Army Vet Honored in Normandy, Lowers Flag at D-Day Observance

CAPE MAY — Harry Kulkowitz, 85, a D-Day veteran who served in the Army, traveled with his son and grandchildren back to the Normandy coast June 6. There he helped mark the invasion’s 66th anniversary.
There, Kulkowitz and his family visited Colleville sur Mer to observe the 66th anniversary of the invasion that ultimately led to the defeat of Nazi Germany.
On June 7, Kulkowitz, who is Jewish, paid tribute to some fallen comrades, whose graves are marked by Stars of David. He placed stones atop the grave markers in adherence to a religious tradition, to show that the dead are not forgotten.
The former “on and off resident for 35 years” in Cape May, owner of the Mad Batter Restaurant, who now resides at Loyalton of Cape May, in Court House, was asked, on June 7, to assist an Air Force member in lowering the flag at the Normandy American Cemetery.
Those 172.5-acres, a relatively short distance from where many of them fell, contain the graves of 9,387 military dead, most of whom lost their lives in the D-Day landings and ensuing operations.
According to his son, Mark Kulkowitz, who returned to Normandy seven times, his father was “treated like royalty” by many of the residents in and around the area. To this day, they hold in high esteem veterans, like Harry, who helped free them from the Nazis.
Kulkowitz, who landed on Utah Beach with the 114th Signal Company, was also awarded the Legion of Honor, France’s highest tribute to a foreigner.
As veterans of former combatant nations age, the bitterness of war fades somewhat, and they begin to view each other as men who did their country’s calling.
For that reason, British, French, American and German military units and veterans of those nations join the annual observance of D-Day. Young soldiers of all nations joined to salute lives lost in the invasion.
“The French make this their biggest day of the year,” said Mark Kulkowitz. “Nobody can fathom this feeling they have for the Americans, British, Canadians and Australians. They hold parties that you would not believe. They do everything for the veterans, dinners, parades, kisses…,” he added.
On June 7, the Kulkowitz family met a 92-year-old and his wife who hid American paratroopers from Germans in 1944.
Such travel and meeting people who were there during the war and the invasion gives children, especially Americans, a new and greater understanding of the war and what veterans, like their grandfather suffered for the sake of others.
Kulkowitz said even some young German soldiers thanked his father for helping to free their country from Hitler’s oppression.
“It’s for everybody,” said Kulkowitz.
“My father is not more a hero than any other GI, but he happened to go back. He was very appreciative.”
A playground was earlier named in Kulkowitz honor, said his son.
Harry, a native New Yorker, wanted to help fight the Germans with his buddies, said his son.
To enlist, Harry lied about his age so he and his friends could go off to war.
As a radio operator, he was trained to listen to Nazi codes and messages.
The 19-year-old Kulkowitz was among Gen. George Patton’s forces. He intercepted messages from the Germans that proved the enemy troops were less than a mile away. When he told his sergeant, he refused to act on the intelligence until it was confirmed by a later message.
That was the start of the Battle of the Bulge, and Kulkowitz said if he ever saw that sergeant again, he would “kick his rear end.”
Inside the Mad Batter, Kulkowitz has a place set aside to honor the service of his father and others who served their nation in the Second World War.
Annually, he hosts the local chapter of the Veterans of the Battle of Bulge for a dinner.
“Every solider was equal in valor,” said Kulkowitz. “My father was lucky, he lived through it.”
That, too, he deemed fate, since the losses at Utah Beach were fewer than those on Omaha Beach, where heavier fortifications fought back the invaders.
He also knows that, while they served with equal valor, British soldiers “never received the same honors as the Americans.”
At the cemetery are inscribed the names of 1,557 on the Walls of the Missing in a semicircular garden on the east side of the memorial. Rosettes mark the names of those who were since recovered and identified.
The cemetery sits on a cliff overlooking Omaha Beach and the English Channel, east of St. Laurent-sur-Mer and northwest Bayeux in Colleville-sur-Mer, 170 miles west of Paris.
That cemetery is accessible by automobile, rail, bus and taxi.
Contact Campbell at (609) 886-8600 Ext 28 or at: al.c@cmcherald.com