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June 16, 2008

France to honor Port man’s D-Day role

By Stephen Tait, Staff Writer

NEWBURYPORT — World War II is still not over for James Gabaree.

Wounds the Daniel Lucy Way resident suffered from machine-gun fire after landing on the beach of Normandy on D-Day 64 years ago continue to cause him pain, especially one along his belt line.

“The war for me never ended,” he said. “This pain is for real. I feel it night and day. I never get used to it but I adjust to it.”

It isn’t just the pain of wounds that keeps the war fresh in Gabaree’s thoughts these days. The 83-year-old former Ranger learned this week that the French government plans to honor him with the Legion of Honor medal, France’s highest award for bravery that is rarely given to foreigners.

In a letter he received last week from French Ambassador Pierre Vimont, Gabaree learned he will be honored as a Chevalier, or knight, of the Legion of Honor. The legion was created in 1802 by Napoleon “to acknowledge services rendered to France by persons of great merit.”

“The French people will never forget your courage and your devotion to the great cause of freedom,” Vimont wrote in the letter. Gabaree said a ceremony is planned in Boston for July 14, Bastille Day, when France celebrates its independence. He will receive the medal at that time.

Gabaree said for most of the six decades since D-Day, where he was one of the first to land on the beaches, little recognition had come his way — not that he was looking for any accolades anyway, he said.

But this year, Gabaree said, things started to change.

First he was appointed the grand marshal for a parade in Bradenton, Fla., where he lives in the winter. Then Kevin Hunt, the city’s veterans’ agent, contacted him for Memorial Day services. On top of that, there has been increased interest from people about his war stories.

And then, to top it off, he received the notification from the French government about the Legion of Honor medal.

“I think I’m like an antique,” Gabaree said, “I’m becoming valuable to people.”

Gabaree’s main job on the beaches on June 6, 1944, was as a bangalore torpedo man. A bangalore torpedo is a long metal tube filled with dynamite used to destroy barbed wire fences and other obstacles that stood in the way of advancing infantrymen.

The 19-year-old soldier wrote in a story about his war time experiences that when his 5th Ranger Battalion landed at the beaches, “we were like clay pigeons in a shooting gallery for the Germans.” He wrote that “it was a slaughter. Men were dying all around me.”

During an interview, Gabaree said when he looked across the beach at blood-stained water and the dead bodies in the sand, he lost his religion.

“I lost it and that was a tremendous loss,” he said. “I just told myself, if there is a God, why destroy all these people? I miss it, but I never got it back.”

After landing on the beach, communication broke down and there was chaos, he said. So he and the other Rangers just continued to penetrate into the German forces — the greatest penetration into enemy territory on D-Day.

They continued on with just 23 men to Pointe du Hoc, where the Allies believed the Germans had emplaced massive guns that could play havoc with the invasion forces. Pointe du Hoc had already been taken at heavy cost, but once inside, American troops discovered to their dismay the big guns were not there — instead, the Germans had put in telephone poles to deceive Allied intelligence.

The commanding officer decided to try to make contact with the forces on the beaches. On that trip back to the beaches, Gabaree was shot by German gunfire, hit in the back and buttocks.

He said the other Rangers kept going and promised to come back for him. He used a bandage and medicine to patch up his wounds.

Gabaree said he decided he could either lie there and die or try to make it back to the beaches. He said he crawled and walked for many hours, finally coming upon a German soldier. He said they shot at each other, with his shot killing the German.

He said he climbed into the German’s foxhole, tried to eat some of his black bread and prepared to kill himself — choosing that instead of a slow, painful death. Before he could, though, a group of American soldiers on patrol found him and took him back to the beaches.

Gabaree’s war stories continue from there, but he says he is no hero, and doesn’t want that title either. He said he was simply fighting for his country.

“All the Rangers, there were no heroes,” he said. “We were patriots, that was all.”

More on Gabaree’s D-Day story, a long narrative that includes details of the war and his part in it, can be found on the Internet at www.6juin1944.com/veterans/gabaree.php.

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