Haunting memories: WWII vet remembers horrors of Normandy on D-Day

Howard Thomas was 22 years old the day the Allies hit Omaha Beach.

Assigned to a tank battalion, he spent the preceding days under a vague dread, loading equipment and bracing for whatever waited across the English Channel.

"We knew there was something going on, but we wasn't supposed to know," he recalled. "They kept telling us, 'Talk sinks ships. Don't talk.'"

So they didn't.

Seventy-three years later, Thomas still struggles to talk about it. Most days, he's just happy to get up, drive himself to the Cape Girardeau Senior Center and visit with friends.

"I don't even like to think about it anymore," D-Day veteran Howard Thomas said, hands shaking. "I still have nightmares about it."Fred Lynch

"And to get a good meal," he said.

He did that Tuesday as well, but it was June 6. On the anniversary of the Allies' D-Day invasion of Europe during World War II, he said it's important to talk about it. It's important to remember.

He remembered being drafted in 1942.

"I really don't think it made a difference (how I felt about it) because everybody who was able-bodied was getting drafted in," he said.

He trained in Fort Knox, Kentucky, and Fort Hood, Texas, before heading to England.

Then, in 1944, he was in a boat being pushed toward Normandy, France. He and his comrades knew something was wrong.

"Our intelligence wasn't very good," he recalled. "We weren't supposed to have that much out of position."

He paused there at the table in the Senior Center, at the threshold of that day's memory. The rest came out in halting sentences, labored and short.

"The way they do that, the foot soldiers goes off the boat first," he said. "And that's when the Germans started machine-gunning. It wasn't good."

What he saw that day scarred him.

"I don't even like to think about it anymore," he said, hands shaking. "I still have nightmares about it."

He survived. Thousands of his fellow servicemen did not.

"We had a lot of casualties," he said. "A lot of casualties.

"A lot of them younger than me. You form friends. You have to. And when you lose one of 'em, it's like losing a family member."

There was little respite after the invasion, Thomas recalled, as the now-infamous Battle of the Bulge occurred a few short months later.

"And we lost more people in the Battle of the Bulge than we did in Normandy," he said. "I was scared to death the entire time I was there; I don't mind telling you that."

Thomas said he found strength in the iconic figure of Gen. George S. Patton. He recalled seeing Patton's open-air staff car with a .50 caliber machine gun mounted on the dash.

"It was amazing," Thomas said. "And he carried two .45 caliber pistols all the time. Pearl handle, believe it or not ... 'Course he, when you meet him, we'd salute him, and he'd salute us back and speak."

That made all the difference, Thomas said.

After four years of service, Thomas came back to Cape Girardeau. He had four children with his wife, Maud. But he was haunted.

"My biggest problem was trying to sleep," he said, "and to get reacquainted with my family."

He wouldn't talk about it. He said his youngest son went many years before learning his father had served.

After the war, the French donated 172 acres near the Normandy beaches for a cemetery.

"I went back one time since then, to see. Just to see the cemetery," Thomas said. "I wouldn't want to go back again. ... Beautiful place. But for me, it brought back things I should've forgot a long time ago."

Though some memories are painful, Thomas said he doesn't look back on his service without pride.

"I wouldn't take anything for the experience now," he said.

"I don't think I did anything a hundred thousand other people didn't do. It was a job. And we tried to do our best. Get it over with so we could get home."

And on June 6, he said, "I just keep 'em in my prayers."

tgraef@semissourian.com

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