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NORMANDY REVISITED :
An Excellent European Battlefield Adventure
I
alumni on Gettysburg battlefield
tours for years, and took a Lycoming
alumni group to Normandy in June
of 2012. They christened the trip
“Bob and Mike’s Excellent European
Battlefield Adventure.” They were
gearing up to do D-Day all over
again in 2014.
There was only one catch.
Security for all the visiting heads
of state at the 70
th
anniversary of
D-Day was going to be a lot tighter
than it had been in 2012. The entire
region would be peppered with
checkpoints and crawling with
Gendarmes. The bus needed a
special visitor sticker and you had
to show copies of contracts with
local restaurants to get down to
the beaches. That’s when Bob and
Mike decided to invite a bilingual
barrister to accompany the group
to talk our way through the
checkpoints and help ensure mission
accomplishment. The mission
Europe to research German military
history. We visited WWII sites in
Normandy together for the first time
in 1989. Drawing on Bob’s knowledge
of military tactics and operations and
the French language skills I developed
in the Sorbonne’s Cours de Civilisation
Française, we explored every nook and
cranny of the beaches where American
forces began their assault on Hitler’s
Atlantic Wall. It was the start of
something big.
My wife and I returned to Lycoming
this spring to watch Bob serve as
Marshal of the College for the last time
at the Class of 2014 commencement, and
to congratulate him on his retirement
after 45 years of dedicated service to the
college. It was great to see him and other
professors who had such a profound
impact on us. Bob was excited about
his upcoming trip to Normandy for the
70
th
anniversary of D-Day. He and Mike
Ellicott, a retired U.S. Army Colonel,
had been leading Lycoming students and
by Stephen W. Smith ‘77
t seems like only yesterday
that I returned to Lycoming
to complete my senior
year after spending the
summer of 1976 studying
in England. That summer
changed my life. While everyone
was busy celebrating the American
Bicentennial, I discovered there
was much more to history than
“American Studies.” I spent the
next two semesters taking Dr.
Robert H. Larson’s spellbinding
Modern European History survey
and related history courses. There
is truth to the adage, “the rest is
history…”
Bob Larson was much more than
a gifted history professor. He was
a venerated mentor and friend to
generations of Lycoming students.
He and I remained in close contact
after I graduated, and we toured
many a battlefield over the ensuing
years during his summer visits to
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LYCOMING COLLEGE 2014 FALL MAGAZINE
F E AT U R E S