Stigler veteran remembers Normandy

By Bob Rosenburgh, Staff Writer

STIGLER, June 4 — Sixty-five years ago a vast armada left the shores of England on a journey into history.

It was the greatest fleet and the most powerful invasion force ever assembled, with 5,000 ships and 2,000 aircraft carrying more than 160,000 men with a single purpose. Their mission was to smash through the walls of Hitler’s “Fortress Europe” and take the battle into Germany itself.

Among the multitude of warriors poised for the attack was Cpl. Monte Bankhead, a young artillery NCO from Stigler.

“Between midnight and 0300,” Bankhead recalls, “one British airborne division and two American airborne divisions were launched.”

The target was Normandy, France, and through a series of intelligence and deception operations, the Allies had convinced the Nazi commanders that Pas de Calais to the north was their intended landing site. Surprise had been achieved, although the German defenses still proved to be formidable.

“At dawn, a pulverizing bombardment from the warships and warplanes blasted the German coastal defenses.” Behind that curtain of steel came two British, one Canadian and two American army divisions in the greatest amphibious assault ever.

Bankhead’s unit, the 250th Field Artillery, was assigned to the French 2nd Armored Division, commanded by Gen. Jacques Leclerc, a Free French commander who had fled the German occupation to take up arms and fight alongside the Allied forces. His division, now a part of Patton’s Third Army, would come in once the beaches were secured and then smash through the enemy’s deeper defenses.

“Patton’s Third Army was to be the blitz army of the Allies’ invasion,” said Bankhead. “It was a magnificent steel-clad mobile army with every kind of fighting equipment, tanks, guns and infantry. There has never been a mobile army like this … even the Germans could not produce anything to compare.”

History remembers the invasion as D-Day, June 6, 1944, but in reality the battle went on well after the initial assault. Indeed, those who hit the beaches, code named Omaha, Utah, Gold, Juno and Sword, ran into the teeth of hell.

“The Germans were waiting for them,” said Bankhead. “Many didn’t make it and were killed in the water.” But the Allied forces fought their way through and got a toehold, making enough room for the heavy equipment to come ashore. Equipment like the 105 mm Howitzers of the 250th FA.

“When you first step onto the beach, you can’t help but get a weird feeling,” said Bankhead. “This is where thousands of young men gave their lives.”

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