Editor, Times-Union: Since last week was D-Day week and I have been asked about it, here are my remembrances of 67 years ago. Still a teenager, I was in England four or five months before D-Day. England seemed to be a large airfield and filled with large supply depots, daily increasing in size to sustain the many army divisions that would fight on the western front. We knew the invasion was coming and so did the Germans who taunted newly arrived units via German radio (Axis Sally). We were under constant attack as the Luftwaffe was still a formidable force. I was stationed at the port city of Southampton. The barrage balloons kept the bombers from strafing us, and the antiaircraft batteries were pretty effective against the bombers. Nothing worked against the missiles. The night of June 5, 1944, we were assembled and told all allied planes would have black and white stripes on the tails and wings. This was to prevent firing on our own planes; I had seen this happen. I never figured how they did this on so many thousand planes. You can see it in authentic news reels of the actual invasion. About 3 a.m. I was awakened and given an assignment to take my assigned Jeep, fit a Red Ball insignia on it and lead a convoy 20 miles north and pick up emergency supplies at a depot. The Red Ball insignia gave us priority over other military traffic; then speed to the beaches. Heading north as it was breaking day, on both sides of the road Airborne glider troops were boarding wooden planes to be towed by other planes. Looking back I suspect the majority of these boys never made it home. At this time Armed Forces radio went silent, so these things said it had begun. Probably five miles north of Southampton we began encountering tanks and half-tracks moving to the beaches slowing us down despite having priority. After several hours we got down to the LSTs waiting on us. I don’t remember what the landing craft needed. Evacuation hospitals were on the beaches and we finally got a meal there. I guess a wake-up call for me came as the dead and wounded started arriving from the Normandy landings. Many soldiers were on passes and down on the beaches hunting their units who were now in France. Several months later my unit boarded the LSTs and experienced just how steep the approaches to the beaches were. It was still a long trek to Germany where I ended when the war ended. Germany and most of Europe was in a shambles when we left. 50 years later I returned, even meeting with some of our old adversaries. The resurrection of Germany is hard to believe. It is again prosperous and is leading Europe and has no unemployment problems. George Plew Warsaw
