Funeral For Rochester Area D-Day Veteran On Saturday

Chatfield, MN (KROC-AM News) - A Chatfield area farm boy who traveled to California with dreams of becoming a cameraman for Hollywood movies, and instead found himself filming the D-Day invasion as a member of the U.S. Army, recently passed away and will be remembered at a memorial service this weekend.

Walter Halloran was 95-years-old when he passed away on October 18, 2018. His story is like many of the young men who grew up in the depression and found themselves battling for the survival of the free world after Nazi forces swept across Europe and the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, although Walter’s is a bit unique. He enlisted after the 1941 attack on America’s Pacific fleet and because of his cinematic skills, he found himself assigned to a military unit whose mission was to create a historical record of the nation’s drive to defeat the Axis forces of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan.

Walter, who ended up serving in the Army for three decades and retired as a Colonel after seeing combat in World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War, shared much of his story during an interview on KROC-AM in 2004 on the 60th Anniversary of the D-Day invasion. It’s an incredible story told by a humble man who took great pains to avoid being labeled a hero for his many heroic actions on Omaha beach and the front lines of the battles that liberated France and eventually western Europe. He was even there when U.S. troops came upon and rescued the poor souls who somehow survived Adolph Hitler’s murderous campaign to extinguish European Jews at the Buchenwald Concentration Camp

Listen to the entire KROC-AM interview with Walter Halloran by watching the following YouTube video.

A funeral Mass for Walter Halloran will take place on November 10 at Saint Mary’s Catholic Church in Chatfield. The service begins at 11 a.m., with a visitation during the hour preceding the church service. According to his obituary, he is survived by his wife of 72-years, their four daughters, and his brother Patrick, who also left Chatfield as a young man to carve out a distinguished career in the U.S. Air Force.