05/25/2026
Today, on Memorial Day, I am sharing an extensive archive I own relating to Congressional Medal of Honor recipient First Lieutenant Jimmie Watters Monteith (7/1/1917 - 6/6/1944). He was killed during the first US wave on Omaha Beach in Normandy, France, on D-Day, 6/6/1944. His heroics saved many lives that morning, and he was instrumental in the US establishing a foothold on the beach. He was one of four US service members to earn the Medal of Honor during the Normandy Beach invasion.
Jimmie was a resident of Richmond, VA, and a former VaTech student.
The archive consists of 17 personal letters from 1943 to 1944 to his mother back home in Richmond. Nearly all are handwritten, with the original mailing envelope, though a couple are V-mail microfilmed copies of original letters, which the US Army increasingly used as the war progressed for correspondence back to the USA. The last letter from Jimmie was on 5/31/1944, just a week before D-Day.
The archive also includes several family letters (one before the war) and many associated with Jimmie's death and his reception of the Medal of Honor.
Jimmie is buried in the American Cemetery, near Colleville-sur-Mer, Normandy, France.
Monteith Residence Hall on the Virginia Tech campus was named for Jimmie. (Curiously, I resided in Monteith while I was a VaTech student.)
My own father, Louis W. Subjack, also landed on Omaha Beach on D-Day, though in the second wave, less than an hour later. He was uninjured.
