We’ve nearly all heard the statistics about World War II veterans dying at the rate of 1,000 a day.

Fewer and fewer are left to tell their stories on this the 62nd anniversary of the D-Day landing.

Arthur W. Wolde Sr. of Harvest is one of those. He has written his account of that fateful day and succeeding months as he drove an ambulance across Europe, following Allied armies in the liberation of the continent.

“Ambulance #11” is Wolde’s 117-page self-published book about the men of the 451st Medical Collection Co., 68th Medical Regiment who drove their ambulances ashore during the assault on the Omaha beachhead in Normandy, who were present at the liberation of Paris, and who supported the Allied forces in the Battle of the Bulge and in the penetration and collapse of Nazi Germany.

Many, including Wolde, went to war believing that the red cross symbol on the side of a vehicle protected him from enemy fire, according to Article 35 of the Geneva Convention. But Wolde experienced many close scrapes because the rules of war are often forgotten in the heat of battle.

Wolde, a retired mail carrier, was born in 1917 in Astoria, Long Island City, New York. He was inducted into the Army on July 8, 1941, and stationed at Camp Forrest in Tullahoma, Tenn.

“You know how young soldiers like to roam around,” said Wolde. “Well, I came down to Huntsville and met a pretty teenager, Gladys Johnson. Three months later on May 15, 1943, we were married. She was 19—almost 20—and I was 26.”

Wolde shipped out and landed in Goring, England, in December 1943. He and nine of his buddies in the Medical Regiment were assigned ambulances in Bristol, England.

“On Saturday, Feb. 23, (Herman “Bud”) Yehle and I drew a pass to London, and that night we experienced a large air raid on the city,” writes Wolde. “Yehle and I saw ack-ack bursting and tracers shooting up into the sky…Being soldiers, we were not allowed to go into the air-raid shelters and take up a space where a civilian could stay…We got under a porch…to protect us from falling flak. Almost immediately, it began to fall upon the street where we had been a few seconds ago. It sounded like golf ball-sized hailstones hitting the streets.”

Wolde said there were rumors of something big in the works and then after bivouacking at Portsmouth, the men in his regiment received a letter from “Ike.”

“Just before we left this bivouac area, we received a letter from General Eisenhower notifying us that we were about to embark upon a great crusade and that the eyes of the world would be upon us,” said Wolde. “In spite of knowing that danger awaited us, we couldn’t help having a feeling of pride.”

After waterproofing their ambulances with asbestos, the drivers boarded a liberty ship, the S.S. James Woodworth, at Portsmouth and on June 3, maneuvered into position as part of the invasion fleet. And then came the morning of June 6:

“Suddenly from behind us came the roar of an enormous armada of planes, and as they passed overhead, we could see the silhouettes of c-47s against the sky,” writes Wolde. “Each plane was towing a glider, and each glider was filled with a number of troops. An entire airborne division was on its way and would soon be landing in France.”

At mid-morning the call went out for ambulances.

“A smaller boat pulled alongside us, and the litter bearers and station platoons of our company went over the side of the ship and climbed down on rope ladders to the smaller vessel. It was impossible for our ambulances to be landed yet, as the water was still rough, only those ambulances that were on the LSTs were ashore,” Wolde writes. “We saw burned-out American tanks, wrecked jeeps, boats other than the LSTs we saw grounded on the beach turned upside down…Our men were picking up bodies of Americans, who were almost covered with sand carried in by the rough waves. These men had been cut down by machine-gun fire as they left the LSTs and stormed ashore.”

On June 12, the ambulances were lifted out of the ship’s hold by cranes lowered to a box pontoon barge. Because of high tide, they remained on the barge for another day. On June 13, the drivers drove through 4 1/2 foot-deep water to the beach. They made their camp in an apple orchard 60 miles southeast of Cherbourg, which had become a makeshift cemetery.

“French men and women were kneeling and praying for the dead Americans,” he said.

The Medical Regiment followed the First Army into the hedgerow country and across France and Germany. Many nights Wolde slept in his ambulance. Unfamiliar with the terrain, Wolde at the wheel of No. 11, made a wrong turn and accidentally pulled up behind a column of German tanks.

“One of the men in the back of our ambulance was a colonel; he told us to remain still, so we sat there almost breathless…If I could get turned round back toward the paved road, I was going to step on the accelerator and drive fast enough to create a dust screen, then rush back to the task force and report it. We waited, and finally, to our relief, the tanks began to move forward again. As they disappeared over a hill, I eased No. 11 backward until were again on the paved road.”

A German Panzer division lodged a counterattack attempting to cut through the First and Third armies. Wolde and his fellow ambulance drivers got caught in the crossfire of 88 mm shells. They took shelter in slit trenches, but Wolde said No. 11 received just one small shrapnel hold in the rear left fender.

The close calls continued, including nearly being hit by a bomb while crossing the Rhine River at Remagen, crossing a bridge seconds before that section weakened by shelling and vibration crumbled off into the Rhine, a surprise attack by a German tanks, and the medical truck ahead of them getting blown up by a landmine.

When at last, the Medical Regiment got the word that they were going home after VE day, they drove their ambulances to Allendorf, Germany to park them in the motor pool.

“We knew now that we were on the way home, and moments began to seem like hours, hours like days, and days like months during the week we spent there.”

Upon arriving home in Medford, N.J., Wolde told the cab driver to drop him off out of sight of his house.

“I got out of the cab, threw my duffle bag on my shoulder, rounded the street corner and came in view of the house. I had just walked a few steps when out of the house and up the road came my wife; then, following her, came my sister, dad and mom. I dropped my bag, caught my wife in my arms, kissed her then hugged my mother, dad and sister. On the side of the house, they had hung a large sing, Welcome Home! Yes, I was home at last.”

Wolde returned to Omaha Beach with his son, Terry, on Dec. 1-2, 2005.

He showed his son where he had driven his ambulance ashore and they visited the apple orchard before following the routes of the armies to Paris.