The Day Of Days

It was awful.  This scene was famously more intense than that from The Longest Day, thirty-six years before.



The VA estimates that around 350 World War II vets pass on to the Final Muster each day.  There are three surviving Medal of Honor recipients from that war:

1. Charles H. Coolidge who held Hill 623 in France.  He had the distinction of being personally shot at by a tank main gun five times during those four days.
2. Frank Currey, a BAR rifleman.  At the Battle of the Bulge he used the BAR as well as a bazooka and anti-tank grenades to disable four German tanks and rescue five of his fellow troops.  He was also awarded three Purple Hearts during the war.
3. Herschel Williams, a Marine at Iwo Jima.  When the tanks got stalled in front of a series of pill boxes, Williams went forward alone with his flame thrower.  He fought off a Japanese bayonet attack with his flame thrower in hand to hand combat.  Ooh rah.

I encourage you to click through and read about each of these men whose post war careers were every bit as interesting as their time on the front lines.  Williams' TV appearance is particularly interesting.

A common theme that you hear from the vets who were at that Day Of Days was that they cannot stop remembering their buddies who didn't make it back.  This was perhaps said most movingly by the late (Silver Star Distinguished Service Cross winner) Maj. Dick Winters, who parachuted into Normandy on that night:

Courage is contagious. When a brave man takes a stand, the spines of others are often stiffened. 

- Billy Graham

UPDATE 6 JUNE 2019 11:35: Thanks to Aesop for pointing out that Maj. Winters was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, not the Silver Star. Several Silver (and Bronze) Stars were awarded in that Brecourt Manor to men under Winters' command, but he got the DSC.