Ray Lambert, a US army medic who survived multiple wounds on D-Day and was saluted by a president on the 75th anniversary of the battle, died on Friday. He was 100.
Lambert died at home in Seven Lakes, North Carolina, with his wife and daughter by his side, said neighbor and friend Dr Darrell Simpkins. The physician, who accompanied Lambert to France in June 2019, said the veteran succumbed to an aggressive form of facial cancer and congestive heart failure.
“Ray was talking coherently, conversing on the phone, and enjoying visitors until yesterday,” Simpkins said. “He was an amazing man.”
The Alabama native was a medic with 2nd Battalion, 16th Infantry Regiment, part of the army’s 1st Division – the “Big Red One”. He took part in the invasions of North Africa and Sicily before his war came to an end on 6 June 1944, on the sands of Omaha Beach.
Sgt Lambert was in the first wave of the assault. He was helping a wounded soldier in heavy surf when a landing craft ramp dropped on him, pushing him to the bottom.
“Ray was only 23 but he had already earned three Purple Hearts and two Silver Stars for fighting in north Africa and Sicily,” then-President Donald Trump said in 2019 at the American Cemetery, overlooking the beach.
“They came to the sector, right here below us,” the president continued as Lambert sat behind him, a purple “D-Day Survivor” cap on his head. “Again and again, Ray ran back into the water. He dragged out one man after another. He was shot through the arm. His leg was ripped open by shrapnel. His back was broken. He nearly drowned.
“Ray, the free world salutes you.”
For many years, the diminutive businessman refused to talk about the horrors he saw and experienced. But as he aged and his fellow veterans began passing away, he felt a duty to share his story and theirs.
“I did what I was called to do,” he wrote in his book, Every Man a Hero, published shortly before the 75th anniversary. “As a combat medic, my job was to save people, and to lead others who did the same. I was proud of that job and remain so. But I was always an ordinary man, not one who liked being at the head of a parade … My job now is to remember, not for my sake, but for the sake of others.”
Lambert had made many trips to Normandy. During the 2019 trip, a French elementary school student asked Lambert if he still had nightmares about Normandy.
“When I go to look at the beaches at Omaha, I remember all my friends that were killed there,” he said. “And when I look at the Channel and the water is rough, it seems at times that I can hear voices.”
That morning in 1944, as bullets whizzed and mortar rounds splashed around him, Lambert scanned the beach for something behind which he could safely treat the wounded. He spotted a lump of concrete, about 8ft wide and 4ft high.
“It was my salvation,” he said.
A plaque installed in 2018 recognizes it as “Ray’s Rock”.
Simpkins said Lambert requested that his ashes be buried at Arlington National Cemetery, and that some be scattered on Omaha Beach. Lambert is survived by his wife, Barbara, and daughter, Linda McInerney. He was preceded in death by his son, Arnold Lambert.