From the Sun Archives: On D-Day minus 1, the subject was fishing

Stokely Baksh 0 Comment From the Vault, The Baltimore Sun D-Day, Dwight D. Eisenhower, fishing, Germany, Michigan, Normandy, paratrooper, Wallace C. Strobel, WWII

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Not many know the story behind the iconic photo of Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower speaking with a group of U.S. paratroopers on the eve of the D-Day invasion. Former Sun librarian Susan S. Waters told reporter Frederick N. Rasmussen details of the encounter for a story published in The Sun in 1999. Wallace C. Strobel, the young paratrooper with the blackened face and jumpmaster’s No. 23 standing in front of Eisenhower in the photo, was in fact, Waters’ father. So what did Ike say to the soldiers? The obvious guess would be that Eisenhower was rallying the paratroopers with words of victory, a great crusade and defeating the Nazis, but as Rasmussen wrote, it was actually fishing that was the topic of conversation.
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