The ‘Right’ View by Francis P. Sempa
D-Day, Monte Cassino and the Footsteps of Heroes
As the number of surviving World War II veterans gets smaller and smaller, it is worth remembering some of the men—the heroes—who helped liberate half of the continent of Europe. We recently passed the anniversaries of two momentous battles of that war in 1944. In the spring of 2013, I had the opportunity to walk in the footsteps of some of those heroes during a trip to France and Italy. The heroes were the men of the American 29th Division who on June 6 and 7, 1944, landed on Omaha Beach to begin the Allied invasion of Hitler’s fortress Europe, and American, British, French, Canadian, and Polish soldiers who, after a five-month campaign on May 25, 1944, took the German position on Monte Cassino along the Gustav Line in mountainous central Italy.
Visiting Omaha Beach, the hedgerow countryside of Normandy, and the city of St Lo was personal—my father, Sgt. Frank Sempa, fought at those places with the 175th infantry regiment of the 29th Division. On D-Day, he was in a warship in the English Channel waiting for the signal to hit the beach to reinforce the American forces who made the initial assault at great cost in men and material. The signal came on June 7th (D-Day plus 1). The 175th stormed ashore under intermittent sniper and artillery fire and advanced inland through the Vierville draw. As the men of the 175th hit the beach, they saw evidence of the carnage inflicted by German guns on D-Day. My father, who worked as a newspaper reporter and editor in Scranton after the war, recalled 25 years later that the moment soldiers landed on Omaha Beach they understood that “war is Hell.”
My father’s regiment moved forward and on June 9th seized the French town of Isigny. I visited Isigny and viewed a plaque located on a church in the town that reads:
IN THE EARLY MORNING HOURS OF 9 JUNE, 1944 THE
175TH INFANTRY OF THE AMERICANS 29TH DIVISION
TOGETHER WITH THE 747TH TANK BATTALION, LED BY
BRIGADIER GENERAL NORMAN COTA, ENTERED THE
BURNING TOWN OF ISIGNY FROM THE DIRECTION OF LA
CAMBE, THE LIBERATION OF ISIGNY WAS A CRITICAL
ALLIED OBJECTIVE IN NORMANDY THAT WOULD HELP FORCE
A LINK BETWEEN THE AMERICAN BEACHHEADS OF UTAH
AND OMAHA. THE PEOPLE OF FRANCE AND THE UNITED
STATES WILL ALWAYS SHARE A LOVE OF LIBERTY, AND
THE SACRIFICES AND TRIUMPHS OF OUR CITIZENS IN 1944
WILL BIND OUR TWO COUNTRIES TOGETHER FOREVER.
DEDICATED ON 4 JUNE, 2004
IN HONOUR OF THE 60TH ANNIVERSARY
At the top-center of the plaque is the blue and gray patch of the 29th Division.
After Isigny, the 29th Division entered the hedgerow countryside of Normandy, where every 50 yards or so fields were bounded by earthen hedgerows made of dirt and root embankments that formed strong defensive positions for the German defenders. The French referred to this region as the bocage. Every field in the hedgerow countryside was its own universe of battle, which dramatically slowed the American advance toward St Lo. As I walked and drove through the hedgerow-lined fields, I wondered how any U.S. soldiers survived. I then drove the short distance to the city of St Lo—a short distance but because of the hedgerows it took the 29th Division more than a month to capture the city. My father earned a Bronze Star for being at the front lines in combat for more than 40 consecutive days. That was where my France journey ended.
The 29th Division would later attack the port of Brest, then in the late summer-early fall of 1944 it was on to the Siegfired Line in Germany. In early 1945, the 29th crossed the Roer River, and took the town of Julich. In March 1945, the division seized Munchen-Gladbach. My father crossed the Rhine River in late March. In April 1945, my father’s regiment helped liberate a German slave labor camp at Dinslaken. On May 8, 1945—VE Day—the 175th regiment was on the west bank of the Elbe River (Russian forces were on the east bank of the river). You can read about my father’s World War II exploits in my book “Somewhere in France, Somewhere in Germany: A Combat Soldier’s Journey Through the Second World War,” which is based on the letters he wrote home to his parents from stateside training camps, England, France, and Germany, which my sister discovered after he died in 1988.
I then toured some places in Italy, including Monte Cassino and the Benedictine abbey that the German’s used as a fortress to stall the Allied advance toward Rome in 1944. American and British planes bombed the abbey, which is situated on top of Monte Cassino. Then repeated Allied assaults failed to dislodge the Germans. After five months of fighting, a Polish division finally took the mountain and suffered great losses. On the side of the mountain there is a Polish war cemetery and each grave is topped with a cross on which hangs rosary beads. I walked in the footsteps of heroes there, too.
Francis P. Sempa is the author of the books “Geopolitics: From the Cold War to the 21st Century” and “America’s Global Role.” He is a contributing editor to “The American Spectator” and writes a regular column for “Real Clear Defense.”
