♪ Funding for this program is made possible by the: [no audio] [surf breaking] (male narrator) June 1984.

The weather was good on the coast of Normandy, the English Channel calm.

[surf breaking] [vehicular noises] In London, a group of Americans began a visit.

[vehicular noises] For some, it was a first.

Others had been here before... 40 years ago.

[people chatting] (male speaker #1) I hope to find familiar spots where I had been.

[people chatting] (male speaker #2) I was very much interested in coming to see where we were and what we did.

(male speaker #3) I decided to come see where we were 40 years ago and possibly some of the people that we met 40 years ago.

♪ ["String of Pearls"] ♪ ♪ ♪ Program captioned by: CompuScripts Captioning, Inc. 803.988.8438 ♪ ♪ (narrator) They had stories to tell and pictures to show.

That's the first pioneer cross-- we got that across that evening.

We got 12 tanks... two of 'em got knocked out before the top of the hill, ran over mines, and, uh, blew 'em up.

We had to clear out around there, get 'em out.

That was F-1 exit, the eastern end of the beach... as far as you could go till you hit the cliffs.

(male speaker #4) Connected into the British?

(Fred Welch) The British were about a mile down below there.

(male speaker #4) It was next to the British... Utah is on the other side.

(Welch) Yeah...Utah was up here, wasn't it?

(female speaker #1) The gun emplacements... look at the pictures.

Those were taken after D-Day, quite a while after D-Day, weeks after D-Day.

(female speaker #2) This one tickles me.

This...this was on Bastille Day here.

That's me in my younger days.

[chuckling] Right here.

(female speaker #2) You were cute!

(narrator) Americans outnumbered natives in small villages of southern England before the invasion.

Country estates became staging areas.

With maps, a Columbia veteran found where he was stationed before D-Day.

(male speaker #5) It was a country estate of one of the William Pitts.

♪ ["I'm Getting Sentimental Over You"] He was the prime minister of Great Britain.

We had the front lawn just covered with, um, jerricans-- 5-gallon cans of gasoline-- stored for the invasion.

♪ This brings back a lot of memories.

♪ I was befriended by the caretaker here, Fred Stemp.

He sort of adopted me, and we had quite a good time together.

♪ We shared this facility with some of the English soldiers.

They had part of the building.

We had the other part.

At the time, it was owned by a Lady Hanberry.

Her quarters were up in the upper story.

The grounds were... not too good shape at that time because the war had been going on for several years.

At one time the formal gardens were quite a showplace, I understand, but they had not been kept up at that time.

I didn't think I would get back, but I'm happy to be here.

♪ ♪ [no audio] (narrator) The channel crossing was smooth, unlike the crossing the night before D-Day, 40 years ago.

[no audio] ♪ At Cherbourg it was hurry up and wait... for a contingent of French reenactors, part of nearly 1700 United States Army vehicles maintained by hobbyists throughout France.

For D-Day, it seemed as if all converged on Normandy.

♪ (male speaker #6) During this period, I was a teenager, and... these people are heroes to me.

To, uh, read about them, to hear about them, to hear the stories that, uh, these men were making for our country, made them heroes to me in 1944, and coming over here in 1984, they're still heroes today... even greater.

♪ ♪ ♪ (narrator) Our first stop in France... the United States Military Cemetery at Omaha Beach.

This was June 4th.

Two days later, this would be one of the sites of the ceremony marking the 40th anniversary of D-Day.

On this day, thoughts were not on pomp and ceremony, but personal things... somebody you knew, where you were when thousands were trying to get on the beach and cliffs, what it must have been like on D-Day, and what it was like.

I came in with the 1st Infantry Division in the afternoon.

And, uh, I remember... how tough it was getting on.

We took cover behind an LST that had been turned over.

We got our stuff off.

One of our men down in the other squad had got wounded by a machine gun.

I was talking to Lynn, and Lynn said that he met two of the Germans that were in that pillbox and were doing it.

[chuckling] I would have liked to meet those two gentlemen!

(Lynn Derrick) This German, uh, awoke that morning-- he was 18 years old-- and saw the fleet before him.

He felt that this was his doomsday and that he would die here.

He occupied the bunker as well as having some authority over five machine gun emplacements surrounding it.

Um...he and I went over the fence to visit these machine gun emplacements and his bunker.

And later, we identified his bunker with a picture that Fred Welch had made of the same bunker, um, the day of the invasion.

♪ (narrator) A wreath was laid honoring Carolinians who died during the Normandy invasion.

♪ [military band playing "Eternal Father Strong to Save"] ♪ ♪ ♪ [no audio] The first town freed by Americans on D-Day was Ste.

Merè-Eglise.

[vehicular sounds] Some of the first Americans to die died here.

[vehicular sounds] A block or two beyond the square, toward the beach, are pastures and hedgerows.

Before thousands of Allied troops came ashore, paratroopers dropped and glided into the fields, orchards, and villages of Normandy.

The first to drop were pathfinders.

(male speaker #7) We came in three planeloads.

Uh, they didn't know we were here until the main body started comin'...didn't hear nothin'.

Set up our drop zone.

When the main body started to come, we knew we were in the war.

[airplane engine roaring] (narrator) From Fort Bragg, North Carolina, the 82nd Airborne came once more to Normandy, not to the uncertainty of a dark June night, but to a field ringed with veterans, media, and townspeople.

[airplane engine roaring] [airplane engine roaring] Strom Thurmond was a circuit judge in South Carolina the day war was declared on Germany.

On that day, he volunteered, and on the night of D-Day, he came in with the 82nd Airborne.

(Strom Thurmond) They didn't cut us loose where planned.

The German fire was so intense, they were afraid to cut us loose.

And so we went, um, a piece farther.

And then, evidently, the pilot thought it was better.

But fire was intense there.

It's a wonder anybody in the air wouldn't have been killed, but fortunately we made it to the ground all right.

I was injured in the landing, but it didn't take long to get back into the fray.

And, and, um, it's... it's an experience that is hard to describe.

You didn't know what was going to happen.

You're lucky to have gotten that far 'cause that glider is a big target.

I'd rather to have jumped.

But I volunteered for this mission, and they assigned me to go by glider.

By the time we hit the ground, the glider was torn to pieces.

We had a jeep in the glider.

We had only three people besides the pilots.

And not far from us, the surgeon of the 82nd Airborne Division had his head taken off with an 88 millimeter.

There were people killed all around you.

And it's a very tense situation with everyone.

Our goal was to get out and fight and win the battle and, and...to go all through France and on and whip the Germans, which we did.

[crowd chatting] (narrator) German veterans from units which survived D-Day also came back to remember.

In Bayeux, the cathedral town spared destruction, two groups of veterans, waiting on tour buses, met, exchanging stories and addresses, unlike a day 40 years ago.

(female speaker, French accent) Do you remember this?

Yeah, yeah, yeah!

[laughter] [crowd chatting] Yeah.

Knock, knock!

[laughter] Um, you were a doctor of the parachutist, uh, division of Germany?

[German accent] Regiment, regiment... Regiment 6, yes.

And you dropped into Caren...Carentan?

Carentan... between 15 kilometers and south of Ste.

Merè-Eglise on the base of the Contentin.

And first dropped... Our regiment, our regiment... came, uh, particularly infantry regiment, in this region, in the middle of May, in the middle of May.

They toured only three weeks until the... start of the invasion.

And now, we have best relations to the American jump divisions-- 82nd and the 101-- and to the infantry divisions, the 90th and the...83rd.

The 83rd has been on our opposite side until almost, uh, 7th of July.

Uh, and then, past the 7th of July was the... 90th division.

(male speaker #8) It is touching to see prisoners of war friendly with the American soldiers that had captured each other during the war and find that there can be friendship where there has been hate.

♪ (narrator) Not far from the American cemetery at Omaha Beach, there is another large cemetery, this one with black granite crosses and many trees.

♪ A sculpture on a mound dominates the grounds.

It is the German cemetery.

Later that afternoon, members of American 90th Division met with their former opponents to remember the dead of both sides buried under the same Normandy sky.

♪ ["Gotterdammerung"] ♪ [music intensifies] ♪ ♪ [ceremonial band music] The anniversary of D-Day was probably best seen on television.

Because of extensive security arrangements, veterans waited nearly two hours before being allowed into a roped-off area of the Omaha Beach cemetery.

There they waited hours more for the arrival of dignitaries, including President Mitterrand of France and President Reagan.

(President Ronald Reagan) The living here assembled-- officials, veterans, citizens-- are a tribute to what was achieved here 40 years ago.

This land is secure... we are free.

These things are worth fighting and dying for.

We will always remember.

We will always be proud.

We will always be prepared so we may be always free.

Thank you.

[applause] (narrator) D-Day's anniversary marks the beginning of the Allied invasion of Europe.

It was the first battle.

The Normandy spring was followed by snows of the Arden Forest.

The Battle of the Bulge would test the Allies again.

For veterans, each village and road in Belgium had a story.

They walked the villages and roads, reliving the Bulge.

(male speaker #9) On small roads, we were able to stop one or two.

They couldn't get around.

They had a hard time tryin' to clear out the knocked-out Tiger.

And it gave us time to fight their infantry.

We were able to defeat their infantry and, uh, and stop them.

[birds chirping] And that is the famous "88".

All veterans that fought in Europe on the ground in World War II will talk about the 88.

That's it...long barrel with the muzzle on the end.

We were able to fight 'em.

Our tank destroyer were able to get the first Tiger that came around the curve.

It come around the curve.

He hit him, he started burning, and they couldn't pass with the other tanks.

We entered into a firefight with their infantry with them, and, uh, we stopped them.

When their tanks did not move with them, the infantry then fought us at a standstill.

They did not try to penetrate us because their armor couldn't come with them.

We had 'em blocked.

Then they were so desperate that they took... their own tanks and pushed the burning tank from the rear and pushed it over the cliff.

Then they tried another one.

Another one of these Tigers came around the curve.

Our tank destroyer got him.

Uh, and that time, they pulled their armor back... to the town... of Stoumont.

We came on through their infantry, and at dusk, we moved into the Saint-Edouard Sanatorium, set up there for the night, and Peiper's men hit us with a counterattack.

There were some Tigers all around the area of the sanatorium and in Stoumont.

They hit us with a counterattack and got in the sanatorium with us.

We had one floor, and they had the other .

Some boys got hurt, so we took them down in the cellar where the children and the priest was.

They got in and won the battle of the floors.

While we were taking care of the wounded, they got in the cellar with us.

They were faster with their guns, and they had 'em on us real fast.

At that time, you were a prisoner.

(male speaker, French accent) Her name, of this girl, is Marie Louise François.

And she was in the same cellars with 150 children... uh...2 priests... uh, 2 or 3 nuns.

And she was there.

So...I suppose, she has also seen, eh, both state... when you was, eh...prisoner.

(Bruce Tate) Peiper was...takin' us.

In the meantime, our regiment and division was encircling Peiper.

He had us, but we also had him.

He took us to La Gleize and held us prisoner for six days in the cellar of a house and the last night in the church in the town.

The morning of the 24th, our boys were able to get to us.

The tried every morning... we could hear the fight, then it would get quiet.

The next morning, they try again.

And after about five days, they got in.

We didn't dare move when our boys were comin', didn't dare move, because the Germans were wearing our uniforms.

You never moved in front of your own troops in the Battle of the Bulge because anything out in front of you was suspect.

So we decided that nobody's going to get out.

Wait till they come in, put their guns on us, then we will talk with them, our own men.

That way, we would be safe.

And, that's, uh, that was the 24th of December, Christmas Eve.

I remember this hill back over on the side, where it was bombarding this by artillery fire.

Our infantry was on top of the hill, plus the tanks was in here.

We was bombarded, then we came down the hill.

I just found where I was.

(male speaker #10) The day before I was wounded, the Americans had started an attack on this town.

The tanks had gotten halfway across the field.

The Germans had some guns in the woods, tank guns.

They had knocked out the American tanks in the attack.

They were out in the field.

As I passed the next day, it seemed some of 'em were not hurt bad, but the tank people had to get off and leave 'em.

There was supposed to have been 600 infantry guys going across.

But the two people on my right and left, I never did know what happened to 'em.

And, uh, when I was wounded-- actually, I had five men with me, four besides myself, on a point, tryin' to get across that field.

After I was shot in the face, I went back to, uh, about 300 yards, found the rest of my men, and got 'em moving towards the front line.

I was shot in the leg 20 minutes later, and I had to get out.

Anyway, I received a Silver Star for fighting that day.

And, uh, in the commendation, they said that we didn't take the town, that our men was able to move forward that day.

But we did take the town.

The reason they couldn't take it the day before, they couldn't get across that field with those tanks.

We had to get infantrymen across that field because there was too many German guns.

[people talking, clapping] (narrator) For the Americans, Spa pulled out the red carpet.

For Renee Busdicker, Spa is home.

(Renee Busdicker, Belgian accent) The people of Spa wanted to thank the veterans, uh...to...because, uh, these soldiers had saved the town from being overrun by the Germans.

And, uh, they wanted to show their appreciation.

And I think they, they succeeded.

Well, that was one of the finest gestures that anyone could do... for...the American people.

Uh... We...uh... don't expect a lot from people, but it does you good to see people in appreciation the way people were in appreciation there at Spa.

(narrator) Reims, France, served as Eisenhower's headquarters during much of the battle for Europe.

A brick technical college got the name the Little Red Schoolhouse.

After the Germans capitulated, I was sent back from Fulda, Germany, and attached to the assembly area command.

I was here in August of 1945, which, of course, was several months after the Germans surrendered.

I had an office just inside the courtyard on the ground floor.

This was the scene of the final activity to bring the war to a close.

♪ ["I'll Be With You In Apple Blossom Time"] I'm glad that it is maintained to this day.

(The Andrews Sisters) ♪ ...that the sun shines on today.

♪ (narrator) For this group, their return ended in Germany, along the Rhine.

1984 and 1985 will see more such returns.

Veterans by themselves, in small groups, or in large, organized reunions will return to the beaches, the villages, the cities, the forests of Europe.

They will remember 40 years ago as if it were yesterday.

A people that love their freedom, and the way that the people show us their appreciation...

I think it was well worth it.

Yeah...we came over five years ago to see these cemeteries, and, um...of course, the area up and down the Normandy coast.

And, uh, it was just gratifying to see how well these cemeteries were taken care of and how good they looked.

This trip has far exceeded my expectations.

Uh, it's been something to read about all the incidents that occurred during the war.

But to be with these boys who have experienced... being in battle and telling us about what has happened and what the liberated people have done for them has been a revelation.

(The Andrews Sisters) ♪ Then what a wonderful wedding there will be, ♪ ♪ one day in May.

♪ ♪ What a very, very wonderful day ♪ ♪ for you and me, dear.

♪ ♪ Church bells will chime.

♪ ♪ You will be mine.

♪ ♪ When?

♪ ♪ In apple... ♪ ♪ in apple blossom time.

♪♪♪