D-day reenactment test in St. Joe Michigan

ST. JOSEPH, Mich - Just like the allied forces storming the beaches of Normandy in 1944, right here in St. Joe, Michigan, they will storm the beaches of Tiscornia park.

The group, Lest We Forget, is trying to recreate the feeling and emotions of D-day, without all the danger.

Lance Hazen, the expert in charge of the pyrotechnics, feels that the explosives bring a sense of realism to the event.

“Without explosions you don’t have the dramatic effects that you would feel if you were there, so we're trying to bring all the emotion we can to this event,” said Hazen.

Fuel mines, gas mines, powdered sugar mines and some ground salutes and water salutes are being tested. 

“So, if you look at the shoot site, there are little orange boxes and this keeps me safely away from all of the effects,” said Hazen, showing his cobra firing system remote which controls all the explosives.

While Lest We Forget does memorial displays and reenactments every year in St. Joe, the last time they did a World War 2 style invasion off Tiscornia beach was more than 10 years ago.

Now, the importance of doing demonstration today is to work out any logistics so they are ready for the full D-day reenactment in June.

“We just wanted to see some different examples of what kind of bombs he can show us, so we can make a decision of what we can use next year. We're hoping to have, when the plane flies over, to have 7 or 8 bombs go off," said Larry Wozniak, veteran and president of Lest We Forget.

Veterans came out today to check out the demonstration and Lee Cherwitz, the vice president of Lest We Forget explains the importance of doing these realistic and educational reenactments.

“The freedoms that we have today were born of others. What we're trying to do is these reenactments is to show people what it was really like instead of watching a movie. Here it is real life, watching them struggle to walk up the sand,” said Cherwitz.