D-Day the real one, 75 years ago this week. I was lucky enough to be in Normandy for the 50 year anniversary it's a place that's well worth a visit. On topic just started reading the book D-Day by Stephen E Ambrose. A small quote from the prologue None of them wanted to be part another war. They wanted to be throwing baseballs , not hand grenades, shooting .22s at rabbits not M-1s at other young men. But when the test came, when freedom had to be fought for or abandoned, they fought. They were the soldiers of democracy. They were the men of D-Day, and to them we owe our freedom.
Yes the author is American, I have only read the prologue so it's too early to call. Just read elsewhere that this evening Guy Martin has a program about the paratroopers and Jeremy Clarkson has a program about the Arctic convoys both at 9.00PM somewhere on the telly.
Read a good article at weekend giving a few facts and figures about D-Day which would come as a shock to the generation brought up on Saving Private Ryan and Band .of Brothers who think the only invasion beach was Omaha Beach and the Yanks invaded Europe on their own. Would liked to have uploaded but don’t know how.
My earliest memory as a near 3 year old was being taken to my bedroom window during the night by my mum to watch a huge convoy of US troops in lorries and jeeps passing my home in Millom. Apparently after being based in Scotland they were on their way to south coast staging points prior to D Day. Mum later told me that one of my American uncles was an army engineer on Eisenhower's staff helping with invasion planning and subsequently was in engineering charge of the Rhine crossing. Was later awarded the French Croiz de Guerre. Neither myself or my mum ever met him.
Forget the Hollywood films and who did what but please remember all the young men from every nation who died. Also the ones that suffered dreadful injuries that they had that were with them all of their lives. My own grandad suffered so badly with his lungs that that were damaged in the war. We owe them such a great deal and they gave everything.
If its the book I once read he covers It all very well with a focus on the Peagasus Bridge operation.
My mum and dad were in the war. Still got my mother’s invitation to Buckingham Palace and the letter she got from Churchill when she was awarded a medal for her work on an anti aircraft battery defending the Spitfire factory near Southampton. The old man was at Anzio where it was the Royal Navy involved, not that the Hollywood films ever show that. Or the fact they had to get Polish regiments and a reassembled British one to help break out and capture Monte Cassino. My dad didn’t have a high opinion of the ability of many of the US forces.
The thing is, there were so many incidents/engagements that happened during the war on so many fronts/in so many countries, that it's impossible not to narrow down the spectrum in any given movie made of the war. Plus the natural tendency for the makers to focus on their own countries involvement. There were so many brave heroes from so many nations during the conflict. On all sides. My dad was one of the millions of heroes. Radio operator on Merch Navy convoys, torpedoed & sunk in the Indian Ocean. Survived. Many a close call on the Transatlantic convoys between the U.S. and Russia. He never talked about any of it.
My old man was torpedoed and sunk in the Med. He was a very good swimmer which was fortunate as he dived into the sea with sea boots on and spent over 24 hours treading water hanging on to a raft to make room for some others who couldn’t swim. He always said he thanked his lucky stars he wasn’t on Russian runs, being sunk was virtually a death sentence if you ended up in the water. He had greater admiration for the blokes in the Merchant navy as they were there through choice.
Incredible stories of real life heroes so close to us all. Can’t believe what they must of been through. No wonder unite a lot of our relatives never talked at all about what they had seen and done. I have great admiration for them all. A war cemetery in France is an incredible experience and they are always immaculate. The scale of loss is hard to fathom. It always hurts me deeply when our surviving servicemen get old and fall victim to robbery and violence by some young punk who was not fit to lick their boots.
Of course, most on here know this, but the focus shouldn't just be on those on the beaches, there were many airborne involved before the beach assault even began. Obviously most focus in the media is on the 101st and 82nd Airborne, but there were also many on the other beaches too - in particular, for me at least, was those from the 7th Battalion who landed at Pegasus Bridge, as my great-grandfather was amongst those first who landed on that night.
Great pic - British paratroopers sit across from their younger selves in the same plane that dropped them over Normandy... please log in to view this image
Don’t know why the focus should be on them. Extract from an article by Janes Holland an historian often on the history channel. As I said previously a generation brought up on Saving Private Ryan, Band Of Brothers have the impression the Americans more or less did it single handed. “For many people, D-Day is defined by the bloodshed at Omaha -- the codename for one of the five beaches where Allied forces landed -- and the American airborne drops. Even in Germany, the perception is still that D-Day was a largely American show; in a German TV mini-series shown in recent years, "Generation War," there was a reference to the "American landings" in France. please log in to view this image D-Day Fast Facts But despite "Band of Brothers," despite "Saving Private Ryan," despite those 11 photographs taken by Robert Capa in the swell on that morning of June 6 1944, D-Day was not a predominantly American effort. Rather, it was an Allied effort with, if anything, Britain taking the lead. Yes, Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, the supreme Allied commander, was American, but his deputy, Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Tedder was British, as were all three service chiefs. Air Marshal Sir Arthur "Mary" Coningham, commander of the tactical air forces, was also British. The plan for Operation Overlord -- as D-Day was codenamed -- was largely that of Gen. Bernard Montgomery, the land force commander. The Royal Navy had overall responsibility for Operation Neptune, the naval plan. Of the 1,213 warships involved, 200 were American and 892 were British; of the 4,126 landing craft involved, 805 were American and 3,261 were British. please log in to view this image When World War II brought women to battlefield Indeed, 31% of all U.S. supplies used during D-Day came directly from Britain, while two-thirds of the 12,000 aircraft involved were also British, as were two-thirds of those that landed in occupied France. Despite the initial slaughter at Omaha, casualties across the American and British beaches were much the same. This is not to belittle the U.S. effort but rather to add context and a wider, 360-degree view. History needs to teach as well as entertain.”
This is worth a look at for the historical vehicles gathering in Normandy. https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/d-day-75th-anniversary.289370/
