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June 6th 1944
Nanuq907
Member Posts: 2,551 ✭✭✭✭
Lest we forget
Comments
Thanks for posting this, I always thought this as a special day since I personally knew quite a few who were there and has since passed on.
"Never do wrong to make a friend----or to keep one".....Robert E. Lee
Yep, this is quite a day in the history of the world. My father was not there on June 6th, but their artillery battalion came in and disembarked about three weeks later, and made a trip across Europe.
Never forget...........over 150,000 troops involved in the biggest amphibious assault ever mounted. Those guys were something special.
If you ever get the chance, stop at the National D-Day Memorial in Bedford, Va.
Bedford lost the most (19) men per capita then any other town.
https://www.dday.org/
I've told the story before of my father landing after the beachheads were more or less secure. He was part of a mobile radar unit and he was issued a Thompson and one stick magazine of ammo. When he questioned this, he was told he could pick up more on the beach. It was only when he landed that he found out he was expected to get more from those who sadly didn't need ammo anymore. His unit went all over Europe and sometimes the areas weren't as secure as the generals said they were. Somewhere I have a picture of dad standing on top of a captured Nazi rail gun in Belgium. The picture makes you appreciate the size and capabilities of the weapons that our troops faced. Those troops were certainly entitled to their designation of being part of the Greatest Generation. Bob
Having been to the D-Day beaches and cemetary. Standing on the dunes overlooking the beach I cannot even imagine coming ashore with 300 or more yards of open beach with pill boxes all along the top of the dunes.
Then walking through the cemetary and looking at row after row after row of white crosses makes you so sad to think about the soldiers who lost their life at such a young age.
Though a few years older than myself one of my closet friends lost his dad on the beach, my friend hadn't even been born yet and not even sure if his dad had gotten the letter telling him he was going to be a dad.......a very sad situation for both.
"Never do wrong to make a friend----or to keep one".....Robert E. Lee
...I always remember June 6...my Dad landed on Utah beach...never talked about it...he was shot in the arm, shot in the chest, and frozen feet in the Ardennes...as a kid I pried 3-4 "war stories" out of him and that was it...as a Sniper, the war was very personal for him...I have a Rosary a dieing German Sniper he had been in a "duel" with gave him as he died in my Dads arms...the German spoke perfect english, had gone to some big college up north before the war...the few "stories" I pried out of him, he never spoke of again...a truly tough and brave generation...the greatest generation...
My FIL landed late in the day on June 6 with his tank maintenance unit. He was involved in building the "plows" used to break through the hedgerows in Normandy.
An Uncle killed going thru the hedge rows the day after by a German machine gun. Buried in France.