June 6th is a date which will forever Live in Infamy.
On June 6th, 1918, during the Battle of Belleau Wood in WWI, the United State Marine Corps suffered what is still it’s worst single day of casualties during it’s long and storied history. Nine officers and almost all of the three hundred and twenty five enlisted men of the Marine 1st Battalion, 5th Marines, perished as they advanced through an open wheat field against dug-in German machine gun and artillery positions. Sergeant Major Ernest August Janson became the first Marine awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor in WWI for his courage that morning.
On June 6th, 1944 United States and allied forces stormed the beaches in Normandy, initiating the battle to liberate Western Europe from German Occupation. On D-Day alone there were more than 10,000 allied casualties of which at least four thousand four hundred and fourteen were deaths. Four Americans were awarded the Medal of honor that June 6, including Brigadier General Theodore D. “Teddy” Roosevelt, Jr. for “gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty.”