Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, September 19, 1993 TAG: 9309190254
SECTION: HORIZON PAGE: F-8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JAMES T. YENCKEL THE WASHINGTON POST
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The man, an infantry veteran, scrambled from the bus and hurried excitedly to a tall tree. During the war, it seems, his unit had been temporarily overrun by a German advance, and he had scrambled up the tree to hide. When the enemy retreated, he climbed back down again, leaving a grenade hidden in a knothole in the branches. More than three decades later, the grenade was still there.
As strange as it may seem, such encounters are not uncommon on battlefield tours, where young men and women who fought for their lives over hostile ground return as senior citizens to see again the places that were etched forever in their memories. On another tour, says Ryder, vice president of Galaxy Tours of Wayne, Pa., his firm helped a former infantryman find one of his old foxholes in a forest on the French-German border. Most of the man's unit had been killed in the fierce fighting in the area, and he was one of the few survivors. "The indentation was still there 48 years later, and he sat in it for a while and relived that battle."
In recent years, thousands of World War II veterans from all branches of the military service have begun returning to the scenes of bloody conflicts in which they were engaged or to posts in the war zone where they served in a support capacity. Often they go as a group of comrades with one of several tour companies, such as Galaxy, that specialize in World War II battlefield history. Tours depart periodically for Europe, the islands of the South Pacific, the Philippines, China and Australia.
Right now, attention is being focused on the celebrations being planned for next year to commemorate the 50th anniversary of D-Day - June 6, 1944. On that date, of course, the Allied forces under Gen. Dwight Eisenhower landed on the beaches of Normandy in northern France to launch the liberation of Europe from Nazi occupation. Tour organizers and some cruise lines have put together travel packages that will visit prominent D-Day sites. Entertainer Bob Hope, much honored for his countless shows for the troops, will sail on the D-Day cruise of Cunard's Queen Elizabeth 2.
Despite some reports to the contrary, tour organizers say they still have space available for these special trips.
Several U.S.-sponsored events honoring America's World War II veterans are planned during the Normandy celebrations - including military re-enactments, a parade and an appearance by the presidents of the United States and France on June 6. To make sure that veterans who want to attend the D-Day events will not be denied admission, special procedures are being established to issue the necessary credentials to any veterans who apply for them. Information on how to get the credentials is expected to be announced this month, says Jim Olmes, deputy executive director of the 50th Anniversary of World War II Commemoration Committee, which was established by Congress.
But it's not just the veterans who are signing up for battlefield tours, whether the trips are bound for Europe or the South Pacific. Many veterans are accompanied by their wives, children, grandchildren and even great-grandchildren, say tour organizers. Often a widow or the children of a deceased veteran will join a tour as a pilgrimage to a sometimes obscure place that played a brief but dramatic role in a husband's or father's life. Other tour participants may have no connection with a veteran, but have a historical curiosity and want to see the site of an important battle for themselves.
Certainly interest in battle sites is no recent phenomenon. Following the Civil War, veterans and their families from both the Union and Confederate armies flocked to the fields of conflict, many of which - Antietam, Vicksburg and Gettysburg, among them - are now national battlefield parks. Today the descendants of these veterans continue to follow in their paths to the parks. In this country, national parklands also commemorate the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812 and the Indian wars, including the Battle of the Little Bighorn. And abroad, at least a few veterans already have begun revisiting Korea and Vietnam.
For almost two years now, Americans have been marking the 50th anniversary of major World War II events, beginning with the anniversary of the bombing of Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. But for various reasons, the biggest celebration in terms of returning veterans is expected to be the D-Day anniversary next year rather than the surrender of Germany and Japan that brought the war to its end in 1945. The same was true 10 years ago, when the 40th anniversaries of the same events were remembered.
"We've got so many trips going," says Ryder about his firm's D-Day preparations, "we feel like General Eisenhower's staff."
by CNB