Morley brings himself to share

When the speaker took the podium, you could have heard a pin drop in a room that just minutes before was filled with the din of 200 or more voices. As he introduced himself and began to tell his story, one could hardly imagine the room getting any more quiet, but it did. The speaker was Morley Piper and he was talking about something many in his place just won’t talk about. In fact there are fewer of them left to talk about it – many have gone to their graves without saying much about the topic.

Ninety-two year-old Morley was among those who stormed Normandy Beach on June 6,1944. It was the largest seaborne invasion ever undertaken. The goal was to turn the tide of World War II in the direction of the Allied forces and push the Germans out of France and Western Europe all the way back to Berlin. It was a monumental and deadly task.

Morley spoke of how he would not, and just could not, talk about the events of D-Day for so many years. That changed after he attended the 50th anniversary of the invasion in 1995. Returning to the scene for the first time since June 6, 1944 was more than a moving experience for him. He spent days there revisiting areas where some of the fiercest fighting took place — he just broke down and wept. It was then he truly came to grips with how lucky he is to be alive and the cost of that realization. Since then, he has felt compelled to share with as many as possible what it was like to be on that beach during the invasion.

To the audience gathered to hear his story last week at the annual Arkansas Press Association Conference, he shared that he was a newly commissioned 19 year-old officer in the 29th infantry at the time.

He said that he and the other 29 young men jammed shoulder-to-shoulder into the Higgins Landing Craft were reared in an age of innocence during the Great Depression.

They boarded the landing boats 10 miles out from the beach with waves cresting over the top of the boat in the rough sea.

By the time they were one mile away from the beach, they had passed the big ships that had opened fire with big naval guns in preparation for the landing assault.

They could see the spire of a building in a small town ahead and could see the German fortifications as they opened fire. Morley watched as one landing boat close by was hit, splitting it in half.

He could see German machine gun fire strafing the beach, “You could not possibly

imagine the scene until you got there,” he said.

Then suddenly the front ramp of the landing boat went down exposing everyone to the beach and the German machine gun fire. “We sprang out hoping we could make to and across the beach, but many did not make it even to the beach,” said Morley.

He spoke of how in that moment many young men saw their last sight and breathed their last breath when the front ramp of the landing boat went down.

He said he saw a radioman hit and going down in the water when two others grabbed him and drug him to the beach and a medic was called for and miraculously appeared. As the young soldier was loaded on to a stretcher, Morley watched as one of the stretcher-bearers stepped on a land mine.

He described the scene on the beach as one with bodies everywhere. There was confusion and any plans went out the window.

“There we were on a narrow enclosed beach with high bluffs above us. We were exhausted, pinned down and just trying to find a way to survive,” he said, “survival was all we could think of, plans laid before the battle were useless. At first we were just trying to find weapons, we were just trying to control ourselves.”

Morley said after several hours, somehow, they were able to move up to a little higher ground, only now to face intense mortar fire. Returning fire, he and those he was with had deep doubt about being able to get off of that beach, and a feeling that was beginning to intensify.

They became evermore accustomed to seeing death and the wounded up close and personal — it would impact all of them for the rest of their lives — if they lived that is. “Once we were on the beach,” he said, “every hour brought a new set of terrifying circumstances to deal with, as anger, frustration and heart took root, only to become fatalistic.”

After many hours, engineers were able to blast a hole in the wall on the beach leading to a small seaside town which the landing troops were able to eventually occupy, but not without great cost of human life during the invasion — more than 10,000 casualties and 4,414 confirmed dead during the entire D-Day Invasion.

In the following days, Morley continued with his unit on the inland push until they reached St. Lo, France where he was wounded by mortar fire in July. He was taken for medical treatment and rejoined the 29th Division in September and continued through Germany during one of the worst winters on record at the time.

Morley said when he returned to the Normandy Memorial Cemetery near the beach in Colleville, France on the 50th and 70th anniversaries of the invasion, he could still see the young men coming off the landing boats, many for the last few minutes of their life. At the site there are 9,386 graves, “Where every day is Memorial Day,” said Morley.

As he concluded the account of his experiences on that fateful life-changing day on June 4, 1944, Morley invited the audience to join him in a song that has been meaningful to him over the years. He then began to sing acapella “My Country Tis of Thee.”

There was not a dry eye in the place.

Morley is a member of those Tom Brokaw labeled the “Greatest Generation” and sadly, we are losing more of them every day.

On second thought, though we may be losing far too many of the “Greatest Generation”, thanks to Morley and others like him, we are preserving part of their legacy and the impact they continue to have on our lives. Let freedom ring, it comes at a terrible, high price.