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WWII Veteran recalls landing on Utah Beach in Normandy
ABINGDON, Va. (WJHL) — 81 years ago, World War II allies invaded Normandy, liberating France and Western Europe, and laying the path to victory.
'We came in on a landing craft with the front down, and we jumped into the water,' Army veteran Don Parker recalled of landing on Utah Beach a few days later. 'They had some – we'll call them cannons, they may have been 88s. That's what finally hit me. Well, it wasn't exactly comfortable, I don't know how else to describe it. It was bloody, it was messy.'
Landing in Normandy is something most people read about in history books, but Parker lived it.
'We crawled in front of Patton's tanks, and we probed with our bayonets to get the pressure bombs that were down under there. We had to get and disable the bombs,' he said. 'Patton brought his tanks across after that… He didn't lose any tanks there anyway.'
The rifleman remembers capturing a German outpost and earning a Bronze Star.
'I didn't think the choices were very good, but I had enough patriotism that it had to be done,' he said. 'It was necessary. That's about the only sensible thing to say. We had to do it and we did it.'
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He said there is a mix of emotions about his time in the 79th Division during WWII.
'I was in college, I wanted to stay there. But when they drafted me, I didn't run to Canada,' he said. 'They want me? I'll go. And I went.'
Parker was later injured, almost losing his foot to gangrene.
'I was digging a foxhole, and a shell come in and [my feet were in fragments]. And then when they got me back to the surgeon, he looks at me and puts his hand on my shoulder and says, 'I'm sorry, son, but I have to cut off your left foot,'' Parker recalled. 'They were right, I was going to die, but I mean the timing was wrong because I've still got the foot and that was some years ago.'
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And the 101-year-old has a message for those who are now the 'boots on the ground.'
'We did our best, that's what we'd want to see of the young soldiers now,' he said.
'D-Day | The Greatest Victory' is airing on WJHL+ at 9 p.m. on Friday to mark the 81st anniversary.
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