World War II vet, 90, talks of storming Normandy on D-Day

WHEATON, Ill. (WLS) -- Seventy years ago today, Chuck Thomas had steak and eggs for breakfast. The command figured good food would be good for morale.

Thomas and 30 or so other members of Company C loaded onto a landing aircraft for the 12-mile rolling sea ride to Omaha Beach, the code name for one of five sections where Allied troops landed in Normandy during World War II.

"Everybody threw up. They gave us paper bags to throw up in and throw over the side. We were sea sick, soakin' wet," he said.

The ramp went down, and into the water the troops went. The 75-pounds of gear pulled some men under.

At age 20, Thomas makes it, only to arrive in hell. Mortars. Machine gun fire. Relentless. No time to think or pray.

"They said, 'Don't stop to help anybody. You'll just get shot yourself.' So we kept moving," Thomas said.

After more than two hours in a killing field, Easy Red on Omaha Beach was secure.

"The soldiers made it a success," Thomas said.

In the midst of battle, there was chaos without clear command and citizen-soldiers fought from the gut.

Saturday at the First Division Museum at Cantigny Park in Wheaton, D-Day will be commemorated. Thomas and 19 other D-Day veterans will be there.

"Every one of us ought to try as hard as we know how to be a country and a society worthy of their sacrifice," Paul Herbert, executive director of First Division Museum, said.

Thomas turns 91 in August. His recollections of D-Day are still vivid. He was lucky- never wounded, and he still has the billfold that was in his pocket June 6, 1944.

"I'm not a hero. I didn't volunteer to go to the invasion," he said. "I had to. I was trained to do it. That's what they did."