D-Day reenactment storms Lake Michigan beach with World War II planes and ships

ST. JOSEPH, Michigan – For a moment, the sands of St. Joseph sounded a little like the beaches of Normandy.

Bullets and bomb attacks. Soldiers storm from the sea to the coast, ducking behind walls and under barbed wire: war, re-enacted.

On Saturday, hundreds of history buffs and veterans flocked to Tiscornia Park in St. Joseph to take part in a large-scale reenactment of D-Day, eighty years after the largest amphibious invasion in military history changed the course of World War II and marked the beginning of the end of Hitler’s hold on Europe.

D-Day reenactment storms Lake Michigan beach with World War II planes and ships

“You’re wet, you’re sandy, you’re dirty, you’re sweating,” said Antonio Hare, who played the role of an Allied gunner. “I want to put myself in their shoes and try to get an idea of ​​what it must have been like,”

When the Illinois resident reached the first beach wall in the reenactment, he was “hit” and fell to the ground. While he played dead in his period uniform, the fighting continued in front of him.

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The mock battle, staged by veterans group Lest We Forget, lasted nearly an hour until Allied soldiers forced the Germans to surrender on the sand dunes of Tiscornia. A pyrotechnics show added to the heat of the summer morning, and World War II-era ships and aircraft completed the coastal scene.

Later in the day, Lest We Forget reenacted the Battle of Saipan, a similar sea-to-surface attack conducted during the war against Japan.

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“I can’t explain it. I can’t explain it,” said 106-year-old World War II veteran Robert Holt about the D-Day reenactment.

Holt was drafted as a 23-year-old college student, served in an all-black unit of a segregated army, and was deployed to Germany in the mid-1940s. On his first day of combat, his truck hit a land mine: “I walked around and asked, ‘Are you OK?'” Holt recalls. “He looked up at me and said, ‘No, I got hit.'”

Holt survived the day and the war and eventually moved to Albion, Michigan.

READ MORE: Cpl. Robert Holt fought against fascism and racism. At 105 years old, he is still laughing

“I thought I was coming here to celebrate D-Day,” Hold said. “They’re coming to celebrate me.”

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Sitting near Holt on Saturday was another veteran, Gloria Weberg, who served in the WAVES program.

“It was really good for us women to find recognition where there was none before,” Weberg said.

The acronym stands for “Women Accepted for Voluntary Emergency Service.” The volunteer branch of the U.S. Navy offered numerous positions, including machinists, parachute packers, photographers, metalsmiths, gunnery instructors, radio operators, tower operators, and carrier pigeon trainers.

While “taking care” of the soldiers’ files, Weberg witnessed 17- and 18-year-old boys going overseas to war and never returning home.

“I hope there will be no more wars,” said Weberg. “We have to prevent that.”

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