70-year-old memories still fresh for Youngstown vet of D-Day invasion

YOUNGSTOWN

John E. Bistrica’s memories of D-Day are as vivid today as if the Normandy invasion had happened yesterday, instead of 70 years ago.

It was between 7 and 8 a.m. on June 6, 1944, when, as a 20-year-old Army infantryman, he was part of the bloody first assault wave of the Normandy invasion to hit the Easy Red section of Omaha Beach as a member of “C” Co. of the 16th Infantry Regimental Combat Team.

“How could you not remember?” said Bistrica, 91, who with other D-Day survivors are guests of honor this weekend at the First Infantry Division’s McCormick Museum in Wheaton, Ill.

The museum is commemorating the 70th anniversary of World War II’s D-Day and honoring veterans Saturday.

“At the time, I was thinking, how did I get out of there? I still wonder. We were all just trying to stay alive and get back home,” Bistrica said of the invasion.

“The French don’t like the word ‘invasion.’ They refer to it as the Normandy Liberation. They told me that many times,” he said.

A 1942 graduate of The Rayen School who grew up on Norwood Avenue in the Brier Hill section of Youngstown, Bistrica said he planned to wear to the weekend’s activities his uniform — it still fits — that includes an Eisenhower “Ike” jacket loaded with his decorations.

For more of his story and a special Associated Press package on the 70th anniversary of D-Day, read Friday's Vindicator or Vindy.com.