Trip to Normandy-- Part 5: Fewer WW II Veterans Still Alive

The 80th anniversary will likely be one of the last big D-Day celebrations to include so many living World War II veterans.  Only about 100,000 of the more than 16 million Americans who served during the  conflict are still living.

It is truly remarkable that inside the 89-bed nursing home in tiny Durand, Illinois, there are thee in one hallway.

The military has an expression:  "We stand on the shoulders of giants."

Kohnke, Vinje and Walstrom are living embodiment: patriotic, wise, humble.  And they retain that dark sense of humor unique to those of us who have experienced the hell of war.

On this warm spring morning, Frank Khonke blurts out something on his mind:  "What if I up and die over there?"

One of his friends deadpans:  "Well, then they'll either send you home in a vase or bury you over there.  Basically the same options you had in 1944 -- and at least you'll go out doing something more fun than napping in a nursing home bed."  

There it is: the old belly laugh.

"You're right," Kohnke smiles.  "I'm going back to France."

--Cooter

Trip to Normandy-- Part 3: In Operation Market Garden

With today being the 80th anniversary of D-Day.

Frank Kohnke arrived in France just after the June 6 landings, and on September 17, his 502nd Parachute Infantry Regiment participated in the largest airborne operation of all time.  Operation Market Garden sought to capture bridges over the Rhine, allowing the Allies to advance into Germany through the Netherlands and enter the Ruhr industrial region, the heart of the Nazi war machine.

The operation failed and losses were catastrophic.  Nearly 4,000 Americans were killed, severely wounded or taken prisoner.

Eight decades later, Frank Kohnke does not talk about it.

"I don't like to remember the bad things," he said.  "At my age, it is better just to forget them."

--GreGen

Trip to Normandy for an Illinois WW II Veteran-- Part 2: The 'Rendezvous with Destiny'

Frank Kohnke, 98, is emblematic of a great generation that that unceremoniously answered when the nation called.  The Milwaukee teenager enlisted at age 16, lying about his birthday and forging his mother's signature.

He was desperate to be a paratrooper, a bold new military specialty that trained men to jump out of airplanes and float into combat zones under silk chutes and the cover of darkness.

"You look at it now, and you just think: "Stupid," Kohnke laughs.  "But that's the definition of being young.  I was stupid, but, oh, how I wanted to be a paratrooper."

He was assigned to the 101st Airborne, an untested unit that was stood up just days before the end of World War I and never saw action then.  But before World War II, the 101st was reorganized with parachute regiments, and it got the critical assignment of dropping deep behind enemy lines hours before the invasion.

Its commander would famously call the mission a "rendezvous with destiny."

--GreGen

Trip to Normandy Evokes a Time of Action for Illinois World War II Veteran"

From the June 2, 2024, Chicago Tribune by William A. Ryan.

Since there is a lot of news about the 80th anniversary of D-Day, I will be writing about some of it here in this blog as well, of course, in my World War II blog.

In a nursing home about three hours northwest of Chicago near the Wisconsin border on the edge of Durand, Illinois, a town nicknamed "Village of Volunteers," three WW II veterans are talking about the upcoming 80th anniversary of D-Day.

One of them will be traveling to Normandy for the occasion, though he is increasingly frail at the age of 98.  Frank Kohnke is a bit anxious about the trip.

He straightens his 101st Airborne cap and holds up a sepia-toned photograph of him back then.

At the beginning of June, the Army kicks off 10 days in Normandy to commemorate perhaps the most iconic military maneuver in modern history:  the day America and her allies stormed the beaches of France to gain a foothold in German-occupied Europe.

Tens of thousands of visitors are expected to attend, but the guests of honor will be the nearly 130 World War II veterans like Kohnke who are making the the trip on two medically-supported Honor Flights.

--GreGen