James L. Simmons

James L. Simmons
Photo: Courtesy of Charlotte Simmons Chase

UPPER MARLBORO, MARYLAND

Private First Class James L. Simmons, Jr., was one of three 320th men killed in action on Omaha Beach on June 6, 1944. His little sister, Charlotte, remembers when an Army man in a brown pulled up in front of her family’s house. When the man left, her mother was sobbing. That's how she learned her brother "Bunny" was never coming home. A large framed version of this photograph hangs on Charlotte's wall in that same house in Maryland.

Theolus “B” Wells

Orangeburg, South Carolina

On June 6, 1944, Theolus Wells – everyone called him “B” – shared a foxhole on Utah Beach that was so deep, Wells could barely haul all six-foot-two-inches of himself out of it. During his time in Britain training for the invasion, Wells had sometimes been mistaken for the heavyweight champ Joe Louis. On the morning of D-Day, Wells, age 21, said he “didn’t have enough sense to be scared.” He watched as a plane was hit by fire and the pilot jumped. “I’m an American!” the flyer yelled repeatedly as he parachuted to the beach. He died on July 16, 2018. 

Theolus Wells, known as “B”, said he was too young to have enough sense to be scared on Utah Beach. He landed on D-Day. 

Theolus Wells at home in 2011.
Photo: Linda Hervieux

Albert Grillette Wood

Baltimore, Maryland

Many of Albert Grillette Wood’s friends back home in Baltimore schemed to flunk their Army induction medical exam. Not Wood, even though he was terrified of being shipped to a training camp in the Jim Crow South. He had heard stories about black men arrested on false charges and forced to work on chain gangs. While he never confronted that horror, the daily racism he experienced during his years in the Army left him bitter, particularly after entreaties to fight in the name of freedom.  "Discrimination hurt me more than anything in the world,” he said. "And I had to fight for these sons of bitches?" 

Albert Grillette Wood in 2012
Photo: Linda Hervieux

Albert Grillette Wood holds his wartime portrait. 
Photo: Linda Hervieux