WASHINGTON – June 6 marks the 70th anniversary of D-Day, when 160,000 Allied Forces stormed the beaches of Normandy, France to begin a march across Europe.
On Wednesday, veterans from Oklahoma and Illinois flew to Washington’s WWII Memorial through the Honor Flight Network. Honor Flight flies veterans from across the country – free of charge – to the memorial made in their honor, and then takes them back home again the same day.
Robert Lovell, from Hennessey, Okla., made the trip Wednesday. He fought in Remagen, Germany, where the Allied troops first crossed the Rhine. An Army machine gunner, Lovell didn’t cross the famed bridge, but fought with the artillery from its west side.
“It’s really something to see the memorial,” he said. Lovell remembers the last time he was in Washington.
“Christmas Day, 1944,” he said. “I was on my way overseas.” He never forgot the hospitality he was shown before he left, because “I was about as homesick as you could get.”
His brother died fighting in Europe. After the war, Lovell went on to become a lawyer, and later a judge. He wrote a book about his war experience, “Unlikely Warrior, A Small Town Boy’s View of World War II.”
Because Friday marks another D-Day anniversary, visiting the WWII Memorial this week has deep meaning for many of the surviving warriors.
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who as a Navy officer spent five years as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam, greeted veterans as they made their way from charter buses to the center of the fountain plaza on the National Mall. He posed for pictures with the old soldiers and recognized Marines with, “Semper Fi.”
At 11 a.m. Friday, Friends of the National WWII Memorial will commemorate the invasion with representatives from each of the Allied Nations, laying wreaths at the Freedom Wall.