A REFLECTIVE ceremony in Norfolk, Virginia, next Sunday will celebrate one of the unsung acts of fortitude and endurance that took place on the Normandy beaches. On June 6 the Omaha Beach battle flag, which was presented to a Royal Navy midshipman by a grateful American beachmaster in June 1944, will be returned to a final resting place at the US naval amphibious base at Little Creek, near Norfolk, Virginia.

How the youthful commander of a small British landing craft came to participate in the D-Day assault on the most murderous of the landing beaches, Omaha in the American sector, was one of the odd accidents of war. In the 4,500-strong armada of ships that gathered in the small hours off the South Coast of England, the 18-year-old Midshipman Douglas Edmonds, RNVR, was commander of the unglamorous but highly useful Landing Barge Engineering 38, a floating repair workshop intended to make good damage to troop-carrying landing craft once onshore.

As part of the 36th Supply and Repair Flotilla, LBE38 was intended for Gold Beach, the most westerly of the three British landing zones. But the heavily-laden and ponderous craft soon began to fall behind the other vessels of the flotilla, which pressed resolutely on. As the other ships drew inexorably ahead, Edmonds and his crew found themselves in the small hours in chilly isolation on the heavy swell.

At 9am on D-Day Edmonds spotted a flotilla of tank landing ships which he identified as being of the US Navy, and decided to alter course to follow them into the shore, rather than risk stumbling alone on to a heavily defended coast. He could not have known that Omaha Beach, the US flotilla’s destination, was to be the scene of the fiercest carnage — and the heaviest Allied losses — of the opening days of the Normandy campaign.

Edmonds gave his own account of those sanguinary first hours after his hitting the beach at 4pm: “I took LBE38 forward, revolver drawn, quietly praying. If my example failed to get the rest of the crew praying, the first salvo of the German guns certainly did. All around, sodden, pallid-faced men laden with ammunition staggered ashore to begin the assault. Awaiting them were obstacles which only the most unflinching determination could overcome . . . Nearly half the troops at Omaha foundered. The remnants, seasick and exhausted, slogged ashore and, inch by inch, secured a foothold. They were decimated. Men fell one upon the other. At 7pm a wave of reinforcements arrived, each group adding its blood to the water’s edge as it splashed ashore under saturation fire. A third wave followed, taking cover under the bodies of their fallen comrades . . .”

By nightfall the assault forces had managed to seize the bluffs which had dominated the beach all day, and drive the defenders from their positions. But the price had been high: 3,000 casualties — 15 times as many as on the neighbouring American beach, Utah.

For the next seven days, Edmonds and his crew remained on Omaha. For the first part of that time they were flinching under enemy fire. Thereafter they worked ceaselessly, almost overwhelmed by the sheer scale of material damage — wrecked landing craft, vehicles and shore facilities — that they were called upon to put right. During much of the time they lived solely on a crate of pineapples that had been washed ashore. “It was twenty years before I could willingly eat another,” Edmonds recalled.

At the end of seven fraught days a grateful American beachmaster presented Edmonds with the splendidly shot-torn US battle flag which had come to represent the eventually triumphant struggle at Omaha.

During those few days Edmonds had promised himself that if he were spared he would spent the rest of his life in the service of the poor and defenceless. Training as a teacher after the war, he went out to Peru, where he founded a school. Thereafter he devoted himself to “reaching out to those not served by others”, inspiring young people to participate in this task, through the charity the Peace and Hope Trust of which he was a founder member.

More than 4,000 young people (as well as many other older ones) have participated through the trust in helping disadvantaged communities in remote parts of the world. Latterly this work has concentrated on the Moskito coast of Nicaragua, whose people have been assisted to a better life by cheap but effective housing made out of “rubbish” materials; by the introduction of alternative energy sources, solar and windpower; and by the introduction of vegetable cultivation to help them towards self-sufficiency in food.

Edmonds died in 2001 aged 75. His widow Margaret presented the Omaha Beach flag to the Peace and Hope Trust’s founder, Squadron Leader Michael Cole, who will restore it to the US Navy at the Little Creek base on June 6.

In the meantime, the trust’s latest endeavour, a new motor boat for transport and supply work along the Moskito coast, is to be built, depending on voluntary donations. It will be named Midshipman Edmonds, in memory of that young officer’s heroic services on another, far distant, shore, 60 years ago.

As found in the Times Online http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_a ... 438896.ece

Tattered by Nazi bullets and reeking of history, a United States flag that somehow survived the invasion of Normandy 57 years ago has landed on the North Shore thanks to the gracious friends and family of the late British naval officer who took it home from the bloody beachhead.

Douglas Edmonds, a young barge commander in World War II who died over the summer, was given the flag by American officers after spending eight days with the yanks on Omaha Beach, one of the deadliest battlegrounds in the history of war. After the Sept. 11 attacks on America, Edmonds' widow, Margaret, and his longtime friend, Michael Cole, decided to hand it over to a Beverly-based nonprofit organization they're affiliated with.

"You can almost smell the death on the flag," said Cole, currently staying on the North Shore after delivering the flag to the Peace and Hope Trust. "It's got battle written all over it . . . and the time has come for the flag to come out of its dusty box and be placed in a suitable place of honor in the United States."

Cole, a former British Air Force officer who knew Edmonds for 40 years, is a member of the U.K. arm of the Peace and Hope Trust, which does relief work in remote areas of Central America. Given the flag by Edmonds' widow, Margaret, Cole decided to return the battered banner to its homeland as a symbol of England's long-standing solidarity with America, which has been reinvigorated in the hunt for terrorist Osama bin Laden.

"September '44 was very much a time when Brits were shoulder to shoulder with Americans," said Cole. "The same sort of spirit exists today."

Peter Coleman, director of the Beverly branch of the Peace and Hope Trust, said he's excited about having the flag appropriately preserved and mounted to bring it around to veterans events and schools.

"It's just a good symbol of the brotherhood and camaraderie we have with the British," Coleman said. "They're our best ally right now."

Coleman said the flag, with its oily stains and bullet holes, packs a visceral punch that will be useful in teaching youngsters about the brave sacrifices made by World War II veterans.

"It's really a captivating chunk of history," Coleman said. "When I first laid it out and looked at it . . . it took me there. It was pretty shocking. You can really imagine what it was like."

Found in The Boston Herald