Omaha Beach vet 95 dies morning after D Day anniversary

Posted by Pat Kinney on Friday, June 8, 2018

WATERLOO—Verle Buck has survived his last D-Day.

The World War II veteran of Omaha Beach at D-Day passed away Thursday morning – one day after the 74th anniversary of the Normandy invasion. He was 95, had cancer, and had been in hospice care for several weeks.

He was a sergeant in the U.S. Army's 149th Engineer Combat Battalion at Omaha on June 6, 1944. Buck believes they were in the first or second wave of troops to hit the beach at about 6:30 a.m., among a huge flotilla of ships behind them "as far as the eye could see."

"It was the longest day of my life," Buck, who lived for many years in Elk Run Heights, said in a 2014 interview with the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier. Half of the 600 men he'd trained with were killed or wounded -- just as a commander had warned them. He also told them they would have to survive by their wits.

"They were moaning and groaning" and calling in agony for their mothers, Buck said of the wounded. "But you couldn't do a damn thing about it. You had to do your job, save your damn neck and keep going. It was somebody else's job to take care of them."

He saw a Nazi 88 mm artillery shells whistle over his his head. Another one didn't see that exploded in front of him on the beach and made a friend a memory in a second.

"He never knew what hit him," Buck recalled. If Buck had raised his head too high, he would have been hit too. “I was close enough that everything blew over the top of me."

His outfit’s job was to clear the beach of obstacles and mines the Nazis had set up, so equipment and supplies in later waves could move inland. They had no idea of the resistance they would face.

"We were just damn kids," said Buck, 21 at the time. But reality set in quickly. "When bullets hit the LCT" landing craft, about a half mile from shore, "then we ducked down."

"When we got out, we only had water up to our knees. Then all hell broke loose," Buck said. "We were pinned down for about four or five hours," under a withering hail of Nazi artillery and small arms fire.

He couldn't see the enemy, dug in in bunkers. Armed with a Thompson submachine gun, all he and his comrades could do was shoot in the general direction of the enemy fire.

"We knew he was there," Buck said. "If you put your helmet up -- bing!"

He and his friends were pinned down until an American warship offshore let go with every gun it had.

"A big destroyer or a cruiser came up broadside. They literally turned the bank inside out," Buck said. "They shot over our heads; that bank was probably 50 or 60 feet in from us. They literally shot into the bank to get rid of the enemy that was dug in. That let us loose to get off the beach."

"They saved our lives," Buck said. The naval batteries wiped out an enemy command center directing artillery units equipped with rocket-mounted petroleum bombs. Had they been used, "We would have all burned to death," Buck said.

Buck suffered nightmares from his experience that day for decades, well into his 90s, thrashing in his sleep according to his wife Bonnie.

"If I had to do it again, I would," Buck said. "We were young and didn't know any different. But we grew up on a hurry that day.”

Buck also worked many years at the Northeast Iowa Food Bank.

Flags are being flown at half staff at the Museum District in honor of Verle Buck on Tuesday, June 12.

Verle Buck's services will be held at 11 a.m. Tuesday, June 12, at Richardson Funeral Home in Cedar Falls, with visitation from 4 to 7 p.m. Monday, June 11. Burial will be at Waterloo Cemetery on Kimball Avenue with military rites by the Evansdale AMVETS.