My annual D-Day story about two men who survived the Normandy invasion. Salute to my great uncle, John C. Williams, Sr., Colonel, 4th Ivy Division, Utah Beach, Normandy, France, 6 June 1944. He was too young for WWI and old enough to escape WWII. He was a lawyer, a former and future Congressman in South Carlina. He had connections, but he enlisted in the Army anyway. When they landed on Normandy Beach they were under heavy fire. John jumped in a shell hole and landed on a paratrooper from the 82nd Airborne. The paratrooper looked back to see what hit him and said Ill be damned if it aint John Williams. The Airborne soldier was Russell McKinney, a friend of Johns from Spartanburg, SC. What are the odds? John had lost a shoe between the shore and the shell hole so Russell obtained a pair of Airborne jump boots for him. When John died on 20 January 1998 he still had the boots, which had been re-soled several times. His son, John Jr., still has the boots which are in remarkably good condition. John Sr. went on to become the U.S. Attorney for the western district of South Carolina under Presidents Kennedy and Johnson. The 6th Signal Corps attached to the 4th Ivy Division included the Comanche Code Talkers. Charles Joyce Chibitty (9 Nov 1921 -- 20 July 2005) was the last of the original thirteen, all thirteen survived the war. The Comanche Code Talkers were not recognized in the U.S. until 1999 despite being awarded the Chevalier of the Ordre National du Merite by the French government in 1986.
Posted on: Fri, 06 Jun 2014 16:02:20 +0000
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