Seventy years ago today, Bill Paty was heading across the English Channel in a C-47 flying just 800 feet above the sea in the dark of night as he and thousands of other soldiers prepared to parachute behind enemy lines into Normandy, France.

The Punahou graduate knew there were a lot of the troop transports in the sky; he would find out later there were more than 900.

He did get an idea on the way over of what was being amassed for "D-Day" and Operation Overlord — the opening of the western front against Nazi Germany on June 6, 1944.

"I stood in the door of that plane, and as we crossed the channel and I looked down there in the half moonlight, I could see the invasion armada, which later was told to me to be 5,333 ships of all shapes and sizes," Paty, now 93, said. "They were moving across the English Channel, and I called my sergeant over and I said, ‘Take a look at this. You’re never in the world ever going to see anything like this again.’"

The largest amphibious invasion in history had begun.

More than 11,000 aircraft, 6,000 naval vessels and 2 million troops from 15 countries were part of the invasion force for the all-or-nothing campaign, according to the National WWII Museum. Many arrived as reinforcements after the initial landings.

It was a gamble on a worldwide scale that succeeded.

The balance of power on the continent in World War II, with Germany already weakened by Soviet offensives into Poland, "was decisively tipped into Allied favor," the U.S. Navy said.

The last battles of the European Theater were fought in late April and early May 1945.

In a recent essay, historian Douglas Brinkley called D-Day perhaps the most defining "seismic shift" of the century.

"Some might argue that certain inventions and discoveries during that great century of innovation should be deemed the most important — like Watson and Crick’s reveal of the double-helix structure of DNA or all of Einstein’s contributions," Brinkley said. "But other nominees flatten when one asks, ‘What if D-Day had failed?’"

Although D-Day became the turning point of World War II in Western Europe, there were plenty of things that went wrong for the Allies, with a final tally of more than 4,000 confirmed dead.

The first to see action on D-Day were more than 20,000 airborne troops, the largest such force ever assembled, who arrived in Normandy by glider and parachute, the National WWII Museum said.

"Overall, it was told to us, ‘We’re going to get in there, it’s going to be tough as hell, but you can do it,’ and we subscribed to that," recalled Paty, who was then a 23-year-old company commander with the 1st Battalion, 501st Parachute Regiment, part of the 101st "Screaming Eagles" Airborne Division.

Paty grew up in the Nuuanu area. After ROTC at Cornell University, he went to Fort Benning, Ga., and was accepted as a paratrooper.

His plane took off from southern England at about midnight with about 16 paratroopers onboard. On the 11/2-hour flight over the channel, and knowing the enormity of what he was about to be involved in, he remembered thinking, "I don’t want to be afraid of being afraid."

"None of us had been in combat, so how would we react when they started shooting at us?" the Honolulu resident said. "It was in the minds of all of us."

Cloud cover, fog and intense German anti-aircraft fire caused disruption of the flights and missed landing zones.

"They (the planes) were going up and down and back and forth trying to take evasive action," Paty said.

He was dropped way off course and floated to the ground six miles from his intended target, La Barquette lock.

It didn’t get any better after that. He and about a dozen other soldiers found themselves fighting a company of experienced German paratroopers.

There were moments that in retrospect provided a degree of levity.

Shortly after he hit the ground and stowed his parachute, Paty said he heard a rustling in the bushes.

The 101st Airborne soldiers had been given cricket "clickers" that they could use to signal fellow Americans.

"I went ‘click’ and there was no response, and I went ‘click, click’ and still no response," Paty said. "So I pulled out my trench knife and crouched low, and I was going to nail the bugger — and out stepped a cow. I said, ‘Welcome to D-Day.’"

In the darkness, and then as light dawned on June 6, 1944, Paty and his fellow soldiers tried to find out where they were as they periodically traded fire with the enemy.

He said he had a carbine at first but ditched that in favor of a heavier-hitting M1 Garand. A couple of his soldiers were killed, others were wounded, and Paty took a German machine pistol bullet to the groin — which he still carries.

He was captured and escaped three times. On the first two tries he was recaptured, but on the third attempt from Poland in 1945, he gained his freedom.

Paty and other prisoners were being marched out of the country toward Berlin, and at the end of the day, they were kept in a barn. He said he dug down as deep as he could into some hay.

In the morning his captors "said they were coming through with dogs and bayonets, and I stayed down and they marched out without me," he said.

He met up with some Polish citizens who secured his freedom.

For all he went through, Paty, who went on to be president of Waialua Sugar Co., chairman of the Board of Land and Natural Resources, Robinson Estate trustee and chairman of the 1978 Constitutional Convention, said he didn’t consider himself a hero.

"I didn’t in the sense that I went out and did my best but didn’t do much, let’s put it that way," he said. "Sure, I jumped out of a plane, sure I escaped, but in terms of what I wanted to do, to take young soldiers that our country produced and lead them into combat, I failed to do that. I didn’t get around to it."

Retired four-star Army Gen. David Bramlett sees a different Bill Paty.

"His story of survival — wounded, captured, escaped — whenever you hear it, it does remind us of the greatest generation," Bramlett said. "And you can’t help but be inspired by what he says."

Bramlett said Paty and D-Day have become inseparable in Hawaii’s history.

"Whenever you talk to anybody, they always say, ‘Bill Paty jumped at D-Day,’" Bramlett said.

A private reception honoring Paty is being held Friday at the Home of the Brave museum in Kakaako.

Museum owner Glen Tomlinson said the city declared June 6 "Bill Paty Day."

ENLARGE CHART