Historians estimate that only 500,000 of the more than 16 million Americans who served during World War II are still living. It is also about the personal memories of soldiers' sacrifices and the emotional cost of surviving and then trying to bear witness to what you saw.īut as the world commemorates the 75th anniversary of the Normandy invasion - D-Day, as it is termed by many - that memory is fading. War is not just about guns and battles and solemn ceremonies in the years that follow. You wonder if that shell has a name on it.” The cost of survival I was shaking,” Santillo said, pausing for a moment and then adding: “If I went to Omaha, I would have been killed. With the intense fighting on Omaha Beach backing up successive waves of landing boats, Santillo’s team of engineers was suddenly diverted to a somewhat safer spot several miles westward at another American landing zone, code-named Utah Beach. But as he gazed over the gunwale that morning and took in the shocking carnage at what would be nicknamed “Bloody Omaha,” Santillo felt his street-smart bravado evaporate. Santillo was just 22 then, a self-described cocky kid from Newark’s Ironbound. A young girl dropped to her knees, laughing as she tossed handfuls of sand into the brisk wind.ĭays later and more than 3,500 miles across the Atlantic Ocean, John Santillo settled into a chair in the living room of his home in Brick Township, New Jersey, and recalled a far different scene on the Normandy coast 75 years ago. A man jogged in the opposite direction, heading toward a narrow road that led up the bluffs to the Omaha Beach Golf Course and the Omaha Beach Spa. On a recent afternoon, a young woman rode a horse along the water at low tide, past L’Omaha Restaurant and a line of cottages overlooking the English Channel. Seventy-five years later, Omaha Beach, the blood-soaked centerpiece of the Allied invasion of Normandy on June 6, 1944, that broke Hitler’s grip on Western Europe, now resembles countless other beaches around the world. No desperate screams from the wounded crawling through the shallow surf.
There are no rat-tat-tat bursts of machine gun fire from the bluffs. OMAHA BEACH, France - Except for the syncopated squawking of gulls and the rhythmic ebb and flow of waves, the beach is quiet now. Watch Video: D-Day anniversary in 2019 marks 75 years since Normandy invasions