June 6 The Longest Day

Interesting article by Michael Beschloss on why Ike did not celebrate D Day

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/20/upshot/why-ike-wouldnt-celebrate-the-d-day-anniversary.html

"Had President Eisenhower been surrounded by some latter-day political image-makers, they might have implored him to make the most of the occasion. (“Mr. President, let’s remind Americans of what you achieved in 1944! Sir, your party is having some problems with the midterms this fall — it would help if we could boost your approval numbers!”)

Had anyone dared to offer Ike such gratuitous advice, however, he would have had them expelled from the Oval Office. Pointedly he did not visit Normandy or stage a White House ceremony to extol his own leadership."

 

Unless you were one of the men coming off a landing craft or out of an airplane, I don't think you can truly comprehend what those people went through that day. I'm certain most of us don't even want to imagine. The first 30 minutes of Saving Private Ryan gives us a glimpse, but it's still not real. I salute and weep for those who died and live.

As for the difference in Europe/Pacific, a lot of comes down to fighting the Germans and rolling victoriously into major cities was sexy whereas blowing the Japanese off one nameless, swamp filled island only to move on to the next didn't have the same appeal.

 

The "Round Number" anniversaries get a lot more attention here than the crooked number ones.

I'm surprised it isn't a bigger deal in Canada.

 

Agreed. No way to comprehend. Can't imagine what it was like when the gate
opened on those landing crafts.

Saving Private Ryan certainly was a great tribute to that group. I remember the
first time I watched it in theater. The movie ended and no one got up. You could hear
faint weeping all over the theater.

 

Part of the failure to celebrate to victory over Japan as the Eurpoean Victory is celebrated is the atomic bomb. You cant celebrate the use of the bomb, you can respect it or not, appreciate it or not, be thankful for the American lives it saved but to celebrate it like D-Day is unseemly. At least politically and in the media

 

One thing I have never understood is why five minutes before the landing began they didn't have every American and British heavy bomber fly over and blow the German gun emplacements to oblivion. It seems the paratroopers and naval bombardment focused on the bigger guns that were a few miles inland. We had been bombing the hell out of Germany and France for two years. It seems as if they could have sent a thousand planes over to flatten the cliff machine gun bunkers.

 

Coming back to this...it doesn't get the level of celebration that D-Day does, but I'd say Iwo Jima is your corresponding Pacific image.

 

I always heard that they bombed Calais as diversionary tactic in hope
that The Germans would amass their forces there making it easier
for the Normandy landing .

 

The bombers were used to isolate the battlefield by cutting transportation routes. The naval bombardment was much shorter than what had become SOP in the Pacific, although gunfire by destroyers was a big factor in getting off of Omaha Beach.

 

Yeah, I believe that is correct in the days leading up to it, but I mean literally in the minutes leading up to the invasion ... the bombers flying overhead as the landing crafts were headed to the beach. By that time, there wouldn't have been any question what was happening.

 

D-Day was it. If D-Day failed who knows what happens?
Best case scenario the war goes on for another 5, 10 years. Worst case ... We are all speaking German and Jews are something we read about in our Nazi-inspired history books.

It was The pivotal moment of the war. V-E and V-J were the end.
Even Iwo Jima - if it fails - isn't as important as D-Day.

 

It's a good question. They other theory I've heard is that the bombs were not
accurate in that day. We're now conditioned on precision bombing.