NEW ORLEANS (WGNO) — Sam Meyer owns a famous business in New Orleans, Meyer the Hatter. It’s more than 125 years old. And over the decades, generations of his family members have worked to keep records of each day’s sales.
The records include how many hats were sold each day, what kinds of hats, even the weather on that day, because that could have made a difference.
There are stacks of records books. Inside one of the older ones, in the upper corner of one page, Meyer’s father wrote the date, “March 17, 1943.” That’s the day Meyer left New Orleans to serve in World War II.
“We answered the call to fight for freedom,” he told WGNO News.
Meyer was an airplane armorer. He made sure the guns would fire and the bombs would drop. And while stationed in England, he knew something big was going to happen on June 6, 1944.
“About 2 in the morning, this tremendous sound of all these thousands of planes, or hundreds, however many it was.”
Meyer is 99 years old. He is among the last, if not the last, D-Day invasion veteran living in New Orleans.
He’s spending the 80th anniversary of D-Day in France. It’s his fourth trip there to revisit the historic locations tied to the invasion. And he’ll turn 100 in August.
Meyer says that the invasion was about more than ending the war. He says it was about protecting future generations of Americans.
To see our conversation with Meyer, watch the video at the top of this page.
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