back
Top