Our long journey had begun at five o'clock that morning. From somewhere in Belgium the convoy had bumped along pot-holed dirt roads and some paved ones also in bad shape, hour after hour with frequent delays. If we got to a checkpoint ahead of schedule, it would be a wait there while another convoy with higher priority went through first. We had K-rations all day. Cold, tasteless cans -- something that was called scrambled eggs and meat and those dog biscuits they called crackers. Some powder to mix with water in the mess kit tin cup. Lemonade it was called. Meanwhile the temperature kept dropping and it looked like snow. The tarp covering the top of the truck gave a little protection from the wind but that was all. We were dirty, weary and chilled to the point of numbness.

As she arrived at Normandy's Utah Beach, Katherine Flynn Nolan jumped from her landing craft into the water -- and nearly drowned. It was July 1944, a month after D-Day and the water off the French coast was deeper than the 5-foot-3 Army nurse was expecting. Her backpack was so heavy it was pulling her down. A tall fellow nurse reached over and lifted Nolan's backpack, holding it until they reached shallow water.