His longest day
Walt Ehlers (Jebb Harris, Staff photographer, file)
June 6, 2024, will mark the 80th anniversary of Operation Overlord, the largest seaborne invasion in history. Here’s one soldier’s account of what it was like to land on Omaha Beach during the fierce battle.
Reporters note: The interviews for this graphic were conducted in 2004 for the 60th anniversary of the Normandy invasion. I had the privilege to interview Walt Ehlers on several occasions about his experiences with the U.S. Army’s 1st Infantry Division, the invasion and the days that followed.
The Allies had an estimated 10,000 casualties and 2,500 dead on D-Day. One death was Ehlers’ brother Roland.
Walt Ehlers received the Medal of Honor for taking out German machine gun nests and saving wounded men in the fields of France in mid-June.
After the war he worked for the Veterans Administration for 34 years. Ehlers died in 2014 at age 92 and is buried at Riverside National Cemetery.
Ehlers told me, “Getting my squad off that beach alive might be what I’m most proud of.”
During World War II all American men between the ages of 21 and 45 had to register for the draft. By 1944 50 million had registered and 10 million had been inducted into the military. Draft numbers for men in their 40s were being called by 1944 as the military ramped up for the European invasion.
In May 1944, the Western Allies were ready for the long-delayed cross-channel invasion of northern France, code-named Overlord. Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower was supreme commander of the operation that coordinated efforts of 12 nations.
Surprise was an essential element of the Allied invasion plan. If the Germans had known where and when the Allies were coming they would have hurled them back into the sea with the 55 divisions they had in France. The invaders would have been on the offensive with a 10-to-1 manpower ratio against them.
The Nazis had spent months constructing the Atlantic Wall, a 2,400-mile line of obstacles. This defensive wall comprised 6.5 million mines, thousands of concrete bunkers and pillboxes containing heavy and fast-firing artillery, tens of thousands of tank ditches and other formidable beach obstacles.
Not many veterans who made the landing are left. A few dozen will attend 80th anniversary events.
“Our purpose went well beyond aiding our allies as they faced the German blitz. It was to save our way of life, for our parents and siblings and home, for our children and the children we hoped to have and for their children.” — From Walt Ehlers’ speech at the 50-year anniversary of the invasion
Sources: “Walt Ehlers, D-Day 1944,” by Steven J. Zaloga; “Spearheading D-Day,” by Jonathan Gawne; nationalww2museum.org; U.S. Army
