Operation Overlord. Both men were killed by German landmines on the uninhabited Saint-Marcouf Islands a few miles off the Normandy coast.
June 6, 1944, approximately 4 a.m.: Sergeant John Onken of the U.S. Army’s 4th Cavalry Group peered into the darkness from his landing craft at the indistinct chunk of land barely visible ahead. It was one of the Saint-Marcouf Islands, a few miles off a beach that only a few that morning already knew as Utah.
The unremarkable islands once boasted a Napoleonic fortress; no one in Allied leadership quite knew what was there now. Finding out was part of Onken’s mission.
On another American landing craft nearby, Private Anton Elvesaeter also shivered in the chilly sea air, wondering what lay ahead. It’s doubtful the two cavalrymen knew each other, but they had much in common. Neither had been born in the nation whose uniform they wore. Elvesaeter was Norwegian by birth; his native country had fallen to Germany in 1940. Onken had actually been born in Germany—his mother and sisters still lived there under Nazi rule. If neither soldier could claim birth in America, they certainly knew why they were fighting, why Hitler had to be stopped.
Furthermore, John Onken may have felt some additional angst. He was heading to France, where his father had died—as a German soldier in the previous world war.
Both men were ready to do their duty. Their units had been chosen for this special mission late in the planning for the invasion of France, Operation Overlord. Reconnaissance had revealed some German presence on the otherwise uninhabited Saint-Marcouf Islands. If there were Wehrmacht men stationed there, they could conceivably spot
