D-Day:
A Tribute to Fallen Heroes

By William E. Junell, Jr.

It was June 6, 2003. The Friday Morning Breakfast Group (“FMBG”) began to arrive at the offices of James Patrick Smith. Those in at-tendance included Joe H. Reynolds (Capt., U.S.M.C., veteran of World War II and the Korean War), Thomas R. McDade (Capt., U.S.A.F.), Eugene Cernan (Capt., U.S.N., former Astronaut), James R. Leahy (Capt., U.S.M.C.), Harvard H. Hill, Jr. (1st Lieutenant, U.S. Army), Daniel O. Goforth (Sgt., U.S. Army), Ronald G. Bliss (Capt., U.S.A.F. -veteran of the Vietnam War, former POW), James Patrick Smith, Murray Fogler and me. This group, with slight variations, has been meeting once a week for over 20 years. While matters military and political are often topics of conversation, this day was special. This year, our Friday morning breakfast fell on the 59th anniversary of the historic D-Day Invasion into Normandy, France and we were giving special thanks to those in our group who had served their country.
Before breakfast was over, one in the group somewhat facetiously suggested that next year we consider a special meeting in honor of the 60th anniversary of this most significant day in military history - that we actually travel to Normandy to pay personal tribute to those who gave the full measure of sacrifice for free men everywhere. In particular, and because of their extraordinary military service, we wanted Joe Reynolds and Ron Bliss to go, but as it would turn out, Joe could not join us. By Christmas, the plans were made and the group’s representative members would include Ron Bliss, Tom McDade, Harvard Hill, James Patrick Smith and me. Arrangements were made and a tour of the Normandy “landing beaches,” the American cemetery and the surrounding vicinity as well as other significant battle locations, was planned. The adventure was set and, on April 17, 2004, these representatives and their spouses departed for France.
Not coincidentally, the first night was spent at the Littre Hotel in Paris where we met Angelo Ruggeri, our guide for the week. This hotel, as we soon learned, had served as U.S. Army headquarters from the time of the liberation of Paris in 1944 until 1962. Its history was partially revealed in the series of photographs of American soldiers that still graced the walls. Peter, our concierge and bartender, told stories that the photos did not regarding those crucial years following the liberation. After a brief pause, he asked: “Would you like to see “the flag?” Peter then explained that he still had the original American flag that had hung in the hotel during the war years and he would be pleased to retrieve it from storage. Soon he appeared with an old, and somewhat faded, star spangled banner. His pride and ours was clearly reflected in those stars and stripes.
On April 18th our bus headed west toward the Normandy countryside. West of Paris, the countryside is lush and green with an occasional “mustard plant farm” in bright yellow. The rolling hills are dotted with 14th, 15th, and 16th century Norman-style villages, each with a single church steeple serving as a beacon to the surrounding community.
The first stop was Bénouville, the location of the Orne River Bridge. Incredibly, a quick call by Angelo made it possible for us to schedule a personal meeting with Madame Arlett Gondrée, the proprietor of the historic Café Gondrée and the young daughter of Monsieur and Madame Teresa Gondrée. Her story bears repeating. The Café Gondrée is located at the intersection where a rather small, but important swing bridge crosses the Orne River and the Caen Canal. The capture of this bridge was vital to the success of the Allied landing because it could effectively isolate key German Panzer divisions stationed east of Sword, Juno and Gold Beaches. Moreover, if the landing were successful, it could also serve as a means of eastern advancement by invading British and Canadian forces. For this reason, the bridge had to be captured intact and had to be held until a beachhead was established. Appreciating the significance of this bridge, the Germans had stationed a garrison of soldiers at Bénouville, they had fortified the bridge, and, fearing that an Allied landing might be successful, they had prepared the bridge for immediate destruction, if necessary. The capture of the Orne River Bridge would be a formidable task.
At about 12:15 am, June 6, 1944 (six hours before the actual invasion), three Horsa gliders carrying approximately 120 highly trained British 6th Airborne Division soldiers silently landed near the west end of the bridge. Within minutes, these forces, lead by Major John Howard, successfully captured the bridge and disarmed the detonation devices, all with minimal casualties. This heroic effort was the first battle (and also the first deaths) of D-Day. Capturing the bridge was one thing, holding it under a vicious German counterattack was another. The British forces held the bridge that morning until reinforcements arrived. The bridge (today known as “Pegasus Bridge” because Pegasus was the emblem of the British 6th Airborne Division) was secured for the duration of the war. Many believe this event, as much as any, contributed to the success of the invasion because it protected the British and Canadian beaches from what could have been a devastating Panzer counteroffensive.
The Café Gondrée played an important role in the success of this venture. The Gondrée family had owned and operated the café for many years. During four years of German occupation, the Gondrées were forced to serve German soldiers stationed at the Bénouville garrison. Unknown to the enemy, however, Madame Gondrée’s mother (now deceased) understood German and she secretly passed on to the French underground vital information she overheard in her café. Through her efforts, London knew vital details regarding the bridge, the German garrison, nearby fortifications and plans for bridge demolition, as well as German troop movements and general plans and strategies. Her reports were crucial to the success of this pre-invasion mission. The story of the capture of the Orne River Bridge is told in detail in Stephen Ambrose’s book, Pegasus Bridge.
That afternoon, we met Madame Gondrée for about an hour. Though only four years old at the time, Madame Gondrée, based on what she can recall and what she had come to learn from her parents and others in her village, recounted the brutality of life and death under Nazi occupation and the events surrounding the early morning capture of the Orne River Bridge.
From Bénouville we traveled to nearby Juno Beach where over 10,000 Canadian soldiers landed on the morning of June 6th. Here, not unlike Omaha Beach, over 20 percent of these soldiers died in the early hours of the invasion. At Juno, there remain a number of German artillery batteries, bunkers and pillbox locations. The defensive fortifications were obviously strong and their field of fire was certainly to their favor. Today, it is difficult to imagine how the Allied beachheads were successfully established in the face of such heavily fortified positions.
The next day, we traveled to Arromanches to inspect the remaining visual elements of the Allied’s “Mulberry” harbor. This incredibly beautiful seaside village was the site of the critical harbor secretly designed and developed by Allied engineers over a period of years prior to the invasion. Each “Mulberry” was a floating concrete caisson which, at the time of the invasion, was towed from England through rough Channel seas and intentionally sunk in a wide semicircle around a small bay located between the British and American landing beaches. The Mulberrys, when sunk in place end-to-end, were designed to minimize the violent wave action of the English Channel so that supply and troop transport vessels could quickly and efficiently off-load massive amounts of food, supplies, equipment and materials being shipped in support of the invading forces. Incredibly, the harbor was operating within three days.
From Arromanches, we moved to Omaha Beach where we found the terrain much different from the Canadian and British sectors. At Omaha, the five-mile stretch of beach area was at the foot of an imposing bluff rising 50-100 feet high above a shallow seawall. The fortifications that remain today give only a slight impression of what invading forces faced in the initial hours on June 6th. Concrete gun emplacements and bunkers, many with walls 5-8 feet thick, were located 50-100 yards apart. Each was positioned to provide interlocking fire up and down the beach. Those Germans manning the pillboxes were often protected from the ocean side so that small arms fire from the invading forces was useless. Machine gun batteries were located at various levels on the bluff and had a clear view of the open beach. This could only create a shooting gallery effect. Surprisingly, Omaha Beach is over 400 yards wide at low tide (when the landing occurred) and there was, of course, no cover. To make matters worse, there were only five exits from this three mile stretch of beach - three in which vehicles could traverse and two footpaths. Obviously, the Germans knew this as well. Omaha Beach was, by all indications, a death trap.
Today, the German beach obstacles and the hundreds of thousands of mines are gone, and one can only imagine how 10,000 brave young teenagers could summon the courage to charge across that barren stretch of sand, carrying over 70 pounds of equipment, in the face of a withering hail of machine gun, mortar and cannon fire. While the opening scene of “Saving Private Ryan” fairly portrays the carnage of the landing, the fact that the actual beach is much wider than suggested is not revealed in the movie. Yet, by the grace of God and the force of will, the United States’ lst and 29th U.S. Army Infantry Divisions persevered and within hours, they established a foothold in France.
Unlike June 6, 1944, the seas this day were quiet and calm and the skies were clear. Children played on the beach, couples walked hand-in-hand, dogs ran free, and one man flew his kite. It could not have been a more peaceful or serene setting. Yet here, at this very spot, 60 years ago, nearly 10,000 American soldiers died, most of whom today remain at the overlooking cemetery.
From Omaha Beach, we moved to Pointe du Hoc, the famous cliff above which was reportedly located six 155 mm German cannons. These guns could fire heavy rounds 12 miles up and down the Normandy coast. They had to be destroyed. The task was assigned to Col. James E. Rudder (later President of Texas A&M University). On the morning of the invasion, Lt. Col. Rudder lead 230 members of the 2nd Ranger Battalion to the base of the cliff and from there they scaled the vertical bluff nearly 100 feet high only to discover that the cannons had been moved due to the heavy naval and air bombardment. Interestingly, the Battleship Texas was one of those firing on Pointe du Hoc. The German cannons were soon located about a half mile away and destroyed. On top of Pointe du Hoc, there remain many massive concrete gun emplacements and observation and related bunkers. The importance of this target is most evident even today by the pockmarked ground that was so heavily bombed. Many of the remaining bomb and artillery shell craters are 40 to 50 feet across and 15 to 25 feet deep. From the appearance of this moon-scape 60 years later, it is unimaginable that anyone could have survived the force of such a barrage. Yet the fact that so many of the German batteries still exist is a testament to the nature of their defensive positions.
Our final destination was the American Military Cemetery at Colleville. When we arrived, we first stopped at the main office of the American Battle Monuments Commission located near the front gate. We had called in advance to ask permission to make a special wreath presentation at the memorial. Our arrangements were confirmed and the director insisted that one of his associates accompany us at the time of the presentation. We agreed to meet at a specific time and place.
As you enter the gates of the cemetery, you are struck not only by the beauty, but also by the solemnity of this place. Like so many historic sites, there were many visitors, but unlike all others, there was little conversation and no noise at all. Mostly there was silence. People seemed to wander aimlessly among the perfectly aligned white markers, each deep in his or her own personal thoughts. We did the same. Here, the stark reality of war is evident, for here 9,387 American soldiers who fearlessly fought and valiantly died for their country, for their comrades and for free men everywhere, lay in perpetual rest.
At the appointed time, the Monument Service official met us at the memorial to make the wreath presentation. We certainly were neither the first nor the last to pay such a tribute. There, it only seems natural. Before we began, Joe Reynolds joined us by cell phone so that he could participate in a ceremony after all. As we began, the young lady gave a signal whereupon chimes from a nearby bell tower played the National Anthem. After a few initial remarks and the formal wreath presentation by Ron Bliss and his wife, Charleen, the young lady signaled once again and “taps” bugled throughout the cemetery. Tom McDade read the inscription that appears on the portals of the memorial:
“This embattled shore portal of freedom is forever hallowed by the ideals, the valor and the sacrifices of our fellow countrymen.”

As tears flowed, Ron Bliss was asked to say a few words. These were his closing remarks:
“Six decades ago they put you under the grass and we come to stand in this grass today to honor you. The average age in this cemetery is 19 years old. Some of you were older, veterans of a profession of arms, who had already known the love of a woman, the warmth of a family and a gift of life. Others of you were too young, some not even out of high school. Even more, some of you could not vote for the country you died for. You all came by boat. Some of you died quietly under the waves, some of you dropped at the shoreline while your comrades trudged forward only to fall and feel their life seep into the sand. But a precious few of you made it to the seawall that day where you were joined by more and by more, and where you began the fight to simply allow good to prevail over evil. And you did it with a heart, a heart of a free man, and only the heart of a free man can be relentless enough to overcome that much evil. Today, we come to honor you at this little corner of the world. We the living are here to give you the greatest tribute that the living could ever give the dead. We want you to know that what you did mattered, and you did not die in vain. We who have had the gift of life will owe you a debt forever”

William E. Junell, Jr. is a 1971 graduate of the University of Texas Law School. Upon graduation, he joined the firm of Reynolds, Allen & Cook. Seventeen years later, he joined the trial section of Andrews Kurth LLP and in 1997, he became one of the founding members of Schwartz, Junell, Greenberg & Oathout, L.L.P.

Author’s Note: I would like to dedicate this article to two Houston attorneys. Joe Reynolds, a former U.S.M.C. Captain, landed Day One at Iwo Jima in World War II, where he personally witnessed the famous raising of the flag. In the next war, Reynolds was one of the “Chosen Few” who survived the U.S.M.C.’s exodus from the Chosin Reservoir in North Korea. And to Ronald G. Bliss, U.S.A.F. Captain shot down and captured north of Hanoi in 1966, who spent nearly seven years in captivity at the “Hanoi Hilton.” I regret to report that Ron Bliss died on February 8, 2005 after and extended battle with cancer.

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