Irish Dave visits American Legion Post 18 in Silver City to honor WW II paratrooper, Dan McBride

Photos and Article by Mary Alice Murphy

David A. Ashe, called "Irish Dave," is, well, an Irishman, who bought a piece of property in France, in Normandy. He came to Silver City this week to visit with one of the paratroopers €”Dan McBride €”who fought on and saved the portion of Normandy from German hands during World War II.

The Allingham-Golding American Legion Post 18 in Silver City held a reception for Ashe and McBride, an American Legion member, on Thursday afternoon.

Ashe and his French girlfriend began discovering artifacts from World War II on the land and in the surrounding fields. After doing some research, Ashe discovered that many American and British paratroopers had landed nearby during the D-Day Invasion of Normandy.

He set out to honor those he considered heroes for freeing his corner of France. He built a memorial to them, which sits on his property, on the northern fringe of Utah Beach near the edge of Ste. MÃ¨re-Ã‰glise. "The land I bought was where the battle began."

"I have found 96 of those who landed in our area," Ashe said. "Eighty-five were from the 101st Airborne and 10 from the 82nd Airborne, plus a photographer from the Signal Corps. I spent 15 years in research, because I wanted to honor 'my' men. I personally wanted to know these guys and how many didn't go home. Of the 96 I have identified, 21 didn't get to go home. Each of the 21 has a conifer tree planted in his honor, with a plaque at the base with the paratrooper's name and where he was from."

He said usually all over Normandy a visitor would see only a plaque on the wall of the City Hall commemorating the Allies freeing France from the Germans.

"What I have built is not a sterile memorial," Ashe said. "I have embarked on a journey. Judy Cahoon Egan in Boston has been helping me find the families. She has found 22 of the D-Day paratrooper family. Her father Robert H. Cahoon of the 502nd regiment of the 101st Airborne was one of those who landed near my land.

"Seven are still alive, that is until three days ago, when one died," Ashe said. "Now there are six, and one of them is Dan McBride, sitting beside me here in Silver City."

Three years ago, in 2012, Ashe inaugurated The Eternal Heroes' Memorial on his land near Ravenoville, France. McBride was there for the inauguration. "It was a huge privilege for me to meet him," Ashe said. "It was his first return to Normandy since he jumped out of a plane in June 1944."

"With three years of the memorial, we see not only visitors, such as veterans, but we see many others, who stop to visit the memorial," Ashe said. "When the families come to visit the memorial, they plant their own memorial olive trees, which represent peace and eternity.

"I have plans for a full-grown garden of 96 trees," he said. "I want to create a visitor center on the ground floor of my bungalow. We want to document the service of the 96, particularly through photos. We know their resting places. We want to create an online archive of their stories. A Frenchman did the same off Omaha Beach. The material we've been offered is incredible. Dan, on the 70th anniversary of D-Day this year, gave me a 50-franc bill, which went with him through Normandy, to Market Garden in Holland and to Bastogne, three places where he served and was wounded.

"I have great plans," Ashe continued. "What we, Judy and I, intend to do is hold a convention of the families of the 96 that fought for my piece of land in France. We will meet next August somewhere in America."

Ashe said he also wanted to create a life-sized statue of one of the boys on the 7th of June 1944, after Ravenoville had been liberated.

"I found the face of one of those who didn't go home," he said. "His name was Ollie Barrington of Texas. He had film star looks, a cross between Paul Newman and Alec Baldwin. It took me a year to find someone to come up to my standards on a statue. One of the paratroopers had an illegal camera and took photos, so we used those photos. We call it the Last Full Measure. It has every detail from the photos. We had a 12-inch statuette made as a model and we began to give a resin statuette to the returning veterans. We need to find $85,000 to do the life-size bronze statue."

He said McBride had received one of the statuettes, but that it broke in his luggage on his way home, so Ashe presented McBride with a replacement.

Ray Davis of the Allingham-Golding American Legion Post 18 presented Ashe with a certificate of appreciation. Ashe later presented Davis and the post with a replica plaque of the original plaque on top of Mount Currahee.

McBride, after receiving the statuette, said he had glued his together and wanted to give this one to the post.

He then began to recount his tale of that jump. "The pilot was dodging the strafing. I was a rifle grenadier. We came out of a fog bank and he dove and speeded up to elude ground fire. I rolled out of the plane. I looked up at the chute and I was looking at the ground. My left foot was hung in the rigging. We couldn't have been more than 300 feet off the ground when I fell out. The chute had deployed, but I was upside down. I hit the ground and didn't see another soul for four hours."

He continued regaling his fellow American Legion members with his exploits that evening.

Ashe told the Beat that the statuette costs money to make and with part of the proceeds going to the artist and much of the amount the memorial receives going to mailing the statuette, it doesn't make much from each. "Each one is handmade and numbered," he said. "First I want to get money for the conversion of the ground floor of my bungalow to be a visitor center and then to create the Last Full Measure Statue for the memorial."

He said Barrington's sister, Mary Roach, had visited the memorial on the 70th anniversary of D Day. She sat quietly holding the statuette and staring at it. "When I asked her what she thought of it," Ashe said, "she said: 'It's him.'"

"Honoring these men is important to me," Ashe said. "Each ceremony has a theme. This last one was peace and reconciliation. I know two German paratroopers. One was at Normandy and another from Omaha Beach. The one, Kurt Keller, was traumatized by Omaha Beach. He was a prisoner of war and was transferred to the Eastern Front and served in Siberia. He came to the 70th anniversary with a request. He asked if he could plan an olive tree in the garden. He did it after the ceremony."

Ashe said he always wants the Star-Spangled Banner to be sung live, not by a recording, at each ceremony. "I found in England an opera-trained lady soloist, who comes each year to sing the American National Anthem and 'Requiem of a Soldier' from "Band of Brothers.' There's never a dry eye."

"I am eternally grateful to these guys," Ashe said. "I live in peace and freedom because their blood gave me to right to live there."

The American Legion Post on the spot voted to make a donation to Ashe's memorial.

"We are investigating a 501c3," Ashe said, but right now, for donations, we have the full blessing of American War Memorials Overseas and we steer donations through them. We accept American checks made out to the American War Memorials Overseas organization."

A member of the post asked that the Beat also remind people that the American Legion still is willing to serve as honor guard and color guard for funerals and local events.