Invasion Europe

My father missed D-day. June the 6th, 1944. Most of the Marine Corps was slugging it out with the Japs in the Pacific, and my mother remembers feeling relieved that he wasn't storming the Normandy beaches that day. Almost a year later, May 11, 1945 to be exact, he went down from the concussive blast of a Jap grenade on Sugarloaf Hill and was "lucky" in that it kept him from yet another assault that killed virtually every man in his platoon. D-Day is deservedly remembered as the major turning point of the European campaign. My father's brother Frank was with the 3rd Army and had his share of tales to tell. Not the old man though. Not for us kids. Weeding the Japs from one cave, one hilltop or another was something he wanted to forget.

We salute all of you marvelous bastards.

Family of D-Day Veteran Recoups Military Dog Tags 63 Years After His Death During The Invasion

HUNTINGDON, Tenn. — The family of Pvt. William Bernice Clark never had a funeral for him, never got to say goodbye and never really accepted his fate among the fallen during the Normandy D-Day landings in World War II.

That was until the young soldier's dog tag, recently discovered in the sands of Omaha Beach in France, was returned to his native Tennessee on Wednesday — exactly 63 years after that tragic day.

"This feels like an ending," said the soldier's first cousin, 79-year-old Lota Park, who along with another cousin accepted the dog tag at a ceremony in the small town of Huntingdon, about 90 miles west of Nashville.

The tag has blackened with age, but his name, identification number, religion (Protestant) and blood type (Type O) are all clearly visible.

It remained out of sight for more than five decades until a collector from England found it five years ago while combing the beach for D-Day artifacts, likely near the very spot where the 20-year-old Clark was killed. The collector gave the dog tag to a World War II buff from New Jersey, who turned it over to the National D-Day Memorial.