Nearly 60 years after the guns fell silent, tens of thousands of World War II soldiers, sailors and home front heroes swarmed into Washington, D.C., yesterday for a final, sun-drenched hurrah to the Greatest Generation.
The gray-haired army of about 150,000 cheered the dedication of a new granite and bronze memorial that had been in the planning for more than a decade.
“I figured this would be the last time to wear a uniform,” said William Ryan, 80, a retired colonel from Fairfax, Va., who fought in France and Germany with the Army’s 3rd Infantry. He was in full-dress whites, a Purple Heart among his chest decorations.
President Bush, born a year after the war ended, told veterans gathered at the National Mall that the World War II Memorial to the fallen was “a fitting tribute – open and expansive, like America.”
“Because of their sacrifice, tyrants fell, fascism and Nazism were vanquished, and freedom prevailed,” he told a crowd that included former Presidents Bush and Clinton, and actor Tom Hanks, a tireless promoter of the memorial.
At the end of the speech, Bush asked the vets in the crowd to stand, and many of them rose slowly, some in tears, American flags in their hands or tucked into camera straps. Of the 16 million servicemen and women who served in the “Big One,” only about 4 million are still alive – and WWII vets are dying at a rate of 1,056 a day.
Many in the crowd gripped canes and sat in wheelchairs. But the hardiest of them grabbed their wives and danced in the aisles to swing tunes from the 1940s.
The new memorial features 56 granite pillars, each 17 feet high, and two arches more than twice that height symbolizing the two theaters of the war. A wall with 4,000 sculpted gold stars commemorates the more than 400,000 Americans killed.
In New York, meanwhile, dozens of veterans gathered at Bryant Park and watched the D.C. event on theater-sized TV screens.
Staff Sgt. John McNiff said he came from Hell’s Kitchen to Bryant Park to attend the event. He was among the troops who liberated Paris with the 4th Division. “Lemme tell you about Paris,” he said. “The subways! The perfume! The girls! I can still smell that stuff. Never forget it.”
McNiff, 86, said he was one of the last survivors of his group. “I’m here all alone,” said the 20-year NYPD veteran. “All my friends are dead. I’m the last one standing.”
He showed a faded clip dated Aug. 31, 1944, which described his company’s entrance into the French capital. “I’ve been everywhere, seen everything,” he added. “Murder, robbery rape, you name it. But a day like this, you remember Paris.”With Post Wire Services