Jacques Lewis has passed away. He was 105.
Mr. Lewis is believed to have been the last surviving French soldier who went onshore at Normandy on D-Day.
In 1944, Mr. Lewis was a member of the Free French Forces, the army that Gen. Charles de Gaulle had assembled in exile in London after Germany invaded and occupied France in 1940. Fluent in English, he was assigned as a liaison officer attached to the U.S. Army’s 70th Tank Battalion as the D-Day landings approached.
Mr. Lewis was not just an interpreter; he was a soldier, and thus well-suited to take on a vital role after the invasion. The Americans needed someone with military experience to link up with French villagers and French guerrilla resistance fighters known as the Maquis to help guide U.S. troops past German positions inland to reach the small rural town of Carentan and relieve members of the U.S. 101st and 82nd Airborne Divisions, who had earlier parachuted in, behind enemy lines.
In an interview with the French television channel TF1 in 2019 on the 75th anniversary of the Normandy landings, he recalled approaching Utah Beach on the morning of June 6, 1944. It was the first time he had spoken about the war, even to his family, he said.
“We were crouched behind the ramp of our landing craft, and when the ramp went down, I saw my country, France, which I’d wanted to help liberate for so long,” he said. “It was very moving. But then I saw the stretchers carrying wounded or dead American soldiers — being carried down the beach to get into our landing craft to be taken back to England. I realized that many of the first wave of my American comrades had already died on the beaches to liberate my country.”
He waded ashore, his rifle over his head, under heavy German gunfire. In the TF1 interview, he displayed a military identification bracelet that he wore on his left wrist that morning (comparable to the dog tags his American comrades wore around their necks). Pointing to his military number, FFF 55770, he said, “That was so that they knew I was a French soldier if I died.”
Allied casualties on Utah Beach — 197 killed or wounded — were relatively light compared with the 2,400 or so recorded at Omaha Beach to the east. By nightfall on D-Day, more than 10,300 allied troops had been killed or wounded across Normandy.
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After Mr. Lewis crossed Utah beach unscathed, his first task was to help the Americans reach Carentan. Consulting with resistance fighters and French residents, he mapped out routes that the Americans could take and then joined them. Along the way, they were greeted as saviors.
“The locals appeared at their windows or emerged from their doors,” he recalled. “They gave us wine, and my American colleagues gave the kids chocolate. They were so happy to see the Americans and surprised to realize I was French.”
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Chi Chi Rodriguez, noted golfer.
Rodriguez was 5-foot-7 and about 120 pounds. But he used his strong hands and wrists to get off long low drives, and he was an outstanding wedge player, offsetting his sometimes balky putting game. “For a little man, he sure can hit it,” Jack Nicklaus told Sports Illustrated in 1964, relating how Rodriguez often outdistanced him off the tee on flat, into-the-wind fairways.
Rodriguez won eight tournaments on the PGA Tour, then became one of the top players on the Senior (now Champions) Tour, capturing 22 events, including two majors: the 1986 Senior Players Championship and the 1987 Senior PGA Championship. He was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 1992.
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Kevin Sullivan, professional wrestler.
Known early in his career as “The Boston Battler,” Sullivan was inspired by the heavy metal acts of the 1970s and ’80s like Black Sabbath and Judas Priest to become the “Prince of Darkness,” a demonic rival of some of the stars of that era, including Dusty Rhodes, the Road Warriors and Hogan, according to W.W.E.
Among the crews he led in the ring were the Army of Darkness; The Varsity Club, a group of college buddies; and Dungeon of Doom, W.W.E. said. Also known as “The Taskmaster,” he painted black X’s and lightning bolts on his forehead, wore leather body armor and chains and stuck out his tongue like Gene Simmons of Kiss.
“During their heyday, Sullivan’s cult came to the ring with either Jeff Beck’s ‘Gets Us All in the End’ or Deep Purple’s ‘Nobody’s Home’ blaring behind them and a series of black-cloaked and corpse-painted minions who usually brought with them boa constrictors of varying colors and sizes,” according to a 2015 editorial about Sullivan on the website Metal Injection. “Add in a half-naked Fallen Angel, then you’ve got a good idea of just how much of a spectacle Sullivan’s Army of Darkness was.”
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