D-Day Survivor to speak for Veterans Day Program

The Buchanan American Legion Post 51 will be hosting three public programs in November in honor of Veterans Day. The legion is bringing in D-Day survivor Art Staymates to talk to people in programs in Buchanan and St. Joseph. Staymates has spoken to audiences around the country over the years.

Staymates will be speaking to the public at 7 p.m. Nov. 10 at the Buchanan High School auditorium, at 11 a.m. Nov. 11 at the Buchanan American Legion Post 51 and at 7 p.m. Nov. 12 at Michigan Lutheran High School in St. Joseph. 

Staymates, a Maryland resident, has spoken of his experiences at D-Day when he was among the thousands of Americans who landed on Omaha Beach. He said he and his fellow soldiers believed they wouldn't survive the German strafing of the water if they didn't get out of their landing craft. He said that he and others plunged into about eight feet of water and some didn't make it to the beach.

Of 12 men in his squad, six were lost that day. He and the surviving squad members were able to make it the bluffs overlooking the beach after a full day of fighting the Germans. 

Staymates was awarded the Bronze Star for valor and wounded twice after D-Day, the first time during the Battle of the Bulge and the second time by mortar fire several months later.

At the close of the war, Staymates was promoted to lieutenant and stationed at Nuremberg where he was in a detachment given the duty of guarding high-ranking Nazis including Hermann Goering. Goering committed suicide while in his cell in an incident that remains a mystery to this day.