D-Day group links families with lost stories

BEDFORD, Va. -- The American flag the government sent home after World War II is still folded in a wooden footlocker that Henry Aubin keeps in his cellar. The Purple Heart is down there somewhere, too.

But the story of Raymond J. Aubin, the uncle who died in the war, was buried deeper with each passing decade as family members were left guessing about how he died.

Then the National D-Day Memorial Foundation began compiling the first known list of every American and Allied serviceman killed during the June 6, 1944, D-Day invasion of France. Among the names that surfaced was that of the 23-year-old Navy cook.

"I knew he was killed by shrapnel on a ship, but I had no idea it was on D-Day," said Aubin, 54, of Mansfield, Mass., when told about the foundation's research.

The foundation's $25 million National D-Day Memorial monument of polished granite and bronze was dedicated on June 6, 2001, in Bedford, a town that lost 19 soldiers on D-Day, proportionally one of the largest D-Day losses of any U.S. community.

On Memorial Day, the foundation will dedicate the first of what it hopes will be a series of bronze plaques engraved with names of men who died that day as they helped break Hitler's grasp on Europe.

So far, foundation researcher Carol Tuckwiller counts 4,142 servicemen killed. She estimates that 300 more will be added to her list -- a total far lower than the 5,600 to 12,000 typically cited.

Money problems

The project has not been without its troubles.

The foundation filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection last year after plunging into debt as it scrambled to complete the monument in time for aging veterans to see it. Federal prosecutors plan to pursue fraud charges against former foundation president Richard B. Burrow, accused of lying in an attempt to obtain loans for the project. A trial in December ended with a hung jury.

But the project's mission remains clear, and for relatives of the dead, invaluable.

"It's wonderful people are doing this," said Ray Aubin, 52, of North Attleborough, Mass., who was named after his World War II uncle. "That history isn't lost forever."

More than 130,000 troops were involved in the D-Day invasion along 50 miles of French coastline, and accounting for every fatality has been a monumental task, Tuckwiller said.

When Raymond J. Aubin's name crossed Tuckwiller's desk with death records of both June 6 and June 8, 1944, she looked for family members to talk to but found none. So she contacted a veterans group that included members of Aubin's Navy Landing Craft Infantry ship.

There, she met a medic and a signalman on Aubin's ship who saw him get hit. They confirmed that he was killed on June 6, and they helped develop a picture of Aubin that his nephews knew nothing about.

Quiet and reserved, Raymond Aubin was shorter than most of the sailors in LCI ship No. 408 and hardly looked old enough to run a kitchen. On the morning of June 6, 1944, he was helping load an anti-aircraft gun, covering shipmates as they clambered onto Omaha Beach.

Finding flag, medals

After being contacted for this story, Ray Aubin sent family pictures to the D-Day Memorial for its archives, and Henry dug out the old flag and found some of his uncle's medals.

About 65 bronze plaques have been ordered to adorn the memorial's central plaza -- just a fraction of the 232 needed for the entire fatality list, foundation president William A. McIntosh said.

Some family members have made donations to help pay for the $5,000 plaques as a way to preserve the memories for future generations.

"Their story is getting told because of the plaques," McIntosh said.