A Hero They Never Knew
What Demers didn’t realize when he found the Purple Heart was that a particular family had spent decades searching for it. Along the way, Demers helped the remaining members of the soldier’s family honor and remember a man they knew was a hero and still grieved for. The thing is, they got to meet him.
Photo by Everett Collection / Shutterstock
The hero’s name was Royce Gibson, and he was one of the 156,000 soldiers who stormed the beaches on D-Day, June 6, 1944, in Normandy, France. It was a day as momentous as it was tragic, which essentially started the Allied liberation of Europe. Gibson died just three days later, near the town of St. Mère Eglise, during a bayonet charge.