D-Day plus 63 years

[User 1019]

I hope I'm assigned to Germany so I can take advantage of some of that stuff. I'd love to walk up that beach. I'm sure it's been done time and again, but I'd love to stand on one of those beaches and take notes and photos for a battle analysis.

 

[Herbert Anchovy]

If that college professor didn't hold Little Round Top at Gettysburg, Lee would of had an elevated position on the Union troops.

This is classic postmodern revisionism. The Alabamians would never have been able to hold that hill had they taken it.

 

[SoCalDude]

Fascinating, thanks for this thread.
My dad, now 90, was in the troops that followed Patton through France and into Germany, securing the small towns as Patton made his way to Berlin. My dad was a hero to his officers because he found a supply of gas hidden in one town, and a hero to his fellow soldiers because he found a cache of cognac hidden in a basement in another town. He came back to the U.S. on the Queen Mary.
Again, thanks for this thread.

 

[Boomer7]

Listening to the XM program, it's striking how much more eloquent people -- both journalists and politicians -- were 63 years ago.

 

[93Devil]

If that college professor didn't hold Little Round Top at Gettysburg, Lee would of had an elevated position on the Union troops.

This is classic postmodern revisionism. The Alabamians would never have been able to hold that hill had they taken it.

Hahahaha

You know, you got a point there.

But I think they would have at least started the next day with that position, right? Lee should have called off Pickett at least.

 

[NoOneLikesUs]

There's a lot to be thankful for and it's just not our guys who contributed to this massive push to end the war. From the soldiers of Orange in the Netherlands to the French Resistance to Churchill to the Russians in the east and beyond this front against the evil which was fascism came from all ends of the Earth.

As we reflect on this day, we should be proud of our relatives who contributed to the fight, but we should always keep in mind that millions had no way of fighting on their way to horrible deaths in camps across Europe.

 

[Birdscribe]

Fascinating, thanks for this thread.
My dad, now 90, was in the troops that followed Patton through France and into Germany, securing the small towns as Patton made his way to Berlin. My dad was a hero to his officers because he found a supply of gas hidden in one town, and a hero to his fellow soldiers because he found a cache of cognac hidden in a basement in another town. He came back to the U.S. on the Queen Mary.
Again, thanks for this thread.

Our dad's could have crossed paths, SoCal.

My dad landed on Utah Beach on June 7, (D-plus 1), as the company clerk to a medical unit. He too was in Patton's Third Army, particpating in the Normandy breakout (he's 92 and had a minor stroke five years ago, but can still vividly remember the hedgerows), the liberation of Paris, the Bulge, the Rhine campaign, the liberation of Dachau and other garden spots.

During the height of the Bulge, every man in my dad's unit -- regardless of job -- was given a gun and sent to the front. Every man, except my dad, who was left behind -- unarmed -- to care for the wounded who couldn't be moved.

For four days, he stayed in a hovel caring for soldiers and praying he didn't get overrun. Because he's Jewish, he took care to bury his dog-tags, lest he be captured and shot.

The stories are incredible and he's carefree on telling all of them. All except the liberation of Dachau. He won't talk about that and I wouldn't think of pressing him.

I can't wait to get to Normandy and the other spots he found himself at during that time.

Great, great thread. Props to NW for starting it.

 

[micropolitan guy]

As I have said before, the only thing I'd like from my dad's estate when he passes is his CIB.

144th regiment, 44th Division, Fifth Army Group, Dec. 1944-March, 1946. Drafted as an 18-year-old college freshman, he was a Battle of the Bulge replacement troop and was later on 90-day leave in the U.S before his division was to reassemble and prepare for the invasion of Japan and near-certain death or wounding, when we dropped the bombs. Thank you, HST.

It's impossible to measure how much I've come tlo appreciate the sacrifices of my parent's generation in the past 20 years, especially when compared to my life.

 

[Platyrhynchos]

Well, ****.

My Dad didn't do **** at Normandy on D-Day.

He was in the United States Marine Corps, busting his ass in the Pacific against the Japanese.8) He never would talk about it.

Post #10-30: Does not conform to rules and regulations

 

[Left_Coast]

Most important day of the 20th century. Bar none.

 

[OTD]

I've been to Normandy. I don't think I've ever spent so much time all choked up as I did that day wandering around the American cemetery.

Thanks to all the folks who won World War II for us, with special thanks to my late FIL, who was on a destroyer in the battle of Leyte Gulf.

 

[Herbert Anchovy]

If that college professor didn't hold Little Round Top at Gettysburg, Lee would of had an elevated position on the Union troops.

This is classic postmodern revisionism. The Alabamians would never have been able to hold that hill had they taken it.

Hahahaha

You know, you got a point there.

But I think they would have at least started the next day with that position, right? Lee should have called off Pickett at least.

They ran up that hill five times and got their ass kicked back down it five times, the last one improbable but still decisive. They had nothing left for a defense. They would have been flanked and crushed hours later, if not the next day. I love the marker, it's a hajj within a hajj, was just there a month ago, but it's been way, way overstated.

I remember coming out of the theatre in 1998 after seeing SPR. I saw two vets on opposite sides of the lobby sitting down, visibly moved and shaken. One guy looked at the other and said nothing. They understood.

 

[Simon_Cowbell]

Normandy is an indescribable experience.

Amen, brother.

To those who haven't made it to France, get there if you can.

If you are lucky, you will be able to sit cliffside over the water as a chilly, reminding wind buffets you.

The echoes of this indescribable heroism live on there, just as surely as I am typing this post.

 

[StormSurge]

Two places I must visit before I die are Normandy & Pearl Harbor.

Great stories on this thread...

 

[Herbert Anchovy]

Pube, wonderfully put. Who in the **** says you're a troll?

The grounds are gold for any magazine writer with the freedom to get metaphysical and let it all hang out. It's not a false sentimentality, it's a very real one there. The ocean alone, without knowing anything about what went down, is breathtaking.

 

[ADifferentOkie]

I had a great uncle who survived D-Day. He always said, "You see in movies where people in war are thinking about being back home, eating apple pie, spending time with their girl. That's bull****. You're just doing whatever you can to survive, not thinking about anything other than survival."

 

[Rusty Shackleford]

Two places I must visit before I die are Normandy & Pearl Harbor.

Great stories on this thread...

I feel lucky to say I've been to both, in the past two years at that. Normandy is indescribable. I want to go back. The holes in the ground where bombs exploded are unbelievable. And the busted bunkers, some of which you can walk through, are amazing. And the drive to the beach from downtown is eery too, thinking of how perilous it must have been for the allied soldiers to march through there given how many hiding places there were for enemies and how generally dangerous it must have been. The whole area is just teeming with historical significance and it's an incredible place for anyone with any appreciation for history.

Pearl Harbor was interesting, but it just didn't carry the sense of awe with me that Normandy did. I'm not trying to take anything away from the event or the people involved, but I much more enjoyed my time in Normandy. I think maybe it was because at Normandy, seemingly little has changed -- there are battle scars all over the landscape and it was easier for me to picture the events -- to look out over the ocean and picture all the war ships, and look up the beach and picture all the bunkers and defense. But Pearl Harbor is still an active base, and except for the Arizona wreckage, I don't recall there being much left to see. And you're very limited in where you can visit, so it's harder to imagine the chaos -- but you can walk all up and down the beaches at Normandy.

 

[Birdscribe]

If that college professor didn't hold Little Round Top at Gettysburg, Lee would of had an elevated position on the Union troops.

This is classic postmodern revisionism. The Alabamians would never have been able to hold that hill had they taken it.

Hahahaha

You know, you got a point there.

But I think they would have at least started the next day with that position, right? Lee should have called off Pickett at least.

And fortunately, because Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain was one of the most underrated badass renaissance men in American History, we'll never know the answer to that question.

But LJB is right. Had Oates and the Alabamians taken that hill, they wouldn't have had enough men to hold it for more than a few hours at best.

 

[Herbert Anchovy]

birdscribe, I'm treading very carefully here, lest I and my ancestors be called peckerwood racists (turns out they were just dirt-ass country peckerwoods), but Chamblerlain had way enough of the grey matter, 100 times the normal grunt, to milk that event for what it was worth.

And he did. To his deathbed. Skillfully, sleekly, deftly. Taking nothing away from his achievements and standing, which are unimpeachable.

My girlfriend (oh, my poor girlfriend) has by association sprouted Civil War geek wings and has become a bit of a Chamberlain officionado. We wrangle about this often. He can do no wrong in her eyes. A transcendent man? No questions asked. But there's a reason he became a chancellor and a politician.

 

[Double J]

My great-great-grandfather was at Port Hudson with the 15th New Hampshire Infantry in 1863. The Rebs had more success holding off the Union Army here than at Vicksburg, which was simultaneously under attack, but they finally did surrender Port Hudson after Vicksburg fell.

And regarding D-Day....thanks so much to all Allied soldiers, sailors and aircrew who were there, and all who came after. I'm especially proud that the Canadians who went ashore at Juno Beach pushed farther inland than any other force on June 6.