Bennett, North Carolina
Floyd Siler landed with the 320th on Utah Beach on D-Day. He would never forget it the horrors he saw that morning. “The beach was covered with dead soldiers and you were stepping over them to get to dry ground,” he said. Siler endured vicious racism during the war but growing up in North Carolina, his best friend was a white boy.
Floyd Siler in 2011
Photo: Linda Hervieux
After the war, Floyd Siler trained as a tailor under the GI Bill but found it difficult to find a job. He retrained and and spent his career working as an fire alarm specialist for the Secretary of State’s Office in Washington, D.C. until his retirement in 1982.
Photo: Courtesy of the Siler family
Floyd and Helen Gill Siler were married for 48 years. They raised four children in Washington, D.C., before moving back to High Point, North Carolina in 1991.
Photo: Courtesy of the Siler family