Military veterans recall D-Day

Alfred Merrill, a Korean War veteran who served in the U.S. Navy, Ralph Mueller, a Korean War veteran who served in the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Army Air Corps World War II veteran Howard Mautner, left to right, salute as the National Anthem is performed during the Memorial Day ceremony at the Ocala-Marion County Veterans Memorial Park in Ocala on May 27, 2024. [Bruce Ackerman/Ocala Gazette]

Home » Community

Posted June 5, 2024 | By Andy Fillmore, [email protected]

This June 6 marks 80 years since thousands of American military service members stormed the beach at Normandy to start what Supreme Allied Commander Gen. Dwight Eisenhower called the “Great Crusade” to liberate Nazi occupied Europe.

About 160,000 Allied troops, consisting of 73,000 American and 83,000 combined British and Canadian personnel, took part in the landing and related operations inland, which involved paratroopers and Army Rangers, according to the AP News.com article “Remembering D-Day: Key facts and figures about epochal World War II invasion,” published June 5, 2023.

The order to launch the D-Day invasion by Eisenhower, as posted by the National Archives at archives.gov, includes his words that the troops are about to embark on a “Great Crusade” and “the task will not be an easy one.”

“A total of 4,414 Allied troops were killed on D-Day itself, including 2,501 Americans. More than 5,000 were wounded. In the ensuing Battle of Normandy, 73,000 Allied forces were killed and 153,000 wounded. The battle—and especially Allied bombings of French villages and cities—killed around 20,000 French civilians,” the AP article stated.

“More than 2 million Allied soldiers, sailors, pilots, medics and other people from a dozen countries were involved in the overall Operation Overlord, the battle to wrest western France from Nazi control that started on D-Day,” the article noted, and at least 11,000 Allied aircraft and 7,000 ships participated in the invasion.

Some local soldiers still remember details about the events.

Howard Mautner, 100, entered the service in 1942 in Wisconsin. He was a member of the Army Air Corps and was working in communications at an airbase in Italy for craft including bombers flying missions over Italy and Germany when the D-Day invasion unfolded.

Mautner said he thought, “I hope this works,” when he heard about the landings, he said in a telephone interview on June 5.

“I was hopeful,” he said.

Mautner said that 80 years later, D-Day and World War II still stands as the Allies stopping Axis tyranny.

“(World War II) was freedom versus oppression,” he said.

John DeFrancesco, 100, joined the military in 1942 in Connecticut during World War II at age 19. He was soon the pilot of a B-17 bomber. DeFrancesco flew about 35 bombing missions with the 384th Bomb Group over Europe which lasted eight to 10 hours in temperatures as low as minus 40 degrees. He said he was flying bombing missions when he heard about the D-Day invasion.

“We thought it was the beginning of the end and make or break (for the Allies). It was a toughie,” he said by phone Wednesday.

Robert Anderson, 98, was in training and was having breakfast when word came down that troops had made the D-Day landing. He immediately knew the war had taken a tough turn.

Anderson arrived in Europe in September 1944, as an Army combat infantryman, and was in combat until near the close of the war. He took part of an attack on the Siegfried Line, a fortified eight-mile-long barrier in Germany and fought in an area known as a “No Man’s Land.”

The Ocala-Marion County Veterans Memorial Park, at 2601 SE Fort King St. Ocala, offers numerous displays related to historic conflicts and often hosts events to honor local veterans. To learn more, go to marionfl.org or marionvetpark.com