Sculptor's D-Day heroes to overlook Utah Beach
FAIRHOPE, Alabama (AP) -- Sculptor Stephen Spears is turning history into bronze with the first monument to the Navy's D-Day heroes at Normandy and a statue of a World War I doughboy at the site of a landmark American victory in Cantigny, France.
Artist Stephen Spears poses with his Doughboy bronze at a studio in Loveland, Colorado, Thursday.
His three bronze figures of a Navy captain and two sailors will be installed on a bluff overlooking Utah Beach to remember the naval service's role in World War II's pivotal amphibious invasion, adding a new visual element to the landscape at the historic site.
"All the monuments at Normandy are stone pillars, obelisks or plaques," said retired Navy Capt. Greg Streeter of Jacksonville, Florida, chairman of the Navy D-Day Monument Project. "What we like most about our monument is that it is composed of representations of human figures that represent the officers and enlisted men that participated in the naval aspects of the Normandy invasion."
Mike Conley, a spokesman for the American Battle Monuments Commission, which approved the Navy monument, said there are three human sculptures in the Normandy cemetery, but Spears' work will be the first with human figures on Utah Beach.
At Cantigny, France, Spears' bronze doughboy will illustrate American's vital, yet lesser-noted role in
WWI, said Benoit De Weirdt, mayor of the French city.
"We mostly know the Americans for the D-Day invasion. As far as World War I goes, (the French) know much less about it," De Weirdt said.
He hopes that will change. The Americans "were the ones who put a final endpoint to the war," he said. "Also, Cantigny is the first battle the Americans won on European soil ... It's a point of reference."
The monuments will be unveiled in separate ceremonies later this year.
Spears' "Cantigny Doughboy" bronze was commissioned by the Cantigny First Division Foundation in Wheaton, Illinois Foundation executive director Dr. Paul H. Herbert said the French government has endorsed the $111,000 monument that will be unveiled May 28.
Streeter said Spears' D-Day work will be dedicated September 27 above Utah Beach in Normandy.
Spears said he hopes the three 8-feet-tall figures -- all on a pentagonal base -- will stir emotions among viewers about the largest amphibious assault in history.
"I have a great deal of pride in doing them. I've done art all my life," said Spears, 51, the son of an Air Force colonel.
He was born in
Columbus, Ohio, but now lives in Fairhope, Alabama, an oak-shaded arts and boating enclave on the shores of Mobile Bay. He commutes to a foundry and his studio in Loveland, Colorado, to cast his bronze creations.
Spears said the Navy monument, nearing completion, will list all
United States Navy ships that participated in the D-Day invasion of Normandy on June 6, 1944. Some 1,068 sailors were killed and eight warships sunk. Hundreds of ships and thousands of men were involved in transporting Allied forces from England to Normandy.
The Navy provided shore bombardment to protect troops going ashore, conducted minesweeping and anti-submarine patrols, among other duties.
"I did all the research and making that list of vessels is part of the fun of doing these," Spears said. "In military monuments, details are very important."
The $500,000 Normandy project began in October 2004, Streeter said, when it was approved by the Naval Order of the United States and fundraising began in January 2006.
The monument will be placed on land donated by the French government next to the Utah Beach Museum on the highest prominent point that overlooks the beach and the English Channel.
"As you approach this area, it will undoubtedly be the most riveting monument to the eye as you gaze across the landscape," said Streeter, who visited Utah Beach last summer for the first time.
Streeter said fundraising for the project was a "good news, bad news" story. Navy-related corporations showed no interest, he said, but military groups and individuals donated the $500,000, with a single contributor paying for shipping the monument from Colorado to Normandy.
Organizers still face an urgent challenge of getting the word out to Normandy veterans about the monument's arrival, recognizing their numbers are rapidly declining with age more than six decades after the invasion. Tours are planned to coincide with the monument's dedication.
In Cantigny, the doughboy statue's granite base was installed on July 8. Mounting the doughboy on the pedestal in May will commemorate the 90th anniversary of the Battle of Cantigny in World War I. That battle helped stem the German spring offensives of 1918.
Sculptor's D-Day heroes to overlook Utah Beach - CNN.com