Three N.C. D-Day Veterans Return to Normandy After 75 Years By Mike Bazinet Mark Hager, a US Army veteran, historian, teacher, and award-winning filmmaker, will present the documentary The Last Gathering: 75th Anniversary of D-Day on April 17 at 7 p.m. at the Co-Ed Theater, 79 West Main St. Brevard. Following the screening, Hager will talk about the film and his book, The Last of the 357th Infantry: Harold Frank’s WWII Story of Faith and Courage. The film details the stories of three courageous North Carolina Normandy Campaign veterans and their return to Normandy, France, for the 2019 gathering to commemorate the largest amphibious invasion in history while the book covers the inspiring story of one of those veterans. The April 17 event is the western North Carolina premiere of the 50-minute documentary. Hager, who is also president of the Forks of the Yadkin and Davie County History Museum in Mocksville, N.C., has spoken widely about his book on Harold Frank. He chronicled Frank’s story from his boyhood years growing up during the Great Depression on a North Carolina farm, through his training and landing with his battalion on Utah Beach as a Browning Automatic rifleman through his fighting in the hedgerow country of the Contentin Peninsula. There, in a nine-hour firefight, Frank was wounded and captured by German forces. In the film, the audience is also introduced to Kenneth “Rock” Merritt, who won the Silver Star as an 82nd Airborne paratrooper, and James Deal, who fought with the... Read More