France could not have been liberated without soldiers like Roger Walsh.

It just wouldn't have happened.

The D-Day June 6, 1944, landing of Allied Troops at Normandy in northern France did turn the tide of the war, but France would not have suffered as long and as deeply were it not for the U.S. Army's 3rd Infantry Division.

Now, Walsh, 83, is among 300 WWII veterans honored by the French government in ceremonies held Aug. 9 at the Veterans Memorial and Community Center at Inver Grove Heights.

The French consul general, Dominique Decherf presented Walsh and the other veterans with a certificate of appreciation from the French government.

Gov. Jesse Ventura was a special guest and praised the veterans for their sacrifices.

The French government's gesture goes back to 1994, when the 50th anniversary of the D-Day invasion was held. Those GIs who participated in the D-Day invasion of France and the liberation of the country from Germany were honored with medals and certificates. Ceremonies were held in Riverside Arena in Austin to honor the local veterans, who had a part in the D-Day invasion.

This summer, the French government is honoring those American soldiers who participated in the liberation of German Nazi-occupied southern France.

Walsh was there.

Enlisting in the Army

Walsh grew up in Lyle and was 21 at the time he entered the U.S. military to fight in WWII.

He and his wife, Betty, still have the yellowed newspaper clipping detailing how 19 young men from Austin and 12 from elsewhere in Mower County joined the U.S. Army.

"We all said 'Goodbye, Dear! We'll be back in a year' at the time, but it lasted a lot longer than that and some of them didn't back it back. A lot of them, in fact," Walsh said.

He was sent to Fort Lewis, Wash., where he went through boot came and advanced infantry training with the Army's 3rd Infantry Division. Walsh, who was single at the time, became a forward observer for an artillery battery.

By November of 1942, Adolph Hitler's Nazi war machine had chewed up Europe and was waging war elsewhere

in North Africa

and outside Stalingrad in Russia. Meanwhile, the Japanese had attacked the United States at Pearl Harbor and the war in the Pacific was turning the waters red with the blood of sailors in the Java and Coral seas.

"I was in North Africa, when there was a secret meeting between President Franklin Roosevelt met General Charles DeGaulle and (Sir Winston) Churchill," he said. "Later, we found out it was a secret. meeting to plan the invasion of Sicily."

The country boy from Lyle embarked on an incredible string of combat. He was a part of the invasion of Tunisia, then Sicily and when he made the landing at Anzio on the west coast of Italy, it was his fourth invasion in four months.

The tide was turning in favor of the Allies as WWII wore on with he Nazis on the run.

Walsh's specific duties were to be a scout for an artillery battery that fires the 155 caliber howitzer. "We could fire three rounds a minute and sometimes five at our best," he said.

After D-Day, the 3rd Infantry Division continued to mop up in Italy until August 1944, when the invasion of southern France began in earnest.

Walsh and the troops with him bottled up the fabled 19th German Army at the Rhine River, but there was no time to savor the victory. "We were always on the move it seemed," he said.

When Walsh's unit moved through Germany, he added other historic signposts to his war resume: Munich, Nuremberg and the infamous Berchtesgaden, the mountaintop lair of the Nazi dictator.

When the war ended, Walsh was a staff sergeant, who had earned the Bronze star and a host of other medals and awards in combat.

He was part of a unit that earned more Medals of Honor for bravery than any other unit in U.S. military history and a unit that boast the most decorated of any WWII soldiers, Audie Murphy.

Walsh himself refused multiple battlefield commissioners and remained an enlisted man to the end of his tour of duty.

Back home n Mower County, he got married, settled down and went to work, first for Baldy Hansen in his Maytag appliance store and later for Williams Plumbing and Heating as a pipe fitter. Then, he went to work for Hormel Foods Company until retirement in 1981.

He and his wife, Betty, raised five daughters and two sons and also have 12 grandchildren.

They still live in the home they built along East Oakland Avenue in 1951.

According to Walsh he learned about the French government's gesture in the 3rd Infantry Division's newsletter and decided to participate. "It was quite an honor," he said of the gesture to honor those Americans who helped liberate France.

As far as his military service goes, Walsh remains humble despite a multitude of brushes with death and injury in so many combat actions during WWII.

"It was a job that needed doing and I helped," he said.

(Lee Bonorden can be contacted at 434-2232 or by e-mail at

lee.bonorden@austindailyherald.com)