“The story really starts with my dad in Normandy,” said Linda Wolfe. “My dad was in the first wave of assault on Omaha Beach on D-Day, in the 16th Army Infantry Regiment. My dad was in the thick of it.”
Wolfe is a Pocatello resident and artist. Her father, Boyd Garth Klingaman, was among the first on Omaha Beach in the pivotal D-Day invasion on June 6, 1944.
This June marks the 68th anniversary of the
massive invasion effort, which put Allied forces on the ground in
Europe, to begin their push into German territory. The D-Day invasion
began at 6:30 a.m. on the beaches of Normandy, in southern France, with
over 160,000 Allied troops, landing in five separate sectors; Omaha,
Juno, Utah, Sword, and Gold. Omaha Beach will forever be remembered as a
killing ground where wave after wave of soldiers fell to entrenched
German forces.
Klingaman carried his weapon and a rucksack
into battle. In his rucksack was a small Bible. Somewhere along the way,
he lost that little Bible on the sands of the beach. Klingaman survived
the assault on Omaha Beach, and went on to participate in the further
land campaign in the push toward Berlin.
But the little Bible was left behind on Omaha
Beach, protected by its zippered binding, apparently in some relatively
dry and protected spot where it lay for years.
It was 1998 before the Bible ended up in the
hands of local D-Day historian, Henri G. Levaufre, by way of an
unidentified beachcomber. Levaufre had made a life-long study of the
historic events that took place in the vicinity of his village of
Periers, and had amassed a huge collection of items that had been
collected from the beaches, including helmets, guns, boots, and anything
else related to the D-Day invasions.
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