[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 77 (Wednesday, May 26, 1999)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1113-E1114]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




               A TRIBUTE TO AMERICAN SERVICEMEN AND WOMEN

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. CARRIE P. MEEK

                               of florida

                    in the house of representatives

                        Wednesday, May 26, 1999

  Mrs. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to 
America's servicemen and women for their heroic sacrifices made to 
preserve freedom. With the upcoming observance of Memorial Day, the 
United States recalls once again how freedom is not free. This hallowed 
national holiday is followed on June 6 by the 55th anniversary of D-
Day, the date of the 1944 Invasion of Normandy by the Allied Forces to 
liberate the European continent from the darkness of Nazi tyranny.
  It is the spirit that compels Americans to defend freedom at all 
costs that we honor at this solemn Memorial Day holiday. Senator Robert 
Kennedy once wrote: ``Every time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts 
to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he 
sends forth a tiny ripple of hope. And crossing each other from a 
million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a 
current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and 
resistance.''

[[Page E1114]]

  President Reagan once mentioned that we don't have to look in history 
books to find heroes; heroes are all around us, in every American city 
and town, as well as in the towns of our Allies. On Memorial Day, I 
pause to pay tribute to such heroes as the late Tom O'Connor of Quebec, 
Canada, who, as a young Canadian paratrooper, landed in Normandy, 
France, on June 6, 1944, fought in the dreadful Falaise Gap during the 
following Battle of Normandy, was severely wounded by machine gun fire, 
and spent the rest of the war in a German hospital.
  I pay tribute to John J. McDonough who, as a reliable young sergeant 
in the U.S. Army Air Corps, served the Allies in the China-Burma-India 
Theater of Operations. At the same time, his teenage brother, Thomas J. 
McDonough, was a faithful seaman in the U.S. Navy who saw action in the 
South Pacific in the Invasion of the Philippines and in the Battle of 
Okinawa, among other campaigns.
  I pay tribute to Mr. James Clark, Sr., of Bowie, Maryland, who, as a 
teenager in the U.S. Navy before World War II, was on duty in Pearl 
Harbor on the morning of December 7, 1941, and raced to his battle 
station during the surprise Japanese attack on the American fleet. 
Young Mr. Clark defended his nation that Sunday morning with the valor 
and spirit that we solemnly honor on Memorial Day and on June 6.
  I pay tribute to Corporal Francis McDonough of Bowie, aged 20 in 
1944, who, with 10,000 other young American soldiers, boarded the 
English liner, Aquitania, in New York Harbor on January 29, 1944. The 
ship had been refitted into a troop ship, was as swift as the German U-
boats, and sailed unescorted without convoy protection on a risky 
voyage across the cold North Atlantic.
  Once fully loaded with troops, Aquitania steamed out of New York 
Harbor. Corporal McDonough and other soldiers lined in the decks of the 
huge liner and stared at the Statute of Liberty until it disappeared 
from view. For much of the first three days of the journey, a Navy 
seaplane, the PBY Catalina, watched for enemy submarines as it 
accompanied Aquitania to the extent of the plane's range of fuel. The 
PBY signaled the ship with its findings, and finally had to turn back 
as the liner sailed beyond the perimeter of the plane's range. After a 
harrowing voyage, the U.S. troops disembarked safely in Scotland a week 
later.

  Several months later, after hazardous amphibious training off of 
England's coast at Slapton Sands, the Allies launched the invasion of 
Europe against Nazi enslavement, on D-Day, June 6, 1944, landing on 
five code-named beaches in occupied Normandy, France: Gold, Sword, 
Juno, Utah, and Omaha.
  Long before crossing the English Channel to Utah Beach in Normandy on 
D-Day, Corporal McDonough had been trained in the United States as an 
anti-aircraft gunner on a half-track vehicle equipped with four 50-
calibre machine guns. A half-track had a truck cab and front wheels, 
and tank-like tracks in the rear.
  On D-Day, while on the English Channel, the young corporal felt 
encouraged when the nearby battleship, USS Nevada, opened fire on the 
German batteries along the French coast ahead. The booming of the 
ship's huge guns sent flaming projectiles above in the dim light, yet 
the young soldier considered the ship's presence reassuring.
  Previously, USS Nevada had been heavily damaged when attempting to 
proceed underway during the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor on December 
7, 1941. But due to the innovation of her valiant crew, she was beached 
in shallow water there to avoid sinking. The USS Nevada was among the 
ships returned for later service.
  On the early morning of June 6, 1944, Corporal McDonough's outfit saw 
that at Utah Beach in Normandy, many of the forward observers--radio 
men--were dead, and their radios were gone, lost underwater only three 
U.S. tanks out of about 30 made the shore (that they saw) during the 
morning landings. Thus, there was no one to coordinate the ships' 
firepower, no one to tell the ships' crews where to direct their 
powerful artillery. U.S. crews on the Navy destroyers, 1,000 yards 
offshore urgently wanted to help those Americans trapped under German 
fire on the Normandy beach, but didn't know where to direct their 
gunfire.
  Then, suddenly, on Utah Beach, the outfit of a disabled American tank 
began firing at the Germans entrenched on a cliff above. The crew of a 
U.S. destroyer saw where the tank was firing, determined the 
coordinates, and directed its artillery towards the Nazi pillbox on the 
cliff. Then a second destroyer also aimed its guns on the same target, 
and that increased firepower helped the Americans on the beach to move 
inland.
  The tide was coming in fast on Utah Beach; therefore, wounded men who 
were able to do so crawled inland to avoid drowning. But many young men 
who were able to do so crawled inland to avoid drowning. But many young 
Americans died on the beach, too injured to escape the tide. After 
serving in the U.S. First Army in the D-Day landings, in the Battle of 
Normandy, in the Battle of France, in the Battle of the Bulge, and in 
the battles in Germany, Corporal McDonough later recalled quietly how 
heartbreaking it had been at Utah Beach on D-Day to see the American 
bodies floating on the waves. Yet, years afterwards, we know that their 
ripples had built a current.
  As Senator Robert Kennedy later noted, such an American current was 
capable of sweeping down the mightiest walls of oppression and 
resistance. It is this spirit of Americans who love freedom that we 
honor on Memorial Day and on the 55th anniversary of D-Day, June 6, 
1944. It is a privilege to pay tribute to American soldiers, sailors, 
and airmen of all wars who have given the noble example of handing over 
their country not less ut even greater and better than they received 
it.

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