Page 13 - Aerotech News and Review, June 16 2017

D-DAY, from 12
More than 9,000 Allied troops were killed or wounded in that single, longest of long days. They might have foundered in the water, but ultimately, the Allied troops fought their way off the beaches, and up the cliffs and bluffs, and into the hedgerow farm country of coastal France.
While the men were coming from the sea, Henry Ochsner was with his brother grunts from the 101st Airborne Division and their first cousins over in the 82nd Airborne “All American” Divi- sion. They were heading in from flooded landing fields and hedgerows to meet up with the troops fighting their way up from the beaches.
The 101st and 82nd Airborne units had been scattered all over the countryside, few landing anywhere near their designated rally points. But they rallied anyway, and sewed chaos in the Nazi rear and forward areas.
For Henry, his unit really were his brothers. Years later, Henry’s company, Easy Company of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st
Ernie Pyle — America’s iconic World War II combat correspondent — wrote in June 1944, “I want to tell you what the opening of the second front in this sector entailed, so that you can know and appreciate and for- ever be humbly grateful to those both dead and alive who did it for you.”
Airborne Division, became known as the “Band of Brothers,” recounted in the Stephen Ambrose book and the HBO miniseries of the same name that tells the story of American G.I.s from D-Day to the final defeat of the Nazis and the evil they represented.
Another D-Day veteran who resides in the An- telope Valley is John Humphrey, a D-Day para- trooper with the 82nd, who went missing behind enemy lines for more than a week, but when he turned up, he had scouted vital information on enemy gun positions.
Altogether, more than 156,000 Allied troops participated in the “Day of Days.” Like Art Ray
and Henry Ochsner, the ones that lived to tell re- turned home to rebuild their lives in the America we now know. Thanks to historians and authors like Ambrose and Tom Brokaw, they have become known as “The Greatest Generation.”
But this was not Henry and Art’s only entry into the history books.
As crew on the USS Quincy, Art served on the ship that carried President Franklin D. Roosevelt to the Yalta Conference with Winston Churchill and Josef Stalin. The Quincy delivered FDR to the Mediterannean island of Malta, whereupon he proceeded by air to Crimea, and Yalta to negotiate the shape of the post-war world.
Henry survived the siege of Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge launched in December 1944.
The battle in the Ardennes Forest of Belgium and France was Hitler’s last desperate attempt to throw the Allied forces back to the sea. At Bastogne, in Europe’s coldest winter in a half century, the 101st Airborne was surrounded, and battered, but never beaten. Brig. Gen. Anthony MacAuliffe’s response to a German army demand for surrender was one word – “Nuts.” The 101st Airborne hung on until relieved by George Pat- ton’s 3rd Army.
“I was a Jeep driver, and I was trying to get the Jeep started in 13 degrees below, and it just kept going ‘uh-uh-uh,’” Henry recalled. “A buddy of mine shouted ‘We got one coming in,’ and it was an 88 millimeter shell. I dived to the basement where we spend the night before, and my Jeep was destroyed, just a twisted mess. I got a shrap- nel splinter through my boot in my heel, and I fixed it with a Band-Aid.
“They told me if a medic had put the Band-Aid on, I’d have gotten a Purple Heart, but I put it on, so that’s how I lost my chance for Purple Heart.”
With the “Band,” Henry fought all the way to Berchtesgaden, Hitler’s mountaintop resort re- doubt, the “Eagle’s Nest.”
Henry shared a few of his stories a few days before D-Day. A few days earlier, my medical ser- vices provider group, High Desert medical Group, hosted a small reception for Henry, and Violet, his bride of 70 years. The couple had recently rededi- cated their marriage vows.
Cake and punch was served. Lancaster City
Manager Mark Bozigian – on behalf of Mayor R. Rex Parris and the City Council - presented an honorary scroll recognizing Henry and Violet, their long marriage, and Ochsner’s distinguised service during World War II.
“I don’t really feel worthy enough to addres you, but I do want to say how grateful I am for what you did in World War II,” Bozigian said. “Your generation, and I really do believe it,” was our mjost important generation. You literally saved the world.”
And Henry and Art were among the fortunate who returned home from the landing fields and war-tossed sea.
When Henry first laid eyes on Violet, she was working as a waitress at a diner in Seattle. He per- suaded his sister, a co-worker, to persuade Violet togooutwithhimonadate.Onthewaytothe
dance, Henry’s sister sat in between Henry, who was at the wheel of a roadster, and Violet, who was still making up her mind about the young war veteran.
It was to a dance, in a kind of big barn-like dance hall. They have been together ever since.
At the reception a few days before D-Day, Henry said, “I just want to thank all of you for thinking of us, and yes, as of March 6, it was 70 years and we are happily married.”
The couple raised three daughters. Henry did a stint in the Merchant Marines, and drove an extraordinary number of miles as a truck driver without ever having an accident.
“When I look at him, I see the kindness in his eyes, and it’s like when we first met,” Violet said. “He has always been that man. He is the same man now.”
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Henry Ochsner describes D-Day ... with bride of 70 years, Violet, and Nathan Burnett, a Cold War veteran of Henry’s outfit, the 101st Airborne.
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