A Birthday on D-Day Plus 1
….after that, nothing could rattle Dutch Vermeer
To our new subscribers: Richard Gilbert occasionally posts essays in this column. He once owned the Eagle Grove Eagle in his early 20s. He enjoyed a decades-long career in executive roles with various media companies nationwide, including as president of The Des Moines Register and Tribune. When asked which were his favorite jobs throughout his life, he mentions being Governor Bob Ray’s press secretary and running a Quad Cities television station. Richard usually pens commentary in this space under the title: Sh*t Richard Says. He didn’t think that was appropriate in this solemn remembrance of his friend and colleague, Dutch Vermeer. But we hope Sh*t Richard Says returns soon, Julie (Richard’s wife).
By: Richard Gilbert
At the stroke of midnight, June 7, 1944, the day after D-Day, Elmer (Dutch) Vermeer of Pella observed his 24th birthday.
At that moment, Dutch, a captain of a company of the elite Army Rangers, had already landed on Normandy’s Omaha Beach and was surrounded by exploding artillery, machine gun, and mortar fire, all making it a very good chance he’d never live one more day, let alone long enough ever to see another birthday.
But as it turned out, every D-Day observance for the next 44 years was a celebration of life for Dutch and a remembrance of friends in his company who lost their lives as they assaulted a well-entrenched enemy at a place called Pointe du Hoc.
Dutch Vermeer was my friend and valued colleague as we worked together on the staff of Governor Robert D. Ray, I as Ray’s press secretary, and Dutch as the head of legislative affairs.
LITTLE HOOK ON SUIT COAT LABEL
He sometimes wore a little silver grappling hook in his suit coat label, a memento of the hooks fired up the cliffs near Omaha Beach to secure lines for the Rangers to scale the rock formations some 130 feet above the beach. Their mission: silence the German guns raining death on the Allied forces below.
For his role in the Rangers’ heroics on D-Day and beyond, he was awarded the Silver Star for Valor in Combat against enemies of the United States. Like many in his generation, he enlisted right after Pearl Harbor, served as a Ranger and mustered out in 1946, married Jeanette (Jay) Lankelma, and returned to a farm near Pella. Dutch and Jay raised a family of five children. He served five terms in the Iowa House of Representatives.
Dutch was a conservative when the two parties had a relatively peaceful coexistence. He was impressed with a young Des Moines lawyer, and although Ray was more centrist than he was, he threw his political weight to Bob Ray.
After Ray’s election in 1969, Dutch joined the Ray staff as the point man for the governor’s legislative program and many of the state’s largest departments or bureaus. I never saw him flustered or lose his cool.
SLIDE SHOW IN PELLA
Vermeer was very matter-of-fact about his D-Day experiences. He attended several D-Day commemorations in Normandy. After one such visit, he showed slides of the battlefield at a gathering in his home with the Ray staff during Pella’s Tulip Festival.
A slide came on the screen, and Dutch narrated, “This is a German bunker we captured.”
Me: “Were there Germans in it?”
Dutch: “Yes. There were nine; we took eight of them prisoners.”
Me: “What happened to the ninth?”
Dutch: “He was standing right between me and another soldier; he was holding his rifle, and someone shot him right between the eyes. The bullet missed us and killed him. Never sure it was an American or German who did the shooting.”
Me: “Oh.”
Then, I knew there wasn’t much that would ever rattle him on the governor’s staff.
PRESIDENTIAL SPEECH
Dutch and many of his surviving comrades were honored by President Reagan at the 40th anniversary of D-Day and was personally congratulated by the President after his famous “Boys of Pointe Du Hoc” speech. June 6, 1984: Reagan, The Boys of Pointe Du Hoc
REGISTER ESSAY
Another friend and colleague from the Ray era, David Oman, contributed an excellent retrospective about Dutch. For the first time and with the family’s permission, he included some of Dutch’s recollections of D-Day. In it, he describes the sights, sounds, and smells of war.
“Yes, you can see the battlefield and hear the battlefield, but it’s the smell of death on the battlefield that really penetrates everything. You smell it as soon as the shells explode and the bullets fly, long before the dead bodies of your comrades start to decompose. It is a smell you’ll never forget.”— Dutch Vermeer, from a first-person account in an article submitted by David Oman to The Des Moines Register.
Here is a link to David Oman’s piece, followed by Vermeer’s first-person account of his D-Day experience.
Dutch Vermeer survived his birthday on June 7, 1944. He went on to live 45 more years, dying in 1989.
Richard Gilbert, rwgilbert@me.com
Learn more:
The dramatic story of Pointe du Hoc, the backdrop to Biden's D-Day anniversary speech
NPR: By Rachel Treisman, June 7, 2024
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Steve—Thanks for sharing John Onken’s story. As I wrote this column I hoped we’d hear from readers as you have done about the heroics of their long departed family members who sacrificed for all of us.
Two extremely touching remembrances of Dutch. He was so humble and never exuded any self importance. I was thinking of him yesterday and recalling how taken I was when I first learned of his heroics. Thanks Richard and David for your moving articles.