MEMBERS OF ISU COMMUNITY WERE AT D-DAY

Part of Rich Tradition of Military Service at ISU

By Tom Emery

On June 6, 1944, the Allied forces landed on Omaha Beach in Normandy, France in a massive invasion that forever became known as D-Day.

A number of Illinois State University students and staff were part of the 156,000 troops in the invasion, formally known as Operation Overlord, an offensive spearheaded by Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower to land enormous Allied forces in western Europe. An estimated 50,000 vehicles, 13,000 planes, and 5,000 ships and landing craft were involved.

One of five beaches along Normandy that saw action, Omaha was the deadliest on D-Day, mainly because of the imposing German defense. Some 3,000 barricades were placed along the beach, while mines and mortars presented other hazards. Well-positioned machine gun nests instantly opened fire as the Allies stepped off their Higgins boats and other transports.

By nightfall, some 100,000 troops had made it ashore. Within five days, over 326,000 soldiers and 100,000 tons of equipment had landed as the beachhead became a key drop-off point for Allied supplies. Eleven months later, the war in the European theater was over.

Among the members of the Illinois State community at D-Day was Alexander “Lex” Samaras, a product of Hoopeston in eastern Illinois who transferred to ISU in 1941.

A music education major, Samaras met his future wife, Carolyn, at the University Co-Op on his second day on campus. They married on Dec. 26, 1943, a union that produced four children and lasted until her death in 2014.

Samaras was in the U.S. Navy during World War II, and was at Normandy on D-Day. In a 2016 interview, he recalled that “I felt so sorry for Carolyn. During the war and after D-Day, everyone else was hearing from their spouses. She didn’t hear anything until August. All those months she thought I was dead.”

After the war, Samaras spent twenty years as a music teacher and later ran a confectionary / restaurant. He later said that ISU “meant my life.”

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Another on the beachfront at Normandy was Lt. Bob Monninger, an employee of the University Heating Plant at ISU for twenty-five years until his retirement in 1977.  Like many veterans of combat, Monninger rarely spoke of his experiences for much of his life.

Finally, in his elderly years, his wife, Eleanor, who had worked in food service at ISU, persuaded him to share his experiences. As she said in a 2023 interview with campus radio station WGLT, “you’ve got to write this down so someone will know what you went through.”

Monninger remembered the difficulty of climbing down rope ladders in the disembark, “with all the equipment I was carrying and the sea being so rough.”  He was part of a unit charged with locating a position for over 150 howitzers.

In those horrific hours, Monninger somberly recalled the wounded on the beach, as well as the dead bodies floating in the water. Still, like so many soldiers, he kept his focus.

Eleanor said that “somebody asked him once, ‘you must have been terrified.’” Bob replied that “I wasn’t really terrified. I’d been through two other invasions, so I knew what was going to happen. It was scary, but I wasn’t terrified.”

Monninger remained in the Army for several more battles until chronic bouts with malaria ended his service. He then returned to Macomb, where he and Eleanor had both grown up. They married on March 12, 1945, a month after his return, and raised a family of three children.

Bob Monninger died on May 8, 2002 and is buried in Camp Butler National Cemetery near Springfield. Today, the Robert C. Monninger Scholarship, established by his family, is awarded to an ISU student who is enrolled full-time in the university’s Construction Management Program.

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Another scholarship at ISU that honors a D-Day veteran is the DWB Dream Maker’s Endowed Scholarship, which supports American soldiers and veterans. Preference is given to an entrepreneurship major, and students studying abroad in France as part of the International Business Institute and Office of International Studies.

The scholarship was established by Sharon Rossmark, a 1978 ISU graduate and former insurance executive, to honor her parents, David and Willie Mae Brown. David Brown was one of the rare African-American soldiers to land on Utah Beach during the invasion.

David and Willie Mae Brown were married just three days before he was drafted into the Army. He served from January 1943 through December 1945, and retained powerful memories of D-Day for a lifetime.

Rossmark later traveled to Normandy on multiple occasions with her father, and eventually became the executive producer and creative director of a documentary on his experiences. Portions of Brown’s story became part of a History Channel program, A Distant Shore: African-Americans of D-Day, which earned an Emmy in September 2008.

Many members of the Illinois State community served with honor at D-Day and other major campaigns of World War II, and are part of the rich military tradition that has been a thread of ISU for generations.

Tom Emery is a freelance writer and historical researcher from Carlinville, Ill. He may be reached at 217-710-8392 or ilcivilwar@yahoo.com.