Hometown: Providence, RI
Branch: U.S. Coast Guard
Unit: USS LCI(L)-94
Military Honors: Purple Heart
Date of Sacrifice: June 6, 1944 - KIA at Omaha Beach, Normandy, France
Age: 21
Conflict: World War II, 1939-1945

Fletcher “Fletch” Burton Jr., his parents, and his three older sisters lived in a wealthy section of East Providence, Rhode Island—in a large home with eight bedrooms, ten baths, a nanny, a maid, and a cook.

The elder Fletcher Payne Burton was a prominent businessman and president of the Curran & Burton Company. A merchandising firm, Curran & Burton moved coal by rail from the Pocahontas Mine in southwest Virginia to the seaport town of Norfolk, Virginia. The top-quality, smokeless coal was highly valued by the United States Navy.

Fletcher Jr. attended Moses Brown School—a Quaker school in Providence—until he was enrolled at Taft School in Watertown, Connecticut for his senior year of high school. Taft was an elite private boarding school founded by the brother of President William Howard Taft.

Fletch was a gifted athlete, competing in track & field strength events: discus, shot put, and the hammer throw. He set the New England Prep School Track Meet record in the hammer throw.

After graduating high school, Burton enrolled at the Ivy League Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire.

Following the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, the United States declared war on Imperial Japan. Three days later, Germany and Italy declared war on the United States. The country was now fully engaged in World War II (1939-1941).

Fletch Burton left Dartmouth during his sophomore year to enlist in the United States Coast Guard. According to the Dartmouth Alumni Magazine, “he was one of those lads who couldn’t wait to get into service.”

Following basic training, Burton was assigned to the USS LCI(L)-94 (Landing Craft Infantry/Large) as a seaman first class. LCIs were large, steel, flat-bottom landing craft that typically had a crew of up to 60 sailors and could carry 200 troops to hostile shores. Large targets that were difficult to maneuver during amphibious landings, crews sometimes joked that “LCI” stood for “Lousy Civilian Idea.” However, the LCIs were an essential element in successful campaigns throughout WWII.

Seaman First Class Burton was assigned to man landing craft 94’s pilot house. The vessel and crew left Norfolk (Virginia) Naval Base in 1943, crossing the Atlantic and seeing their first combat in the Mediterranean theater. Successful Allied invasions of North Africa, Sicily, and Salerno, Italy prepared the crew of LCI(L)-94 for what would be the largest amphibious invasion in history.

On June 6, 1944, SF1 Burton and the crew of the 94 crossed the English Channel as part of the early wave of Operation Overlord—the D-Day invasion of Normandy, France. According to the Eisenhower Presidential Library, “The invasion force included 7,000 ships and landing craft manned by over 195,000 naval personnel from eight allied countries.”

According to the U.S. Coast Guard, LCI(L)-94 transported “42 medically trained members of Company B, 104th Medical Battalion; 36 men of the 29th Military Police (MPs); and 101 soldiers of the 112th Combat Engineers” to the bloody shores of Omaha Beach, as part of Coast Guard Flotilla 10.

SF1 Burton was at his battle station in the pilothouse, manning the throttle. George M. Spencer described the vessel’s landing in the May-June 2019 issue of Dartmouth Alumni Magazine:

Artillery shells burst around his unwieldy vessel as it surged forward, dodging obstacles before it plowed into the sand. After its troops plunged ashore, the 94 struggled to free itself. At the same time, famed war photographer Robert Capa waded out, requesting permission to come aboard. At that moment at least one artillery shell found the landing craft. Shock from the blast killed Burton. Capa’s picture of Burton’s injured crewmates appeared in LIFE magazine.

As one of the first to perish on the shores at Omaha Beach in the D-Day invasion, Seaman First Class Fletcher P. Burton Jr.’s name is included on the “First Fallen” plaque at the Pentagon, which honors the first 30 men killed on June 6, 1944.

One of 15 Coast Guardsmen killed on D-Day, Fletch Burton was just 21 years old. Initially buried on the beach after the Allies took control, his remains were later reinterred at what is now the Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial in France, in Colleville-sur-Mer (Plot G, Row 5, Grave 18).

Sources
United States Coast Guard: The Long Blue Line: Seaman First Class Fletch Burton—he went in harm’s way so others might live free
The Maritime Executive: Profile: Fletch Burton, a Hero of the D-Day Landings
Dartmouth Alumni Magazine, May-June 2019: Behind Enemy Lines
HonorStates.org: Fletcher Payne Burton Jr
USS Landing Craft Infantry National Association: LCI Facts
United States Coast Guard: USS LCI(L)-94
United States Coast Guard: 104th Medical Battalion, 29th Division Aboard LCI(L)-94 on D-Day
Burial Site: Find a Grave