WAR STORIES D-DAY’S MOST VALUABLE PLAYER
In the early morning hours of June 6, 1944, U.S. Army Technician 5th Grade John Joseph “Joe” Pinder Jr. rode on a rough sea toward the Normandy coast in a landing craft, trying to keep his footing on the slippery metal deck. It was a strange place for the dark-haired Pennsylvanian to spend his 32nd birthday, but Pinder’s life had already taken plenty of turns. Just a few years earlier he’d been a minor-league baseball pitcher with a decent fastball and a deft curve, plying his trade in small-town ballparks in Florida and Alabama and Georgia in hopes of earning a shot at the majors. Now, he was headed for the place code-named Omaha Beach, where he and thousands of other American soldiers were about to descend into a cold, wet, man-made hell of buried mines, barbed wire, spike-studded barriers, and machine-gun fire.
Pinder had other things on his mind as well. Back in Greenville, Alabama, where he’d pitched, his fiancée, Ruby, was waiting for him. And in his wallet he carried a photograph of his younger brother, Harold. On January 29, 1944, Hal had been shot down as he flew a B-24 over Belgium, and he was listed as missing in action. Pinder had written to his parents that he remained hopeful that Hal was still alive, even if he was languishing in
