'Not many made it through': Ohio forever connected to D-Day invasion (2024)

Thursday marks 80 years since D-Day, the date Allies stormed the Nazi-occupied beaches ofNormandy, France, during the largest amphibious invasion in history.

By day's end on June 6, 1944, more than 150,000 troops from the United States, Canada and Britain had used 4,000 aircraft and 11,000 ships to push German troops back toward their homeland, forming a clear turning point in World War II.

D-Day is remembered as a victorious endeavor throughout the free world, but historians would be quick to point out the liberation came at a high price: more than 20,000 casualties were reported that day by both the Allied forces and the Axis powers.

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt that night summarized the operation with a prayer over national radio: "Almighty God: Our sons, pride of our nation, this day have set upon a mighty endeavor, a struggle to preserve our republic, our religion, and our civilization, and to set free a suffering humanity."

70th anniversary: Mansfield-area veterans recall Normandy

Did any Ohioans take part in D-Day?

Ohio residents had a strong supporting presence not just during D-Day, but throughout all of World War II, according to a blog entry written by John Haas, manuscript curator for the Ohio History Connection.

Throughout the war, 890,000 Ohio men and women served and more than 23,000 died in service.

For the D-Day invasion, the Ohio National Guard 112thCombat Engineer Battalion was renamed the 112th Engineer Combat Battalion, and was ordered to clear obstacles and mines from the beaches at Vierville-sur-Mer, Les Moulins, and Saint-Laurent-sur-Mer.

"The Ohio 112thEngineers suffered 37 killed and 45 wounded that day including the commander Maj. William A. Richards," Haas wrote. "The 112threceived a Presidential Unit Citation for its actions on that day on Dog Green, Dog White, and Dog Red sectors of Omaha Beach."

Richland County soldier one of first to storm Omaha Beach

One of the myriad fighters to splash ashore 80 years ago was Vance Hill, a longtime Ontario resident whom News Journal reporter Mark Caudill interviewed in June 2020.

The Iberia native was 102 during the 76th anniversary of D-Day, but only 26 as his landing craft approached Omaha Beach.

"We lost 3,000 boys that morning," Hill said solemnly in 2020.

He was part of the first wave of soldiers to reach the beach.

"As the boys went up the cliff, they (Germans) mowed them down," Hill said. "The only way they would stop the firing, they burned them out (using flamethrowers).

"The tank outfits went in the afternoon. I went in the next day. I remember going over the side of the ship on a rope ladder. The channel was rough and bumpy."

Hill served an important and dangerous role as a point scout. He would go ahead of most of the forces.

"You didn't last long," Hill said. "Not many made it through. I had both of my hands almost blown off."

Bucyrus residents were urged to remain solemn after victory

Back home in Bucyrus, there was no doubt in any reader's mind when they opened their newspapers on June 6, 1944, that Allied forces had beensuccessful on the beaches of Normandy.

"Invasion forces secure!" the front page of the Bucyrus Telegraph-Forum reported.

Reports of Allied success in the war dominated headlines the entire week.

But one headline on the page that day was local: "Invasion day day of prayer in Bucyrus."

Although there were victories, they were solemn.

"In Bucyrus, mothers, fathers, wives and sweethearts, relatives and friends joined in offering prayers for their boys fighting into the continent," the article read.

Services at various churches were held that day, and throughout the weekend.

The article stressed that there were no celebrations. In fact, it referenced that local workers who heard the news returned to their stations, "more keenly aware of the necessity of harder work."

Wooster native recalled fighting in Germany after D-Day

Ray Rose of Wooster was dispatched to northern France a few weeks after the D-Day invasion, he told Daily Record reporter Bryce Buyakie in 2022.

Rose and his company marched from the recently seized Normandy beaches to Luneville, France, near the Swiss and German borders.

Rose's job included reloading one of six 105mm howitzers with foot-long shells. He measured out the explosive powder needed to fire a projectile.

In the early morning hours of New Years Day 1945, Rose and a few others were ordered to fire their cannons in celebration.

"That was the wrong thing to do," Rose recalled in 2022.

The Germans answered those shots — Rose and his company rushed back to their howitzer cannons to return fire. Seven hours later, they had fired more than 400 shells.

"We had to move back and go when they got closer," Rose recalled, tears welling up in his eyes. "We kept shooting and then we moved up and they moved back."

Marion resident was a child in Germany during World War II

Seven decades after the war, Erika Rich visited an airshow in Marion where, for the first time as an adult, she saw a B-17 bomber.

The time before that, she was a child in Frankfurt, Germany — the B-17s then were flown by Americans who had come to bomb her hometown.

"I grew up over there when the war was going on," she told the Marion Star in 2017. "They flew over us and it was scary."

Rich and other children from her school in Frankfurt had to escape the city because of the Allied bombing raids.

“It was too dangerous,” she recalled.

The children were placed on a train bound for the German countryside. That’s when an American fighter plane found them.

“They thought that we were soldiers in the train,” Erika said.

Although the pilot shot at the train, none of the children were killed.

“They stopped the train in the woods and they told us to run,” Erika said.

It wasn’t her only brush with danger.

“I got shot at in a potato field, too,” she said.

Rich grew up and married her husband, Don, who was an American soldier. They moved to Marion in 1963.

Seeing the B-17 bomber again brought back startling memories for Rich, but she understood why the plane needed to exist.

"We were lucky to get through it," she said. "It’s just a part of life, I guess."

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