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The Herald Scotland
3 days ago
- General
- The Herald Scotland
Remembering D-Day: Veteran, 100, offers first-hand account of D-Day
Tolley Fletcher, at the time a 19-year-old Navy gunner's mate, remembered the rough seas and the treacherous landing troops at Utah Beach had to make in 3- to 4-foot waves, each carrying about 60 pounds of gear on their backs and descending on rope ladders from larger ships onto smaller landing crafts. "I felt for those soldiers," Fletcher, now 100 years old, told USA TODAY. "In my mind, that was the worst part, other than people getting hurt." Fletcher, who joined the Navy at 17 in late December 1941, said he and his shipmates were fortunate to be mostly out of the line of fire. "There was some shelling, not really a lot, and luckily we didn't get hit. "Maybe halfway in, we started seeing lots of bodies in the water," said Fletcher, who now lives in the Baton Rouge, Louisiana, area. "I was asked (later) what we did about it. We didn't do anything about it - we had a job: to escort those troops to the beach." On D-Day, "that's what these guys faced," said Peter Donovan Crean Sr., vice president for education and access at the National World War II Museum in New Orleans. "They knew they were in the presence of history. Soldiers, sailors, Marines - they knew what they were doing was going to go down in history, which also meant they knew the danger involved. "Guys who were 18, 19, 20 years old were faced with the possibility of their death, but they did it anyway." As we mark the 81st anniversary of D-Day, here is a look at what happened on the beaches of Normandy, the men who fought knowing they might not survive to see victory and the way it affected the Allies' fight to defeat fascism, genocide and tyranny. What happened on D-Day? In order to defeat the Nazis in Europe, the Allies knew they'd have to take France, under German occupation since 1940. Operation Overlord saw a mobilization of 2,876,000 Allied troops in Southern England, as well as hundreds of ships and airplanes, in preparation for a ground invasion, the largest the world had seen. Weighing conditions including the weather, disagreements among other military leaders and strategic uncertainty, Eisenhower gave the go-ahead for the operation to begin before dawn on June 5, 1944. If things didn't go well for the Allies, Eisenhower wrote a note accepting responsibility. The following day, nearly 160,000 Allied troops landed along the 50-mile stretch of French shoreline. More than 9,000 Allied troops were killed or wounded, and 100,000 troops would continue the slow, bloody journey to Berlin, the center of German power. Why was it called D-Day? According to the U.S. Army, D-Day was "simply an alliteration, as in H-Hour." Some believe the first "D" also stands for "day," a code designation, while the French say the "D" stands for "disembarkation." The Army's website says that "the more poetic insist D-Day is short for 'day of decision.'" Asked in 1964, Eisenhower instructed his assistant Brig. Gen. Robert Schultz, to answer. Schultz wrote that "any amphibious operation has a 'departed date'; therefore the shortened term 'D-Day' is used." What happened after D-Day? D-Day was not the only decisive battle of the European theater, Crean said. "It was a crucial battle but there were more ahead," he said. "They had 700 miles of tough road ahead to get to Berlin." The Battle of the Bulge, waged over 41 days in December 1944 and January 1945, required 700,000 Allied troops. "It was a tough slog for another 11 months," Crean said. Victory in Europe - V-E Day - would come on May 8, 1945, nearly a year after D-Day. The war wouldn't end until the Japanese surrendered on Sept. 2, 1945. How many World War II veterans remain in the U.S.? There are about 66,000 surviving World War II veterans in the United States, Crean said, and while that may sound like a lot, it's a tiny fraction of the 16.4 million who served their country in the conflict. "So to be able to talk to and thank one veteran now is a gift for any of us," Crean said. The National World War II Museum's mission "is more critical than ever ... so more people will understand what they did and continue to be inspired by their sacrifices," added Crean, a retired colonel with 30 years' service in the Army. The museum has had oral historians travel the country to record more than 12,000 personal stories from World War II veterans. They've conducted extensive interviews with veterans, Holocaust survivors and homefront workers and, using artificial intelligence, created a way for visitors to have "conversations" with them and ask questions to learn about the war effort. And they offer virtual programming, teacher training and a student leadership award. Fletcher, the Navy gunner's mate, said he's uncomfortable with the idea of being considered a hero. Asked about his role in history, he said, "I really didn't think about it then, and I don't think about it now, though it's been impressed upon me quite a bit. "When I think about what I went through, and what all the Army and the other men who were mixed up in really tough situations, it makes me feel a little bit guilty."
Yahoo
4 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
Opinion: The world can never afford to forget D-Day
Less than 1% of the 16.4 million soldiers who fought in World War II are alive today, according to the World War II Museum. That translates into about 66,000 veterans. But those figures are a year old, so the numbers are certainly much fewer today. The museum says 131 World War II veterans die each day, on average. As the world prepares to commemorate the 81st anniversary of the remarkable military victory known as Operation Overlord, or D-Day, which took place on June 6, 1944, it's worth pondering what will happen when no participant in that remarkable day is alive. How long will the world remember what heroes did to preserve freedom and liberty at a time when the forces of tyranny, fascism and bondage were so strong and formidable? The question is impossible to answer unless today's generation resolves to keep the stories alive. The war was captured in more video and audio recordings than any war preceding it. Many of today's new crop of senior citizens were raised on stories told by parents and other relatives who fought, or by immigrants who came here after being liberated by U.S. soldiers. It will be up to each new generation to keep the remarkable deeds of that day alive, and to pray that a similar sacrifice will not be required in the future. The U.S. Holocaust Museum estimates between 180,000 and 220,000 European refugees came to the United States between 1933 and 1945. Nazi persecution was the largest motivator for this migration, at least for those who were lucky enough to make it here. The world cannot afford to forget the lessons of tyranny and its many warning signs. Unfortunately, tyranny and oppression, with its typical progression toward expansionism through war, never seem to go out of style. Today, the free world faces new threats from nations that seem to be consolidating power. A war is underway once more in Europe. The NATO alliance is facing pressure and threats. Unity is more important than it has been at any time since 1945. Four years before D-Day, when Britain faced its darkest days under German aggression, Prime Minister Winston Churchill famously told the House of Commons: 'We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.' Ultimately, that promise and the victory over tyranny required the united efforts of many allied nations, led by the United States. The war's outcome would have been different if not for the daring and deadly invasion of Nazi-occupied Europe on D-Day. On that first day, 4,414 Allied soldiers died. Thousands more were to give their lives before Adolf Hitler's forces were crushed. Before that happened, Churchill's words turned prophetic. The allies did indeed fight on the streets in France, and on the sea and in the air, liberating suffering people as far north as Norway. The word 'hero' gets overused in modern society. However, its application is never more appropriate than when used on the soldiers who fought on D-Day. As one veteran from that day told the Deseret News years ago, he and his fellow soldiers had been told, in stark terms, that half the men in the group were going to die on that mission. 'They told us that. But everybody went anyway,' he said. That is stunning to contemplate. That character, that love of freedom more than love of their own lives, is what the world honors each June 6. It is something the world must continue to honor, to study, to ponder and to absorb forever.
Chicago Tribune
06-05-2025
- Business
- Chicago Tribune
Rise of Kroehler Manufacturing Co. through innovative marketing explored in new Naper Settlement exhibit
Kroehler Manufacturing Co. was once a household name. Naper Settlement's newest exhibit explores just how the Naperville business marketed itself to eventually become at one time the world's largest furniture producer. 'Selling Kroehler' details the advertising strategies the company employed amid a changing consumer culture during the 20th century. The origins of Kroehler Manufacturing Co. date back more than 130 years ago, growing out of an entity called the Naperville Lounge Factory that was founded in 1893. The company name was later updated to reflect the ownership of longtime President Peter Kroehler, who was instrumental in building it into a nationally known business. At its peak, Kroehler had about 8,000 employees. Between the 1940s and 1960s, annual sales climbed from $20 million to more than $100 million before its demise in 1981. Because of the company's local roots, Naper Settlement has collected a large assortment of Kroehler materials, according to Jeanne Schultz Angel, the history museum's associate vice president of humanities. A couple of years ago it was decided they would use them to curate an exhibit and they began thinking about what kind of story they wanted to tell, Schultz Angel said. As chief curator Christine McNulty and curator of history Andrea Field looked at materials on hand, there 'was a story that was sort of bubbling up wanting to be told and that was the story of marketing,' Schultz Angel said. 'Of how innovative Peter Kroehler and the company were in marketing their furniture.' From there, the story evolved into how Kroehler's strategies related to broader American history and consumer habits at the time, she said. In the decades following the Civil War, the United States emerged as an industrial giant, according to an overview of the rise of industrial America from the Library of Congress. Following World War II, a post-war economic boom brought about higher wages that in turn fueled a new consumer culture, per a 2022 article from the National World War II Museum. 'That's what we found really, really interesting. … In the midst of all of this, we have our example of Kroehler Manufacturing,' Schultz Angel said. The exhibit, stretching across three rooms in the Pre-Emption House buiding, is a compilation of advertising materials, descriptive text, interactive elements and of course, furniture displays. One part highlights classroom kits that Kroehler's 'Consumer Education Department' sold to schools to make furniture buying part of home economic courses. Another looks at how Kroehler conducted a motivational survey on furniture buying to better understand consumer behavior. Asked what she hopes visitors take away from the exhibit, Schultz Angel said, 'For marketing and consumer culture, how we purchase things today … the world is sort of the manufacturer now, not just localized areas, right? And I think as much as (habits) change, there's still these things that we remind ourselves of.' 'Selling Kroehler' will be on view through December.
Yahoo
06-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Palm Harbor WWII veteran finds comfort in new mission at 100 years old: ‘Life is golden'
The Brief O'Neil Ducharme, a 100-year-old World War II veteran, may be the first to tell you that the key to peaceful longevity is learning to let go. He was a Marine in the 6th Division when he was among the first Allied forces to invade Okinawa, Japan in May 1945, surviving the 22-day firefight of Sugar Loaf Hill. The World War II Museum in New Orleans estimates that less than .05% of the 16 million who fought in World War II are still alive. PALM HARBOR, Fla. - O'Neil Ducharme sits comfortably in his recliner, centered in his garage, as he stares out into the cul-de-sac in front of his home, surprised by how quickly time flies. "I just can't believe it's been 80 years since the end of the war," he said. "But, life is golden. It's beautiful at 100 years old – it gets better." MILITARY MAY: Heroes' Village bringing first-of-its-kind veteran housing to Sarasota The backstory Ducharme turned 100 years old in January and has spent a lot of time reflecting lately. Though, he may be the first to tell you that the key to peaceful longevity is learning to let go – starting, for him, with hellacious memories of fighting in Japan. "I just don't like to look back at the War due to the atrocities," he told FOX 13. He gets asked often, because he's one of the few still alive who was there. As a Marine in the 6th Division, Ducharme was among the first Allied forces to invade Okinawa, Japan in May 1945, surviving the brutal 22-day firefight of Sugar Loaf Hill. The key to survival meant rotating shifts. Follow FOX 13 on YouTube "You go up and spend four or five days [fighting], then you're relieved. You couldn't stand 22 days of that," he said while shaking his head. That's where Ducharme decided to let go of any selfishness, put down his weapon, and become a stretcher-bearer. He volunteered to go back into the firefight to retrieve his injured and fallen comrades. Dig deeper Today, he shrugs off any suggestions of heroism. "You have to keep going," he said, explaining how he suggested the stretcher teams have five members instead of four. "That's so we could always rotate one out and keep going." READ: Program gives Florida veterans a path to agriculture careers The Japanese would eventually surrender. Ducharme and his fellow Marines made history, becoming the first American troops to set foot on Japanese soil as occupiers in 3,000 years. He went on to serve in Guam, Guadalcanal and Korea with 16 others in his family members serving and thriving. "Not a single one of us ever came home with a scratch on us," he said. "Pretty amazing." Then, three years after the War ended, there she was – walking down the street in her Navy uniform. The woman who would change his life. "I said, 'oh my God, look at that woman,'" remembering how taken he was with her immediately. "Without thinking about it, I said 'I'm going to marry her.'" And he did. MORE: PTSD clinic offering Bay Area veterans support O'Neil and Patricia Ducharme were married on the Fourth of July in 1947. They shared 69 and a half years of love and laughter together until Patricia died in 2016. A part of O'Neil did too. Big picture view Depressed and detached for months, he described being "in the dumps" until a friend invited him to the airport. The Honor Guard of West Central Florida asked him to join them in welcoming veterans from a day-long trip to the war memorials in Washington, D.C. It was just what he needed. "Suddenly, my life turns back right-side up," Ducharme said with a warm smile. What they're saying It was, for him, a new love. A collective sharing of the welcome he never got all those years ago. "I felt like I [finally] came home," he said, tearing up. "I really never came home before that. Now, I'm home." READ: Tampa Bay's oldest living WWII veteran has died at 108: 'It's the greatest generation' Why you should care Ducharme is now forging new bonds with his military brethren as time closes in on them. The World War II Museum in New Orleans estimates that less than .05% of the 16 million who fought in World War II are still alive. An average of 131 die every day. Several close to Ducharme have passed recently. "This has been a very tough month for me right now, because I've lost five friends, all World War II veterans," he said with a tear in his eye. He never said letting go was easy. Today, five grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren are his latest blessing and perhaps the best medicine yet for healing the heart of a selfless marine. For more on the Honor Flight of West Central Florida, click here. The Source The information in this story was gathered during an interview with World War II veteran O'Neil Ducharme. WATCH FOX 13 NEWS: STAY CONNECTED WITH FOX 13 TAMPA: Download the FOX Local app for your smart TV Download FOX Local mobile app:Apple |Android Download the FOX 13 News app for breaking news alerts, latest headlines Download the SkyTower Radar app Sign up for FOX 13's daily newsletter
Yahoo
03-04-2025
- Yahoo
Who Betrayed Anne Frank? One Study Suggests an Unfathomable Answer
"Hearst Magazines and Yahoo may earn commission or revenue on some items through these links." On August 4, 1944, members of the German Sicherheitsdienst, in tandem with Dutch Nazis, carried out a raid on a building at Prinsengracht 263-267 in Amsterdam. The Jewish people found hiding within were arrested and shipped off to concentration camps. It was a scene not dissimilar to many others that had occurred throughout the country. As the National World War II Museum notes: 'Of the nearly 30,000 Jewish people in hiding in the Netherlands, around 12,000 were arrested and sent to prison or concentration camps. Some were betrayed by neighbors and paid informants, while others were discovered by police raids.'$22.89 at The reason the August 4 raid is known to even people with a cursory education in Holocaust history is due to one of the families caught in that raid: that of German-born businessman Otto Frank. His teenage daughter Anne Frank had been keeping a journal of their time in hiding that would ultimately be published as The Diary of a Young Girl, perhaps the most widely read firsthand account of the Nazi persecution of Jews in Europe. Anne's chronicling of her family's time stowed away in a small portion of the Amsterdam office building they had dubbed the Secret Annex began on her 13th birthday and spanned two years. Her diary blended observations about the world, both within those walls and out, alongside her own internal ruminations that were at times hopeful or despairing. After the raid, Anne, Otto, and the rest of the Frank family were first brought to Camp Westerbrook then to Auschwitz, where Otto was separated from his wife and daughters. He wouldn't see them alive again. Anne and her sister, Margot, died of a typhus outbreak at Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in the spring of 1945. Otto, the family's sole survivor, later published Anne's diary in 1947. By then, Otto was already seeking out answers, answers he would never find, answers that still allude historians to this day. Who exactly betrayed Anne Frank and the other Jews hiding away in The Secret Annex, condemning many of them to death? As it turns out, the lack of answers might be a matter of asking the wrong question. The man Otto Frank most fervently suspected of selling out the residents of the Secret Annex was Willem van Maaren, a laborer who worked on the premises of Prinsengracht 263 from March 1943 to June 1945. Otto wasn't the only member of the Frank family to view van Maaren with suspicion, either. Years before the raid, Anne mentioned van Maaren in her diary, including a rather foreboding entry on September 16, 1943: 'Another fact that doesn't exactly brighten up our days is that Mr. van Maaren, the man who works in the warehouse, is getting suspicious about the Annex[…] We wouldn't care what Mr. van Maaren thought of the situation except that he's known to be unreliable and to possess a high degree of curiosity. He's not one who can be put off with a flimsy excuse.' In a novel, like the kind young Anne had hoped to write when she was older, the reader might take such comments as foreshadowing. There's a temptation for those who read the diary to do the same. But as the Anne Frank House points out, despite suspicion, no actual evidence was found of van Maaren's guilt. 'In 1947, Otto Frank and the helpers filed a complaint against him with the political police on suspicion of betrayal,' they summarize. 'However, the investigation did not prove his guilt. Van Maaren fought the accusations and rejected a settlement. The Subdistrict Court dismissed the complaint.' The Anne Frank House devotes a whole section of its website to the van Maaren accusations and other allegations that haven't been 'sufficiently substantiated.' The museum notes, for example, that Dutch Nazi Tonny Ahlers has been suggested as a possible betrayer. When Ahlers purpotedly found out that Otto Frank had spoken negatively about the German war effort, he reportedly 'pressured Frank and extracted money from him.' Biographer Carol Ann Lee put forward Ahlers as having turned in the Franks, but the Anne Frank House notes that 'there is no indication that Ahlers knew about people in hiding in the Secret Annex.' The museum offers a similar rebuff to the assertion made by journalist Sytze van der Zee that the traitor was Ans van Dijk, 'a Jewish woman who, after being arrested, was given the choice between deportation and helping the authorities track down other Jews.' Van Dijk did indeed help Nazi authorities capture over 100 (some suggest as many as 700) Jews while pretending to offer them hiding places. For her crimes, van Dijk was sentenced to death by the Special Court in Amsterdam and executed by firing squad on January 14, 1948. But there is no substantial evidence van Dijk had anything to do with the Frank family's capture, and the Anne Frank House notes the books that have proposed her as the betrayer are 'based on post-war memories that were written down even later by third parties,' making those claims entirely unverifiable. Headlines were made in 2022 when a team of investigators, including an ex-FBI agent, claimed to have used 'modern investigative techniques' such as 'computer algorithms to search for connections' in order to determine just who betrayed the Frank family. Their shocking conclusion was that the Secret Annex had been brought to Nazi attention by Arnold van den Bergh, a Jewish resident of Amsterdam. As the BBC noted in January 2022, the team claimed that van den Bergh ''gave up' the Franks to save his own family.' Their conclusion offered more than one shocking revelation, however. 'The team said it had struggled with the revelation that another Jewish person was probably the betrayer,' the January BBC article wrote. 'But it also found evidence suggesting Otto Frank, Anne's father, may himself have known that and kept it secret.' The issue wasn't a long unsolved mystery, their conclusion asserted, but rather a conspiracy to cover up the truth that it had actually been a fellow Jew who betrayed the Franks. The claim was as audacious as it was specious. Not long after the conclusion was made public, in a book titled The Betrayal of Anne Frank: A Cold Case Investigation, historians emerged to speak out against what they decried as an 'amateurish' investigation. By March 2022, as the BBC reported, 'a team of World War Two experts and historians' declared that 'there is not any serious evidence for this grave accusation.' The book was roundly discredited, pulled by its Dutch publisher, and ultimately dropped by its intended English publisher as well. Some of the individuals who had a hand in the Franks' discovery have been known for decades. In 1945, Otto identified two of the Dutch policemen who had been involved in their arrests, Gezinus Gringhuis and Willem Grootendorst. By 1946, SS member Karl Silberbauer had been identified as well. None of those men ended up serving their initial sentences, and Silberbauer was actually recruited by West Germany to infiltrate communist organizations later in life. Given these undeniable participants, why do so many people still search for who betrayed Anne Frank? Certainly, the young diarist's enduring legacy has contributed to the fascination. However, a 2016 study by the Anne Frank House suggests the Franks might not have had a betrayer at all and that the raid on 263 Prinsengracht might not have initially intended to find hidden Jews. Study author Gertjan Broek, a historical researcher at the museum, found that 'compared to an 'ordinary' case of betrayal... [the Franks'] account contains a number of striking aspects.' Broek highlights the length of the search, more than two hours, as being 'longer than necessary for rounding up betrayed Jews in hiding.' Among other inconsistencies was the fact that Gringhuis was working as an economic fraud investigator at the time of the raid, meaning he wasn't primarily focused on finding Jews. In the parts of the building beyond the Secret Annex, other activities took place, including illegal work and fraud with ration coupons, all of which could have caught the attention of the Sicherheitsdienst (SD). As the museum notes in its summary of the study, 'it is possible that the SD searched the building because of this illegal work and fraud with ration coupons, and that the SD investigators discovered Anne Frank and the seven others in hiding simply by chance.' You Might Also Like Nicole Richie's Surprising Adoption Story The Story of Gypsy Rose Blanchard and Her Mother Queen Camilla's Life in Photos
