D-Day The 6th Of June

Just some thoughts about today.

Since I started this genealogy search, as you know if you've been following this blog, I've found some interesting things about my extended family.

One of my ancestors was August Valentine Kautz. Civil War General and whom Kautz Glacier on Mount Rainier in Washington State is named for. Has nothing to do with D-Day, but I thought I'd just throw that one in.

It was my firm belief that my dad was on a troop transport during the D-Day invasion at the beaches of Normandy, France. When I first started digging, all I knew was my dad was on a ship called the 
USS William P Biddle. 

APA-8 William P Biddle

 At first I dug and dug and dug around and could find nothing. Finally I found a group from the crew of the ship and in contact with them, notified them of my father's passing so they could update their records. They send me a little "book" with the crew and a short history of the ship. 

One of my concerns was, if my father was at the Normandy invasion and being of German decent, that it was a very odd occurrence. The German's didn't fight the German's any more than Japanese descendants fought the Japanese during the war. 

Then we got the introduction of Wikipedia. What I found out is that he was never at Normandy. Spent a lot of time all over the world, but mostly in the South Pacific. OK, enough about my father.  

I've come across many articles recently about this Coronavirus (Covid-19 there is a difference) and how so many of the survivors of D-Day are not going to be there to remember because of it. The number dwindles every year. 

We watch movies like the Longest Day and Saving Private Ryan and as gory as Saving Private Ryan was during the beach scenes I can not imagine what it was like being there. It's no wonder those that survived never talked about it. 

I managed to get a couple things out of my dad about the South Pacific Landings (he was at places like Tarawa, Guadalcanal, and Leyte and Luzon in the Phillippines) and what he said I'd rather not repeat. 

Such as it was at Normandy I'm sure. 

Let us not forgot those that gave their lives for this country. 

We could have been under the Third Reich although I'm not sure we're not. 

One last item, Novel Coronavirus is a new virus previously unknown. There are 7 viruses that can infect people. The four common ones are 229E, NL63, OC43, & HKU1. The 3 less common ones are Mers-coV, Sars-coV, and Sars-coV2 or as we know it, Covid-19. A whole bunch of nasty bugs. 

Stay safe my friends.