“SOLDIER,” General Omar Bradley asked Army carpenter Gayle Eyler in May 1944. “Where are you from?”
“Omaha, sir.”
Private Eyler was not the only Dutch American in Omaha, Nebraska, not remotely. Among many others, Dorothy Pannebakker was living there with her son Marlon Brando, both originally from Utrecht, and Henry Fonda with his daughter Jane, Friesland descendants. The Eylers themselves hailed from Surhuisterveen, Achtkarspelen.
Private Eyler traveled with the general from front to front. He carpentered bedrooms for Bradley, and often a wooden toilet. Omar Bradley, General Eisenhower’s right-hand man, had just been given a new dog, and it needed a name. Omaha, the soldier said. So the general named his fox terrier Omaha, which from there became the codename for D-Day’s landing site.
Carpenter Eyler from Friesland landed on the beach himself and saw the horrors. He survived the invasion, came home in one piece, became head of construction and housing in Omaha, and never spoke another word about the war.
After his death in 2003, his children found his diary entries.
