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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (June 6, 2019)
A8 East Oregonian Thursday, June 6, 2019 D-Day: Soldiers with ties to Northeast Oregon participated in assault Continued from Page A1 U.K. D-Day remembered GERMANY Area in detail June 6, 1944 — 75 years ago. More than 160,000 Allied troops stormed the heavily-fortified beaches of Normandy, France, to gain a toehold in Continental Europe and drive Nazi Germany back to the Rhine River. This was the greatest seaborne invasion in history with more than 5,000 ships and 13,000 aircraft supporting the effort. More than 9,000 Allied soldiers were killed or wounded. Engli 101st Airborne Division N13 sh Channe 4th Division H UTA Airborne in Sicily and Salerno, Italy. The 82nd and 101st Airborne served as the advance party for Overlord, drop- ping behind enemy lines to clear the roads leading to the beaches and blunt the counterattack that would swiftly fol- low the landings. As the June 6 skies over Normandy fi lled with C-47 “sky- train” planes, Nazi forces answered with anti-aircraft fi re, downing the trans- ports, killing some exiting troopers and causing misdrops up to 20 miles. Franco was lucky to complete his “quietest and smoothest” jump to date, landing just outside the objective, the crossroads town of Sainte-Mère-Église. He quickly found several 505th com- rades, including the chaplain, who was so delighted to have survived the jump that he spontaneously clicked his identi- fying clicker toy a dozen times. “Stop making all that goddamn noise, padre, you’ll alert the whole German army,” came a harsh whisper. Franco moved carefully into town, set up his aid station in the schoolhouse, and readied himself for the coming onslaught of wounded. A timely administration of plasma, he remembered, could stabilize the critically injured. At midday, he was summoned to the scene of a horrifi c glider crash, where he found the pilot and crew beyond help. Fortunately, Whipple had already landed his craft safely. A Salt Lake City college student before Pearl Harbor, the 20-year-old Whipple knew he wanted to be a pilot and eventually received orders for glider school. Glider pilots became the unsung heroes of the D-Day operation, eclipsed in public memory by the airborne, who starred in the TV series “Band of Brothers.” They fl ew “fl ying coffi ns,” non-mechanized aircraft loaded down with supplies, towed by C-47 planes and released to glide stealthily toward a suit- able landing zone, after dark with enemy all around. Lt. Whipple recalled watching his light Horsa glider being loaded for Nor- mandy, crammed with a jeep (2,300 pounds), 57mm anti-tank gun (2,300 Ste. Mère-Église 1st & 29th divisions POINTE DU HOC NETH. BEL. SWITZ. Bay of Biscay FRANCE ITALY Allied beachhead, June 6 Allied advance, June 12 Allied airdrop German force Roadway l 50th Division 3rd Division 3rd Division (2nd Ranger Battalion) OMAH A GOLD N13 JUNO SWO RD Carentan NORMANDY, FR ANCE 82nd & 101st airborne divisions Bayeux N13 Pegasus Bridge Caen St. Lô 5 miles Sources: Stars and Stripes; www.army.mil Alan Kenaga/EO Media Group “Your task will not be an easy one. Your enemy is well trained, well equipped and battle-hardened. He will fi ght savagely. But this is the year 1944! The tide has turned! The free men of the world are marching together to victory! I have full confi dence in your courage, devotion to duty and skill in battle. We will accept nothing less than full victory! Good luck! And let us all beseech the blessing of Almighty God upon this great and noble undertaking.” — Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, Supreme Allied Commander, 6 June 1944. pounds), sundry supplies, a co-pilot and gun crew and himself. After the C-47 tow, Whipple and comrades took small- arms fi re on the descent and struggled to land, due to the overloading of the craft and the diffi culty of recognizing the landing zone. Aerial photographs had depicted trees without June leaves. They beat steep odds in coming down safely, just one of three in a grouping of 18 without serious damage or casualties. Whipple coolly helped unload his air- craft, enemy fi re echoing all around, and made his way to Sainte-Mère-Église, where he informed 82nd Airborne offi - cers about the location of the jeep and antitank gun and helped salvage supplies from wrecked planes and gliders. The next day brought the march to Utah Beach for transport back to England, where Whipple would man resupply fl ights. En route, his luck nearly ran out. Nearby American anti-aircraft guns opened up on a swooping German bomber, sending him diving for cover. Once on board the landing craft tank that would take him to the waiting ship, he hit the deck as a sea mine destroyed the neighboring craft. He returned safely, but no wonder he felt, as he later wrote, that “someone was watching over me.” After the war, Whipple married Audrey Wallace in 1950 and had two children, John R., Jr., and Elizabeth. He managed department stores for Allied Federated Stores (now Macy’s) around the Pacifi c Northwest, including in Pendleton, later owning and operating his own JR’s Department Store in Cedar City, Utah. He and his wife eventually opened a bed and breakfast in Cedar City, Utah, before retiring to the Mill- creek area of Salt Lake City. Whipple passed away in October 2018 at the age of 97. Franco returned to the U.S. in 1946 and married Ilene Andler, a surgical nurse from Boston, proposing to her at Fenway Park. The couple had six chil- dren and eventually settled in Rich- land, Washington, where Franco was a surgeon for 41 years. He also became a student at Washington State University, Tri-Cities, taking courses and interact- ing with young students. Franco passed away in August 2013 in Seattle. Franco and Whipple typically declined to discuss the war through the years following the war, but it is not hard to imagine their quiet pride in the roles they played in the “Great Crusade.” They truly did help save the world. Foster: State still risking safety of children Continued from Page A1 EO File Photo Progress across the Interstate 82 bridge was slow going in June 2018 for motorists on the way to the Hermiston High School graduation at the Toyota Center in Kennewick. I-82: Bridge to reopen by end of the month Continued from Page A1 one-lane closures on the Washington-bound bridge as the medians that directed the two-way traffi c are removed. All closures are expected to be fi nished before July 4, in time for holiday travelers. The two-year bridge clo- sure has at times created long delays for commuters, particularly during a crash or large event like the solar eclipse of August 2017. Last year’s Hermiston graduation ceremony in Kennewick started late because so many parents, students and staff were stuck in a bottleneck of traffi c on the bridge. Hermiston High School’s graduation will take place Thursday at 7 p.m. at the Toyota Center in Kennewick. Signs: New signs, rules pop up at Wallowa Lake Continued from Page A1 “Our job is to provide irri- gation and we want our dam manager to be safe.” Dawson said a few years ago he rented a house across from the park and tourists would ask to fi ll up water containers and use his bathroom. “When we were kids, everyone used to go to the state park at the south end of the lake,” Dawson said. The increased use led to an agreement that the Enter- prise District Offi ce would provide signs that com- plied with management of all of ODFW-controlled properties. “The Oregon Admin- istrative Rule gives cops the right to do preemptive enforcement on the ease- ment,” Kyle Bratcher, acting Enterprise district fi sh biol- ogist said. The rules cite dogs must be on leash, no littering allowed, and that the park is closed between 10 p.m. and 4 a.m. Sheriff Steve Rogers told Irrigation District board members he would ask his deputies to include a cruise through the boat launch parking area during their nightly patrols of Joseph. “The OAR gives state and county authority to come into the park,” Rogers said. Progress will take time because of the “extensive” work needed to improve the system. “In our view, it will take several years of con- sistent focus by DHS lead- ership, likely combined with increased staffi ng and legislative and com- munity support, to lock in improvements,” auditors wrote. Less than a month before state lawmakers must pass a budget, man- agement at the state’s Department of Human Services haven’t even clearly told the legisla- tors how many workers it needs to make things bet- ter for the thousands of kids in its care, auditors said. And it’s far from clear at this point that legisla- tors will set aside money for more workers. Meanwhile, there still aren’t enough fos- ter homes or other safe places for high-needs kids and youth. The total num- ber of foster homes hasn’t changed since auditors released their report last year. The agency isn’t col- lecting what auditors say is “critical” information on staffi ng and place- ments. And a new state- wide hotline for reporting child abuse — which was supposed to centralize the process — has had sig- nifi cant problems getting started. In their earlier report in January 2018, auditors said that shortages of fos- ter parents, caseworkers and safe placements posed a threat to kids’ well-be- ing and that the way the agency had been managed was deeply problematic. Managers allowed a “work culture of blame and distrust” to foment. The agency’s leaders didn’t plan enough for expensive initiatives, tar- get the cause of prob- lems, or push long-term changes. Over the past year and a half, the child welfare program’s management has seen signifi cant turn- over. New managers have boosted training and help for workers, and “is mak- ing stronger efforts to identify and address the concerns” of workers in the fi eld, the new audit said. The 2018 audit, sought by the late Secretary of State Dennis Richardson — himself a foster par- ent — was hardly the fi rst report on conditions in the long-troubled foster care system. Auditors have looked at overarching bureau- cratic problems, such as fl agging morale over resources and compensa- tion at the Department of Human Services, which is also home to state ser- vices for elderly people, people with disabilities and the poor, in 2016, and two years before that, at a technical system for pro- cessing payments. In 2012, in a report on barriers to reunifying fos- ter kids with their biologi- cal parents, auditors raised red fl ags about casework- ers’ high workloads. In turn, they pointed to issues that already been brought up four years before that, in a study of caseworkers’ loads. That workload report found that the state had about 24 to 37 percent fewer caseworkers than it needed for high-quality work. And more than a decade later, it appears that the agency still doesn’t have enough workers to care for children in its custody. Citing state bud- get offi cials, auditors said Wednesday that the agency still has “sig- nifi cant vacancies and high turnover” so even if the legislature provided money to add workers, there’s a signifi cant risk they could remain empty. The agency has cut down on overtime by lowering the amount of time that foster kids spend in hotels — which prompted a public outcry several years ago — but the agency hasn’t clearly told the legislature what it lacks, isn’t keeping track of turnover or worker use of family leave, and doesn’t have staff to send multiple people out to calls that could be danger- ous, the audit said. Previous efforts to implement changes to the system have fallen short. Three years ago, in the wake of a scandal at a Portland foster care pro- vider, lawmakers cre- ated a special child foster care advisory commission designed to turn the many reports on how to improve the system into policies. But as previous report- ing by the Oregon Capi- tal Bureau has shown, the commission struggled to get off the ground and has not had any discernible effect on the state’s foster kids. Gov. Kate Brown is under pressure to make changes. She took offi ce in Feb- ruary 2015, and her tenure has been punctuated by problems in the child wel- fare system. They seem to come to a head every few months — whether it has been the state’s practice of shipping kids to out-of- state facilities, the state’s handling of problematic providers, or housing fos- ter children in hotels and DHS offi ces because there are so few foster homes available. In mid-April, Brown established her own over- sight board for child wel- fare, including high-pro- fi le state executives and experts in various fi elds, to try to turn the system around. Since then, the board has met three times. In an effort to address public concerns about access to its information, the board approved a new public records process and has been directing a crisis management team brought on to spearhead changes at the agency, according to the gover- nor’s offi ce. “The governor is pleased with progress of the board and the cri- sis management team,” spokeswoman Lisa Morawski said in an email to the Oregon Capital Bureau Tuesday. The budget for the state’s Department of Human Services has not been fi nalized, so it’s not clear how much money legislators will approve for the state’s largest agency. Last year, Brown pro- posed a $56 million increase in funding for the child welfare program for the next two years, audi- tors said in their Wednes- day report. Auditors said Wednes- day that to serve kids bet- ter, the agency should get more workers and support. “Additional staff and program support, while costly, would likely reduce staff workloads and improve child safety and family stability,” auditors wrote. The governor’s offi ce is urging lawmakers to boost funding for the child welfare system through two bills: Senate Bill 1 and Senate Bill 221. The governor’s offi ce said in an email that those proposals would “improve services” for kids with special needs and provide the agency more money for staff “to help lower caseloads and improve staff culture and child safety.” Other factors have complicated reforms over the years. While agency leaders have struggled to implement policies, the legislature and fed- eral government passed new laws and regulations in a seeming constant stream. Some advocates, mean- while, stress the state should be looking at the underlying causes that lead children to enter fos- ter care in the fi rst place, such as addiction, poverty and lack of access to men- tal and behavioral health services.