Whidden didn't know where he was going or if he'd come back, but he helped save the world
While attention was focused Monday on a funeral in London, one of the late queen's contemporaries quietly "slipped the bonds of this mortal coil" a little closer to home.
Guy Whidden, a former Hagerstown resident who had lived for years in Frederick County, celebrated his 99th birthday in June — just a few weeks after serving as one of two grand marshals at the annual Memorial Day parade in Sharpsburg.
Eighteen years earlier, Guy dropped by the offices of The Herald-Mail for an interview. He was the subject of a feature commemorating the 60th anniversary of Operation Overlord, better known by many as the D-Day invasion.
As a member of the 101st Airborne Division, Guy Whidden was among the first American paratroopers to head for Normandy in the early hours of June 6, 1944.
The day before, he'd posed for a picture with a few of the other paratroopers. Sixty years later, he flashed the same impish grin, though his hair was white and his skin a little sallow.
"We didn't know where we were going, but we knew something was up," he said.
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Gen. Dwight Eisenhower visited the 101st that evening; there's a famous photo of the general speaking to members of Guy's company. Guy was standing just outside the photographer's range, but close enough to see Eisenhower's face as he turned to leave them.
"When Eisenhower walked away, there were tears streaming down his face," he remembered.
The general knew many of those young men about to board their planes wouldn't be coming back; maybe most of them.
Trying to avoid detection, the planes flew low over the English Channel — so low, Guy said, that paratroopers in planes that kept their doors open could feel the sea spray.
"I was excited more than anything," he recalled. "It wasn't long before we ran into anti-aircraft fire. The plane was rocking and I could see tracers coming up."
Guy's was the first plane to reach France. At about 1 a.m., he said, the troopers jumped — at a height of about 300 feet, they hardly got their parachutes open before they hit the ground.
Just as he landed, he was struck by equipment dropped from one of the planes. By the time he recovered, he was separated from the rest of his company. But he found another Yank, and they stayed together until he was reunited with his unit.
In the ensuing weeks, he saw some of the fiercest fighting of the invasion. Later in 1944, he was wounded during Operation Market-Garden in Holland and nearly lost a leg. But he managed to convince the doctor not to amputate.
Youngsters like Guy, who celebrated his 21st birthday in Carentan, Normandy, knew little of grand combat strategies or what they were getting into. They were farm boys, students, dropouts, laborers. But they came together to prove they could save the world — which was why Tom Brokaw dubbed them The Greatest Generation.
Even the queen did her bit, joining the Auxiliary Territorial Service (the women's branch of the British army) in 1944 when she turned 18, and eventually training as an auto mechanic.
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But their post-war experiences were a little different. She — well, you know. And Guy became a teacher and coach. He married and raised a family and settled for a while in the Pangborn area of Hagerstown before moving over the mountain.
And he never forgot his adventures in Europe, or his comrades.
"So many of them died very early and young, that they saw little of life," he told The History Channel a few years ago. "So we have to be grateful. Years go by and all you can do is just remember them."
Being "grateful" is more than saying "thank you for your service." It's remembering that some principles are bigger than ourselves or our politics, and that with the rights they were defending come responsibilities. We'd do well to remember not only what Guy and so many others were fighting for, but what they were fighting against.
Au revoir, Guy. Your tour of duty here is done. But you will be missed.
Tamela Baker is a Herald-Mail feature writer.
This article originally appeared on The Herald-Mail: D-Day invasion veteran Guy Whidden departs
