Zane Schlemmer

Albert "Ab" Brum

So 30 years ago, he started going back to France. He visited the battlefields where injured and dying paratroopers had cried out for morphine — and there wasn't any. He looked up at the sky over Normandy, and remembered watching a plane loaded with paratroopers catch fire and fall like an orange meteor. He heard again the smashing, splintering sound of a manned glider crashing into a row of trees at the edge of a farmer's field.

But he also wept and laughed with grateful French citizens, who welcomed him into their homes, and he visited Rue Zane Schlemmer, the street the town of Ste. Mere Eglise had named for the man who had helped to free it from German occupation.

"I can't imagine any better therapy," Schlemmer said.

This year, Schlemmer, 79, and Albert "Ab" Brum, 77, both of Kane 'ohe, will join thousands of other World War II veterans for the 60th anniversary of D-Day, an event that is expected to attract at least a dozen heads of state and involve unprecedented security as the French honor their liberators.

For many of the aging D-Day veterans, it is likely to be a last hurrah.

"I think it will be my last trip back," Schlemmer said.

Schlemmer first saw Normandy in the pre-dawn hours of June 6, 1944, when he was a

19-year-old sergeant in the 508th Parachute Infantry Division, closing in on his drop site aboard a C-47 transport plane.

He remembers the red glow of cigarettes held by his fellow paratroopers, and the blue wing lights of other C-47s flying in front of them. The doors were open, and the breeze from the propellers felt cool and good.

Zane Schlemmer, seen here in July 1944, parachuted into France. Photo courtesy of Zane Schlemmer

He remembers how he felt little tugs when the tracers arced through the silky canopy of his parachute, and the way his side hurt when he bruised a rib landing in an apple orchard a mile and a half from his target.

He struggled free of his chute, assembled his rifle and went searching for the other paratroopers in his "stick," following the sounds of gunfire to find them.

The paratroopers were isolated in Normandy without food or medicine and with limited ammunition for the first five days, until seaborne troops pushed inland to help them. Schlemmer spent most of that time seeking out battles away from camp — away from the cries of the wounded.

He continued to fight for 24 more days after that, until he was wounded by "friendly fire" during a battle on a hill above La Haye de Puits. After recuperating, his arm still bandaged, Schlemmer went on to other European battlefields — and was wounded again.

By the time the 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment was relieved on July 8, only 918 of 2,055 men who had parachuted in were able to board the ship back to England. The rest had been wounded, killed or were missing in action.

The U.S. soldiers weren't the only North Americans risking and sacrificing their lives in France on June 6, 1944.

"Ab" Brum was a young private with the 1st Canadian Parachute Battalion — the first paratroopers in Canada's history — that jumped into France at D-Day under British command.

His older brother, Flight Lt. Charles Fairfield, flew a Spitfire for the Royal Canadian Air Force, and while Brum knew his brother was killed in action that summer, he would not get the full details for 50 years.

Fairfield's fighter plane was shot down and he was kicked to death by German soldiers in the village of Cerqueax.

After talks with French and Canadian officials over the past few years, Brum left Sunday for France to dedicate a granite monument for his brother in the village and pick up artifacts. The pieces, including Spitfire wheels and ammunition boxes, will go to the Royal Canadian Air Force Memorial Museum in Ontario.

Brum, who later became a U.S. citizen and served in U.S. Special Forces in Korea and Cambodia, also will visit a cemetery for Canadian soldiers and will join D-Day anniversary celebrations with other former soldiers.

"I realize that there are not that many of us left," Brum said. "It will be great to see some of them again."

Brum remembers the last time he talked with his older brother, back home in Ontario, just before he left for the war. His brother wanted to borrow a fishing pole to go fishing. They both knew the dangers of war, but as young men, they never really thought anything bad would happen to them.

His brother left Brum $1 and a note: "Have a good time and don't spend it all in one place."

"That was the last I ever heard from him," Brum said.