Mike Fortunato spoke to the club about his visit to the 75th anniversary of D-Day in Normandy, France. Mike’s dad landed on Omaha Beach on D-Day. Mike and his brother put together a video about their father. The video is on YouTube and is titled, "Sam Fortunato WW2." You can access it at: www.youtube.com/watch?v=NuAQ2k3cOF0
The trip to Normandy was a six-day military tour of all the beaches, Utah & Omaha-US Landing, Gold &Sword-UK Landing, Juno-Canadian Landing. After the 101st Airborne parachuted behind the beach on June 5, Mike’s dad landed on Omaha Beach, Red Dog Sector at 7:00 AM June 6, with Company H. To better understand the landing, Mike recommends the book, "The Bedford Boys," by Alex Kershaw about A Company from Bedford, VA, who had the most killed in the first Landing.
Mike told us how the German operation, Overlord, pre-fortified the Normandy coastline, with guns placed along the coastline and other gun placements strategically located. Rommel, who was in charge of the Atlantic wall, reinforced the wall in 1944 adding beach obstacles, beach mines and water mines. The defenses were 1/3 made up of Russians, Georgians, and other non-Germans. The Germans were either older or inexperienced and the best German fighters were elsewhere.
Mike shared several interesting facts with us: the 29th Maryland used blue and grey colored uniforms, as they were a unit formed by combining North and South soldiers after the Civil War. We saw pictures of the American cemetery where Teddy Roosevelt Jr, 57 years old, landed on Omaha Beach and died later of a heart attack. Mike told us that the rest of the 9386 WW II and one WW I soldiers were randomly buried.
While viewing pictures of the landing, Mike told us that there were 4000 casualties on Omaha Beach on day one. 2 million landed through the beaches of Normandy with a 10% loss rate. Mike continued with pictures of WW II vets, British soldiers, re-enactment groups, and the June 6th Sunrise Ceremony. When time at the meeting ran out, Mike was not done sharing and the club was not done listening to an interesting part of our history.