Richard Rung, D-Day veteran who taught at Wheaton College, dies at 100
Richard Rung was a 19-year-old sailor on a Navy vessel approaching the shores of Omaha Beach in Nazi-occupied France just after dawn on June 6, 1944.
Rung was one of 160,000 Allied troops landing in Normandy that day, which marked a turning point in World War II and paved the way for Europe's liberation. As part of the 80th anniversary of D-Day, Rung returned to Omaha Beach last year to receive the French Legion of Honor from France's president, Emmanuel Macron, and reflected on the horrors of war.
'D-Day was terrible,' Rung told the Tribune. 'You can't even describe it. Everywhere, there were guys floating in the water. There were guys trying to get on the beach before they were hit. It was a terrible experience.'
After surviving D-Day, Run served in the Pacific Theater and took part in Allies' occupation of Japan. Back home, he became a popular history and political science professor at Wheaton College for 27 years.
Rung, 100, died of natural causes on May 23 at the Covenant Living at Windsor Park retirement community in Carol Stream, where he had lived for the past 20 years, said his son-in-law, Carl Pickard. He previously lived in Wheaton.
Born and raised in Buffalo, NY, Rung was drafted a month after his high school graduation and received training as a diesel engine mechanic at the U.S. Naval Institute in Richmond, Va. He was assigned to work as a motor machinist mechanic on a landing craft carrying supplies, ammunition and troops.
Codenamed Operation Overlord, the liberation of Western Europe was launched with the Normandy landings. Rung considered himself very fortunate to have survived the bloody invasion.
'Why did I live through this and I saw all these other guys that didn't get through?' Rung asked in last year's Tribune interview. 'I always asked the question, 'Why did it happen to them and not me?' I've never forgotten what happened there.'
The Allies secured the beaches and then Normandy before capturing the rest of France and invading Germany. Rung remained in Normandy for about five months as he and fellow troops captured a large deep water harbor at Cherbourg, France, and solidified Allied control of Western Europe.
Rung returned to Buffalo for a month in late 1944, and then his landing craft shipped out for the Pacific Theater by way of the Panama Canal. He served in Okinawa, Japan and also in the Philippines before being honorably discharged in March 1946.
Again back in Buffalo, he worked for a natural gas company, laying gas pipelines, then attended Gordon College in Massachusetts, receiving a bachelor's degree in 1953 and played on the baseball team. Rung then picked up a master's degree in history from Boston University and taught social sciences and served as dean of students at King's College in Briarcliff Manor, N.Y.
In 1963, Wheaton College President Hudson Armerding recruited Rung to join the college's faculty as a history professor. Rung later moved into the college's political science department.
Rung often took students on summer tours to Europe, and in 1977, he brought a group behind the Iron Curtain to Russia.
'He was a great professor, and a great guy to learn from. And he didn't toot his own horn,' saidBill Seitz, a former student advisee of Rung's who kept in touch with Rung after college. 'What I admired most was his service.'
About 30 years ago, Seitz cofounded Cornerstone Academy, an alternative high school now located in Oak Park, and Seitz taught there as well. He recalled Rung speaking to his students.
'He came to my class and talked, and the students…didn't want to leave,' Seitz said. 'He was telling the stories of Omaha Beach.'
After retiring from Wheaton College in 1990, Rung traveled and went on short missions trips, his son-in-law said. He taught English to students in China, volunteered for several local charities and taught Sunday school at area churches.
At age 84, Rung took up painting, and he went on to create more than 50 pieces, most of early Americana scenes and historical ships, Pickard said.
'He was just a wonderful human being, with an impish sense of humor,' said Russ Bishop, 93, a longtime friend and retired Gordon College professor.
Rung visited Normandy four times after World War II. On his first return upon the 50th anniversary of D-Day, in 1994, he refused to walk in the sand, fearing leftover mines of the sort that had killed and injured many of his fellow
'I wasn't going on the beach,' he told the Tribune last year. 'I said to myself, 'I wonder if they missed one mine.''
Last year, French President Emmanuel Macron presented Rung with the French Legion of Honor award at the commemoration of the 80th anniversary of D-Day.
'For me, it's not 80 years ago,' Rung told the Tribune. 'Periodically it (feels like) yesterday.'
Ralph Peeters, a Netherlands-based caregiver with the Best Defense Foundation, took Rung to Normandy for visits in the last several years.
'He was such an easygoing person,' Peeters said. 'He was always respectful to the people around him. My most beautiful memory with him was standing with him being honored with the Legion of Honor at the official France ceremony for the 80th anniversary (of) D-Day. Seeing him get this honor from Macron was very emotional for me but also for him.'
On Memorial Day 2024, Rung spoke about D-Day and his service in World War II during a ceremony in Winfield.
'Death and destruction were all around me. War is hell. It truly is,' he said, according to a Tribune article last year. 'Take that from someone who was there….Let us strive to be peacemakers and, to the degree possible, to live in peace with our fellow man.'
Rung's wife of 76 years, Dorothy, died in March at 98. Rung also is survived by his daughter, Judy Pickard; a son, Richard; five grandchildren; and six great-grandchildren.
A visitation is set for 2 p.m. until 3 p.m. on Friday, June 6, followed by a 3 p.m. memorial service at Immanuel Presbyterian Church, 29W260 Batavia Road in Warrenville.
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