77th Anniversary of D-Day-- Part 2: Rapidly Dwindling Group of Survivors

Charles Shay regretted that the pandemic "is interrupting everything."  He is expected to be the only veteran at Sunday's anniversary day ceremony at the Normandy American Cemetery of Colleville-sur-Mer.

"We have no visitors coming to France this year for two years now.  And I hope it will soon be over soon," he said.

Shay's lone presence is all the more poignant as the number of survivors of this epochal battle dwindles.  Just one veteran bow remains of the French commando unit that joined U.S., British, Canadian and other Allied troops storming Normandy's code-named beaches.

Some French and a few other World War II history enthusiasts from other European countries gathered in Normandy.

Driving restored jeeps, dressed in old uniforms or joyfully eating at the newly reopened terraces of restaurants, they're contributing to revive the commemoration's special atmosphere -- and keeping alive the memory of June 6, 1944.

--GreGen

His Pearl Harbor Death Was Highly Exaggerated-- Part 8: A Non-Regulation Uniform

Hamlin bedded down for the night on the balcony of the Ford Island Theater.

By the morning he first noticed that his white uniform was ruined.  After all, he had swam through an oil slick to Ford Island the day before.  He found a pile of clothing and rummaged through it and made himself a new uniform, though not quite regulation: a Navy chambray work shirt and khaki trousers, a brown Marine shoe and a black Navy shoe.

--GreGen

Remembering Pearl Harbor: Don't Wear Blue

From the Dec. 29, 2011, NBC 9 News, Colorado's News Leader "Remembering Pearl Harbor: The survivors."

Fred Mack remembers running for a hangar right in front of another man. "I felt a concussion and then looked back and he was no longer there."

Charles Boswell can't shake the image of severely burned man treading water in the harbor,  "He was saying 'Don't touch me! Don't touch me!' They reached down and pulled him up by the arm, and all they came up with was burnt muscle."

George Blake remembers that night of the attack, "We had orders to go back to the barracks one at a time and to change our clothes. It was the Japanese wore blue uniforms and [our] infantry had orders to shoot on sight anyone in a blue uniform. Well, we had blue fatigues on at the time."

Two other Pearl Harbor survivors: Charles Boswell, mess cook, USS Tennessee and George Richard, USS Tennessee.

Interesting Stories. --GreGen