The image will undoubtedly remain as one of the overwhelming symbols of this month of June 2020. One of the essential figures of the Landing veterans, Tom Rice, 98 years old, displayed from Coronado, in California, a huge Norman flag after having flown aboard a C-47 type aircraft, similar to that which had dropped him and his comrades of the 101st Airborne Division over the Normandy coast on June 6, 1944.
He explained that this Norman flag deployed from California was obviously a way of being present in thought in Normandy, where he had planned to come again this year to celebrate the 76th anniversary of the Landing, if it had not been prevented by sanitary measures related to coronavirus.
OPERATION D-DAY 76Many thanks to the President of the Region of Normandy Herve Morin and Carentan Lesmarais City of Carentan Mayor Jean-Pierre Lhonneur for sending and signing the Normandy Flag. Tom flew the beloved Flag of Normandie on D-Day Doll To Normandy — D-Day Doll over his hometown of Coronado, California. LONG LIVE FRANCE! 🇫🇷 AMERICA FOREVER! 🇺🇸
Gepostet von CJ Machado am Sonntag, 7. Juni 2020During his last stay in Normandy last year for the 75th anniversary, he had made an impression by jumping in pairs. He was then 97 years old! When he landed, the few words he had spoken had particularly moved certain inhabitants of the region: "In flight," he had explained, "we saw craters of shells of red blood which today have turned brown but we , we know where they are… "
Next year in Normandy
So many stigmas that forever attach him to this region and therefore suggested this strong gesture of the Norman flag erected from his native California. Tom Rice also took the opportunity to ensure that he would be there next year, with the firm intention of jumping again, on the eve this time ... of his hundredth birthday!