"There was nothing to get them behind for protection, so I was looking around and saw this rock and told my men we'd have to get those guys behind this rock," Lambert said. He dove underwater and made it to the beach where he was even more exposed as he tried to help his wounded comrades. "We could hear the bullets on the ramps like hail, so we knew when the ramp went down bullets would come in and kill some of our guys, but we didn't know who," Lambert said.Īs soon as the hatch opened, Lambert said something - gunfire or artillery - shattered his elbow.
Then the brothers faced the Omaha Beach bloodbath together on D-Day, June 6, 1944. Ray Lambert was wounded in both assaults and awarded the Silver Star for bravery. They were thrust into the thick of combat, fighting in North Africa in 1942 and later in Sicily. Growing up in rural Alabama, Lambert and his brother Bill both signed up for the US Army. Lambert has come back over the years to speak at memorial ceremonies, and he has come alone, he said, "to just stand out here and look at the Channel and remember my men."Īt 98 years old, Lambert said this is the last time he will come to Normandy.
"Those guys my age today, so many of them are gone."Īs world leaders, including French President Emmanuel Macron and US President Donald Trump, gather on the beaches Thursday to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the D-Day landings, it's likely to be the last major official celebration to be attended by WWII veterans, now in their 90s. Their names are here permanently now," Lambert said standing in front of the monument (pictured above). Last year, the town, which is home to the American cemetery, put a plaque on the rock with Lambert's name and those of his fellow medics."I can come here and see my men and I know that they are being remembered.
The medic used the boulder to cover his wounded men from German gunfire 75 years ago during the onslaught of the D-Day landings that liberated Normandy and turned the tide of the war. The town of Colleville-sur-Mer, just above the beach, recently gave it the name Ray's Rock, after US Army WWII veteran Ray Lambert. On Omaha Beach in Normandy, a solitary crag of concrete sits in the sand.
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