D-Day Conneaut continues

Aug. 20—CONNEAUT — A depiction of the battle for Pegasus Bridge and discussions of art theft were among the various events at D-Day Conneaut on Friday.

Near the start of the day, re-enactors portraying British and German soldiers portrayed parts of the Battle of Pegasus Bridge.

British re-enactors assaulted the bridge, which was defended by German re-enactors. After re-enactors captured the bridge, they defended it against waves of German re-enactors.

The commander of the British forces narrated the assault via loudspeaker. Holding the bridges was critical to keep the Germans from launching counter-attacks against the troops landing on D-Day.

After the simulated destruction of a German tank, reinforcements arrived, and the battle ended.

D-Day Ohio CEO Betsy Bashore said this is the first year that battle has taken place.

"It was a joint effort between the British Airborne and the German inland troops," she said. "So what we're trying to do is expand our inland battles, our airborne engagements, so we can more accurately represent the beach without disenfranchising people who drive hundreds of miles to get here to be a part of this."

Bashore said organizers absolutely plan to have the battle take place again in the future.

Daniel Gill, who presented information on the Monuments Men at the event, said he was inspired to start re-enacting by a book about the group.

"I'd been very interested in World War II re-enacting for a while," said Gill, who lives in Portage, Ohio, in Wood County. "I'd been trying to find something to get into, because I've got bad knees and I wasn't going to do the combat."

The story of the Monuments Men is fascinating, he said.

"I love going to museums," Gill said. "I'll spend happily three, four hours sitting around the Toledo Museum of Art looking at stuff."

There is constantly more information to find.

"It is just bottomless, how much came out of this, and how much is still being done today," Gill said.

He gave a presentation about the mission of the Monuments Men on Friday afternoon at the event.

The group was founded in 1943 to help protect, retrieve and return artwork stolen by the Germans in WWII, Gill said.

"[Adolf] Hitler was a huge art fanatic," Gill said. "He stole artwork, purchased artwork and retrieved artwork from all over Europe."

Terence Thompson, a re-enactor portraying a member of the 320th Barrage Balloon Battalion, is a member of a group that portrays African American units that saw combat from World War II.

"The purpose of the balloons were, they were put up on the beach to keep enemy aircraft from coming in and making low-level passes on the beach," Thompson said.

Balloons either had cables hanging from them designed to tear off the wing of an aircraft or a cable attached to parachutes and a mine, he said.

"So if you're dropping a bomb, you've got to go high, and that kind of throws off the accuracy of your bomb run," Thompson said.

Thompson's group portrays other units as well, he said.

"This is just one of the units that we know participated on D-Day," he said. "We do other units too, but for D-Day, we're 320th."

D-Day Conneaut is one of the largest re-enactments the group attends, he said.

"I think it's one of the best," Thompson said. The beach looks like a miniature Omaha Beach, and the organization does an excellent job putting the event on, he said.

"It comes off real smooth," he said. "They do an excellent job getting this thing organized."