Finding the 467th AAA Memorial on Omaha Beach

Searching the various pathways, bunkers, and dugouts around the St. Laurent sur Mer pass we stumble across a dedication plaque to Dad’s 467th AAA AW Battalion not even expected or known by anyone of us ahead of time.

This was a fantastic find and made Dad and our day. Here is Dad next to the plaque.

As you can see from the plaque some of the others members had been in attendance at the dedication when this was placed on the pillbox on June 6, 1994. The was the site of a German 88 gun which was knocked out by members of the 467th AAA Battery A on the morning of June 6, 1944 (see Sgt. Hyman Haas’s account of that incident). Dad was in the same platoon and can vividly remember Hyman’s unit firing on this defense. The defense bunker is part of Widerstandsnestern (WN) 65, in German basically meaning resistance nests.

This is somewhat directly in the center of the Omaha beach area (pretty much were Dad’s platoon landed) and the main armament of WN65 was a 50 mm cannon housed in a type H667 casemate that was only completed in late April 1944. Also installed nearby were two mortars housed in Tobruks (machine gun nests basically), and covering the road further up the hill was an old 75 mm gun hidden in the woods.

WC65 had a lot of underground interconnecting bunkers and storage facilities in the hills above the draw.

Here we are exploring some that are still there.

Unfortunately Dad missed this dedication and reunion but had gotten in touch with a few of the surviving members, mainly Hyman Haas, whom I had also emailed over many years about Dad. Hyman Haas later sent Dad a personal video and a correspondence about the dedication ceremony. Some of Hyman’s description of the beach scene was referred to and used by historian Stephen Ambrose in his D-Day chronicles, pg.489 of his book D-Day. I will likely have a separate entry on Hyman if I can pull up some of his old emails. Fantastic guy may he rest in peace and I drew much of my evidence and knowledge from crosschecking his oral record against other records like Navy LCT official records of after actions and later various battle incidents he recalls in his memoirs..

The pictures below taken by John shows Dad and I celebrating awhile John snaps a picture. John is celebrating too he’s just not in the picture! See him above in trenches.qw

While this trip had alot of great moments this was one of my favorites. When you find something directly related to your journey that you didn’t even know you were looking for its just great.

Here is Dad walking up the same draw from the Beach that they left heading towards WN65.

I just wish Dad could have met some of his old buddies their just weren’t many of them left from his Battery A unit. Hyman Haas (Battery A) and friends (from various Batteries) had been here a few months earlier to dedicate this plaque. Here is the same bunker the day after the landings on June 7, 1944 showing some POWs cleaning up the beach area.

 

 

Next: Point Du Hoc