D Day 1944

To follow Russ's lead, today, June 6 1944, was D Day .

 

Let's hope our nation never forgets what was accomplished on that day.. and for what reason.

 

Very hard to find reference to D-Day, anymore. By what is going on around us, we are repeating some of History's, bitter lessons. It doesn't look too promising.

Ciao...Paolo

 

The Longest Day.
I can't even imagine what it must have been like. We owe them all so much.

 

There was one small article in the Sunday morning paper about the two paratroopers featured in Band of Brothers who are trying to get a memorial built for the Rangers who successfully climbed Point de Hoc. Of the assaulting force of 285 only 90 were left to continue at the end of the day.
Nothing has been mentioned on TV and little in the news paper.

 

That is because the leftist MSM is too pre-occupied with representing their version of the `numbers de jour` namely that 1,000 US servicemen and women have been killed in 9 years of conflict in Iraq and A-Stan.......which pales against the several thousand lost on D-Day alone.......they wouldn´t want something sticky like logic, facts, and reason to mess up the far fetched version of history they are trying to write.

 

Every soldier's death hurts. Every one. And all the family members and loved ones share in the cost.

Some numbers for D-Day:

US: 6,603 casualties with 2,499 KIA
UK:2,700 wounded or killed
Canada: 1074, with 359 deaths

The Germans lost about 4-9 thousand wounded, killed or missing.

It is reflective to compare as this thread is taking a comparative turn to appreciate how much has been paid for by the sacrifice of brave men for their countries.

In the Battle of Okinawa, over 12 thousand Americans and over 38 thousand wounded; over 100 thousand Japanese died. Died. And this does not include civilian casualties.

In just the First Battle of Ypres in the Great War, the British lost 7,960 with over 29 thousand wounded and over 17 thousand missing; The Belgians had 21 thousand killed, wounded and missing. French numbers are less accurate but horrifying at 50 - 85 thousand killed wounded or missing. The Germans also had over 19 thousand killed with 83 thousand wounded and 31 thousand missing.

The numbers are staggering. The human toll inconcievable in today's world.
No one can even understand the enormity on a name by name basis.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

 

Yesterday, DeKalb-Peachtree Airport in Atlanta held their annual "Good Neighbor Day" event, which is more of a static-display event than an airshow, but I would hope that D-Day was mentioned sometime during the activities. I was participating in our annual "Dream Ride For Kids", so I couldn't make it to PDK.

(But we did have this brightly-colored Cobra drop into Ferrari of Atlanta, where the "Dream Ride" ended.)
Image Unavailable, Please Login
Image Unavailable, Please Login
Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

Great post relating the sacrifice of those in WW1. I find it amazing that so few know about it. The misery and carnage are simply unbelievable by today's standards.

Ask the typical American and they will think (if they know what it was at all) that it was just a long stalemate where nothing much happened until someone blew a whistle and everyone ran out of the trenches.

The truth is that war was everywhere -- in virtually all of Europe, in the South Seas, in the Pacific, in the Middle East, in Africa, off the coast of America -- and on a scale of horror so huge it's hard to imagine it today.

Millions of shells fired for days before a major battle. Poison gas. Machine guns set up in scientific ways to maximize killing. Training and technology specifically for sniping for the sole purpose of creating a constant terror in the mind of the enemy. The submarine used for the first time to attack merchant ships. Mining underground for months to plant millions of tons of TNT under the enemy, then exploding it with such force that entire regements of men were instantly crushed to death standing in their trenches when the walls compressed together from the shock wave.

Let us all hope the world never circums to such a state in the future.

 

I was thinking I need to include our naval heroes. To also reemphasize my point that all of these folks had names, I'll defer to a song by American folksong writer Woodie Guthrie about the sinking of the US Destroyer Ruben James by a German U-boat. Sung here by the Kingston Trio:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7jBbCQwJ0g

No matter the war, a lot of heroes died for causes bigger than themselves. People just like you and me, with families and friends that loved them.

 

The Battle of Verdun lasted from February 1916 through December 1916. Total casualty count was ~900,000 with 300,000+ dead. Over 40 million artillery shells fired. In one battle.

I sometimes wonder if we had the same media coverage in WWI and WWII that we have now, would we have won those wars?

God bless all those that have given their lives to make the world free. May they rest in peace.

 

Lost an uncle in Italy and another uncle lost a leg in Normandy during the invasion. Brave men and both on virtually their first day in combat. Father flew P-47Ds in 1944/45 in France and Germany. We are lucky we still have men like that in our armed forces.

Good news is many more now survive wounds that would have been fatal in WW-I, WW-II, Korea, or Viet-Nam. Real progress.

Taz
Terry Phillips

 

I don't exactly know where to post this so I'll try it here. A sketch that I did of a B-24 crew in 1944. I found in some old stuff that I was clearing out. I suppose that I should be careful in the future.
Switches
Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

Appreciate your posting of the art work. Very nicely done.

My grandfather landed on D-Day, which as each year passes by, less and less is made of the sacrifices made by so many. He made it through, saved a man who became his best friend (which I later named my son after), and knocked off his share of the bad guys along the way, though you would not hear that from him. His is but one story of so many.

Veterans of today and yesteryear, THANK YOU.