DALLAS (AP) – The U.S. flag flown on the stern of the boat that led the first American troops onto Utah Beach on D-Day has sold for $514,000 at auction in Texas.
Heritage Auctions spokesman Noah Fleisher says the 48-star flag from the guide boat was sold on Sunday in Dallas. Fleisher had no immediate information on the buyer.
D-Day marks June 6, 1944, the date during World War II when the Allies landed on the beaches of Normandy, France, beginning the liberation of Western Europe from the Nazis.
Heritage says the guide boat’s skipper, Lt. Howard Vander Beek of Cedar Falls, Iowa, kept the flag up until his 2014 death. The person selling the flag acquired it last year when Vander Beek’s family sold the historic item at an estate auction.
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