Englishmen often use the word “bloody” as an emphatic adjective: "The shelling was bloody intense;" "The Americans were bloody courageous."
When American medic I.G. Reeves used the word “bloody,” he wasn’t just being emphatic — he meant saturated in the blood of his fellow Allied soldiers.
It takes a lot to turn the English Channel red on the French coast of Normandy. On June 6, 1944, 80 years ago, the English Channel turned red. It was D-Day – the Allied invasion at the Normandy beaches for the liberation of Europe and the chase of the Nazis to Berlin.
It’s a long way from Coffeeville, population 263, in South Alabama’s Clarke County to France, but that is the journey that I.G. Reeves made. He has been dead now for a decade, but in his later years, he had told his D-Day stories to his daughter, Mary Shirey of Mobile:
“Dad didn’t talk much about his battle experiences until much later in life, but one memory he shared about D-day stuck with me…He told me the stories were true about the water looking red and that as a medic, he simply did all he could for any man injured, often not knowing until he was right next to him whether or not he was the enemy. Most were unrecognizable because of their injuries….most all were fatally wounded. He did not speak of that day often, and it was always with tears in his eyes. His prayer was that we would never forget the importance of defending against the horrible evils of the Nazi regime and anyone else like them.”
Notice a stark contrast between this Alabama soldier and the Nazis. Medic Reeves did all he could for any of the injured, even if it was a German soldier. Nazis were known to either leave the Allied wounded unattended or else shoot and kill them.
The 20-year-old Reeves enlisted in the Army in December 1942, a year after Pearl Harbor. He trained as a combat medic and left the U.S. on June 1, 1943, for the “European Theater.”
He arrived in England on June 7, 1943, one day shy of a year before D-Day. He did not know that. None of the U.S. service members knew about the operation, what it was to be, when it was to be, and where it was to be.
Reeves did not know that he would become part of the largest amphibious landing in world history. The project was top secret, so none of the men knew they would be heading toward Berlin via the beaches of Normandy.
Reeves was attached to the 101st Airborne Division, not only for D-Day, but he survived to fight in the Battle of the Bulge on the way to Berlin—the 101st.
Reeves was Honorably discharged from his service on November 15, 1945, after the Allies had defeated both the Germans in Europe and the Japanese in the Pacific.
Do you think World War II was enough for this South Alabama man? No. In the early 1950s, the United States fought the Communists in the Korean War. Reeves went back into the service and was stateside when the armistice ended active U.S. fighting in Korea.
How many Americans fought at D-Day and then served again during the Korean War? There are some, and Alabama’s I.G. Reeves is one.
Reeves died in Mobile on March 26, 2014, a remarkable 70 years after D-Day. His daughter, Mary Shirey, and her husband, Dr. Mark Shirey, are determined that Reeves and his fellow heroes from D-Day will not be forgotten. The Shirey’s have donated items from Reeves’ World War II service to the Alabama Department of Archives and History.
On June 6 of this year, it will have been 80 years since Reeves and 175,000 other allied service members crossed the English Channel and went ashore in France to a welcoming committee of heavy German fire.
What started at D-Day continued to Berlin, defeating Hitler and the Nazis. Reeves was a part of liberating Europe, safeguarding Christian civilization, and enabling Americans to live the next 80 years in freedom. So far.
Eighty years. Let us never forget.
The Reeves and Shirey families will never let us forget. Dr. Mark Shirey is an elected State Representative in the Alabama legislature (R-Mobile). D-Day will be a special day in the Shirey home as they remember medic I.G. Reeves, the hundreds of Alabama heroes, and the 175,000 Allied heroes who served at D-Day.
Thank you, heroes.
Jim ‘Zig’ Zeigler’s beat is the colorful and positive about Alabama. He writes about Alabama people, places, events, groups and prominent deaths. He is a former Alabama Public Service Commissioner and State Auditor. You can reach him for comments at ZeiglerElderCare@yahoo.com.
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