70 years ago today: D-Day

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Normandy landings - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Normandy landings - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia



Feel free to write your thoughts about those heros who stormed the beaches at Normandie 70 years ago today.

Wow.


A cool bit of Trivia:

General Dwight D. Eisenhower, Commander of the combined Allied Forces at the invasion, hastily wrote two letters: one praising the troops, were the invasion to be a success. The other, in handwriting, a letter to take full and sole blame for the invasion were it to fail.

I saw that letter in the Smithsonian in the summer of 1997, part of a rotating exhibition.

 

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D-Day Vets Return to Normandy for 70th Anniversary


Cool.

Most of the veterans are now in their ninth decade or older. Many say this will be their final visit to the beaches that still bear the scars of war; to the battlefields where so many of their comrades fell.

I've visited Normandie. It is an eery feeling.

 

[novasteve]

Gummipuppen!

 

[I.P.Freely]

[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDEO0OIBD8U"]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDEO0OIBD8U[/ame]

 

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List of surviving veterans of World War II - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

(Awesome list - alphabetical, nationality also included)


Surviving U.S. veterans of World War II - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In November 2012, the Department of Veterans Affairs estimated that 1,462,809 American veterans from this war were still living.

 

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And btw:

List of last surviving World War I veterans by country - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


The last WWI (yes, WWI) survivor died just two years ago.

Wow.

 

[CrusaderFrank]

It gives me chills to think of the courage and commitment of those men

Sent from smartphone using my wits and Taptalk

 

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D-Day Anniversary Marks Farewell For Greatest Generation - TIME

For the 70th anniversary of that momentous fight, hundreds of those still living who took part in the mammoth D-Day sea invasion of Nazi-occupied France are converging on the beaches of Normandy all week, to mark the largest amphibious landing of the war—indeed, of any modern war. The D-Day invasion broke the German occupation of Europe, finally liberating the horrifying Nazi concentration camps and ending the conflict that left much of Western Europe (including Normandy) in physical and economic ruin. The invasion force that week in 1944 consisted of a giant armada of about 5,000 warships, 54,000 vehicles and 300,000 soldiers, from the U.S., Britain, New Zealand and several other countries, who staggered ashore, and then fought their way through Normandy, village by village, crushing or driving back the German platoons in their path under heavy aerial bombardment, in a vicious three-month battle.

As they have every five years on June 6, world leaders will gather on Friday at Normandy’s war cemeteries to honor tens of thousands of fallen soldiers, including thousands of Germans, who lie buried along the French coastline of the English Channel. In all, about 100,000 soldiers on both sides, and about 20,000 Normandy citizens, died in the battle. Dozens of villages are marking this week with photo exhibitions, veterans’ gatherings, fireworks, and military fly-pasts, including from hundreds of U.S., British and Russian forces, who will jump from World War II-era planes on to the beaches...


...Though the cemetery scenes will closely resemble previous big D-Day anniversaries, this one will be far more poignant, for one reason: It is the last time veterans will be there in any significant number.

Dwindling fast, the comrades-in-arms of those killed are now in their late-eighties and early-nineties. For days, they have been arriving in Normandy, hobbling on canes or pushed in wheelchairs in cemeteries, their hands shakily placing flowers on the graves. Dressed in their World War II uniforms, they are acutely aware that it is likely their final visit—and in many cases, it is their only visit. While Hollywood has memorialized their courage many times, including in Tom Hanks’ hit movie Saving Private Ryan and the TV series Band of Brothers, the survivors will no longer be around to tell their stories.

D-Day veterans say they fear that as their generation fades, so too might the interest in their experience. “I know very well that for the 80th anniversary, I might not be there, and I am afraid people might forget the war, and the misery it brought,” Bernard Dargols, 94, a D-Day veteran in the U.S. Army, said while sitting in his apartment outside Paris on Saturday. “The one reason I am asked to tell my story is that there are so few of us veterans left. I didn’t read these things in books. I was there.”

 

[Statistikhengst]

It gives me chills to think of the courage and commitment of those men

Sent from smartphone using my wits and Taptalk

Me, too, [MENTION=19448]CrusaderFrank[/MENTION], me too.

 

[DigitalDrifter]

Thank you OP for posting this thread !

And thank you to all the men and women who laid it all out in WWII, and especially this day !!!

 

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"We weren't heros... they're (the ones who died) the heros"

What a hell of a guy. Hell of a guy.

 

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Eisenhower's speech to the troops on the eve of D-Day:


"The eyes of the world are upon you".

 

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This is long, but it is absolutely outstanding, I recommend that you bookmark it and watch it when time permits. It is also graphic, so beware:





That video is a re-enactment.

Next: the real stuff.

 

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[Sunni Man]

[ame=http://youtu.be/hhY55G-to8c]The Proud German Army in Normandy - YouTube[/ame]

 

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I would venture to say that Stalingrad, Omaha Beach and Iwo Jima stand out as three massive turning points in this the most bloody and horrible of wars.