June 6, 2014

Headlines Oroville Mercury Register June 6th, 1944 D-Day
“Allies Invade France Nazi Attack Due Soon, Invasion of France Gets Off To Successful Start. Beachheads Taken in Normandy, Troops Penetrate 10 Miles Inland, Battle Reports Conflict, Paratroopers Catch Germans By Surprise, German Army Near Rome In Serious Plight, Fliers View Huge Armada Invasion Beat, Watch Warships Paste Shore In Preparation, F.R. Pleased by The Progress Made Tells of Losses, Ike Set D-Day and H-Hour, Whole Army Kept Secret of D-Day, On the home front, Baseball off For Invasion, Ridge Route to Bucks is Open.
(Stu- It amazes me how the news traveled so fast.)

F.R. To Read His Prayer Over Radio Washington
President Roosevelt, the White House disclosed today, spent the tense early invasion hours writing a prayer that he will read to the nation over all radio networks tonight (at 7 pm coast time). After his “Fireside Chat” last night, the President went to his bedroom on the second floor of the White House. Between telephone calls from the war department telling of the progress of the action it was said, the President wrote the prayer in which he wants the country to join tonight.

Stu-By nightfall, June 6th, a Bugler blew Taps on the Beach.

As He Walks Through The Valley! Must be a strange world out there- landing waist-deep from a Higgins boat… scrambling up the beach, with machinegun fire raking you, your comrades falling. Out there he walks through the longest valley of its kind ever known to man, with our future in his gun. Above him our planes are driving the Nazis out of the skies. Inland, he knows, they are blowing up the railroad tracks, breaking up the freight yards. He feels that if he can get up to those machinegun nests—those concrete bunkers—he can win for us, his loved ones at home. But he is walking through the Valley of the Shadow of Death! His name is Smith, Kelly, Wilson, Levine, Olson. He comes from Oroville, Woodland, Chico, Palermo, Quincy, Greenville. He is bigger than anything that can happen to him. He is a farmer, mechanic, lawyer, miner, stockman, woodsman and cop. He is body and soul, not an identification tag. He is the Known American Soldier—opening the Second Front, the most daring and greatest invasion in history and let’s all back him up, be with him, stand as close to his shoulder as we can, as he fights for us, his people. D DAY
(This was an Ad taken out by the Openshaw Meat Co. Markets.1855 Montgomery St.)

Benjamin “Buddy” Joseph Arthur Stoney
Born October 10, 1921, Butte County
Died June 6, 1944, Killed in Action in Normandy.
Buried in the American Cemetery near Colleville, Normandy, Grave H 10 39, Saint Laurent (Permanent Cemetery) Saint Laurent, France. Service Branch Army, Rank Tec 4, Ranking or Job; Paratrooper, Unit; 506th Parachute Infantry “Easy” Company, 101st Airborne Division, Campaign; D-Day, Military Citations Purple Heart, Family: Mother; Zena Clark Stoney, Brothers; Martell Clark Stoney, James “Jimmy” Tracy Stoney, Vernon “Chick” Elwood Stoney, Grandfather; Frank Clark, Half-Brothers; Daniel QL. Mullins, Pat Mullins Step-Father; Daniel P. Mullins. Notes Knokow Maidu from Yankee Hilll, CA, Enlisted April 8, 1942 in Los Angelis, Sources Valeria Gallone, Andora, Italy, National Archives, findagrave.com.

David K. Webster, of E/506, so eloquently writes of Sgt. Benjamin J. Stoney:
“ Stoney was our only casualty in Vierville. Stoney, the quiet, stocky Indian from S-2, but every village had a Stoney, or two Stoneys, or many more, because that is how wars are finally fought and won - not by rich factories and the coddled Air Force, but by the infantry who take the ground and kill the enemy, and the infantry is Stoneys”.

Stu’s Notes:
June 6, 1944, Yankee Hill man dies in the Invasion. D. Day 70 years ago. I was 4 years old most of the brave men that were there that day are now over 85years old the majority are now 90 or more. Of course D.Day was just the beginning of a long battle. That ended in Germany May 8, 1945. The above Oroville Man Benjamin “Buddy” Stoney was Maidu and English, Scotch and Irish. His Great Grand Mother was Kit-Yohema “Little Flower”, daughter of a Concow Maidu Chief Bouchard and Great Grand Father Alfred Burr Clark who was called A.B. Grand Father of Benjamin (Frank) Clark. This family has many more stories to be told. I know a few of this Family that still live in Oroville and Willows.