Johan Willaert Posted March 2, 2011 Share #1 Posted March 2, 2011 Len Lomell, one of the icons of the WW2 2nd Ranger Bn died today at age 91... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_Lomell Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
everforward Posted March 2, 2011 Share #2 Posted March 2, 2011 Sad to hear this. He was very visible for all of the TV shows/docs he was part of... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1944 Posted March 2, 2011 Share #3 Posted March 2, 2011 This is very sad news once again this year.. that another fine Veteran that has passed a true War Hero and May he Rest In Peace and may He Never Be Forgotton God Bless him on his final Journey :salute: :salute: . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
doyler Posted March 2, 2011 Share #4 Posted March 2, 2011 :salute: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
plick27 Posted March 3, 2011 Share #5 Posted March 3, 2011 R.I.P. :salute: http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2011/03/l..._hero_from.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Got da Penny Posted March 3, 2011 Share #6 Posted March 3, 2011 So sad to hear about this. I spoke to him about 5 yrs ago and asked him if i could send a photo i made for him to be autographed. This was more than i expected, when i got it back. Definitely one of my most cherished items. RIP "Bud" CS Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Broccoli Posted March 3, 2011 Share #7 Posted March 3, 2011 Saddest news ever. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cobrahistorian Posted March 3, 2011 Share #8 Posted March 3, 2011 :salute: Rest in peace, sir! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
disneydave Posted March 4, 2011 Share #9 Posted March 4, 2011 I spent some time on the phone with him a couple of years ago for an article I wrote for WW II magazine. Was very interesting to talk too. RIP. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chunky Monkey Posted March 4, 2011 Share #10 Posted March 4, 2011 R.I.P. :salute: http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2011/03/l..._hero_from.html Thanks for posting the link. I have seen the story somewhere (history or military channel) with him being interviewed. True American Hero ~ rest in peace! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DSchlagan Posted March 5, 2011 Share #11 Posted March 5, 2011 2LT Leonard G. “Bud” Lomell January 22, 1920 – March 1, 2011 The most sincere of thanks. RIP, Sir. :salute: :salute: :salute: A retired Toms River, New Jersey attorney, was a highly decorated former United States Army Ranger who served in World War II. He is best known for his actions in the first hours of D-Day at Pointe du Hoc on the coast of Normandy, France. Pointe du Hoc was the site of the German Army’s largest coastal weapons, five 155-millimeter German guns with a 25-kilometer range that endangered the tens of thousands of troops landing on Omaha Beach and Utah Beach, and thousands of watercraft in the English Channel supporting the Normandy invasion. Unbeknownst to the Allied intelligence, the Germans had concealed the guns in an orchard, but left them operational and ready to fire. Through skill, courage and “pure luck,” Lomell found and quickly disabled all five guns. Lomell was recognized by historian Stephen Ambrose as the single individual — other than Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower — most responsible for the success of D-Day. Six months later, in the Battle of Hürtgen Forest, he would again distinguish himself, earning a Silver Star for his heroism and leadership as the 2nd Ranger Battalion captured and held Hill 400. For his actions in disabling the Pointe du Hoc guns, Lomell received the U.S. Army's Distinguished Service Cross the British Military Medal, and the French Légion d'honneur. In addition to his Silver Star, Lomell also received a Bronze Star. In 1994 he was inducted into the Ranger Hall of Fame. See this wiki page for much more details. Leonard Lomell, World War II hero from Toms River, dies at 91Published: Wednesday, March 02, 2011 By MaryAnn Spoto/The Star-Ledger Additional photos TOMS RIVER — He was a 24-year-old staff sergeant and platoon leader with the Army’s 2nd Ranger Battalion, trained to scale the impossibly sheer, 100-foot-high cliffs of Pointe du Hoc. He was shot in the side before he even reached the beach, nearly drowned as he left the landing craft, ducked heavy fire, yet still managed to climb hand-over-hand on ropes that were rocketed up to the top, in a nearly suicidal mission to silence a deadly coastal gun emplacement threatening the lives of thousands. And he was once described by the late historian Stephen Ambrose as the single individual, other than Dwight Eisenhower, most responsible for the success of D-Day. Leonard "Bud" Lomell, a hero in the fierce battle that turned the tide of World War II, and memorialized in Tom Brokaw’s book, "The Greatest Generation," died peacefully Tuesday afternoon, surrounded by his family at home in Toms River, close friends of the family said today. He was 91 years old. "He was one of the greatest men of the greatest generation,’’ said J. Mark Mutter, the township historian. "He was so typical of that generation and put his medals and uniform in the attic after the war and built a whole new world.’’ Lomell was the stuff of legends. Born in Brooklyn, he moved with his parents to Point Pleasant Borough on the Jersey Shore, where he graduated from Point Pleasant Beach High School. He would work summers at Jenkinson’s Beach, before going away to Tennessee Wesleyan College on an academic scholarship. After the war broke out. Lomell joined the Army, volunteering for the elite Ranger unit. When the planning for the invasion of Europe got underway, Lomell’s battalion was assigned a key target for the success of the Allied Expeditionary Force: five giant coastal guns believed to be stationed by the Germans atop Pointe du Hoc, between Utah and Omaha beaches, on the coast of France. The guns, with a range of 10 to 15 miles, were perched atop 100-foot cliffs and posed a threat to both U.S. ships offshore and the soldiers landing on the beach. The Rangers’ task of destroying the guns was considered one of the most dangerous of the invasion — what most considered a mission few would survive — requiring they climb up a sheer cliff by rope, under unrelenting fire, and knock out the well-defended gun emplacements there. Failure would mean the loss of countless lives; possibly the collapse of the invasion itself. Leading up to D-Day, the Rangers trained at Fort Dix and later in the mountains of Tennessee. They conducted amphibious landing drills in Florida. They did exercises at the Isle of Wight once they arrived in England. And on the morning of June 6, 1944, Lomell was in a landing craft commanding a Ranger platoon, headed for Normandy, starring up the cliffs bristling with machine-gun fire. "As I went off the landing craft as the first sergeant, loaded with gear and supplies, I was shot through the right side. I was the first one wounded," he recalled in a 2009 interview with Charlie Rose. He stepped off the ramp at the front and immediately found himself in water over his head. "When I bopped up, my guys grabbed me and pulled me up," he remembered. "And then we hit the beach." Lomell said the wound burned a little, but hadn’t hit anything vital, and they rushed to the cliffs, where the rocket-propped grappling hooks were launched, trailing long lengths of climbing ropes. Loaded with gear and explosives, they began scaling the sheer wall, hand-over-hand, while the Germans on top were desperately trying to cut the ropes or shoot them. Those on the ropes couldn’t shoot back because they were climbing, hoping only for covering fire from the ground. Many were hit and killed or wounded. Others fell to their deaths. Those who finally were able to reach the top overwhelmed the Germans, and found a surprise waiting. The guns had secretly been moved. The artillery barrels that appeared so clearly on U.S. reconnaissance photos were nothing more than telephone poles set at an angle to disguise the real location of the weapons. Lomell said it was critical to find the missing guns. As the battle raged below on the beaches, he and two other Rangers followed a set of tracks leading inland from the cliff, where they found all five carefully hidden in an apple orchard, left unguarded. Using grenades and other explosives, Lomell and the others managed to disable them, eluding discovery and rendering the coastal defense guns useless. It’s a story that’s been well documented in books and films. Historians recount it as one of the most important keys to Allied success that day. But for Lomell, it was less a day of heroics than one of loss. "There was a lot of death," he said in a 2007 interview with The Star-Ledger. "I lost half my guys. What more is there to know?" Six months later, in another furious battle at Castle Hill in the Huertgen Forest on the German-Belgian border, Lomell was wounded again — in an action for which he was cited for bravery more than 60 years later, when he belatedly received a Silver Star. After the war, Lomell graduated from Rutgers University Law School. Putting his war days behind him, he married the former Charlotte Ewart, his wife of 64 years, raised three daughters — Georgine, Pauline and Renee — and built a successful law practice. "He was totally honest and upfront with everyone he dealt with,’’ said his former partner Robert Fall, now a retired Appellate Division judge. "He had the highest character in the best sense that you could have.’’ For all the personal experiences Lomell shared with his business partners, he rarely talked about his war experiences. Fall, who decades later attended the same grammar and high schools as Lomell, said his friend was hailed locally as a hero, but did not earn national recognition until 1985 when television news anchor Tom Brokaw came to him for a book about World War II heroes. A chapter of that book, "The Greatest Generation,’’ was devoted to Lomell. "We were all his law partners for years. We never knew how significant a role he had played in D-Day and the aftermath of D-Day until Brokaw decided to write his book,’’ Fall said. "Bud never talked about that stuff because he was one of the most modest guys you’d ever want to meet.’’ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Theorywolf Posted March 6, 2011 Share #12 Posted March 6, 2011 Len Lomell, one of the icons of the WW2 2nd Ranger Bn died today at age 91... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_Lomell Another great hero has left us. But his story will live on! Mike Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Theorywolf Posted March 6, 2011 Share #13 Posted March 6, 2011 So sad to hear about this. I spoke to him about 5 yrs ago and asked him if i could send a photo i made for him to be autographed. This was more than i expected, when i got it back. Definitely one of my most cherished items. RIP "Bud" CS Wonderful that you have this! Mike Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Got da Penny Posted March 6, 2011 Share #14 Posted March 6, 2011 Thanks Mike, There are only 2 of these photos made. This one, and the one i "Sent Back to him" with a written "thank you ... etc" on the reverse from me. CS Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Latewatch Posted March 6, 2011 Share #15 Posted March 6, 2011 RIP Ranger Rangers Lead The Way Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gravecreek Posted March 6, 2011 Share #16 Posted March 6, 2011 A true American Hero. Rest in Peace. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nicolas75 Posted March 6, 2011 Share #17 Posted March 6, 2011 RIP warrior One more that will miss us Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Squad leader Posted March 6, 2011 Share #18 Posted March 6, 2011 RIP :salute: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DSchlagan Posted March 6, 2011 Share #19 Posted March 6, 2011 Thanks Mike, There are only 2 of these photos made. This one, and the one i "Sent Back to him" with a written "thank you ... etc" on the reverse from me. CS That personally inscribed photo really is wonderful! If you are able to transcribe the contents of his writing on that, it might be fitting; can't quite read it all. Thanks. Regards, Don Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mccauslandpara1944 Posted March 7, 2011 Share #20 Posted March 7, 2011 Thank you for your service! RIP. Thank you for posting this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adanac00 Posted March 8, 2011 Share #21 Posted March 8, 2011 Thank you for pointing this out! RIP Mr Lomell! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Got da Penny Posted March 8, 2011 Share #22 Posted March 8, 2011 Don, This is basically whats written on photo. Lt Leonard b. Lomell DSC Co. D 2nd Ranger Btn US Army Landed 6-6-44 D-Day WWII at Pte Du Hoc Omaha Beach, Normandy France I was a 1st sgt on D-Day ... rec'd a battlefield commision Oct 1944 in Arxx Belgium I was awarded the following medals. Distinguished Service Cross, French Legion of honor, British Military Medal Bronze Star,Purple Heart with clusters and a few more that space doesn't provide for respectfully Leonard b Lomell CS Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Johan Willaert Posted March 8, 2011 Author Share #23 Posted March 8, 2011 battlefield commision Oct 1944 in Arxx That would be ARLON, Belgium's most Southern city, situated on the main road from Bastogne to Luxemburg near the border. The Rangers passed through there late 1944. I was stationed there for a couple of years as an instructor in the Infantry School there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
F50lrrp Posted March 8, 2011 Share #24 Posted March 8, 2011 RIP Ranger! RLTW Mike Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DSchlagan Posted March 8, 2011 Share #25 Posted March 8, 2011 Don, This is basically whats written on photo... CS, What he wrote on there just reaffirms the incredible modesty the gentleman was known for. You have a piece of, what is now, history. May he be at peace. Thanks, Don Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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