{"id":9188,"date":"2016-06-06T01:21:02","date_gmt":"2016-06-06T00:21:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.devries.fr\/?p=9188"},"modified":"2022-06-14T16:03:25","modified_gmt":"2022-06-14T14:03:25","slug":"d-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/devries.fr\/es\/2016\/06\/06\/d-day\/","title":{"rendered":"Salute to Julius"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A gentle\u00a0spring breeze is coming\u00a0in from the dunes\u00a0just behind me. On the beach below, a little boy is playing\u00a0football at low\u00a0tide. An older couple is sitting on a bench overlooking the peaceful sea. Maybe they are just old enough to remember what happened here, today exactly 72 years ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On June 6, 1944, these now peaceful beaches where the stage for the biggest military operation the world had ever seen. An eclectic bunch of daring young men landed in country, and often on a Continent they had never been to. Over 1,200 aeroplanes, 5,000 boats and 160,000 arrived that day. In today\u2019s early summer sun, it\u2019s hard to imagine the massacre that took place. On Omaha Beach alone, around\u00a02,000 American soldiers died. German losses were around 1,200. But it was the local population that suffered most: 3,000 French civilians died on June 6, 1944. Yet, in spite of the heavy toll, the Liberation of Europe had begun.\u00a0The massive invasion\u00a0didn\u2019t mark the end of World War II as such, but it certainly marked the beginning of the end of the War.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pathfinder<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Every year since 1949, the Normandy coast commemorates the\u00a0arrival of the allied freedom fighters.\u00a0In 2009 I had the pleasure to be in Normandy to report on the celebrations of the 65th Anniversary of Operation Overlord, or D-Day as it is better known. Near Omaha Beach, one of the five landing sites, we met Julius\u00a0Eisner, a charming 85-year-old New Yorker. In 1944 he was Private First Class Eisner. Born on January 12, 1923, in Brooklyn, he served in the 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 82nd Airborne<\/a>. He was a Pathfinder, the specially trained paratroopers dropped behind enemy lines to mark a drop zone and to prepare operations. They were the first to arrive in Normandy, a couple of hours ahead of the troops that landed later that night, in the early morning, on the beaches.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Until today, the church of Sainte-M\u00e8re-l\u2019Eglise commemorates John Steele\u2019s unfortunate landing.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

A little after midnight on 6 June, Eisner jumped out of the C-47 aeroplane<\/a>, better known as \u2018Dakota\u2019. It was one of the 432 aircraft that had left England that night. Eisner\u00a0landed at 01:21 a.m., after a very low jump, just 350 feet. Of the 17 planes with pathfinders, his\u2019 was the only one that landed in the right place. A couple of hours later, his battalion took the village of Saint-M\u00e8re-Eglise, the first town on the French mainland to be liberated (Corsica was liberated in October 1943). Although\u00a0Eisner was wounded, he continued fighting. Other paratroopers were less lucky. Many were killed. Private John Steel landed on the clocktower of the local church where he hung for two hours, pretending to be dead. Steel and Eisner later participated in the operation \u2018Market Garden\u2019, in the Netherlands, where Eisner\u00a0also was a prisoner of war for a couple of days.<\/p>\n\n\n

[aesop_parallax img=\u00bbhttp:\/\/devries.fr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/dday.jpg\u00bb parallaxbg=\u00bbon\u00bb caption=\u00bbD-Day, 6 June 1944\u2033 captionposition=\u00bbbottom-left\u00bb lightbox=\u00bbon\u00bb floater=\u00bboff\u00bb floaterposition=\u00bbleft\u00bb floaterdirection=\u00bbup\u00bb]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We interviewed Eisner in the field not far away from\u00a0the grasslands where he landed 65 years earlier. In June 1944, a large part of the area was flooded. A lot of heavy equipment, radios, and guns were lost in the swamps. Some soldiers even drowned because they were too heavily packed. After the War, Eisner returned regularly to Normandy.\u00a0Every time he came to France, he was staying with the same French family. His hosts only spoke a little English, but just enough to express their deep admiration for the old paratrooper. At first, I just thought it was a pleasure to meet such a vivid old man, but the encounter soon turned into an honour. He was actually the first soldier I met who fought here, and he was full of fascinating and terrifying stories. Watch the interview with the late Julius Eisner (in English with Dutch subtitles) and several other D-Day veterans:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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