A D-Day Connection...

USS Maloy (DE-791)

D-Day, the beginning of Operation Overlord, the invasion of the Normandy coast by some 150,000 allied troops*, took place 75 years ago.  I was 4 years old and don't remember the event.  I'm sure that at the time I had no conception of its importance.

Fast forward to April, 1964, almost twenty years later.  That month, I reported aboard the USS Maloy (DE-791), as its new Engineer Officer.  The Maloy, I was soon to learn, had played an important role in the invasion, acting as a flagship for a PT Boat squadron.  The squadron commander, Commodore Campbell D. Edgar, USN, of Cazenovia, New York, was aboard Maloy for the major portion of the assault on Omaha Beach.  According to a letter written by Maloy sailor Kenneth Surprise to his parents in Lowell, Indiana, "We got off to a good start on D Day by knocking down a JU88 with our guns, and since then we've seen plenty of action!"  While on patrol off the Nazi-held Channel Islands, the Maloy came under the fire of heavy shore guns.  Although the German gunners fired 38 rounds at the vessel, she maneuvered too quickly and the heavy shells splashed harmlessly in the sea nearby.  On another action, Surprise said, his ship went in close to one of the islands and again the shore emplacements opened up on her.

"Their first salvo straddled us, showering shrapnel along our starboard side and hitting some depth charges," he related. "It was close enough for me!"
Later the Maloy stood off St. Malo, France, within sight of the bombing and subsequent surrender of Cezambre, a fortified island which held out long after German forces on the mainland gave up.

"That was some show!" Surprise declared.  It must have been "some show" indeed.  I can't even imagine the sea between England and the Normandy coast covered with over 5,000 vessels!

I became aware of Maloy's involvement because there was a plaque in the passageway aft of the officers mess recognizing Maloy for her D-Day service.  Whenever I walked by that plaque, I reflected on the sacrifices made by thousands of allied citizens during the Normandy invasion.  To this day, I feel an incredible sense of gratitude for their collective courage and devotion.  God bless them all, the living and the deceased.

* According to Wikipedia, "The total number of troops landed on D-Day was around 130,000 –156,000, roughly half American and the other half from the Commonwealth Realms."