Local Veterans Remember D-Day on 75th Anniversary
MILWAUKEE COUNTY (CBS 58) -- For many, D-Day marked the beginning of the end.
Today, we were lucky enough to speak to two local veterans whose sacrifices made our freedom possible.
“I remember where I was and what happened the morning of D-Day.”
Gene Schulz was just 19 when he was drafted.
But 75 years later at his home at Harwood Place in Wauwatosa, e still remembers where he was on this day in 1944.
“On the morning of June 6th, at like 2 o’clock in the morning, we were awakened from our sleep because there was a tremendous roar of engines. The windows in our hut rattled, and the ground was shaking.”
Schulz told us about going behind enemy lines as part of general Patton’s 3rd army, typing up war plans for Colonel Wellborn Barton Griffith, saving the cathedral of Chartres, and the liberation of the first concentration camp in Germany.
“When the town was liberated and the troops came to the outskirts they discovered a camp full of dead bodies. The Ohrdruf concentration camp,” said Schulz. “I never knew a human being could have so many different kinds of emotions, and I’m sure I went through every single one you could possibly have.”
Anna Mae Robertson went over to Europe and became part of the first female all African American battalion to serve overseas.
“This was my first time that I was away, but not like in another country, but I was away from my family and my mother.”
She helped sort a backlog of millions of pieces of mail from home.
She said she enjoyed the experience even though it was dangerous.
“It was a nice experience,” said Robertson.” Something to get out and know how to work with other people and how to share what you had, and they shared what they had with you.”
To make this 75th anniversary even more special for these two vets, yesterday, Representative Gwen Moore introduced legislation to recognize the Six Triple Eight Battalion.
And Gene will be honored in an event in Chartres, France this September to celebrate how Colonel Griffith helped stop the destruction of their cathedral.