"In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies."
---Winston Churchill, referencing Operation Overlord
It was a fluke really, that which brought about banter about the Second World War. Coordinating calendars, making salon appointments for the fall, I mentioned Normandy. My husband Rodney and I have plans to travel there, where my father Lt. Cecil Ellzey (1919-1999), a liaison pilot assigned to the 28th Field Artillery Battalion, 8th Infantry Division, landed on Omaha Beach.
Taking off from Ibsley Air Base west of Southampton, England on July 4, 1944, Daddy led a squadron of ten L-4 Piper Cubs in treacherous weather across the English Channel, landing near Saint-Laurent-sur-Mer, where their reconnaissance missions began. The 28th fired the medium artillery, 155-mm. Howitzers for the 8th Infantry; the liaison pilots directed the artillery fire.
As we have tried this trip before, as recently as 2020 - to no avail, we shall see if it pans out this autumn.
My young friend: "Weren't a lot of lives lost there?" Me: "Yes. The invasion at Normandy was the turning point in the war, in defeating the Germans - the beginning of the end."
She: "We were at war with Germany?" Lord, have mercy. Me: "Remember Hitler's plan to annihilate the Jews. And the Allies liberating Europe from the Nazis."
And so began the history lesson, beginning with the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941 and defining the Allies (the United States, England, and the Soviet Union) and the Axis (Germany, Japan, and Italy).
Over the years, I have featured in this column a legion of local World War II veterans. But all did not live to tell their own war stories - approximately 120 Washington Parish servicemen never came home from the war. Corporal Odie Crowe (1921 - 1943), Althea Magee's brother, who was serving with the 105th Coast Artillery Battalion, an anti-aircraft artillery battalion attached to the 1st Infantry Division, was killed in July of 1943 by a German bomb during Operation HUSKY in the liberation of Sicily. Local Willis Ezra Corkern was killed in the same incident; there were twelve casualties. And there was Ann Williams Warner's father Sergeant John Rodney Williams (1919-1944), a heroic nose gunner in the Pacific Theater, who was killed in action. And Captain Jack Stanley Jones (1918-1943), the uncle of Monica Whitfield, Keith Casanova, and Karl Casanova, who flew courageous missions as a star pilot with the 93rd Bomb Group. He was killed in a mission - one that he had volunteered for - in July of 1943. There was also Gloster, Mississippi, native Lt. Patrick H. Wilkinson, the first husband of Frances Wilkinson Knight and father of Patsy. He was a bombardier with the 391 Bomb Group, who was killed, flying cover for the ground forces in the European Theater on December 23, 1944.
For an eyewitness account of the invasion at Normandy, I relied on my knowledge of and my father's friendship with two local veterans, both of whom passed away before I began my World War II research. First, there was the late Curt Thomas (1923-1994), husband of Wanda and father of Cathy, Nancy, and Allen, who served with the Big Red One, the First Infantry of the U.S. Army.
Mr. Curt was among the brave infantry on Omaha Beach on D-Day, June 6, 1944, part of Operation Overlord. Over 5000 ships, with more than 150,000 men, crossed the English Channel. As Curt described to Moggie Bickham, well-known "Era-Leader" columnist, "All over the water were ships as far as you could see." Arriving by landing craft, Curt waded to shore, replacing the first wave. On the beach, he saw "soldiers with rakes scooping in bodies and parts of bodies from the waves." An indelible memory.
But Curt - a Company Aide Medic - made it through, eventually making it to Germany where he stepped on a mine in the Hurtgen Forest during the Battle of the Bulge. Though wounded, he survived. Using a medical kit, Curt explained to Moggie, "I guess I saved myself because I was a medical aide and knew what to do." Long-time Washington Parish Assessor, he and my dad retraced their wartime steps, together, some fifty years later - the journey I wish I had joined.
As I recall, there were over 10,000 Allied casualties (including the dead, wounded, missing, and captured) during the first twenty-four hours of the invasion. Reported numbers do vary, but the lives lost were significant.
I drew on my earlier visits with the late Ford McKenzie (1922-2004), husband of Lola, and his friendship with my father to deliver his World War II story. It is one for the ages because Ford served in the 101st Airborne, also known as "The Screaming Eagles," in World War II. He used his famous brass cricket to signify he was an American. One click, an American. Two clicks, an American. Otherwise, you were the enemy and soon dead. There was also a password - "flash." The correct response - "thunder."
The cricket was a critical piece of equipment for the paratroopers, more than 18,000 of whom dropped in the D-Day invasion parachuting behind enemy lines. Ford McKenzie was in that number who parachuted into Normandy on D-Day - June 6, 1944 - landing near Ste. Mere Eglise, with his crucial cricket on a string around his neck and his treasured slingshot, handmade by his father. Together, my dad and I orchestrated the collection of both, the week before Daddy passed away in 1999, by the National World War II Museum.
From Ms. Moggie's June 1, 1994, article in "The Era-Leader," I learned that Mr. Ford and his "stick" of 22 paratroopers jumped from a C-47 at 1:15 a.m. on the morning of June 6, 1944. Before dawn broke, he found himself in a field in Normandy. He later jumped into Holland and thereafter took part in the famous Battle of Bastogne, "making a daytime jump amid a barrage of enemy fire power." As Ford told Moggie, "We wouldn't give up."
Such sentiment succinctly describes all of the Greatest Generation. Stay tuned for future columns recapping local World War II veterans.
In 1994, Curt Thomas was back on the beach at Normandy, fifty years after he waded ashore during the D-Day invasion of World War II.
