NC Cultural Resources Newsroom

RALEIGH – Hundreds of North Carolinians were among the approximately 160,000 Allied troops at the Omaha and Utah Beach landings in Normandy on June 6, 1944. The tidal wave of American, British, and Canadian troops marked the beginning of the end for Hitler’s Army in occupied France, and hastened the fall of the Third Reich.

The stories of some of these North Carolina veterans are captured in the Military Collection Project of the Archives and Records Section in the State Archives in the N.C. Department of Cultural Resources.

Under the command of American Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, five landings on five beachheads resulted in nearly 10,000 Allied casualties and 2,500 American deaths. That landing is graphically depicted in opening of the movie Saving Private Ryan.

Other North Carolina ties to D-Day abound. The invasion involved parachute and glider landings behind enemy lines, as well as 5,000 ships, some that were built at the North Carolina Shipbuilding Company in Wilmington. Most of the 13,000 plus paratroopers deployed with the 82nd and 101st Airborne divisions had trained in North Carolina.

“I interviewed Richard Bordan, a Navy corpsman who treated the wounded on Omaha Beach,” recalls LTC (Ret.) Sion Harrington III, military collection archivist. “He still has his blood-stained armband.”

Hezekiah Dobson, from Kenansville, and Lee Weaver, from Wilmington, are among the paratroopers shown in a famous picture taken with Gen. Eisenhower the day before the invasion. Harrington reports that Eisenhower’s planners expected that 50 to 85% of the paratroopers would become casualties in the Normandy attack, and that he felt close to these soldiers and wanted to visit them.

“Lee Weaver said they noticed a crowd gathering and went to see what was happening,” Harrington adds. “There was Gen. Eisenhower in the middle of the crowd.” Harrington tells of another North Carolina connection, that of Jackson Hoffler of Hertford who claims to have been the youngest American sailor at D-Day.

“He lied about his age and joined the Navy at age 14. He was a machine gunner on a landing craft at 15,” Harrington says. “A propeller on the craft got hung and he jumped into the water to investigate. He came up to ask for a sandbag to cover the face of the soldier’s body caught in the blade.”

There are many other stories in the Military Collection that covers more than 400 years of military history. The collection’s audio and video interviews include 500 from World War II veterans. Other stories include that of Micajah Autry of Sampson County, who died with Davy Crockett at the Alamo; McDowell County’s Daniel Kanipe, who claimed in 1918 to be the sole survivor of Custer’s command; and that of Dan Bullock, age 15, said to be the youngest American service member killed in Vietnam, for whom talk show host Sally Jesse Raphael donated a tombstone.

In nearly 14 years the project has collected thousands of photographs and pages of personal correspondence, such as letters, postcards and Vmails (Victory mails were reduced photographs of letters sent to the U.S. as negatives, then printed onto stationery) from service members, and official documents such as discharge papers, citations, and orders. All donated original materials are kept in the State Archives and are available to researchers. Some non-original materials also are available. The State Archives cannot accept artifacts, such as uniforms, maps, postcards, etc. The project is actively seeking photographs and records of North Carolina World War I veterans and also compiling a roster.

The Military Collection Project seeks materials from North Carolina men and women who served in any branch of the armed forces, U.S. or foreign, active or reserve, in war or peace time. If you would like to donate, or want to make audio or video recordings of interviews, please contact LTC (Ret.) Sion Harrington III at (919) 807-7314 or sion.harrington@ncdcr.gov. The Military Collection Project is administered by the Office of Archives and History in the N.C. Department of Cultural Resources, the state agency dedicated to the promotion and protection of North Carolina’s arts, history and culture. Now podcasting 24/7 with information about the Department of Cultural Resources, all available at www.ncculture.com.