SAN ANTONIO — Smoke, dust and debris filled the air over the Normandy coast when Sgt. 1st Class Henry Willmann jumped out of a landing craft into neck-deep water and swam toward the beachhead.
Treading slowly through the surf, he turned to see a young draftee from Kansas suddenly vanish beneath a choppy wave.
“I looked back, he was behind me, and he was underneath the water, floundering around,” he said. “I reached back and grabbed his hand and pulled him up and told him to hang on to my backpack, and that I would swim toward shore, and he did.”
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