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Remembering D-Day

Veterans Recount Historic Moments

Ray Davis Jr., third from left, is pictured with his comrades during World War II. Davis operated machine guns during the war, including the historic battle of D-Day when his battalion raided Omaha Beach.

June 6, 1944: D-Day, one of the most impactful military endeavors in the costliest war in world history.

World War II still lives on in the memories of veterans, and 75 years later, visions of D-Day still flash in the minds of area residents.

Ray Davis Jr., a 97-year-old veteran and Dunkirk resident, vividly remembers landing in Normandy as he and his comrades struggled to make their way through German defenses. Robert H. Jackson Center co-founder Greg Peterson interviewed Davis regarding his harrowing experience.

“This is gonna be a war,” Davis paraphrased the conversation on the boats heading toward Omaha Beach on D-Day. “So hang onto everything you got.”

Throughout the war, Davis was a machine gunner for the U.S. Army. He was drafted as a teen before he could finish his high school career, and after six months of basic training, Davis ended up in the 204th Anti-Aircraft Battalion D.

Dunkirk resident Davis, left, pictured with his granddaughter Amanda Campbell.

“They just put us on an English ship,” Davis said of the moments leading up to D-Day.

He said he and his peers had been aware of the immensity of the impending battle. Davis said many young men drowned before they could stand a chance against the occupying forces.

“When they dumped me off, … I just peeled everything off that I could and beat it for shore,” Davis said.

The veteran talked about how he helped a comrade struggling to swim reach the Omaha shore. Davis expressed how the feelings of seeing his fellow men die and corpses get carted away bother him decades later.

“Terrible feeling,” Davis said. “To see all them guys on the beach there was terrible. And when we went into Normandy — young kids from 19 to 23 I’d say, just young kids — they were gathering them up and putting them in a truck and taking them up on a mountain.”

This surrogate cemetery served as the burial place for many soldiers who gave their lives. Davis said there hadn’t been time for any prayer services; he speculated that Allied soldiers who gathered fallen comrades likely had their own.

After the beach landing, a 19-year-old Davis was able to fight through D-Day’s “bricks flying off the walls” and “raining bullets” and infiltrate the mainland.

“You get immune to that stuff,” Davis said.

He later shot down a German MEO19 reconnaissance plane.

“I was an anti-aircraft guy. I knew every plane up there,” Davis explained. “That’s an enemy plane. I let him have it.”

Davis mentioned how he never learned whether the pilot lived or what happened to his scouting materials.

As a soldier who would later guard German prisoners of war, Davis expressed his mixed feelings for wartime.

“I don’t feel good about killing people,” Davis said. “It’s a job I had to do. I realize some people didn’t want a war anymore than we did.”

Davis is one of few surviving veterans who lived through D-Day. Veteran Arden Earll, a Corry, Pa., resident, also stormed Omaha Beach and was interviewed by The Washington Post earlier this year. He too was 19 years old when he fought through Normandy.

Earll, able to list the names of his peers who had died during the battle, remained emotional and grappled with thoughts of how he survived when so many hadn’t.

“Sometimes I think, ‘Why were they killed and I wasn’t?’ Why? You don’t know,” Earll said.

Other living area veterans who fought in D-Day include Jamestown resident Paul Arnone, Dunkirk resident Eugene Boner, Fredonia resident Bill Norris and Jamestown resident Bob Ostrander.

More than 100 other personal accounts of D-Day and World War II can be found at Access Chautauqua online. Volunteers have hosted the Jackson Center’s “Defenders of Freedom” project to gather video recollections of World War II veterans for several years.

Follow Eric Zavinski at twitter.com/EZavinski

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