November 04, 2019
D-Day tribute to a hero
On a visit to Normandy, France, in May, Jim Parks ’77 of Marietta, Ga., was surprised to see this banner erected in memory of the late Joseph P. Vaghi, Jr. ’42, the father of his good friend, Joseph P. Vaghi, III ’78, of Potomac, Md. It was one of several tributes recognizing the 75th anniversary of the D-Day invasion on June 6, 1944.
Mr. Vaghi, who died in 2012, was a U.S. Navy platoon commander in World War II. At age 23, he was the youngest beachmaster for “Easy Red,” one of the sectors on Omaha Beach. His responsibilities that day were described as similar to a “traffic cop in hell.”
He helped clear paths for and guided landing crafts through numerous obstacles. Crafts maneuvered around mines, bombs, machine gun fire, and fallen comrades. At one point, Mr. Vaghi was knocked unconscious, and when he awoke, despite an injured knee, he and a comrade safely removed two five-gallon containers of gasoline from a burning Jeep.
Mr. Vaghi, who was awarded the Bronze Star, was featured in Ken Burns’s 2007 documentary, The War. He left the active Navy in 1947 as a lieutenant commander but remained in the naval reserve until 1959.
