Sixty-seven years ago today. My annual D-Day post, first published in 2009...
Never forget.D-Day
Sixty-five years ago today. All images as captioned in the Life Magazine photo archives.
Tracer fire from many different ships lighting up the night sky over the English Channel during opening phase of D-Day, the Allied invasion of France. (no credit)
American B-26 Marauders with special D-Day markings make a bombing run over Cherbourg around the time of the Allied D-Day invasion of France. (Frank Scherschel)
Aerial view of American troops and tanks coming ashore as landing craft continue to unload on the first day of Operation Overlord, the invasion of France, aka on D-Day. (no credit)
Massive landing and deployment of US troops, supplies and equipment in the days following victorious D-Day action on Omaha Beach; barrage balloons guard against German aircraft while scores of ships unload men & material. (no credit)
Bodies of 8 American paratroopers lie outside the wreckage of their glider near Hiesville, France on the day of the invasion of Normandy, aka D-Day. (no credit)
Chaplin saying mass aboard HMS Scylla, laying at anchor off the Normandy coast shortly after the D-Day invasion of France. (no credit)
As always... click for larger. And spare a thought and a prayer today for those who made the ultimate sacrifice6567 years ago. There were many thousands who gave their lives for freedom on this day...
My thoughts always turn to my grandfather and his heroics at that time.
ReplyDeleteLooking at your pictures makes me think that today's comic book and movie super-heroes can't hold a candle to the real men and women who served in combat. God bless them.
ReplyDelete...and bless you for keeping us all reminded to give thanks to those who serve...there is little news coverage of today's D-Day anniversary.
Alison: God Bless and keep your grandfather. We owe him and his comrades-in-arms a debt we can't possibly repay, other than to keep them in our memory.
ReplyDeleteRed: I agree with you on the heroics point... and on the lack of coverage of today's anniversary. The milbloggers remember, though. Every milblog I've visited today has some sort of commemorative post up.
Thanks for the reminder, Buck. Those pictures are all excellent; the one of those glider-paratroopers laid out like that gets to me. Killed before they had a chance to fight, their heroism to me rests solidly on the very fact that they were there and ready to risk all for the US and for the Europeans suffering under the tyrannical National Socialists.
ReplyDelete...and the Battle of Midway, 69 yrs ago. Some of us NEVER FORGET & you just cannot imagine how aggravating & disappointing it is to have to explain the significance of the date!! Really makes me a Grumpy Old Woman! ;-)
ReplyDeleteWV: 'rexal' Almost the name of my first workplace, Rexall Drug Store.
Some of us NEVER FORGET & you just cannot imagine how aggravating & disappointing it is to have to explain the significance of the date!! Really makes me a Grumpy Old Woman! ;-)
ReplyDeleteAnd me a grumpy old man, Katy.
My dad lucked out! He arrived ashore on D-Day+10 and was immediately sent to the front in a truck convoy to relieve what was left of the last run to the front.
ReplyDeleteWhen he got there he peed all over himself. He was a really tough guy, and had seen construction accidents in the CCC, so organs on the outside of bodies wasn't that big of a deal.
But to watch a person just vaporize scared the shit out of him. He lucked-out and was left behind when the Army turned north to the Bulge. They headed East. He survived, and was shipped home in 1947, after spending two years in the civil service trying to put Germany back together again.
Why he would help Germans was an enigma, but he said nothing ever meant as much to him as those two years.
He learned to drive and move bulldozers in the CCC and told me about him and his buddies running missions to France to steal bulldozers and truck them to Germany. He said they stole one a week. They always used Polish drivers (must have been an inside joke, but he always said Polish drivers - and then laughed and slapped his leg).
Bulldozers are like viagra to construction managers :-)
Anon: Your father DID luck out, in more ways than one. My hat is off to him.
ReplyDelete