National World War II Museum estimates there are now fewer than 2 million of the nation’s 16 million veterans from the war alive.
Francis M. Lamoureux, of East Longmeadow, holds a photograph of the men he fought beside during World War II. Of his group of 18 that parachuted in to Normandy on D-Day only half survived. Lamoureux is third from the left, top row, and was fourth to jump.A generation or more ago, the 6th of June was synonymous with D-Day.
The greatest amphibious operation in military history. A major turning point in World War II. The beginning of the end for Adolph Hitler’s Nazi forces.
Francis M. Lamoureux, of East Longmeadow, lived that piece of history. Sixty-six years ago Sunday, he was jumping off a plane about an hour past midnight.
Of course, it wasn’t history on that momentous day, but rather a blistering and bloody reality of war.
Lamoureux is among the dwindling numbers of men and women who are still around to recount their roles in the Allies’ invasion of France on June 6, 1944 and the rest of World War II. The National World War II Museum in New Orleans estimates there are now fewer than 2 million of the nation’s 16 million veterans from the world war alive.
“Jumping that night was a nightmare,” recalls Lamoureux, who volunteered to be one of the first to jump in the invasion. “All hell broke loose on the coast of Normandy.”
Lamoureux, who fought with a specially-trained Army Pathfinders unit, said the plane he was aboard took flak and gunfire as it approached their drop zone, about 10 miles inland from the soon-to-be bloody beaches of Normandy.
The 90-year-old Lamoureux, then 24, remembers the events of that day in vivid detail, from how he instinctively curled up his toes within his boots as he awaited his jump to the rapid-fire shout, “Go! Go! Go!” which marked the time to jump to his fate.
“I didn’t want my toes to get shot off. I didn’t want the soles of my feet to get mangled by gunfire before I left the plane,” he said. Lamoureux was the fourth man out of the plane and landed in an apple orchard. “When we finally landed it was a revelation and relief,” he said. “I said ‘I am safe. I didn’t get hit. Maybe I can escape further hits.’”
The Pathfinders’ mission was to mark drop zones for the main Army Airborne force, then to seize bridges and crossroads to block the German counterattack.
“We were there to protect the men who were coming after us,” said Lamoureux, who recently moved from Ludlow to East Longmeadow with his wife, Hildegarde. “We had to protect them from the rear.”
Dubbed “The Longest Day” by historians, D-Day turned into 33 days of round-the-clock combat for the 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment, with half of Lamoureux’ 2,000-member unit killed or wounded by early July.
Lamoureux’ particular task that morning was to set up a Eureka radar unit that would allow planes carrying the ensuing invasion force to hone in on its signal. His unit was attached to the 82nd Airborne Division.
Lamoureux said the radar unit, strapped to his abdomen, weighed 40 or 50 pounds and would have interfered with his ability to deploy his reserve chute should the main one fail. And so, he, and a buddy, also carrying a Eureka, decided to ditch their reserve chutes in England before their departure.
Of the 18 paratroopers in that plane, a unit known as a “stick,” only nine would survive the night, Lamoureux said.
Daniel M. Walsh, director of veterans’ services for the city of Springfield, says men like Lamoureux with stories to tell about the massive D-Day invasion that turned the tide of World War II are growing few and far between.
“Unfortunately, we are losing over 1,500 (World War II veterans) a day who actually saved our way of life,” Walsh said. “Every day they are dying.”
Over the past year, prominent Western Massachusetts veterans who took part in D-Day are among those who have died. Milton R. Berman, longtime owner of the former Yale Genton clothing store in West Springfield, died in February. Berman served as a captain in the U.S. Army and flew a P-47 Thunderbolt during the invasion, providing aerial support for the ground troops and help move fuel and ammunition from England to France.
Earl D. Clark Jr., of West Springfield, died in November; he served with the Army’s 1st "Big Red One" Division and referred to himself as “one of the lucky ones” who went ashore at Normandy in the first wave of troops that day and survived. Of the 195 men Clark went off to war with, only five returned home alive.
“I went ashore at 6 in the morning (at Omaha Beach), one of the first waves,” the then-86-year-old Clark recalled from his home in West Springfield a year ago. “All you could do was go up that beach and run like hell.”
The D-Day invasion – aimed to break down Hitler’s “Atlantic Wall” and stop the Nazi conquest of Europe – involved 5,000 ships, backed by thousands more smaller craft, 11,000 aircraft and 200,000 men. Before the day was over, thousands – Allied and German soldiers, as well as French civilians – would perish.