European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - June 6, 1994, Darmstadt, Hesse                                At Utah Beach the casualties were Lowlor most the greatest combat Challenge Lay weeks away by Joseph Owen staff writer the first time Keith Ostrum visited France it took him More than a Day to get there. He arrived at the wrong place while standing in a puddle of vomit. He picked up accessories from a dead Man. He spent his first night in a Hole. Both his hosts and his fellow travellers tried to kill him. But Ostrum did no to take it personally. After All world wars can be like that. Besides the closest he came to injury was watching a member of his unit get knocked out by a piece of flying shrapnel. A whenever the artillery started head take out i false Teeth and put them in his pocket so he  Swallow them a Ostrum said. When the what happened a Utah Beach shrapnel hit the Many a jaw his Teeth were in his pocket. This was in essence the Utah Beach Story. Keith Ostrum in 1944 and today. Fil few americans died and for most who landed there on or after a Day the greatest combat Challenge Lay weeks away in the Interior or months away in Germany. For Ostrum 69, who left the  at the rank of technician five in 1945, that Challenge was the. Battle of the bulge. For Albert Mathwin 76, a Supply officer who parachuted into a Village on Utah Beach on a Day it May have been his service in Vietnam. He stayed in the  for 26 years. A and for William Rinkes 75, who landed at / y Utah Beach on the 12th Day after the j. Invasion and who also fought the Battle of the bulge the Challenge is occurring now. Unscathed in world War ii Rinkes is recovering from injuries he suffered in a recent car Accident. Ostrum in a Telephone interview from his Home in Erie pa., said his War duty was to take by Joseph Owen staff writer in any of a half dozen other wars involving americans the Utah Beach Landing would have rated As a decisive Battle. It would have put any offensive of the Spanish american War to shame. It easily matched the seizure of Veracruz Mexico in 1847. Had the 197 Utah Beach casualties occurred during a persian Gulf War encounter the United states would have gnashed its collective Teeth in grief while lowering All flags to half staff. But it was part of world War ii. The nation had been at War for 2vi years its enemy and allies for nearly five. As Vii corps troops piled ashore to Token resistance on a Day German gunners were carving a much bloodier Swath through v corps ranks at nearby Omaha Beach killing or wounding More than 2,000. And by the end of june 1944, Vii corps itself eventually would suffer 112 times As Many casualties As it did on june 6 at Utah Beach. That a Why 1st . Army commander Gen. Omar n. Bradley head of both invasion groups wrote in his memoirs that a Utah Beach was a piece of  the assault began at 6 30 a.m., 32 minutes after Sunrise and nearly an hour after the guns of Allied ships had begun showering the coastal batteries with destruction. Maj. Gen. J. Lawton Collins directed his attacking corps from the Bayfield a transport ship. The invasion spearhead unit was 4th inf div with Brig. Gen. Theodore Roosevelt or. Leading the charge a an attack much More significant than his fathers famous foray against the Spanish in Cuba 46 years earlier geography favored the invaders. Utah Beach known to the French As la Madeleine Beach is on the Southeast Side of the Cote tin Peninsula. Unlike the British and Canadian Landing Sites to the cast the Beach front was thinly populated and largely undeveloped As it remains today. The land behind it is Flat and marshy offering defending gunnery no natural advantage like the Omaha Beach Cliffs. As the Landing Craft pushed behind the shelter of Cape bar Fleur the water became Calmer than at other Landing Sites. Many Landing boats drifted southward and off course in the Haze from the shelling and accidentally dropped troops at Sites even better than the planned targets. Most tanks and artillery evaded the German mined stakes and made it to Shore intact. A hapless regiment of the German 709th div tried to repulse the attack. Bradley described the unit As a composed of reservists and foreign volunteers Many of them anticommunist russians from the Republic of Georgia. American paratroopers Inland had Cut their communications lines and they were unable to sound an Alert. They effectively raked the Landing Craft that came into their Field of fire but quickly surrendered in close  Carlo do Este who chronicled the a Day invasion in his Book decision Normandy wrote of the americans storming of Utah Beach a they achieved Complete Surprise and the least opposition of any assault unit Long the entire Ahmed front. Exits from the Beach area were quickly prize open followed by rapid movement Inland to seized Day objectives and protect the  by Days end 23,000 americans had disembarked there and 4th div had pushed six Miles Inland capturing several villages. They hooked up with 101st airborne div troops some of the 13,000 paratroops who had drifted onto the Peninsula the previous night and had engaged German forces in several hours of guerrilla warfare. The 101st had landed in and around the town of . Within two Days the corps also made Contact with the 82nd airborne div which had Utah Beach a Utah Beach is about 50 Miles from Caen. A to get there from Caen take ne13 e 46 through Bayeux to care Tan. Then take ne13 e03 North either to d913 or to . Follow d15 to rave Noville Plage on the Beach. A amps Susan Harris landed farther Northwest up the Peninsula. The Quick breakout from the beachhead allowed the americans to turn Utah Beach into a giant Arsenal of unloaded War Materiel. The Beach eventually became the Landing site for it. Gen. George s. Patton  3rd  which in the months that followed delivered some of the crucial blows that toppled the third Reich. _ 22 a stars and stripes commemorative edition june 6, 1994