LOCAL MEN REMEMBER `LONGEST DAY'

They're older now, most in their 70s, these Americans who will again storm the beaches of Normandy on Monday.

Some will walk on Utah and Omaha beaches with a cane. For many, their hair has long turned from youthful colors to shades of gray.

Their youthful skin -- some had only peach fuzz on the day of the greatest invasion in the history of warfare -- is now aged and wrinkled.

But in their minds burns forever the vivid memory of what happened on those beaches a half century ago. They will never forget.

For Gilbert Sewing, Dale Smith and Elmer Welter, D-Day plus 50 years is a time to remember fallen comrades, many of whom rest in American cemeteries in France and England.

Welter, 70, who was born and raised in Oran, said he's going back to Utah Beach to honor and remember the men he trained with and fought alongside on June 6, 1944, those who did not come home.

Welter and his wife, Amy, flew from St. Louis to London on Friday, then traveled to Southampton, where they boarded a ship for the cruise across the English Channel to Normandy.

He does not consider himself a hero for his role in the D-Day invasion. Instead he pays homage to those who died. "They're the heroes," he said. "We were the lucky guys. We got to come home. They didn't. Those men deserved better."

While in Normandy, Welter also plans to visit the grave of his childhood friend and wartime buddy, Wally Tenkhoff. Tenkhoff is buried with other fallen comrades in an American cemetery in Normandy.

The two boys grew up together in Oran, attending Guardian Angels Catholic School, sharing a double desk one year, playing ball together, and even double dating.

"Wally was killed by an artillery shell about a mile from where I was," said Welter. "He was with the combat engineers."

Welter was a corporal in the 3207th Quartermaster Service, First Engineer Special Brigade, 4th Infantry. His job was to off-load war materials from the Liberty ships at anchor off the beaches of Normandy and send them on to the front line troops.

Welter almost didn't make it to Utah Beach on D-Day. He nearly became a casualty in a pre-D-Day disaster so serious that it was kept a closely guarded secret for fear it might alert the German command of the coming invasion.

The corporal was on a landing craft off the coast of southern England, near Slapton Sands, when a group of German PT boats managed to get through a screen of protective warships.

The PT boats sank and damaged a number of the landing craft with GIs aboard. Welter's boat was not hit, but others around him were.

Later, an investigation determined that as many as 800 soldiers lost their lives in the Slapton Sand raid, more than were lost in the D-Day assault on Utah Beach one month later.

Welter said, "We were all sworn to secrecy about what happened at Slapton Sands."

On June 4, Welter and thousands of other GIs boarded the landing ships for the invasion, which was scheduled for June 5. But the ships were called back halfway across the channel because of bad weather. Instead, the invasion was rescheduled to begin shortly after midnight, June 6, 1944.

On D-Day, Welter and his unit landed on Utah Beach with the first wave of assault troops.

He said, "I couldn't swim, and the pilot of the landing craft didn't want to get to close to the beach and get hung up, so he dropped us off about 200-300 yards from shore. The water was at least six feet deep and I was only five feet, five inches tall. I held my rifle above the head and just washed into the beach."

Welter and his comrades were welcomed to Utah Beach by a barrage of German artillery shells that came screaming down by the thousands.

During his first night on the beach, Welter wasn't sure if the lines would hold. He and his buddy dug a two-man fox hole.

Welter took out his rosary and prayed that night. His buddy, who had never shown any sign of religion, was kneeling and praying with him, leading Welter to remark, "The saying is true, there are no atheists in foxholes during wartime."

After the beach was secured and the front line troops moved inland, Welter and his unit stayed behind to offload the war materials from the Liberty ships. But that didn't make it any safer.

He said, "One well-placed German 88 in our ammo dump and it would have been all over for us."

Sewing, 79, who lives in Jackson, and Smith, 73, formerly of Jackson and now Cape Girardeau, were part of a 21-man contingent of Cape Girardeau County men who were inducted into the Army at Jefferson Barracks in St. Louis County in February 1943.

After completing basic training in Mississippi, the men were assigned to the 149th Combat Engineer Battalion, Corps of Engineers.

They were destined to go through the entire war together, with only one of their number not returning home. Charles Dalton, 25, of Cape Girardeau, died on Omaha Beach as he came ashore with the 149th.

The rest of the Cape Girardeau County men returned home after the war.

As combat engineers, Sewing and Smith had the job of helping clear the beaches of the German hedgehog tank traps, anti-personnel mines, barbed wire and other obstacles that had been installed on the beaches at the direction of German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel.

The 149th was supposed to be a part of the second wave of the invasion forces, but Sewing said, "You might as well say we were in the first wave because when we hit the beach, we were flat on the sand with the rest of the first wave assault troops. The machine gun fire had us all pinned down."

Sewing's first job on Omaha Beach was to put up a color-coded beach marker so pilots of the landing craft with men and equipment knew which beach to land on.

After the first wave of troops moved off the beach, the 149th stayed behind to bury the dead and clean up the beach so additional supplies could be landed.

One month later, the unit was attached to the 9th Army and moved through France, Holland, Belgium, and finally crossing into Germany, where they assembled a Bailey Bridge across the Rhine.

Smith said, "Many people today think the war was over after D-Day. It didn't end in Europe until 1945. Between D-Day and the end of the war, there was a lot of fighting and a lot of dying."

Like other European Theater of War veterans, Smith and Sewing strongly support President Harry Truman's decision to bomb Japan in August 1945. Both said they fully expected to be a part of the invasion of Japan, and that their chances of surviving that invasion were not good.

Smith said, "Truman was the best president I ever had. If it hadn't been for him, I'd be dead right now. There is no question in my mind that I would not have survived an invasion of Japan."

Neither Sewing or Smith are going to Normandy this year. Sewing said, "It's too commercialized. I want to go over by myself and be able to walk along Omaha Beach and meditate and remember; and to visit my buddies in the American cemetery, and remember what happened there 50 years ago, and how I came through all of it with hardly a scratch."

The two men received the French Legion of Honor Medal, four battle stars, Bronze Arrow Head for first-day landing on Omaha, Presidential Citation, European, African and Middle Eastern Theatre of War medals, Northern France, Rhineland, Central Europe and Normandy Campaign medals, French Legion of Honor, and Battle of the Bulge medal.