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| Into the Jaws of Death Photo by Chief Photographer's Mate Robert F. Sargent |
Eighty one years ago today, Allied troops landed on five beaches in France. Troops from United Kingdom, United States, Canada, France, Australia, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Netherlands, Norway, New Zealand, Greece, South Africa, and Southern Rhodesia came ashore to bring down Hitler's "Thousand Year Reich."
Less than a year later, Germany's cities lay in ruins, Hitler's charred corpse lay in the ruins of his capital, and the Soviet Union held that capital and would, in essence through their East German puppets, hold it until the Deutsche Demokratik Republik (East Germany) was reunited with the Bundesrepublik Deutschland on 03 October, 1990.
My father would have been 97 years old today, he was 16 years old on D-Day. In those days it wasn't unusual for kids to drop out of school in order to join the military and go fight. My father's two older brothers were in the Army, so he wanted to go as well. He dropped out of high school but didn't get overseas before the war was over.
He did spend three years on occupation duty in Berlin and brought back some pretty good stories of his time there. Like the time he and a buddy were driving in a jeep and a Soviet officer stepped into the street and commandeered their services at pistol point.
Apparently the only word in English the Russian knew was "go." So he would point, wave his pistol, and yell 'GO!" at the two G.I.s in the jeep. When he got where he wanted to go, he stepped out of the jeep, waved back to the west and yelled, "GO!"
So go they did.
I miss my Dad.
It's also worth noting that today our very own juvat joins the ranks of geezerhood as he turns 70 on this day. So all you other codgers, welcome the new kid. Be gentle with him, after all he used to be a fighter pilot, so his ego is rather fragile.
Not!
Give him both barrels, he can take it!
Man, some of the G.I.s were carrying a load when they hit that beach. Happy birthday juvat! Take a few minutes today to put the feet up, crack open a cold one and ruminate a bit today.......:)
ReplyDeleteThanks, Nylon
Deletejuvat
The infantry and mules have a lot in common.
Delete"Dark of the moon on the sixth of June."
ReplyDeleteMy "Solar circumnavigation" ticks over another lap today as well.
Sorry to have "gone dark", accommodating three college kids at grad season, still trying to get back east. Aannd, I dislike windows 11 so much at work, I'm considering not getting that OS for home. (so no computer yet).
DV,
DeleteBe careful what you wish for. I loath the Mac OS. Things I could do without thinking on Windows take a bit of web searching (a big bit) to figure out. Games are fun, work related tasks, not so much.
Happy Birthday…and many more…on channel four!
juvat
I don't mind W11 that much, there were changes to the UI which I thought stupid but overall it is an upgrade from W10, barely. But there is probably a lot going on under the hood that I'm not aware of. Mostly security stuff.
DeleteInternet security is a crap shoot, the best security measure is don't connect stuff to the internet unless you absolutely have to. It's like the old saying "two people can keep a secret, if one of them is dead."
Thank you for the reminder Sarge - these dates just sneak up on my now.
ReplyDeleteHappy (Actual) Birthday Juvat!
Thanks THBB!
Deletejuvat
They do tend to sneak up on you, next thing you know it'll be Bastille Day. Oh wait, that's French.
DeleteThe Ravishing Mrs. TB's birthday is 14 July, so it is always remembered - although combination Bastille/Birthday cards are in shockingly short supply.
DeleteI'm appalled, what were they thinking?
Delete6 June 1944 is a really significant date, made so by vast numbers of men (and some women).
ReplyDeleteThe magnitude of this operation is mind boggling, with millions of moving parts, essential bits and pieces of gear, minute scheduling, incredible flexibility and redundency. Those grunts hitting the beach provided bravery, and suffered seasickness en route, but were burdened with loads of gear. Not just rifles, ammo and uniforms, but little stuff- first aid kits, flotation, waterproof bags for their rifles and pistols. Higgins boats (the 36' LCVPs with the bow ramps made memorable by photos above) and hundreds of larger landing craft up to dozens of Large Slow Targets (LSTs); causeways, pipelines and massive Mulberry harbor floating elements to be sunk. Don't forget the guys in the unenviable task of gathering our dead, identifying them, and placing the remains in body bags and tracking them to a grave site.
All of those tasks required unprecedented foresight, long range procurement of obscure or unprecedented articles from manufacturers scattered across the U.S. (and some from the UK), and shipment across U-boat infested waters to stockpiles all across England before being sent forward in June 1944. The women and men back home building ships, packing C-rations or parachutes, making cartridges by the billions, sewing uniforms or churning out cardboard to box items being shipped all played a part in the hard fought success of the D-Day landings. "Greatest Generation" was certainly an apt description.
For our friend in Texas, "Happy Birthday" there, kiddo. Welcome to the olde pharts club.
JB
The whole thing was a gigantic Swiss watch in its intricacy, but with people intentionally trying to disrupt it. I can't see such an endeavor being pulled off in these days.
DeleteAnd the complexity. Bert Styles in "Serenade to the Big Bird" accounts being a cog in the watch. "Breakfast at one, briefing at two (he had been asleep half an hour)" And the briefing: "...this is invasion...you are in support of ground troops...there will be 11,000 aircraft in this area (the reason for allied aircraft invasion stripes)...you must stay on briefed course...no abortions...you can't go down...you can't turn right or left...just before we crossed the coast...I saw a curve of landing boats...and the flashes of their guns...then we were over them, bomb bay doors coming open..."
DeleteBiggest reason for those stripes wasn't air-to-air recognition. The Navy shot the shit out of the friendly aircraft supporting the landings in Sicily, hence everything friendly which flew had those invasion stripes.
DeletePeople forget how complex the planning was for Overlord. This was all done with pen, paper and slide rules. I live in the south of the UK and remnants of the D Day planning and infrastructure are still around today, About twenty years ago we went camping in the New Forest in Hampshire. Our campsite was an airbase built for 2ATAF to operate Typhoons/Tempests. It was used from autumn 1943 to mid 1944 and then left. There are many such sites all over the south of England, for example on the shores of the Solent there is a building that is now used by a local yacht club, it was once the main port control building for the invasion fleets. People are forgetting that the invasion fleet loaded from a lot of tiny ports and inlets along the south coast of England, it was a masterpiece of planning and co ordination to get them to the right place at the right time. We forget that wars are won on logistics and industry.
DeleteRetired
We forget that at our peril.
Deletejuvat - welcome to the ranks (of geezers/old farts),
ReplyDeletemay you see (at least) another 40 birrthdays - in good health
Thanks Boron!
Deletejuvat
And yes juvat, I'll second that.
DeleteI'm old enough to have served with men who were there, stayed in the Army, and were near the end of their careers. One was SP 5 Hyatt, a paratrooper, who became a prisoner of war. Our unit, the 814th Engineer Company, was originally the 112th Light Pontoon Company , that was present on Omaha beach and breached one of the seawalls per the unit history. The 814th is still on active duty, now at Ft Polk (f**k the woke renaming).
ReplyDeleteAfter high school I worked in a factory with a number of WWII vets, great guys.
Deletethe first thing the English did when they got to shore was to make a kettle of tea.
ReplyDeleteNot quite.
Delete