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June 06, 2015
D-Day June 6th, 1944 We Will Never Forget
It was on 6th June 1944 that Operation Overlord - the long anticipated Allied invasion of Nazi-held Europe - went into action. What came to be known as the 'D-day landings'.
On the French beaches and in those hedgerows, many making the ultimate sacrifice. Over two thousand Americans, British, Canadians, and Australians died that first day, trading their lives for a single ambition...so we could live free.
The allied commander of the D-Day invasion, Gen Dwight D Eisenhower gives the order of the Day.
"Full victory - nothing else" to paratroopers in England, just before they board their airplanes to participate in the first assault in the invasion of the continent of Europe.
….”In some sectors the area was so heavily occupied by the Germans the paratroopers were fired upon while in the plane, in decent, and after landing... Many men were wounded or killed during one phase or another... The illumination created by fires on the ground was a death sentence if you were caught in an open field... This great confusion created by the troopers, moving in all directions, completely baffled the Germans in that they could not establish how many allied paratroopers had landed, or determine where our front line was. The fact that we were scattered over many miles, (mistakenly,) became advantageous to our mission..”
The first wave of assault troops of the 29th Infantry Division, it was four rifle companies landing on a hostile shore at H-hour, D-Day - 6:30 a.m., on June 6, 1944.
Wild Thing's comment............
We owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to those who gave their lives in this giant struggle and to those who were lucky enough to come back home.
We can only imagine the horror and the dying that took place. We need to perpetuate their story of sacrifice and glory for as long as we live.
Can you see the thousands of ships offshore that formed the most powerful armada that the world has ever seen? A huge salvo is being laid down prior to the invasion. Troops climb down rope ladders into landing craft. Many invasion force craft are circling around, grouping up, just before they make their final drive for the beach.
The Germans are entrenched in concrete bunkers and gun emplacements and are shelling the approaching landing craft. Many men never make it to the beach, but instead die in the churning surf. Those who do get to the beach and tumble out of their craft are subject to horrendous machine gun fire from pillboxes that rake the entire shore. There are the dead and the dying.
Valiant army engineers mount a superhuman effort to blow a hole in the concrete barricade so troops can move inland, away from the murderous fire coming from above them.
Those first few hours must have indeed been some of the longest ever faced by bold and courageous men. May their honor and sacrifice not be forgotten, and may this event in history go down not as just about death and dying, but as a turning point for the world, toward peace. God willing, it will never have to be repeated.
Posted by Wild Thing at June 6, 2015 12:55 AM
