NORMANDY INVASION 1944 80TH ANNIVERSARY – ONE SOLDIER’S DAY BY DAY DIARY

The 80th anniversary of D-Day was 5 days ago. In 2022, I wrote about a paratrooper in the 82^nd Airborne who landed in Normandy in a glider and was killed the next day. He, like so many young men, was an enlistee who volunteered to do his duty.

A PROFESSIONAL SOLDIER PREPARES FOR WAR

But other men, totally committed to winning the war, came from a quite different background. These were the professional soldiers who had devoted years to leadership training, expecting that they might face a challenge like Normandy.

From his family, I learned of just such a man, Ernest Vincent Helms. He grew up in Charlotte North Carolina, played football in high school, at Oak Ridge Military Academy, and NC State College. In college he trained with the Reserve Officers Training Corps. Graduating in 1939, he became an Army second lieutenant.

As an officer he pledged to defend his country, and he took this commitment seriously. He trained in armored warfare where he commanded tanks and served under General George Patton in the 2^nd Armored Division, 66^th Regiment. Known as “Hell on Wheels,” it was the oldest tank unit in the Army, dating to World War I.

The troops had extensive “war games” in the years leading up to World War II, with the leadership expecting America to soon be at war. And after the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor, for them combat was certain.

General Patton’ss knew Helms very well. At Fort Benning, Georgia, when Helms and his lovely bride were married in the spring 1942, Mrs. George Patton attended their wedding. The Helms family jests that the General could not attend because, “Patton was too busy making plans to kill Nazis.”

SHIPPING OUT

Patton’s plans would be put to the test 8 months later. In November 1942, Second Armored sailed to French North Africa as part of Operation Torch. In the first significant American involvement in the European Theater, they would face General Rommel's Afrika Corps.

They left Africa in July 1943 for the Sicily invasion, Operation Husky. In the beach landing, Helms rescued a drowning soldier, earning his first of two medals for bravery. They fought there for about a month, driving the German army from the island.

The Division left Sicily for England in August 1943. Training for the invasion of France would occupy them for the next 10 months as they prepared to invade France, the largest invasion the world would ever see.

NORMANDY CHRONICLE

Little would be known of Helms' actions in Normandy, fighting in Operation Cobra to drive the Germans out of western France, except that then-Lieutenant Helms kept a small pocket diary and recorded his daily observations. [i]

For unknown reasons, Helms' sister had the diary until she died in 1993. It was only then that his children discovered what their father had written.

In 2017, Helms' daughter Helen Cunningham, one of his sons, George Helms, and I traveled to Normandy. We found ourselves in the capable hands of a local guide, Patrick Hilyer, who took us not only to the major points of battle but also to some of the exact spots that Helms mentioned in his diary. We took photos of his children standing in places where their father and his tank had stood 73 years earlier. Moments the  siblings will remember forever.

Our guide, Patrick, had already skillfully transcribed the diary, making it a dramatic story, including his own reaction to his first reading in 2014.

[USE THIS LINK]to see the inspiring story that Patrick Hilyer wrote about the battle in Normandy and Captain Helms’ diary. Patrick begins with the chilling moment and the unbelievable timing when he first opened the diary transcript.

We see a picture of Helms. He looked every inch the serious officer, handsome enough to have been on an Army recruiting poster. When he went abroad, he had no illusions about the war. He was a 25-year-old highly trained leader. Despite what must have been constant danger and constant fear, his diary never reflects emotion, only a businesslike attitude about what he is there to do.

The diary begins on D-Day +3 when he comes ashore with his tank at Omaha Beach after the beach has been cleared.

The diary ends on D+57. On or about that day, Helms was wounded badly enough to have been hospitalized into the autumn and then returned to the United States. He continued to serve until the end of the war at Fort Campbell, Kentucky.

While he was overseas for 30 months, his wife gave birth to their first child, a daughter named Helen. He did not see his little girl until she was 16 months old.

THE DEBT WE OWE

After his return home, like so many others, he and his wife built a civilian life in the country that he had help save. They wasted no time in having three sons. [Mrs. Helms, always witty and charming, said, “Ernie, our first son, was born 9 months and 15 minutes after E.V. got home from Europe.”]

16 million warriors like Captain Helms gave us the great country we inherited in 1945. There are few of them left, but we owe every one of them our thanks.

[i] I am indebted to Patrick Hilyer for the work he has done to capture the history in Captain Helms’ diary in a timely way. You can visit Patrick’s website for more information. I highly recommend his guide service if you are traveling to the Normandy D-Day sites.