80 years after his death, a Staunton soldier is still honored in France

In the words of those who were there

June 6 marked the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings in France that led to the liberation of Europe. Many units from Virginia were in the first hours of those landings. We’ve collected the military’s reports that tell the first-hand accounts of what those Virginia soldiers did that day in one place. Today’s column looks at what happened to some of those units six weeks after D-Day.

Eighty years ago Thursday, the first American entered the newly liberated French city of Saint-Lô.

He was from Staunton.

He was also dead.

In death, Thomas Howie became a hero, both in France and in the United States. The famed New York Times war correspondent Drew Middleton wrote about him. So did a young writer for the military’s Stars and Stripes newspaper, a fellow named Andy Rooney who went on to later fame as a commentator.

Eight decades later, Howie’s visage is carved in stone in a war memorial in France, his name affixed to Army Reserve Centers in Virginia and South Carolina, a rifle unit in the Army ROTC program at Mary Baldwin University, a bell tower at his alma mater, The Citadel.

This is his story.

Exactly six weeks ago, we marked the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings of World War II. We hail those today as a great success, and they were — although they didn’t necessarily seem that way at the time.

The official plan called for the British to liberate the town of Caen, about 9 miles inland, the first day. The Americans had hoped to reach the town of Saint-Lô, 24 miles inland, within a day of coming ashore. Six weeks later, both towns were still under German control.

The Allies hadn’t been pushed back into the sea, as some feared, but neither had they made much progress. German defenses were strong, and the French hedgerows posed an obstacle for Allied tanks, as well. Back home, there was already grumbling in the press that the Allies were bogged down, which they kind of were. While it was still midsummer, military strategists were looking ahead to the fall and winter when it would be even harder to move. From top to bottom, there was pressure to make more progress.

That was the situation in early July 1944, when Allied commanders took a deep breath and ordered three divisions to assault the Germans around Saint-Lô (a city whose name is familiar in the Roanoke Valley because it’s one of Roanoke’s sister cities). The two sides slugged it out for every inch of bloody ground. The Allies made slow but painful progress past objectives with military names such as Point 147 and Hill 101. Then on July 13, the higher-ups turned to a balding, 36-year-old English teacher from Staunton to lead the 3rd Battalion of the 116th Infantry Regiment, which had been ravaged by casualties, into action.

Thomas Dry Howie had grown up in Abbeville, South Carolina. He was a star athlete in high school who went on to become all-everything, or so it seemed, at The Citadel. He was president of his senior class, he made the dean’s list, he was captain of the baseball team and an All-State halfback on the football team. His leadership skills were evident early on: As a junior, he led a hunger strike to protest the poor quality of food in the mess hall. Fellow cadets voted him “Most Versatile, Popular and Best All Around.”

In early December 1928, The Citadel faced a homecoming game against in-state rival Clemson. However, that morning Howie was due to be in Columbia, South Carolina, to take a qualifying test for a Rhodes Scholarship. Howie hurried through the test and an assistant coach drove him back to Charleston just in time to make the open kickoff. The Citadel records things this way: “Howie ran onto the field just in time to carry the ball on the first play from scrimmage, taking a hand-off around the end and bowling over two Clemson defenders. Fired up by the happy surprise of his presence … the Bulldogs went on to pull off a surprise 12-7 upset victory with Howie scoring the winning touchdown.”

Howie graduated in 1929 and moved to Staunton, where he took a job teaching English literature at Staunton Military Academy. He also coached football; his teams won four state championships in a division of other military schools, which were more plentiful at the time. He became an officer in the Army Reserves, later moving into Virginia’s National Guard. He married, became a father.

Then war came calling.

In early 1941, after France had fallen but before Pearl Harbor, Virginia’s National Guard units were called up into federal service. Howie was part of the Staunton-based L Company. By 1942, he was in Great Britain, rising through the ranks to become first a captain, then a major. He and the rest of L Company went ashore on D-Day in the second wave, landing off-course on a beach clogged with other Americans trying to make their way inland against German fire. (You can read the account of L Company on D-Day as part of our special report on the 80th anniversary of D-Day .) Not until 15 days later did Howie find time to change his boots. When he did, his socks were still encrusted with sea salt from the English Channel.

On July 7, as the push toward Saint-Lô was about to begin, Howie found time to write a letter to his father-in-law in Baltimore:

“We’re still hitting the ball at a good clip, though the caliber of our opposition is improving steadily — more Nazis and fewer Russians, Poles, Czechs impressed into service. The Nazis are arrogant, and we aren’t taking many prisoners. Except for dead and wounded friends, life in combat doesn’t seem a great deal tougher than maneuvering in England or amphibious operations on the coast of England.

“I think the toughest part so far has been the mental adjustment to killing and being killed. What we saw and experienced from D to D-plus-three shocked us pretty hard, but I believe now I can endure almost anything.

“And those of us who have survived, both physically and mentally, are pretty callous. The American army in Normandy is learning to hate, a new experience for most of us.”

Six days later, he was put in charge of a battalion of men from former National Guard units from Charlottesville, Emporia, Staunton and Winchester and sent forward. At some point he had a chance encounter with a New York Times reporter, who described how Howie had set up his command post “in a ditch.” Despite the conditions, the reporter was impressed by how the major in the ditch kept talking about how he and his men intended to get into Saint-Lô, which at the time seemed difficult.

The 2nd Battalion (which included former National Guard units from Chase City and South Boston) was out in front but had gotten cut off — and then encircled. Food and ammunition were running low as the Germans pounded them with artillery. Howie was ordered to take his 3rd Battalion and rescue the 2nd Battalion. Then both were supposed to push on into the town.

At 4 a.m. on July 17, Howie called his company commanders together and issued their assignments. It was a foggy morning, so Howie told his commanders to refrain from shooting lest they hit the wrong targets. They were headed into combat with bayonets and grenades; only two men in each platoon were given the authority to shoot, and then only in an emergency.

“Tell the men I’m sure they’ll do a fine job,” Howie told his commanders. “And tell them this is our chance to be first in the city.” As they stood up to leave, he had one more thing to say: “See you in Saint-Lô!”

Then men plunged into the fog — and close-quarters combat. Howie himself took out two German machine gun nests. Within two hours, the German lines had been broken, and the 2nd Battalion was freed. However, its men were in no condition to fight further that day. Howie radioed this back to his commander, who asked if his 3rd Battalion could move forward on its own. “Will do,” Howie replied. Then he signed off with what had become his catch-phrase: “See you in Saint-Lô!”

No sooner had Howie said that than German artillery rained down. His men ducked for cover. Howie remained standing to make sure they were safe. A mortar fragment ripped into his back. “My God, I’m hit,” he mumbled, falling into the arms of one of his captains. The captain called for a medic but it was too late. Within two minutes, Howie was dead.

One of his men burst into tears. Another draped a blanket over his body and whispered: “I’m so sorry, major, I’m so sorry.” Others cursed and looked away. Howie had been especially popular with his men. The report of Howie’s death, along with his final words, made it up the chain of command to the division commander, Gen. Charles Gerhardt.

The battle raged on. The Americans did not reach Saint-Lô that day. Overnight, though, the Germans pulled back into the city itself.

The next day, July 18, Gerhardt ordered another push forward. The Germans began to give way. By noon, it seemed clear that the Americans might be able to take Saint-Lô. At that point, Gerhardt issued an unusual order. He ordered Howie’s body sent to the front lines so that, in death, he might be the first to enter the city. Capt. Thomas D. Neal went to search for Howie’s body; he found it in a field where both American and German casualties were being treated. Neal and some other soldiers lifted Howie’s body “reverently” onto a stretcher, covered him with a raincoat and blanket, and loaded the stretcher into a Jeep.

Gerhardt, a hard-charging general who often ran afoul of his superiors, liked the aggressive spirit of Howie’s radio sign-off. “The general wanted him to be among the first to enter the city,” Neal later told an Associated Press reporter. “He died trying to win it, because if it hadn’t been for his bravery and military ability we wouldn’t have gotten in so quickly. It is a tribute to him and to his determination. The men feel good about it and it means a lot to them, particularly to the men of his own unit. He was a very popular officer and the men liked him a lot.”

Outside Saint-Lô, Howie’s body was transferred into an ambulance.

“The little group was deeply impressed by the solemnity of this unusual and symbolic mission,” wrote AP reporter Hal Boyle. Military police waved the procession forward; all military traffic was now headed toward Saint-Lô. A private identified only as “Private Christ” accompanied the body.

From Boyle’s reporting:

“Private Christ slowly shut the ambulance door as the medics climbed in.

“He must have been some major — that major,” he said. Then he climbed in, too.

“The ambulance and the dead major moved down to their rendezvous in St. Lo.”

Once in the city, which had been reduced nearly to ruins, the men took Howie’s body and laid it on the rubble of St. Croix Cathedral and draped it with an American flag.

Years later, the commentator Rooney called this “one of the truly heartwarming and emotional scenes of a gruesome and frightful war.” The photos of that scene appeared in newspapers across the United States and quickly became one of the most enduring images of the war. Because Howie’s next of kin had not been notified, he was identified only as a major — “the Major of Saint-Lô,” Drew Middleton called him in The New York Times.

Eleven days later, the lead headline in the Staunton News Leader announced: “Heroic ‘Major of St. Lo’ Revealed As Staunton’s Own Thomas D. Howie.”

Howie was buried in the American cemetery in Normandy, one of 9,388 laid to rest there. His story has been told before. In the 1950s, the popular television show “Cavalcade of America” devoted an episode to Howie’s story, with Howie portrayed by future “Mission Impossible” actor Peter Graves. A mural depicting the arrival of Howie’s body in Saint-Lô hangs at The Citadel. In 1969, the 25th anniversary of the D-Day landings, Saint-Lô dedicated a monument that features Howie’s likeness. A plaque was erected on the site where his body lay. The author Stephen Ambrose devoted substantial ink to Howie in his book “Citizen Soldiers.” Some believe Tom Hanks’ character in the movie “Saving Private Ryan” is modeled after Howie. In 2018, when Staunton was changing the name of Robert E. Lee High School, the Staunton News Leader editorial board proposed Thomas Howie High School as a possible replacement (the school board went with Staunton High School instead).

Memories only last as long as we remember them, though, so it is incumbent on each generation to pass them on to the next. Here is a new telling to keep Howie’s memory alive.

There is one important detail I have left out until now — that test Howie took for a Rhodes Scholarship on football game day. He missed qualifying by one-tenth of a point. Had he qualified, he’d have gone off to Oxford. Instead, after graduation, he went to Staunton — and wound up in the National Guard there. Had Howie scored just one-tenth of a point higher, he might never have been standing there outside Saint-Lô with a mortar fragment headed his way. Life, and death, often turn on little things.

The column draws on accounts from World War II historian Marc Lancaster , the Warfare History Network , The Citadel , the South Carolina Encyclopedia, and the U.S. Army.

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