John Leo Wilkes was born 20 July 1919 in Bedford, Bedford, Virginia to Leotie Davis and Mary Elizabeth (Carter) Wilkes; he had one brother and six sisters. He enlisted 1 July 1941 in Fort George, G Meade, Maryland as a sergeant in the Bedford National Guard; his mother died before he enlisted. He married Bettie Peters Krantz 10 August 1941 in Caswell, North Carolina.

John was a master sergeant (M/Sgt) with Company A of the 116th Infantry Regiment, 29th Infantry Division when it landed on Omaha Beach on 6 June 1944. Company A came in six assault boats straight into the designated landing point in the first wave. They saw unblemished beach, unimpacted by artillery or bomb and wholly barren of shingle or any other cover even though there was a barrage from rocket boats about 1000 yards off. Within 700-800 yards of the beach, enemy artillery and mortar fire began to fall among the assault boats. One boat foundered about 1000 yards out, being swamped with water. Enemy shell fire was ineffective at first until the boats drew to within approximately 50 yds of the beach. The ramps dropped into waist high or deeper water when the enemy opened fire, instantly laying a cross fire of heavy, accurate automatic fire from both sides of the beach; the safest way off the boats was to dive into the water. One third of the men were lost. Company A became leaderless and almost incapable of action with no officers left and few sergeants. The Germans seemed to locate and target those in leadership. Unable to move safely ashore, the beach unable to be held, they went back into the water to use it for cover. Some of the wounded drug themselves ashore only to be caught by the tide, pulled back into the water and drowned. Others tried to push the wounded onto the shore to keep them from drowning. Unfortunately, they, or the rescuers, were then hit. Some burrowed in the sand until the water caught them and pulled them out with the tide. Machine gun fire came from along the cliff directly ahead and firing straight down onto those on the beach. Only 18 of 230 men avoided becoming casualties. There were 32 soldiers from Bedford county, Virginia Army National Guard assigned to Company A, 21 of them did not make it home.

M/Sgt. Wilkes is buried in the Greenwood Cemetery in Bedford, Virginia. He was awarded the Purple Heart, Combat Infantryman and Marksmanship badges, WW II Victory, American Campaign and Good Conduct medals, Army Presidential Unit Citation and European-African-Middle Eastern campaign ribbon. He gave his all for freedom – may we ever so remember.

*This story is part of the Stories Behind the Stars project (see *www.storiesbehindthestars.org). This is a national effort of volunteers to write the stories of all 400,000+ of the US WWII fallen here on Fold3. Can you help write these stories? Related to this, there will be a smart phone app that will allow people to visit any war memorial or cemetery, scan the fallen’s name and read his/her story. If you notice anything missing in this profile, you may contact the author. Click on the author’s name located at the bottom of the story page next to the words “added by”.

SOURCES:

Find-a-Grave: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/70733049/john-l-wilkes

HonorStates.org: https://www.honorstates.org/index.php?id=543308

American D-Day.org

Ancestry

John L Wilkes