O.C. Observance Evokes Memories for Veterans : Remembrance: Small gathering at Nixon library relives the momentous day in which the soldiers of democracy prevailed over the forces of totalitarianism.

Thomas McLaughlin, an 82-year-old Brit who fought in Normandy, found Monday’s observance of the 50th anniversary of D-day at the Richard Nixon Library & Birthplace a rare chance to say hello and shake hands with a few Yanks.

“Fifty years ago,” he told former Sgt. Norbert G. Blaskowski, “I was a private in the British army. It was the 2nd Battalion. I remember crossing (the English Channel) in a large ship loaded with army vehicles.”

Blaskowski, now 73 and living in Lake Forest, was in the 26th Field Artillery Battalion, one of thousands of American soldiers who stormed Utah and Omaha beaches. Canadian and British soldiers such as McLaughlin landed on beaches code-named Juno, Sword and Gold.

Though Orange County’s official observance of the 50th anniversary of the Allied invasion of Normandy attracted only 60 people to the Nixon library Monday, it was filled with emotion by the handful of World War II veterans who attended.

The keynote speaker, Leland Bellot, a history professor at Cal State Fullerton, began by thanking the El Toro Memorial Park program committee, which sponsored Monday’s event, for giving him an opportunity to repay an old debt.

Bellot recalled growing up in a Texas refinery town on the Gulf Coast. His father, Bellot said, “worked to produce the high-octane gasoline needed in the war.”

But for Bellot, it was a time of watching the men in his neighborhood leave for the war, “some never coming back. . . . These were my heroes.”

Those early experiences spawned an intense interest in the Battle of Normandy, Bellot said.

“The significance of D-day,” he said, “was that it was an end to a period of European supremacy. Normandy saw the United States as the dominant power of Europe and the world. Today, more certainly than ever, we can recognize that D-day symbolizes the victory of democracy over totalitarianism.”

To the Nazis, the Allied troops were “soft, undisciplined individualists,” surely unworthy to crush the Third Reich, he said.

“The Allied commanders admitted that they could not save the day,” Bellot said. “So it came down to a small number of men huddled at Omaha Beach--many who lost their company commanders. They took charge and pushed forward at their own initiative . . . these extraordinary ordinary men, soft, undisciplined individualists went forward and saved a continent.”

The El Toro Memorial Park committee’s goal, said chairwoman Judy Deeter of Mission Viejo, is to provide programs throughout the year with a theme of honoring World War II veterans and their families.

“We honor all veterans but are specifically honoring World War II veterans,” Deeter said. Events, which started in 1991, will be scheduled through Veterans Day of 1995.

McLaughlin’s daughter, Maureen Bunnell of Fullerton, said her father was visiting Orange County from Australia, where he now lives, when she noticed a newspaper item on Monday’s event. “It sounded like a great opportunity for him,” she said.

Another veteran on vacation happened on the event as he and his wife were touring the library.

“We just drove over on vacation from Arizona,” Louise Ballard said, “and we wanted to visit the Nixon library. I saw this flyer outside and I said, ‘Bruce, you were at Normandy. Let’s go inside and see.’ So here we are!”

Bruce Ballard, 70, said he was part of a demolition team in an engineers’ combat group that attacked Utah Beach.

“I used to think I wanted to go back to Normandy and go through the whole bit, you know, see everything I saw there earlier,” Ballard said. “But it’s all pretty emotional. I just can’t do it.”