BATAVIA, N.Y. – Local World War II veterans were honored on Thursday, eighty years after the invasion of Normandy. The service was held at the New York State Veterans Home in Batavia.

Thomas Fennie enlisted in the Navy in May of 1943. He was assigned to the USS Corry.

“The USS Corry, less than one mile from the Normandy shore in roughly 30 feet of water was one of five frontline destroyers that bombarded Utah beach in support of the invading troops on D-Day,” explains Deacon Arthur Sullivan, the Chaplin at the Veterans Home. “During the invasion, the USS Corry struck a mine, midship and began to sink.”

The ship was sunk but Fennie survived and kept fighting. For decades, he kept a map of the region with handwritten notes of what ships he was on and for what battles. He currently lives at the Veterans home and was presented with a certificate and coin for his service on Thursday.

Also honored was Corporal Wesley Reynolds who was a gunner in the Army artillery.

“After going through part of France, we were transferred over, worked over through Belgium,” he tells News10NBC, “We went up through where they had the Battle of the Bulge to make sure there was no more fighting in there and then we turned toward Germany and we went through Luxembourg city and country and entered Germany.”

All these decades later, Cpl. Reynolds remembers those who didn’t make it home.

“I was lucky I didn’t get hit, I had companions that didn’t survive,” he recalls.

Seaman First Class Frank Mosco was just a kid when he enlisted.

“I was 17 years old, I chose to enlist in the Navy because I didn’t want the Army,” he said with a smile.

Mosco worked on a landing craft support vessel toward the end of the war.

“It doesn’t seem that long past, 80 years, that’s a long time,” he says.