Stepping out of Line – To Serve and Save

Each year on June 6th, we commemorate the landings of American and allied troops at Normandy, the massive invasion that heralded the beginning of the end of WWII. It wasn’t just on that day that beached flooded with soldiers. They continued to pour in for weeks to come, then fought their way east, toward Berlin.

By the middle of June much needed hospital units were on the waves, heading in to join the infantry and armor units already taking on German defenders. New Second Lieutenant Katherine Flynn, ‘Kate’ to her pals, slipped over the side of a landing craft into the frigid water and began the slog up to Utah Beach. At 5’3”, Kate was quickly knocked over by a wave, losing sight of the smoking mass of wrecked vehicles and temporary graves spread across the sand ahead. One of her fellow nurses grabbed her by the straps of her backpack and dragged her ashore. Kate looked at the devastation around her and fell to her knees.

Kate Flynn was barely 21 years old.