Private Frank Paris, 506th Airborne Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division, whose Easy Company was later immortalized in the miniseries Band of Brothers. — recalled, “I was just a kid, like the rest of us, trying to free the world from the Nazis,” or, as Private Ernest Hilberg of the 18th Infantry Regiment put it, “I was doing the job that had to be done, which was to get rid of that bastard called Hitler.”
The Normandy landings were the first to be successful, and a source of pride for the Greatest Generation of the Normandy Diving, as they were not intended to occupy or seize Normandy, but to liberate a continent ruled by authoritarianism. When Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers General Dwight Eisenhower returned to Normandy in 1964 for the 20th anniversary of the Normandy Diving, he told CBS’s Walter Cronkite: “The British and the rest of the American allies came here for one purpose only, not to gain anything for themselves, not to fulfill any ambition of conquest that America had, but to defend freedom.”
It would be another two decades before the heroism of what would become known as “The Greatest Generation” was properly celebrated. For decades, few spoke openly or proudly about combat in World War II. Veterans who had been uprooted early from their harsh peacetime childhoods during the Great Depression returned to the country after 1945 with hard-earned experience, youthful energy, and GI Bill funds. They aggressively pursued everyday life and embraced the American economic growth that, as politicians often celebrated, created the strongest middle class in the history of the world.
As adults, they fought in the Cold War against the Communists and the Soviets, defending freedom from authoritarianism. Sergeant First Class Leonard G. Romell of the 2nd Ranger Battalion, who scaled the cliffs of Pont du Hoc in Normandy to neutralize a threatening German artillery battery, spoke of the feelings of many: “For 50 years, I, like most of my men, kept a low profile. We never wrote articles or books, made speeches, or publicized the accomplishments of our missions. We got to know each other’s jobs and did our jobs professionally. We weren’t heroes, we were just good Rangers.”
In 1984, President Ronald Reagan delivered a speech honoring Romelle and his comrades at Pointe du Hoc, ensuring that the World War II battle was properly honored and commemorated. Subsequent works by authors such as Stephen Ambrose, Douglas Brinkley, and Tom Brokaw forever changed how history views the sacrifices of the living and dead of World War II.
