06/06/2026
Let us never forget!
Editor's note: Peter Thomas of Naples landed on Omaha Beach on the second day of the Normandy invasion at the age of 19. Now 86, Thomas still gives interpretive readings at local churches of this poem that he wrote in 1954 for the 10th anniversary of D-Day.
When we went in, the beach had been taken.
The living fought on, the dead forsaken.
We were dropped into water up to our shoulders.
We waded in? a group of green soldiers
Onto that thin strip of beach
So many had tried to reach.
They were the ones who went in first,
Among the machine-gun fire and shell burst.
They went to watery graves,
Sinking under the waves.
The water was red,
Red from the dead,
Red from the dying,
In agony crying.
Those who made the land
Were not able to stand.
They fell on the sand,
Writhing in pain,
Screaming for help in vain.
Every advantage was on the hill.
They murdered our men at will.
The rain of death from the cliffs never stopped,
But we just kept coming in from the sea,
Wave after wave, as far as you could see.
Sheer courage and determination
Not believing they were done
Dictated the victory that day.
Others in the future will say,
When they stand on that mighty height
And look down on that thin strip of beach,
They'll say, 'I don't see how they ever did it.'
They fought for every inch of it,
Up the sides of that fortified wall,
Over the tops of those cliffs so tall.
I'll never forget that beach.
I'll never forget the men,
In the ships,
In the air and on the land,
And in the water.
They lie now beneath thousands of white crosses
And Stars of David
Above the beach
Those wonderful soldiers who died so young.
They died so we
Could be free.
How can we ever forget what they did?
We honor them this day.
We salute them,
And we humbly beseech,
Dear God, bless the men who died on
Omaha Beach.
