Out of 16 million Americans who served in World War II, only 119,500 remain, according to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. One of those, a well-known figure in Leelanau County and Traverse City, will be honored this month by France, the nation he helped liberate by taking part in the D-Day landing in Normandy.

One-hundred-three year-old Dick Grout will receive the French Legion of Honor for his role in the June 6, 1944 invasion and subsequent fighting across France. The Legion of Honor is the highest decoration France can bestow on those who have achieved remarkable deeds for the country. Yannick Tagand, Counsul General of France based in Chicago, will visit Traverse City to make the presentation on Jan.30 (the ceremony is private by invitation only).

It's been almost 80 years since the first wave of American soldiers braved death during the hellish June 6, 1944 D-Day landing in Normandy, France during World War II.

Across from Omaha Beach, an anxious Army 1st-Lt. Grout crouched in a landing craft and tried to sleep the night of June 4. But the landing had been delayed until the morning of June 6. Grout and his outfit, Company B of the 112th Engineer Combat Battalion, would have to wait.

“We were anxious to get going,” he recalled during a 2020 video interview. “We'd go right up to the shore and waded on to the beach...the beach was under heavy fire at that time from the Germans...particularly small arms fire. Our German friends were up on the hills firing down on the beach.”

The enemy had been entrenched atop high bluffs overlooking the beach; it was a killing field. There was no shelter, no place on the sandy beach that German guns couldn’t reach. 

The landing was chaotic and deadly. Like the infantry, the engineering units had been pushed off their initial targets and only five of the 16 combat engineer teams arrived at their assigned locations. Working under intense fire, the engineers set about their task of clearing gaps through beach obstacles. They suffered heavy casualties as German fire set off explosives.

Grout recalled later that he felt no concern for his personal safety. “I didn't think that way,” he said. “I didn't think too much about getting hit myself. I was just dedicated to keep the guys together and do the job we were there to do.”

By nightfall of June 6, the infantry, Grout and his men had fought their way to the top of the bluffs. 

After D-Day, Grout and his combat engineers had little time to rest. “Our mission was to do whatever is required to keep on moving forward...building bridges, clearing minefields,” he said. “On two occasions we were called on to physically support the infantry..”

Where did Grout's men get the materials to build a bridge? They made do with what was at hand

“One time, turns out there was a furniture factory in the area and they had a lot of wood, good-sized logs,” recalled Grout. “When we got done it was labeled The Mahogany Bridge. Later I thought 'There goes somebody's dining room table' with the tank treads chewing it up.”

At the Battle of the Bulge, Dec. 16-25, 1944, Grout and his combat engineers came under heavy mortar fire. The battle was the largest and bloodiest fought by the U.S. In World War II, with 19,000 men killed and 50,000 wounded.

Grout was among the wounded on the first day when a mortar round landed nearby, spraying his back with hot metal. “My leg and back were pretty well torn up,” he said later.

In 1945, he was in England, where he married a Scottish woman. They wed in Dumfries and later moved to Boston, where Grout worked on pension plans and annuities for a life insurance company. They later moved to Los Angeles, Orchard Lake (Mich.) and retired near Northport in Leelanau County.

Grout has been very involved in the community. He's been active in Leelanau Rotary, as the founding board chair for Northern Michigan College's International Affairs Forum, and with the Traverse City Economic Club, the Traverse Symphony Orchestra and the Suttons Bay Congregational Church.