Mr. D’s D-Day

The fourth wave at Omaha Beach

My in-law’s house was packed with mourners fresh from my mother-in-law’s funeral.

I was sitting in the dining room. I didn’t know most of the people at the wake. Mr. D came and sat down next to me. Mr. D and his wife had been friends of my wife’s family for decades.

Into the Jaws of Death: Troops from the U.S. 1st Infantry Division landing on Omaha, as photographed by Robert F. Sargent

The only things I knew about Mr. D was that he had been extremely successful in business and had a lot of money, his hobby was raising and racing thoroughbreds, and he’d been in the army in WW II.

We made some small talk. Mr. D told me how long he had known my mother- and father-in-law (a long time) and how much he liked them (a lot).

Running out of things to say, I told him that T (my mother-in-law) had told me he was in WW II.

“Yes, I was at D-Day,” says Mr. D, rather matter-of-factly. “At Omaha Beach.”

This was 2001. I’d seen Saving Private Ryan. I’m interested in WWII history. Long before Steven Spielberg created his beach landing scene, I knew the story of Omaha Beach. I didn’t tell him that, of course. I was surprised he was talking about it, but this is the first time I’ve met the man. Maybe he tells this story a lot.

“I was in the fourth wave,” says Mr. D.

“As we got closer to the beach we started seeing a lot of stuff in the water. Then we started seeing bodies in the water.”

He said once the gate on the landing craft dropped, and it was time to go, he remembered nothing except running. The next thing he remembers is hours after hitting the beach is being on top of the bluff and seeing German prisoners being taken away. “I know we did what we were supposed to do.”

What really woke him up was the smell. “Like everything you can think of on fire all at once.”

The someone came over to say hello to Mr. D and the spell was broken. I got taken away to meet another relative. I didn’t get to speak to him again during the rest of the wake.

But I did meet Mrs. D. She’d seen me talking to her hubby earlier and asked me what we talking about. Mr. D was gesturing, using his hands while he recalled horror and terror of June 6, the Allied landing in Normandy, an event that marked the beginning of the end of the Third Reich.

Apparently, Mr. D didn’t talk with his hand a lot.

I told Mrs. D that he told me about WWII and being in D-Day.

She looked shocked.

“He never talks about that. He’s never said a word.”

Why he told me his D-Day story, I do not know.

But 23 years later I vividly remember my conversation with Mr. D at my mother-in-law’s wake.

Mr. D died more than decade ago. His wife is 97. Soon everyone with a living memory of the war that stopped fascism from taking over the world will be gone. I’m glad to have heard a tiny piece of Mr. D’s D-Day story.