(Tribune News Service) — Henry Langrehr, 100, a member of the 82nd Airborne Division that parachuted into France on D-Day, died on April 23, his daughter Karen Winters said.

Langrehr, a Clinton, Iowa native, jumped into Sainte-Mère-Église during the allied invasion of Normandy on June 6, 1944. He landed through the roof of a glass greenhouse, as depicted in the movie, “The Longest Day.”

After months of fighting, and being wounded twice, he eventually escaped from a Nazi prison camp after months of working as a laborer mining coal. The U.S. Army awarded him two Purple Heart and two Bronze Star medals.

In 2007, at the age of 82, by decree of the president of the French republic, Langrehr was named a knight of the Legion of Honor for his actions during World War II. The ceremony took place at the French residence in Washington, D.C. Then French President Nicolas Sarkozy presided over the ceremony.

Langrehr, who rarely talked about his service, finally chronicled his war experience in the book “Whatever It Took,” an American paratrooper’s extraordinary memoir of escape, survival and heroism in the last days of World War II.

Cremation rites will be accorded. A private ceremony will be held June 6 with burial at Clinton Memorial Cemetery. Langrehr will be interred next to his wife of 77 years, Arlene, who died Feb. 20, 2023, at age 98. The couple had four children, Dennis, Karen Winters, Kay Schneider and Dale.

In civilian life after the war, he owned and operated Henry O. Langrehr & Sons, General Contractors in Clinton.

Winters said that growing up, the children never knew about their dad’s experiences in World War II.

“He was just dad,” Winters said. “He was such an inspiration to us kids, even though we didn’t know the story back then.”

While her dad enjoyed working, Winters added, when it was time to be with the kids, work was left behind.

Fishing was the family vacation, she said.

“I remember all the fishing trips and going on the boat early in the morning with him with the fog hanging on the water,” Winters said. “It would still be almost dark, not quite dawn, and we’d be casting.

“I always ended up in the reeds and he was always to patient with me,” she said.

“Back in those days there weren’t all these fancy eating roadside places they have today,” Winters said. “Mom would always pack food and we’d stop and picnic together.

“My love of fishing came from these trips,” she said. “We have so many great memories of them and that’s the real treasure.”

Henry Langrehr is seen with Junior ROTC cadets from the Davenport Central program. The young man on far left, Corbin Blubaugh, will graduate this spring and head off to Army boot camp in June. He credits meeting Mr. Langrehr with his decision to go Infantry and Airborne.

Winters said it wasn’t until the 50th anniversary of D-Day that the family began to learn of their father’s wartime experiences.

“He thought he’d better talk about them because the kids weren’t learning it in school, and he wanted to honor his friends and comrades who lost their lives,” Winters said. “That was a big deal. He always wanted people to remember his friends and comrades who made the ultimate sacrifice for freedom.”

Just last May, Langrehr was able to return to France and visit Sainte-Mère-Église.

“He got to go back to the greenhouse on the 80th anniversary of D-Day,” Winters said. “He was able to go inside.”

Henry Langrehr stands outside the greenhouse in Sainte-Mère-Église on the 80th anniversary of D-Day. Langrehr landed through the roof of the greenhouse, as depicted in the movie, “The Longest Day.”

Langrehr also was able to look across to the church where the parachute of his friend, John Steele, had gotten caught on a pinnacle of the town’s church, leaving Steele dangling against the church’s façade.

Langrehr and Steele had been friends, Winters said. Steele survived by pretending to be dead, she added. Steele died in 1969.

Langrehr, a demolitions expert, and his unit jumped into France about 1 a.m. on D-Day. Their rally point was Chef du Pont, where troops had to either secure a bridge and hold it, or, if they were overrun, blow it up to keep German reinforcements from getting to the Normandy beachhead. They ended up holding it.

Langrehr’s unit had to fight their way to the bridge.

Like most paratroop planes that morning, theirs was off course, in this case by about five miles. His unit jumped and landed in Sainte-Mère-Église.

“It was full of Germans,” Langrehr said in an interview with the Quad-City Times in 2007. “They killed a lot of guys out of my plane.

“There was a flare or a shell or something that started a big building on fire. The French were fighting the fire, and the Germans were guarding them. The whole square was lit up by this fire, and in the process, we were pretty good targets for the Germans.

“But it was a surprise to the Germans, too,” Langrehr said. “One good thing about that is that they didn’t know how many we were or where we were, and they were afraid to come out.”

Like most of the men he jumped with, it was Langrehr’s first time in combat.

“Again, it was the hand of God that allowed me to survive,” Langrehr said. “I fought my way out and knew where the roads were that led to Chef du Pont.”

While fighting among the bocage hedgerows, he was captured and sent to a German prison camp in Czechoslovakia where he mined coal.

On Aug. 18, 2024, the Iowa National Guard presented the Silver De Fleury Medal to 99-year-old WWII veteran Henry Langrehr at the 224th Brigade Engineer Battalion armory in Davenport. The De Fleury Medal is the Army Engineer Regiment’s highest honor, recognizing those who have made a lasting impact on Army Engineering.

The mine, Langrehr said, was run by the Nazi SS, who paid no attention to the Geneva Convention’s rules of war and the treatment of prisoners of war. Anyone who refused to work was beaten. Those who attempted to escape and got caught were executed.

“When you go into a situation like that, you have to go in with the mind-set that you’re going to survive,” he said.

“You came out of that mine wringing wet and filthy.”

During the winter months, he said, “you’d walk back to camp, and it would freeze on you. Since you only had one uniform, you washed it in cold water. In the cold air, it wouldn’t dry overnight. So, the next morning, heading back to the mine, it would freeze again.”

In March 1945, Langrehr and a buddy escaped. His friend was killed as they worked their way back to Allied lines.

For two weeks, Langrehr maneuvered back to American lines without the benefit of an underground organization to help him.

“I was on my own the whole way through,” he said.

Eating meant scavenging and living off the land. Also, German soldiers carried foodstuffs in their rucksacks, he said.

“You’d have to waylay one of them and get a little food,” he said.

Like many of his generation, Langrehr came home ready to get on with living.

Winters said that her father always said it was God who got him through.

“His life scripture was Psalm 23,” she said. “He would share this passage whenever he spoke at events and shared his testimony.”

Winters said her father embodied the values of faith, family, hard work and bravery. “His was a life truly well-lived,” she said.

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