Ray Lambert, an American Hero on D-Day, Dies at 100

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/13/us/ray-lambert-dead.html

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Ray Lambert, a much-decorated former Army medic who survived multiple wounds on D-Day in aiding his comrades and was saluted in Normandy on the 75th anniversary of that most pivotal battle of World War II, died on Friday at his home in Seven Lakes, N.C. He was 100.

His neighbor and friend Dr. Darrell Simpkins confirmed the death. Dr. Simpkins had accompanied Mr. Lambert to the anniversary ceremony in June 2019 in France, where President Donald J. Trump paid tribute to him.

A native of Alabama, Staff Sgt. Lambert was leading a unit of medics with the Second Battalion, 16th Infantry Regiment, part of the Army’s First Division. He had taken part in the invasions of North Africa and Sicily and had already earned three Purple Hearts and two Silver Stars before his war came to an end on the morning of June 6, 1944, on Omaha Beach.

He was in the first wave of Allied forces as they crossed the English Channel and stormed German defenses strung along the coast of northern France, beginning the long offensive that would culminate in Germany’s defeat. His brother Bill, also a medic, was with him.

In heavy surf, Ray Lambert was helping a wounded soldier when a landing craft’s ramp dropped on him, pushing him to the bottom. The water was deep as the medics scrambled off the craft.

“When we went under the water, they had barbed wire and you had to try to get through that,” Mr. Lambert said in an interview in 2019 with the American Homefront Project, a public radio effort, “and there were mines tied to that. So we had a lot of guys get tangled up. A lot of the underwater mines went off and killed some guys.”

But he made his way to the beach to tend to the wounded, amid withering fire from German bunkers above.

At one point he scanned the beach for something behind which he could safely treat the wounded. He spotted a lump of leftover German concrete, about eight feet wide and four feet high.

“It was my salvation,” he said. (A plaque installed in 2018 recognizes the concrete as “Ray’s Rock.”)

“Again and again, Ray ran back into the water,” President Trump told a crowd gathered for the ceremony at the Normandy American Cemetery, on a bluff overlooking the beach. “He dragged out one man after another. He was shot through the arm. His leg was ripped open by shrapnel. His back was broken. He nearly drowned.”

As Mr. Trump spoke, Mr. Lambert sat behind him wearing a purple “D-Day Survivor” cap. At the end of his speech, the president turned to him and said, “Ray, the free world salutes you.”

Only seven of the 31 soldiers on Mr. Lambert’s landing craft survived. He and his brother, who was also badly wounded, were hospitalized in England.

Mr. Lambert is survived by his wife, Barbara, and a daughter, Linda McInerney. A son, Arnold, died before him.

Dr. Simpkins said Mr. Lambert had requested that his ashes be buried at Arlington National Cemetery, and that some be scattered on Omaha Beach.

Arnold Lambert, known as Ray, was born in Alabama in 1920 and grew up there. After his father was injured in a sawmill accident, he dropped out of school, left home and began working at age 14, cutting timber and working on a river dredge before enlisting in the Army, according to the North Carolina public radio station WUNC.

After the war he took classes at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on the G.I. Bill and started two electrical contracting companies with his brother in the Boston area.

For many years Mr. Lambert refused to talk about the horrors he had witnessed and experienced overseas. But as he aged and more and more of his fellow veterans died, he said, he felt a sacred duty to share his story and theirs.

“I did what I was called to do,” he said in “Every Man a Hero,” a memoir, written with Jim DeFelice, published shortly before the 75th anniversary. “As a combat medic, my job was to save people and to lead others who did the same. I was proud of that job and remain so. But I was always an ordinary man, not one who liked being at the head of a parade.”

He added, “My job now is to remember, not for my sake, but for the sake of others.”

Mr. Lambert made many trips to Normandy, visiting classrooms and posing for photos. During the 2019 trip, a French elementary school student asked him if he had nightmares about D-Day.

“When I go to look at the beaches at Omaha, I remember all my friends that were killed there,” he said. “And when I look at the channel and the water is rough, it seems at times that I can hear voices.”

The New York Times contributed reporting.