D-DAY HERO Recalls Lowering the Ramp in FIRST WAVE at Omaha Beach | Frank DeVita

On the morning of June 6, 1944, as the sun began to rise over the stormy waters of the English Channel, 19-year-old Frank DeVita stood aboard a Higgins boat packed with American soldiers, all heading toward the blood-soaked shores of Normandy.

What he would do that morning, what he would see, and what he would survive, would stay with him for the rest of his life.

Frank was the ramp operator on one of the first landing craft to hit Omaha Beach during the D-Day invasion, and his memories are among the most haunting and heroic to emerge from World War II.

Frank was just a kid from Brooklyn, but war had a way of turning boys into men overnight.

Assigned to the Coast Guard, he was trained to operate the ramps that dropped down from the front of landing craft, letting troops charge out toward enemy positions.

It sounded simple, but what that meant on D-Day was that Frank had to stand exposed at the front of the boat, gripping steel cables, and lower the gate directly into machine gun fire, knowing full well what was about to happen to the men stepping off.

As the boats closed in on Omaha Beach that morning, chaos erupted.

German gunfire rained down from the cliffs above, shells exploded in the water, and the roar of battle drowned out everything else.

Frank’s heart pounded as he stared into the eyes of the soldiers behind him.

Some were whispering prayers, others trembling, some completely silent.

None of them knew what waited the moment the ramp dropped.

But Frank did.He had seen death already on the journey in.

He knew the beach was a kill zone.

When the order came, he pulled the lever and lowered the ramp.

In an instant, the boat became a death trap.

Bullets tore through the front line of soldiers, cutting many down before they could even set foot on sand.

Frank later described how he kept his eyes down, not daring to look as man after man fell.

The screams, the splashes, the sudden silences—those sounds would echo in his mind for decades.

Frank did this not once, but repeatedly.

After dropping the first wave of troops, his boat circled back through the gunfire to bring in more.

Over and over, he lowered that ramp, watching brave young men rush out into one of the most brutal battles in history.

He didn’t carry a gun.

He didn’t shoot back.

But he stood there, each time, doing what had to be done.

That was his job.

That was his duty.

It wasn’t until years later that Frank DeVita would speak openly about what he experienced that day.

For a long time, like many veterans, he kept it all inside.

He didn’t consider himself a hero—just someone who did his job.

But as time passed and the number of living D-Day veterans dwindled, Frank realized that sharing his story was no longer just a personal choice—it was a responsibility.

He began giving interviews, speaking at schools, and appearing in documentaries.

Each time, he shared with honesty and emotion the horror of that morning and the bravery of those he watched go forward.

His words carried the weight of truth.

He didn’t glorify war.

He didn’t pretend it was easy.

He spoke about vomiting from fear, about the unbearable guilt of watching friends die, about the numbness that came after each trip back to the beach.

In one especially moving account, Frank recalled how he couldn’t sleep for years without hearing the sound of bullets ricocheting off the metal ramp or seeing the faces of men who never made it past the waterline.

Yet he returned to Normandy many times later in life—not to relive the trauma, but to honor those who never came home.

Standing on Omaha Beach decades later, surrounded by the peace he helped secure, Frank often broke down in tears.

“I did my job,” he would say, “but the real heroes are the ones who didn’t get to leave.

Frank DeVita’s story is not one of glamor or cinematic triumph.

It’s a story of quiet courage, of doing the unthinkable because someone had to.

It’s about a teenager who stood firm under fire, not for glory, but because others were counting on him.

His life reminds us that history isn’t made only by generals and grand speeches, but by the small, unseen actions of people like Frank—whose hands shook as they lowered a ramp, knowing it would lead others into hell.

Frank passed away in 2022, just shy of his 97th birthday.

But his voice, his memory, and his story live on in every soldier who walks in his footsteps, in every person who visits Omaha Beach and feels the weight of what happened there.

He didn’t need medals or titles.

For those who understand the true cost of freedom, Frank DeVita was—and always will be—a hero.