D-Day dawned at Normandy 80 years ago today.
On June 6, 1944, Americans and allies rolled up their sleeves and shifted from war preparations and mostly playing defense to the massive WW II offensive onslaught at Normandy, France, called D-Day.
It was the invasion of Nazi occupied Europe.
As it turned out, it was the beginning of the end for the German Third Reich and Adolf Hitlers tyrannical regime. But on that day 80 years ago, no one in Brookings or anyone in the world knew exactly how it would all turn out.
On Normandys wide beaches, code named Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno and Sword, young men were suffering and dying, or were destined to suffer or die in the summer days that followed as their tenuous toeholds on those beaches became footholds on the well defended escarpments and, further inland, street fighting in war-ravaged French towns like Carentan, Isigny, and Colleville.
Brookings County young men were among the thousands who took part in that historic event. The only reason their names are known today is that they paid the ultimate price in that invasion and its summer aftermath.
Of the approximately 2,500 Brookings County men and women who served in the military during WW II, 101 Brookings County men did not survive, according to records in the Brookings County Museum in Volga. Of those 101 who died in the approximately five years of the war, about 15 percent of them were killed on D-Day or in the hot 1944 summer days that followed:
Pvt. Charles C. Blourt
Blourt was born in 1918, in Braddock, N.D. His family later moved to 116 5th Street, Brookings, and before he joined the Army in 1941, he worked for a Brookings farmer. Blourt was part of the D-Day invasion on June 6, 1944, with the 33rd Armored Regiment, 3rd Armored Division. He was killed six days into the battle and is buried at the Normandy American Cemetery, St. Laurent-sur-Mer, France.
S/Sgt Joseph R. DeMint
DeMint was the son of Mr. and Mrs. Robert DeMint of Aurora. He farmed before entering the Army in 1942 and landed at Normandy on June 7, 1944, D-Day plus one. While in England, DeMint, sensing the future, wrote his Aurora parents to leave me here if anything happens to me.
DeMint was reported missing on Sept. 24, 1944, but was later reported to have been killed on August 30, 1944, near Brest, France. He is buried at the Brittany-American Cemetery, St. James, France.
PFC Eugene Gaukel
Gaukel, was born in 1922, at Beroun, Minn., moving in 1925 with his parents to a farm near Lake Campbell. He graduated from Brookings High School in 1940 and entered the service in 1942, joining the 502nd parachute infantry. He participated in D-Day and was killed in the Battle of Carentan Causeway on June 11, 1944. That battle consolidated U.S. forces landing at Utah and Omaha beaches.
2nd Lt. Theodore O. Hanson
Hanson was born in White River in 1916, the son of Mr. and Mrs. Otto Hanson, who later farmed near Volga. He graduated from State College in 1942 and was inducted into the Army in 1943. He died in the D-Day invasion on July 15, 1944. His remains were first buried in the Military Cemetery at Blosville, France. He is now buried in Brookings.
PFC Irwin L. Hinrichs
Irwin Hinrichs was born in Iowa in 1915 to Mr. and Mrs. Hans Hinrichs. He moved with his parents to Brookings in 1927, living at 801 2nd Street. After high school he managed the Brookings S&L Store at 402 & 404 Main, then entered the Army in 1942 and was sent overseas in mid-1943 as a combat photographer.
He was the first photographer to record the assault on the French town of Isigny-sur-Mer. He was wounded July 19, 1944, and died soon after. His parents later received a letter from him that he had written the day before his death. Burial was in Normandy.
Staff Sgt. Leonard E. Kleinjan
Leonard Kleinjan was born in 1922 to Ira and Hattie Kleinjan and grew up on a farm near Volga. He graduated from Volga High School in 1940 and attended State College, joining the Army Air Force in 1943. In March of 1944 he was assigned to the 351st Bomb Group in England. On June 22, 1944, in support of the Normandy invasion, and on the same day that he wrote a letter asking his mother to send him chocolate chip cookies, he was killed on his twelfth B-17 bombing mission over France as a waist gunner.
Later his mother received details. …the report indicates that during this mission at about 7 p.m. in the vicinity of the target, your sons plane sustained damage from antiaircraft fire and left the formationSubsequently five parachutes were seen leaving the disabled bomber along the northern coast of France.
In October of 1944, a survivor of the bombers 10-man crew, wrote Kleinjans parents: On June 22, after having dropped our bombs, we were hit by flak bursts in a half-dozen places. The plane was beyond control and there was no alternative but to jump. As far as I can recall, Leonard jumped before I did, he wrote. Kleinjan apparently did not survive the parachute escape. He was buried in the American Military Cemetery in St. Andre, France, and in 1949 was reburied in Volga.
S/Sgt. Axel Wayne Kron
Kron was born in Beresford in 1915 to Mr. and Mrs. Alvin Kron. In 1923 his family moved to Brookings. He was inducted into the Army on June 27, 1941, and sent to England, then to the fighting in France on June 20, 1944, serving with Gen. George Pattons Third Armored Division. He was presumed captured, but it was later determined he was killed Aug. 11, 1944.
Pvt. Ervin Lamp
Lamp was the son of Mr. and Mrs. Alvin Lamp, who farmed in Parnell Township.
He was reported missing in action on Aug. 11, 1944, but his parents were notified later that he had been killed in France.
Tech. Sgt. George Langland, Jr.
George Langland was born in 1907, in Westbrook, Minn. In 1925 his family moved to Bruce, then to Brookings at 723 Seventh Avenue. He joined the Army in 1942, and as a member of the 358th Infantry, 90th Division, he was sent to England in 1944, participating in D-Day on June 6. On July 8, 1944, two days after the landing, he volunteered to drive a munitions truck to the front lines. He died when the truck struck a land mine or was hit by mortar fire.
1st Lt. Carol V. Larson
Carol Larson was born in Colton to Lloyd and June Larson in 1918. The family moved to Brookings, and he graduated from Brookings High in 1937. In 1938 he joined the S.D. Air National Guard, and in 1942 he was accepted into the Air Corps as a cadet, where he was trained and sent to England with the 8th Air Force as a bomber pilot.
On Aug. 10, 1944, returning from a raid over Germany on his 47th mission, Lt. Larson was told to circle the English landing field to allow planes carrying wounded airmen to land. Lt. Larsons plane was badly damaged and leaking fuel, so he made a forced landing in a nearby pasture, but overshot the field and crashed in a wooded area.
Larson was the only one killed in the crash, and he was buried in the Cambridge American Cemetery, Cambridge, England.
Lt. Raymond A. Oehler
Oehler, a paratrooper, was killed June 12, 1944, six days after D-Day. A former State College all-conference football player, he graduated in 1943 with a degree in agriculture. Before he was sent overseas, he married Alice May Larson of Brookings.
Sgt. Harold L. Overskie
Harold was the son of Mr. and Mrs. Olai Overskie of Nunda. He joined the army in November of 1943 and was sent overseas on May 3, 1944. On June 16 he took part in the D-Day invasion, where he was killed in action.
PFC Quentin H. Prussman
Quentin Prussman was born in Forest City, Mo. in 1919 to Mr. and Mrs. Ralph Prussman. When he was nine the family moved to Brookings. He attended school in Brookings, then Arlington, where he played on the Arlington football team, graduating in 1940. He was inducted into the Army on June 7, 1942, and sent to England in 1943.
He was wounded in early June of 1944 during the D-Day invasion. After recovery, he rejoined his unit which was then fighting in Holland where he was killed on Sept. 20, 1944. His wife and one-year-old son survived him. In 1991, in memory of Quentin, his brother in Brookings, Paul Prussman, paid for the lighting of the newly completed Veterans Memorial in Brookings.
Pvt. Donald P. Wagner
Wagner was inducted into the Army in 1942 and sent overseas in 1944. His mother, Mrs. Hulda C. Dawson of 604 11th Avenue, Brookings, was notified in August of 1944 that her son had been killed in action on July 27, 1944, near Normandy, France.
Cecil is an author, former Register columnist and member of the board of the Brookings County Museum.
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