Lt. John Lincoln DeVillier's job on June 6, 1944, was as a liaison officer between the tanks of the 70th Tank Batallion and the soldiers of the 4th Infantry Division after they landed on the beaches of Normandy. This video, recorded in 2000, describes that day when only four of his unit's 32 amphibious tanks survived the landing. DeVillier, who was born in St. Landry Parish, Louisiana, in 1916, was 95 when died in Carrollton, Georgia, in 2011.
Isidro Rivera, a U.S. Army paratrooper with the 82nd Aiborne Division, talked about the disappointment of his platoon being left behind in England on June 6, 1944. But his day came in September 1944 when he jumped into Holland for Operation Market Garden and in December when he fought the Battle of the Bulge. Rivera, born in Penuelas, Puerto Rico in 1919, was 95 when he died in Carrolton, Georgia, in 2014.
