US still receiving goodwill for D-Day
Published 6:00 pm Saturday, August 3, 2019
Americans who returned to Normandy, France, for the 75th anniversary commemoration of D-Day — the Allied landing for the liberation of Europe from Nazi tyranny — found many Europeans there still grateful to the United States and other allies.
Another recent expression of that gratitude was given by the Kingdom of Netherlands, when the prime minister returned a historic American flag in a ceremony at the White House in Washington.
Prime Minister Mark Rutte of the Netherlands was present for the presentation with Dutch Collector Bert Kreuk, along with his uncle and business partner, Theo Schols, who bought the flag for $514,000 and wanted it returned to the people of the United States.
President Trump graciously accepted the bullet-riddled flag that was on a U.S. landing ship carrying some of the first wave of American soldiers ashore at Utah Beach on June 6, 1944.
The 48-star flag was on the U.S. Navy’s LCC 60 commanded by Lt. Howard Vander Beek, who kept the flag throughout the war and brought it home safely with him at the end.
Vander Beek, 27 at the time, and his crew had to navigate German minefields and enemy machine gun fire to land American soldiers of the 4th U.S. Infantry Division, who stormed ashore at Utah Beach.
He kept the flag in his basement until he died in 2014 and then his family sold the historic relic at auction two years later.
“As they explained, they wanted to thank the United States for the extraordinary sacrifice of our service members made to liberate their nation and all of Europe in World War Two. So nice. Thank you very much. So nice,” the president said.
Trump went on to say, “Thousands of Americans gave their lives on D-Day, and many thousands more gave their lives to drive the Nazis from the Netherlands.”
Among those at the ceremony was World War II veteran Jack Goldstein, who served in Europe during the war and U.S. Ambassador to the Netherlands, Peter Hoekstra.
The historic World War II flag is now on display at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. It is encouraging to see that the tremendous sacrifices the American military and the American people made in World War II is still appreciated in Europe.
