CORPUS CHRISTI (Kiii News) -
It was 68 years ago Wednesday, the allies were storming the beaches of France as the D-Day Invasion was launched. Around 10,000 of our troops died trying to take the area from the Nazi's.
Felix Longoria, 91, was a platoon sergeant on D-day. He was part of that historical event, but he was actually along the Northern French Coast. That was part of a diversion to make the Germans think the allies were landing to the North, not in Normandy to the South, but once he did land at Normandy the next day, there were still Germans defending the beach.
Longoria says he made onto Omaha Beach and began the fight to push the Germans out of France. Eventually he was shot in the arm and ended up being sent back to England to recover. When he did, he also ended up in another huge battle.
The battle of the bulge started in mid December of 1944. Of course, the allies would beat back the Germans and ended up capturing or killing some 100,000 Nazi troops.
Longoria ended up with several prisoners and said that while he had them in his custody, another sergeant came up and kicked them and he quickly defended them.
"This sergeant came over and kicked them. I didn't like that, I told him, I said 'those are my prisoners, you don't treat them like that. If you want to treat them like that go capture your own.' While we were there, I heard one of the sergeants say the platoon sergeant says, 'you know what if we ever capture Hitler,' the platoon sergeant is going to hug and kiss him," said Longoria.
Longoria also spoke about a concentration camp he helped to liberate in Germany. It was full of women and children and he and his fellow soldiers were able to get in before the Germans were able to kill the remaining prisoners.
