Donald Lewis stood crammed among a group of friends and fellow soldiers, trying not to lose his balance. The landing craft they were on was pushing toward its destination on Omaha Beach at Normandy, France. A strong current threatened to pull them away from their destination.
Lewis was a long way from his hometown of Thurmont, but he, along with millions of other young men, had been drafted to serve in the armed forces during World War II. Though he had entered the army as a private, he had risen to the rank of staff sergeant.
Lewis stood at the front of the landing craft hanging onto the edge of the wall. Around him, he could hear the explosion of artillery and see the explosions on the water and beach. Things seemed a mass of confusion, but it was all part of the largest seaborne invasion ever undertaken: the coordinated D-Day attack on German forces at Normandy, France. The invasion involved 156,000 Allied troops. Amphibious landings along fifty miles of the Normandy Coast were supported by naval and air assaults.
Lewis’ job in the invasion seemed simple. He was to go ashore first and mark safe paths across the irrigation ditches that crossed the beach.
However, the landing craft couldn’t make it to the beach. It grounded on a sandbar.
Lewis and the other men were still expected to take the beach, though. The front ramp of the landing craft was lowered and Lewis ran into the water. He suddenly found himself in water over his head, weighed down by a heavy backpack.
“I just had to hold my breath and walk part of the way underwater until my head was above water,” Lewis said. Though amazingly he was not wounded during that invasion, he was later wounded in the leg during an artillery barrage. His wound was near his groin, barely missing his groin. Lewis remembers laying in a hospital in England waiting to be taken into surgery.
“A big, ol’ English nurse comes walking up and she pulls back the sheet and looks at the wound,” recalls Lewis. “Then she says to me, ‘Almost got your pride and joy, didn’t they?’”
Another time, Lewis barely escaped being killed. He and other soldiers were up in trees along a road, waiting to ambush the Germans. However, the Germans were being careful that day.
“A sniper must have spotted me up there,” Lewis said. “I knew he hit my helmet. I started down that tree as fast as I could, grabbing limbs and dropping.”
When he got to the ground, he took off his helmet and saw that there was a hole through the front of it and a matching one through the back of it. Only the fact that his helmet had been sitting high on his head saved his life.
“People wondered why I didn’t bring the helmet home as a souvenir, but I didn’t want anything to do with it,” said Lewis.
Perhaps his most-pleasant memory from the war was when he was discharged from the Army. He was in line with other soldiers being discharged after the end of the war. The soldier at the front of the line would walk up to the officer at the front of the room, receive his discharge papers, salute, and walk away.
“When I got my papers, I let out a war whoop and woke that place up,” Lewis said.
Once back in Thurmont, Lewis went to work on the family farm. He met his wife, Freda, who was a farm girl, also from Thurmont, and they married in a double ceremony with a couple they were friends with.
Lewis also had a political career. He served two terms as Mayor of Thurmont and one term as a Frederick County Commissioner. He said a group of people tried to talk him into running for governor, but he turned them down, saying, “I’m too honest for that.”
Lewis and his wife ran a sporting goods store and greeting card store on the Thurmont square for many years. He is now ninety-six years old and still living on his own. “I want to live to be one hundred,” he said. “After that, I’ll take what I can get.”
Veterans Day is on November 11. Make sure to thank any Veterans you know for their service, and attend one of the special Veterans Day activities going on in the area.
The Germans started firing on the beach and the landing craft. Lewis focused on his job and began marking the paths where troops could cross.
“When I looked back, men were laying everywhere,” Lewis said. “Just about everyone on the boat was dead.”
After the war, when he was invited back to Normandy for the anniversary of the D-Day invasion, Lewis always turned down the invitations. Now ninety-six years old, he has never returned to Omaha Beach.
“I’ve seen all I wanted to,” he said.
The Eyler Stables in Thurmont now hosts weekend flea markets. The idea for opening the stables for weekend markets was that of owner, Niki Eyler, and her friend, Emily Kemp, who has been working a similar operation in Virginia.
When the residents of Sabillasville, Maryland, travel to their local post office, they won’t be seeing the familiar face of their resident postmaster, Sharon Burd, kindly waiting to help them. Sharon Burd (pictured right) of the United States Postal Service retired from her post on September 28, 2014, after almost thirty-one years. “I like working here, because you get to see all local people you know every day,” said Burd.
ugar Free: Champion—Jill Holler (Chocolate Kaluha Cake); Reserve Champion—Roxanna Lambert (Diabetic Bread).
The incessant rain on Saturday morning, October 11, 2014, gave way to a cloudy day in the afternoon, transitioning into a sunny, more pleasant day on Sunday for the 51st Annual Colorfest weekend in Thurmont.
“We’ll have to sneak all this stuff into the house so our husbands won’t see,” Randall said.
“It’s a big crowd here, and they seem like they’re in a spending mood,” O’Connor said. “I mean when you see people walking around with wagons and carts, they are obviously looking to buy.”
A new face was added to the Emmitsburg Board of Commissioners on Monday, October 6, 2014, when Joseph Ritz, III, was sworn in.
On Saturday, October 18, 2014, the 90th Banquet of the Emmitsburg High School Alumni was held at the Emmitsburg Ambulance activities building on Creamery Road in Emmitsburg. Emmitsburg High School’s first graduating class was the class of 1898. Their last graduating class was the class of 1968. The late Ada Hollinger Sperry began the alumni banquets in 1921. During World War II, there were three years during which no banquet was held. Thus, 2014 is the 90th year anniversary of Emmitsburg Alumni banquets.
In the years leading up to the Civil War, Mount St. Mary’s enjoyed prosperity. The college celebrated its golden anniversary in 1858, and student enrollment was around 200 young men and growing.
In preparation of the annual National Fallen Firefighters Memorial Service that is held in October in Emmitsburg, Maryland at the National Fire Academy, Emmitsburg’s fire personnel and volunteers fill multiple rolls year-round. For this year’s 33rd annual event held on the weekend of October 11 and 12, 2014, the folks at Vigilant Hose Company washed a huge U.S. flag then hung it to dry in the four-story stairwell at the station on West Main Street in Emmitsburg. Witnessing the flag, Wayne Powell, Executive Director of the National Fire Heritage Center (located within the Frederick County Fire and Rescue Museum on South Seton Avenue in Emmitsburg) said, “It was something to see.”
A rather inauspicious opening day of MountainFest at Sabillasville Elementary School in Sabillasville, Maryland, deterred many visitors due to the chilly, misty weather.
As we get older and have kids and grandkids, many of you know that our memories switch from “us” to “them.” I can still remember the first deer my son, Chris, shot on land not far from the Frederick watershed. It was a spike deer. Sitting in that tree stand and seeing him shoot, and the deer falling thirty yards away, is forever embedded in my memory bank, as I’m sure it is for him as well (even though it’s been many years)!
As you can tell, to me, memories afield are just as important as bagging our quarry. I hope you have many memories, and I hope hearing a few of mine has helped you relive and revisit some of your special hunting or hunting-related memories. Maybe it brings a smile to your face, or maybe a tear to your eye like it does for me, because my Dad, my Uncle Frank, my Grandfather Warden, and all who instilled the hunting spirit in me are gone, but they have left the legacy to me to pass on.
Tip displayed the Ruth Holdcraft Mackley Button Collection at the annual Thurmont and Emmitsburg Community Show in September. Many of the unique buttons in the collection have a history, a heritage, and some even have a story. Tip’s favorites are those with the best stories.
