The name of this waterlogged soldier on Omaha Beach in Normandy has only been known to a select few. PaPostNews + WITF tell the story of Private First Class Nicholas Russin:
To the photographers who captured the moment, it was “an act of heroism performed that we shall always remember.”Tim has served as multimedia news director at public radio station WITF in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, since 2011, where he has helped oversee an expansion of the department to six full-time journalists. He will also be one of the Editors for PA Post. Lambert is originally from Aliquippa, Pennsylvania and has worked in journalism for 25 years.
The photo of his rescue has come to symbolize the many elements of the invasion — fate, death, destruction, chaos, heroism, tragedy and perseverance. It’s one of the most iconic images from Omaha. It has been published in countless history books, special anniversary publications, documentaries, and even on a commemorative pistol.
At one of the most critical moments in world history, he cheated death, not once, not twice, but three times.As he prepared to climb down the slippery rope from the ship into the swaying LVCP below, it may have crossed Private First Class Nicholas Russin’s mind just how far away he was from his home in Lyndora, Pa. Years earlier, he had to work odd jobs in Butler County just to feed his family, and pick up pieces of coal that tumbled off railroad cars to keep his home warm.
Russin joined the armed services in March 1943 with his best friend from Lyndora, John Furka. Nick, who at 30 was older than the average soldier, picked the Army, while Furka signed up with the Navy.John Furka, left, poses for a photo with his mother and one of his brothers. Climbing into the landing craft on June 7, the private first class knew he would be going to a place where people were trying to kill him. His mind may have eased a bit when he ran into a familiar face: John Furka, now a Navy 2nd Class Signalman. Here stood two of the more than 400 men from Lyndora who served in the war.
He pushed off the seafloor and re-surfaced, gasping for air. Furka grabbed a gaff hook and managed to catch Russin’s shoulder strap on his backpack. Straining, he dragged him back to the craft. The private’s best friend had saved his life. But by early afternoon, the Allies had pushed the Germans off the cliffs and out of their heavily fortified, concrete emplacements and machine gun nests just enough to secure a tenuous foothold. The success came at a great cost. The number of killed, wounded or missing is estimated at 3,500.In this photo provided by the U.S. Coast Guard, a U.S.
The young officer didn’t have time to worry about the tooth. There was nothing to be done about it now. The ramp went down and members of his unit moved off to the dune-line. Jeeps with trailers followed them onto Omaha. By nightfall, engineer units like his were assigned to “police the area” — basically help medics with the wounded and remove corpses from the water.
Sidlowski and others saw what was happening. He and a group of others decided to act. ““We swam out and took a few as we could each time and brought them back to shore. Somebody else got a long rope, which we swam out with, tied it on to the landing craft, had them hold onto the rope, and walk themselves in,” Sidlowski said. “We took as many as we could to swim in.”“The water wasn’t as deep. But, I knew I wouldn’t make it and gave up….blacked out,” he said.“One man had given up,” Sidlowski said.
Rosenblum recalls D-Day in this clip from “Walter Rosenblum: In Search of Pitt Street,” courtesy of Daedalus Productions, Inc. Slowly, as more and more American troops landed, the fate of the invasion became clearer. Previously-demoralized soldiers found ways to fight their way off Omaha and began to overtake the German defenders. Members of the 1st and 29th Divisions eventually established a small beachhead.
Dead and grievously wounded men were still on the beach, troops were landing, equipment was being unloaded, and roads were being built. They walked the stones and sand of Omaha, while occasionally under German fire, with the “plop of an 88, landing without rhyme or reason anywhere along the beach.” Noticing a big black rubber life raft….they had two men fetch it. They tossed it in the water, and swam it down to the sinking hull. All this among waves which towered five feet high. On the shore, we couldn’t understand how they had the energy to do it again, but, that’s the wonder that is man. It was quite a job. The men on the hull nowhere near had enough energy to help themselves. It was a job of treading water and lifting 170 pounds of water soaked man into a bobbing weaving life raft.
Nick Russin, right, struggles in the heavy surf while helping rescue soldiers from a wrecked landing craft.The photo from that day, credited to Louis Weintraub, became a symbol of the American fighting man’s struggles on Bloody Omaha. But the identities of some of them have only been known to a few and very rarely published.
On D-Day +1, he swam out to help rescue 24 soldiers stranded in a landing craft about 200 yards offshore. Then, he moved on to a second LCP and fastened a lifeline to the beach. A strong current forced him to swim in a direction to the side of the crafts, just so he could let the current pull him sideways to reach a third stranded craft.
The next frames show him being pulled from the water by one of the soldiers who initially appeared at the rear of the raft. Russin is either struggling to breathe or muttering something to the men holding him up. He appears ready to vomit as the film cuts out. While watching medics care for badly wounded men, Russin felt his wounds were minor enough to take care of on his own. Not wanting to distract any medics from the more seriously injured men, he asked for some sulfa drugs to apply to his own wounds.
His bedraggled face captured in the photo would show up on magazine covers, in books and on history programs through the years. But very few people knew it was him. His daughter, Mary Ann, said that as her dad aged, he would watch television every D-Day, Memorial Day and Veteran’s Day and say, “Look at that, they are pulling me out of the water again!” He also would sign his name above his face anytime he came across the famed picture.
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