D Day Plus News Today

Local actor depicts two characters and soldiers’ sacrifice all at once

Stephen Nunn goes in search of Second World War Thunderbolt fighter planes that crashed in the Maldon area.

It was July 4, 1944, less than a month after the U.S.-British-Canadian invasion of Normandy, and American boys weren’t celebrating with fireworks, but engaged in desperate warfare with Hitler’s battle-hardened legions to liberate our oldest ally, France, from the Nazi boot.

Todays top stories from USA TODAY Money.

BELTON — Bill Creech, 101, a World War II U.S. Army veteran, was honored for his 65-year membership in the Masonic Lodge of Texas on Saturday at Creekside Terrace, 1555 Powell Avenue. Sandra Creech, his oldest daughter, of Temple, said he landed at Normandy with the Second Infantry Division, fought in the Battle of the Bulge and participated in the liberation of Pilsen, Czechosolovakia. He became a Mason in 1955, but the 2020 award ceremony was postponed due to COVID-19, she said. Creech, ...

NOLANVILLE — James Wilkins grew up dirt-poor during the Great Depression of the 1920s and ‘30s, quitting school after sixth grade to go to work and help his parents support his seven brothers and sisters. When the Japanese launched a surprise attack on the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii on Dec. 7, 1941, the young man from West Texas who was picking cotton and beans as he approached his 21st birthday knew immediately what he had to do. He enlisted in the Army and was soon on...