By Warren Scott, The Weirton Daily Times
WELLSBURG — Eighty-one years ago today, about 326,000 troops, more than 50,000 vehicles and about 100,000 tons of military equipment descended on the beaches of Normandy, the first step by Allied troops in World War II to liberate France from Nazi invaders.
One of the largest naval, air and land military operations in history, it had been secretly and carefully planned by Gen. Dwight “Ike” Eisenhower in London, and a Brooke County museum has writings and other items belonging to two men who, each in his own way, put down a record of it.
Jim Brockman, director of the American Defenders of Bataan and Corregidor Museum and Education Center, said the families of Richard Pizatella and Allan A. Michie have offered to share materials that belonged to them and offer a closer look at that significant chapter of the war.
Pizatella’s daughter, Angela Cipriani of Wellsburg, said when she was growing up, her father spoke very little about his military service. But a newspaper in his hometown of Fairmont, W.Va. in more recent years and the discovery of a lengthy typewritten report in a cabinet at his home revealed the major events he observed.