Published in the Interest of the Staunton Community for Over 143 Years
Published in the Interest of the Staunton Community for Over 143 Years
An American serviceman stands next to one of the barricades that German armies placed along Omaha Beach, the site of the D-Day invasion. Some three thousand of these barricades dotted the beach, along with mines and other impediments. Photo courtesy of James R. Lambeth, Plainview, Ill.
BY TOM EMERY
Sitting in the choppy waters of the English Channel the day before D-Day, twenty-year-old Private James R. Lambeth wondered what would happen on the beaches of Normandy.
"We had no idea what we were getting into," recalled Lambeth. "I'd never seen combat before, and had no idea what it would be like."
June 6 marks the 80th anniversary of the massive D-Day invasion and Lambeth, a member of the 37th Amphibious Combat Engineers, was one of 156,000 men on Omaha Beach at Normandy on that day in 1944. Eight decades later, the action still touches a nerve with many Americans.
Lambeth, wh...
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