My great-grandfather was at Sword Beach with the East Yorkshire Regiment, he survived the war but died before I was born so I never got the pleasure of speaking to him and listening to his stories. All I want to say is thank you to all the brave lads that risked their lives and made enormous sacrifices to preserve our freedom and protect our island. Thank you, you will never be forgotten.
Some first hand accounts here http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/05/-sp-d-day-memories-from-the-front-line and here https://witness.theguardian.com/assignment/53884eeae4b0bd8f35189225
As if someone has disliked this thread. The actual day should forever be remembered, but think some emphasis needs to be on espionage operation that went into conning the Germans to move everything over to Calais, in the build up to Overlord as well. It's fascinating reading how they achieved it. Very sad that the Normandy Veterans Association are officially disbanding after this weekend. RIP.
A war historian was being interviewed on the radio today and was asked "when the doors opened and they saw their 2 best mates infront of them get hit and killed by German bullets, what made these men keep going forward?" He didn't have an answer. Unimaginable bravery and fortitude.
Poor piss poor of them, I personally don't like all of this type of remembrance, its sort of too selective, but it is important. For anyone who is interested Operation Shingle was the Italian front version of Overlord. Thankfully Overlord (D Day) was relatively successful in terms of the low (by comparison) of lives lost. Slightly off topic, I used to have to work on this old beast of a ship, it was the same class as many that where used on the beach landings of both operations http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RFA_Empire_Gull_(L3513) I would not have liked to have gone into battle from her.
My granddad was at the D-Day landings too. Sadly passed away 6 months ago aged 90. Many people were slaughtered, told me he saw some terrible things. Enormous respect for all of those people.
What these blokes did puts things into perspective. I can moan about some daft things, which at the end of the day mean nothing. Absolutely nothing. Every man an emperor.
Interesting point Golaccio as its one area of this phenominal feat that I have read a lot about, there is a film, The Man Who Never Was, that gives a rough idea of what our intellingence services did in the run up to this invasion but the deceit of the true landing area is a whole story on its own. And because of the very nature of the operation the people involved could not be named but that is taking nothing away from the courage, heroics and sacrifice of the thousands of Allied servicemen that never came back home. Both those still with us and those that were lost wherever WW2 was fought should never be forgotten.
With the greatest respect, a huge thank you to those brave men who took part in keeping our freedom. R.I.P.
Would tigers1970 care to explain why he disliked the thread? Or is he a coward? My one of my great grandfathers was at D-Day, he was in the 7th Paras and was involved in the capturing of Pegasus Bridge. My other great grandfather was in the Eighth Army, fought across North Africa and Italy, was injured at Monte Cassino. What those men did puts things into perspective. True heroes, along with every person who fought throughout the war.
Re: My previous post there is a good article in The Telegraph on the deception that took place and of one of its main characters 'Garbo'. http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/dominicselwood/100274893/the-spy-who-saved-d-day/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter
It was my daughters 2nd birthday yesterday, so priorities first. I spent d-day anniversary traipsing around alton towers and taking the little one to see what she believed to be the homes of iggle piggle, mr tumble and mike the knight. Without people like these her second birthday would probably have been spent teaching her the internal workings of a combustion engine or the perfect aerodynamics to maximise fuel consumption for a road car expected to travel at an average speed of 45 mph. I don't think any of my immediate ancestors were involved in the 2nd world war, I think the way the generations in my family moved meant that the newer crop were nowt but whipper snappers at the time. I know my grandparents lived through it as children.
