Letters From War Wednesday: World War II – Ed McGinley
June 8, 2011
Posted in 29th Infantry Division, Brest France, D-Day, Ed McGinley, Everytown USA, Normandy, Omaha Beach, World War II
Tags: Brest France, D-Day, Ed McGinley, Everytown USA, Normandy, Omaha Beach, World War II
In honor of the 67th anniversary of the Allied invasion of Normandy in World War II, we continue with our D-Day theme of the week. This edition of Letters From War Wednesday features a brief note home from American infantryman, Ed McGinley. McGinley served with the 29th Infantry Division, which suffered staggering losses in their D-Day landing on bloody Omaha Beach.
Ed McGinley - 29th Infantry Division
Nearing that fateful day, McGinley could spare but a few brief sentences home. “Just a line to let you know I’m through with my training and am now going over to see what the man with the moustache has to offer,” he wrote.
“The company I’m with is a swell outfit, including the officers.”
“He kept telling us something ‘big’ was about to happen, but could never come right out and say what or when,” McGinley’s sister, Catherine Mawhorter said. “Well, I remember waking up on that morning—the morning of June 6. Mom and Dad had been listening to the accounts on the radio. I remember Mom saying, ‘I guess this is what Ed has been talking about.’”
D-Day saw McGinley’s 115th Infantry follow their sister regiment, the 116th, onto Omaha Beach. He survived the landing, though not by much. “They were real strict about what you could write in your letters,” McGinley’s sister, Ruth Hiatt said. “All he could really say was that he had some amazing stories to tell us when he got home.
“I recall him having written a letter to our aunt in Chicago, who was a nun. He had gotten shot through the backpack and the bullet had severed his prayer book. Oh boy, how she thought that was a good sign from God! He would never write that to Mom because he wouldn’t have wanted her to worry.”
Though Ed McGinley survived his D-Day landing on Omaha Beach, he would sadly perish later that summer, killed at the Battle of Brest, France.
Read the full story on Ed McGinley and those of over 80 other war veterans, from the American Revolution to the War in Iraq, in Michael McCoy’s new release, EVERYTOWN, USA.