June 6, 2013

President Reagan, on June 6, 1984, commemorating the 40th anniversary invasion of the Normandy Invasion.

86 comments:

Ann Althouse said...

I understand that there is a software issue that some have where the previously embedded video shows up instead of the one I have embedded.

There's nothing I can do about that. I do have the right code for this embed.

Please keep the comments here to the topic of D-Day and related matters.

Patrick said...

This article written by SLA Marshall in 1960 is well worth the read. Harrowing, unvarnished story of Omaha Beach.

edutcher said...

In the opinion of Samuel Eliot Morison, who saw almost all of the major landings in WWII (Europe and the Pacific), Omaha was the most horrific.

It's easy to forget, however, that it was preceded by 2 years of the Battle of the Atlantic to make the sea lanes safe, 2 years of the Strategic Bombing Offensive to cripple German production, and campaigns in North Africa and Italy, which provided the hard lessons of what not to do.

edutcher said...

In contrast to the slug in the White House and Her Majesty, the text of what Eisenhower intended to release if the landings failed:

"Our landings in the Cherbourg-Havre area have failed to gain a satisfactory foothold and I have withdrawn the troops. My decision to attack at this time and place was based upon the best information available. The troops, the air and the Navy did all that Bravery and devotion to duty could do. If any blame or fault attaches to the attempt it is mine alone."

glenn said...

I remember this very well. I remember 10 years later as well. The contrast was enlightening to say the least. That cross built from stones that a staffer put on Omaha Beach that morning is one of the reasons I'm not a Dem anymore.

bbkingfish said...

40-year anniversary commemorative celebrations were right up Reagan's alley. Lots of talking. And 40 years was enough time that many people had forgotten Reagan was a draft dodger who did everything he could to avoid the fighting.

Sorun said...

"40-year anniversary commemorative celebrations were right up Reagan's alley."

Yes, that was quite a good speech. And you can count the combined instances of "I" and "me" on one hand.

madAsHell said...

Wait!!

He's not using a teleprompter!?! How can that be??

John said...

Here is what is depressing. World War II was closer to the present when that speech was made than Vietnam is to the present now. God time goes quick. Talking about DDay now is like talking about The Somme back then.

Chip S. said...

bbkingfish said...

Reagan was a draft dodger who did everything he could to avoid the fighting.

Wiki says:

After completing fourteen home-study Army Extension Courses, Reagan enlisted in the Army Enlisted Reserve[33] on April 29, 1937, as a private assigned to Troop B, 322nd Cavalry at Des Moines, Iowa.[34] He was commissioned a second lieutenant in the Officers Reserve Corps of the cavalry on May 25, 1937.[35]

Reagan was ordered to active duty for the first time on April 18, 1942. Due to his nearsightedness, he was classified for limited service only, which excluded him from serving overseas.


What a clever ploy, to dodge the draft by enlisting in the Army Reserve in anticipation that your eyesight would deteriorate.

bbkingfish isn't even very good at lying.

John said...

n contrast to the slug in the White House and Her Majesty, the text of what Eisenhower intended to release if the landings failed:

"Our landings in the Cherbourg-Havre area have failed to gain a satisfactory foothold and I have withdrawn the troops. My decision to attack at this time and place was based upon the best information available. The troops, the air and the Navy did all that Bravery and devotion to duty could do. If any blame or fault attaches to the attempt it is mine alone."


A bit more noble than "what difference does it make". It is amazes me what scum manage to rise to the top these days. People like the Clintons and the Obamas are just trash.

Titus said...

I like the "states rights" speech he gave in Philadelphia, Mississippi better.

Titus said...

I like the "states rights" speech he gave in Philadelphia, Mississippi better.

edutcher said...

John said...

A bit more noble than "what difference does it make". It is amazes me what scum manage to rise to the top these days. People like the Clintons and the Obamas are just trash.

West Point had an inflexible honor code.

bagoh20 said...

I continue to be in awe of what happened in those few short years of the early 40s ever since I was a boy first learning of it. I still cannot believe men would have the fortitude to either send men into that, or of course to march in themselves, to step forward into the very spot where your buddies just fell before you, and to head toward where the bullets are coming from knowing full well this very minute is likely your last. The more I learn and relearn it, the less likely it seems possible. An amazing confluence of shared bravery, duty, love and devotion. I wish these men could have lived forever.

JAL said...

bbkingfail --
Here is where Reagan served.

Of note is that Reagan enlisted in the Army Enlisted Reserve in **1937** After the war started he became active duty and was assigned with probably 400 other Hollywood and filmmaking types to do what they did well.

Fail.

bagoh20 said...

"bbkingfish isn't even very good at lying".

And the attempt proves he just isn't a good human being on top of being stupid enough to think it would fly here. Dude, there is this thing connected to your keyboard called the internet, and we can all see it. You're a loser, try to hide it a little better.

BarrySanders20 said...

Everyone listening to that speech knew and knows he believed what he was saying. It was sincere and spoken with earnest conviction. That's what scared the bejesus out of the Soviets, assuming thay had any bejesus to scare.

Amazing the difference when a politician actually belives what he he is saying, unencumbered by spin.

Methadras said...

God Bless Ronald Reagan. You are sorely missed, sir.

Methadras said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
MadisonMan said...

Next year it will be 70 years since D-Day.

Time is relentless.

Bob Ellison said...

What liars leftists are!

ricpic said...

Did these men scale the cliffs for an ideal? I doubt it. How they did what they did is a mystery, at least to me. I would have deserted back in England: better the brig than death. But they didn't desert. And when the job was impossible...they did it. There must be a kind of fatalism that settles in in the midst of the death storm. But that's pure supposition on my part. Anyway, whatever it took they had it.

Brian Brown said...

My God, how far America has fallen in electing the dumbass community organizer who spies on Americans.

Larry J said...

It's said that amateurs talk tactics while military professionals talk logistics. The logistics of WWII are incredible.

Consider for a moment just the United States wartime effort.
- Some 16 million men (and thousands of women) were inducted into the services. That was out of a total US population of less than 140 million people.

- They were transported to their basic training bases, clothed, equipped, trained, fed, and vaccinated.

- Once basic was over, they were often transported to other bases for additional training in a host of skills ranging from infantry, artillery, pilots, navigators, bombadiers and countless others.

- Their weapons ranged from sidearms to tanks, B-29s, aircraft carriers, submarines and battleships.

- With training behind them, they were transported to the points of embarkation to battlefields scattered over much of the world. They still needed food, clothing, ammo and a host of other supplies.

- All of this was coordinated without computers or communications more advanced than telegrams, teletypes and phones.

- In 1944 alone, US industry produced over 80,000 airplanes. That's a staggering number. And that's just for the US.

J said...

To TR Jr , Big Jim Van Fleet,Maj John Howard,Tubby Barton,The Bedford Boys,Easy Company, and all the other men of Operations Overlord and Neptune -Thanks.It is far to small a word for far too large a debt.

Larry J said...

ricpic said...
Did these men scale the cliffs for an ideal? I doubt it. How they did what they did is a mystery, at least to me.


Soldiers don't fight for the flag or some politician's flowery speech. Most fight for their friends, to not be a coward and let their friends down.

Sorun said...

"Next year it will be 70 years since D-Day."

SoS John Kerry will be giving the speech next year. It'll be in French and he'll talk a lot about his hat.

edutcher said...

In one of the great ironies of the war, one of the theaters with the lowest priority was at full complement before the ETO.

The bulk of the US Army didn't hit Europe (mostly the ETO, rather than Italy) until Fall-Winter '44.

The bulk of the US Army to fight in the Pacific, most of it in Douglas MacArthur's SW Pacific Area rather than the Navy's Pacific Ocean Areas, arrived in Summer '44.

JAL said...

At an American Military Cemetery in France, 2010:

"Bringing my sons to show them the sacrifice of all these heroes that freed us from Hell."

You are correct Bagho. It simply does not fit with today's pampered, entitled wusses. Male and female.

JAL said...

edutcher -- did you check this -- the Pacific -- out?

John said...

I will point out that Point Du Hoc, while an amazing military operation was in fact a complete waste of time. The Germans had moved the guns and replaced them with telephone poles. Ariel intel never noticed the difference. They went up those cliffs to find nothing.

Goes to show, nothing in war is quite as it seems.

Astro said...

Did you all see that great doodle that Google did today in honor of D-Day?

Yeah, me neither.

garage mahal said...

My God, how far America has fallen in electing the dumbass community organizer who spies on Americans.

Of course Reagan did much worse. People went to jail in his administration.

Consider:

Reagan conspired with Iran to win the WH.

Nixon conspired with the Vienamese to win the WH.

Scalia handed Dubya the WH.

You can argue the last legitimately elected Republican president was Eisenhower. And he ran on a platform of peace. Think how different [and better] this country would be had those events not occured?

JAL said...

Anyone traveling I-95 to or from Florida, do yourself a huge favor and stop in Pooler, GA. Right at the exit (Exit 102) there is the National Museum of the Mighty Eighth Air Force which flew the incredible bombing runs into Europe and Africa.

Holy cow.

Been there three times and will go again as there is always something new. Sobering and uplifting.

JAL said...

OMG Garage. Get a grip.

Scalia handed Dubya the WH.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Compare and contrast Reagan with the modern dornks like Harry Reid.

Real man v. corrupt scum rodent cockroach.

Cedarford said...

bbkingfish said...
40-year anniversary commemorative celebrations were right up Reagan's alley. Lots of talking. And 40 years was enough time that many people had forgotten Reagan was a draft dodger who did everything he could to avoid the fighting.

==================
As a Vet, I believe that this sort of chickenhawk variant post by leftists like bbkingfish instantly identifies the poster as a leftist who never served in the US Armed Forces.

They taunt so as to derail discussions into defending the person the craven, never-serving traitors call a "chickenhawk".

Of course, they are sensitive to being called traitors and anti-Christians...so if you want to go Alinsky or Jewish Bolshevik on them and taunt back to manipulate the debate - question their loyalty, their patriotism, and their belief in Christian morals.

Or mock them as cowards too chicken to even join the Guard or serve in a non-combat spot.

John said...

Garage,

I guess I missed it when Regean ordered the killing of an American citizen and his teenage son in Yeman and when he used the IRS and the FBI to go after his political opponents, and when he left a US ambassador to die, and when he used the NSA to collect the entire nation's telephone records.

Go fuck yourself you fascist little weisel. "They did it to" is not only a lie in this case but it is never an argument. You support Obama after all of this. And that shows that you will support anything as long as your team does it. There is literally no act, no matter how craven or illegal that Obama could do that you and your ilk would not support and be proud of.

John said...

Of course, they are sensitive to being called traitors and anti-Christians...so if you want to go Alinsky or Jewish Bolshevik on them and taunt back to manipulate the debate - question their loyalty, their patriotism, and their belief in Christian morals.

Every tactic Alinsky ever advocated had already been used by the Nazis in the 1920s. The Left are fascists.

Cedarford said...

John - What the Nazis did, from brownshirt tactics, to singling out class enemies for punishment or liquidation, to camps/gulags, use of White Sea Canal like discardable slave labor - they learned from the Bolsheviks.

Seeing Red said...

Now I have to wonder how old Garage really is.

Or how high he was not to remember the 70s.

Reagan didn't need any help from The Black Turbans to win the WH, Captain Malaise did that all on his own.

Seeing Red said...

And on 2000?

If the newscasters actually did their jobs and remembered The Panhandle is in the CENTRAL time zone, FLA might not have been called early.

We will never know how many decided to remain home after that eff up, but there would have been more W votes than what it came down to.

edutcher said...

ricpic said...

Did these men scale the cliffs for an ideal? I doubt it. How they did what they did is a mystery, at least to me.

They were Rangers, a few cuts above you and I. And, from what they've written, they understood the stakes.

You might read "The Spearheaders", about Darby's Rangers; "The Longest Day" or "The Battalion" by Robert Black about Pointe du Hoc; or Dick Couch's "Sua Sponte", wehich is more about modern Rangers, but you get an idea of who these men are.

JAL said...

edutcher -- did you check this -- the Pacific -- out?

Yes, I did, thank you.

The raids on Truk were part of the run-up to the Leyte landings, which were the Pacific counterpart to Normandy - although at the time, they were still trying to figure the best way to cut the Japanese empire in two, Formosa and the China coast or the Philippines.

John said...

I will point out that Point Du Hoc, while an amazing military operation was in fact a complete waste of time. The Germans had moved the guns and replaced them with telephone poles. Ariel intel never noticed the difference. They went up those cliffs to find nothing.

Goes to show, nothing in war is quite as it seems.


Baloney. Those guns were still ready to fire even though they'd been moved inland. Len Lomell and several men from the 2nd Rangers disabled them with thermite grenades. They could have been used at any time to zero in on the American beaches.

Cedarford said...

JAL said...
At an American Military Cemetery in France, 2010:

"Bringing my sons to show them the sacrifice of all these heroes that freed us from Hell."

You are correct Bagho. It simply does not fit with today's pampered, entitled wusses. Male and female.

======================
Such parents generally avoid bringing their sons to the Vietnam Memorial to impart that lesson. And if one day we have an Iraq Memorial - I doubt many will go there and say "These are the fallen Heroes that saved the Noble Muslim Iraqi Freedom Lovers of Bush and the Neocons".

Maybe a good rule of thumb is we should not spend blood, lives and treasure on countries with locals likely to kill unguarded Americans after the war is over on sight...or desecrate the graves of any "fallen American Heroes" buried there.

For all the minor irritants, France is a hell of a lot better and a hell of a lot worthier of fighting to restore - than a stinking Middle East country.

Brian Brown said...

bbkingfish said...
many people had forgotten Reagan was a draft dodger who did everything he could to avoid the fighting.


You're so fucking dumb it is embarrassing.

Brian Brown said...


Reagan conspired with Iran to win the WH.

Nixon conspired with the Vienamese to win the WH.

Scalia handed Dubya the WH.


Hilarious bullshit.

You're so fucking dumb it is embarrassing.

Oso Negro said...

I visited Normandy last year and it is quite an experience. A couple of days later I visited the area of the Battle of the Somme, where the scale of slaughter greatly exceeded that of Normandy. Either place is a fine reminder of why you should not place too much faith in a government.

NotWhoIUsedtoBe said...

A speech about morality and faith.

How far we've come.

Smilin' Jack said...

"bbkingfish isn't even very good at lying".

And the attempt proves he just isn't a good human being on top of being stupid enough to think it would fly here.


That's a little harsh. Reagan was a lefty at the time, so bbkingfish just assumed that Reagan did the same thing that he would have done.

bagoh20 said...

Being a little bit of a pilot, I've always been amazed at how quickly they trained so many men to fly fight and land the incredibly powerful and hard to fly planes of the war. Just the designing and building that many planes that fast from a dead start was a miracle. Many thousands were built right in the neighborhood where I currently live, and were flown back east by women pilots from an airfield that was right behind my current home (Mines Field).

"Gertrude Tompkins Silver – The last WASP to go missing in World War II. She made a flight from Mines Field (currently LAX) to Palm Springs on October 26, 1944, intending to fly a P-51 Mustang on to New Jersey, but never arrived in Palm Springs. As of January 2010, search efforts to locate the crash site are still ongoing." ~ Wikipedia

Fr Martin Fox said...

This is a very good speech; it wears very well 30 years later.

The other night, I watched a film about the Reagans, made by CBS but never aired on CBS. In the film, Reagan is portrayed, as the left claimed for many years, in Clark Clifford's words, as an amiable dunce.

So funny, however, because whatever else people may say about Reagan, "dunce" no longer works very well. Both his pivotal role he played in the Cold War, and other accomplishments, show that criticism to be rather telling--about his critics.

edutcher said...

Oso Negro said...

I visited Normandy last year and it is quite an experience. A couple of days later I visited the area of the Battle of the Somme, where the scale of slaughter greatly exceeded that of Normandy.

The British Army of WWI had little faith in its infantry or artillery (which very often didn't work) and refused to learn the hard-won lessons of the French (I know...).

The result - 60,000 casualties in one day, the bloodiest day in the history of the British Army.

George Marshall vowed that no American soldiers in WWII would be sent into battle under-supplied or ill-equipped and the lessons of the First War as well as those being learned in the Second would be applied.

Marshall wanted to command Overlord, but FDR said he wouldn't be able to sleep with Marshall out of the country.

Hell of a leap from today.

garage mahal said...

Reagan didn't need any help from The Black Turbans to win the WH, Captain Malaise did that all on his own.

Reagan made a backroom arms deal with Ayatollah Khomeini to hold the hostages long enough to make sure Carter lost. The "October Surprise".

Can you imagine if Obama made a deal with Iran like that? Whoa Nelly!

Alex said...

Reagan made a backroom arms deal with Ayatollah Khomeini to hold the hostages long enough to make sure Carter lost. The "October Surprise".

Any evidence for that sparky?

bagoh20 said...

"Reagan made a backroom arms deal with Ayatollah Khomeini to hold the hostages long enough to make sure Carter lost. The "October Surprise"."

Even if true which it isn't, it was a good outcome compared to the disaster 4 more years of Carter would have been, and I voted for the little mind lusting sweater model.

test said...

garage mahal said...
Can you imagine if Obama made a deal with Iran like that? Whoa Nelly!


If we imagined it I suspect it wouldn't be as funny as garage imagining Reagan making the deal he describes. The humor is all in the fact that garage pretends to believe it. Apparently he believes it's worth proving himself an idiot with every comment on the off chance some lurker is stupid anough to believe him.

bagoh20 said...

Compare that to the "stop the rising of the oceans" crap rhetoric our emperor pays 20 year old writers to do, because he's not up to doing better.

bagoh20 said...

" As of January 2010, search efforts to locate the crash site are still ongoing." ~ Wikipedia"

It's amazing this plane was never found. It's a big area with high mountains, but millions of people have been swarming all over it for 70 years.

Brent said...

titus said:

I like the "states rights" speech he gave in Philadelphia, Mississippi better.

Quick - give us one quote within 10 seconds of reading this.




Mr.Rogers talked about you titus when he said "I knew you couldn't".

Brent said...

O my gosh . . . .

Reagan and Eisenhower were adults.

And today we have children running the administration. Children:

It's not my fault.

What difference does it make?

Brent said...

Alex asked garage:

Any evidence for that sparky?









Crickets.










Good luck with that. Some people live their entire lives in fantasy land.

Fr Martin Fox said...

Even though I'm not a big fan of FDR, and I am not naive about the figures of those days...

Nevertheless, it sure seems to me that Eisenhower, Marshall, Churchill, and even FDR, among others, loom large now many decades later.

Brian Brown said...

garage mahal said...

Reagan made a backroom arms deal with Ayatollah Khomeini to hold the hostages long enough to make sure Carter lost.


No he didn't.

garage mahal said...

Any evidence for that sparky?

There is lots of evidence out there. See here and here for starters.

Hostages were released exactly 15 minutes after Reagan's inauguration. Arms flowed into Iran via Israel only weeks later. We know Reagan and his adviser were corrupt as hell and it certainly fits a pattern.

Brian Brown said...

garage mahal said...

There is lots of evidence out there


Hilarious.

You are so silly and ignorant it is a wonder why you bother.


Brian Brown said...

garage mahal said...

There is lots of evidence out there. See here and here for starters.


Laugh out loud funny. From the NYT link:

So why not embrace Mr. Sick's account? Because for all the closely reasoned arguments, the seeming accretion of evidence, his case is ultimately circumstantial and is not conclusive.
...
Mr. Sick does not strengthen his case by pussyfooting around improbable claims from several sources that George Bush, then a candidate for Vice President, was also at the Paris meeting. To be sure, Mr. Sick says, "it is difficult to believe that Bush flew off to Paris in the midst of a presidential campaign."...
Mr. Sick is a graceful, often elegant writer, and he skillfully leads us through a Byzantium of exotic characters and plots tangled within plots. He confesses that he occasionally woke up in the night wondering, "What if all of these people are lying to me?" Maybe it did all happen, and maybe it did not. But this account is not the clincher.


Don't worry, you didn't read the link. You saw a headline.

Again, you're so fucking dumb it is sad.

garage mahal said...

Hilarious

Dude, everyone knows here you wouldn't admit if Reagan sat up from his grave and confessed. You are incapable of any critical thought, but you know that already.

Darrell said...

According to the background Nightline put together on the hostage release, the Iranians went to the French and said something like Reagan is just another lying politician isn't he? He talks tough--talks war--but after he takes office he won't do anything. The French listened, then shouted "No! He is a madman! He going to start a war that will set the whole world afire! Nuclear war!!!" Iranian insiders said that while not saying anything to the French, they all reached the same conclusion at that moment--they must release the hostages as soon as Reagan took office. Any attack on Iran then would be seen as unneccessary in world opinion, making Iran the the object of sympathy--perhaps getting others to help them.

CWJ said...

Omaha Beach was horrific. Some of that was self-inflicted by American doctrine. BUT we prevailed we successfully landed and established a beachhead.

But for me the biggest "what if" would be what if the beach defenders had been in the majority germans rather than impressed Poles and other conquered peoples. In that case, I really wonder ...?

Brian Brown said...

garage mahal said...

Dude, everyone knows here you wouldn't admit if Reagan sat up from his grave and confessed


Keep telling yourself that, idiot.

You have a demonstrated inability to distinguish between crazy fantasies and fact.

You're really, really fucking dumb.

bagoh20 said...

I'm 100% German, but that country still scares me. They have a very uncommon ability to get things done well. It's incredible what it took to subdue them. Even with a drugged up madman at the helm, a recent history of defeat and hardship, and surrounded by enemies on all sides, that little country did enough damage to satisfy the world for quite a while.

Dr Weevil said...

Others have already objected to the other stupid lies in garage mahal's 3:33 comment, but what about this one: "People went to jail in [Reagan's] administration." Stupid GM thinks that an administration in which the guilty go to jail is somehow worse than an administration in which far more numerous and far guiltier people keep their jobs, are awarded large bonuses, and get promoted.

garage mahal said...

Stupid GM thinks that an administration in which the guilty go to jail is somehow worse than an administration in which far more numerous and far guiltier people keep their jobs, are awarded large bonuses, and get promoted.

To be "guiltier" than someone who has committed a crime and gone to jail, you first need to identify who broke what law.

Did you have anything?

Dr Weevil said...

So killing hundreds of Mexicans and a couple of Americans with Fast and Furious is OK as long as the President and Attorney General make sure that no one is punished for it? Really? Only a liar or a fool asserts that the number and seriousness of crimes committed can be accurately measured by the number of convictions.

Darrell said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Darrell said...

The NSA now has the largest collection of LOLcats in human history. Imagine that.

garage mahal said...

Only a liar or a fool asserts that the number and seriousness of crimes committed can be accurately measured by the number of convictions.

You still haven't identified the actual crimes. I agree Holder should have been fired a long time ago for a variety of reasons.

Dr Weevil said...

What kind of moron thinks Fast and Furious could have been done without the commission of dozen, if not hundreds, of felonies? Is it possible to kill hundreds of Mexicans and a couple of Americans legally? Or is everything legal that the president orders, because he orders it? And that's just one of the scandals this administration is involved in.

bagoh20 said...

There are more violations of law and civil rights that have already been admitted to by the IRS than all the convictions during Reagan terms. All that we are waiting for is to find out who's responsible.

And that's just one of many scandals.

garage mahal said...

What kind of moron thinks Fast and Furious could have been done without the commission of dozen, if not hundreds, of felonies?

What kind of moron goes on and on about felonies committed that he can't name? Not even one?

SteveR said...

You were slightly smarter as eelpout

Dr Weevil said...

Poor garage doesn't seem to have noticed that he hasn't named a single felony or felon from the Reagan administration, just baldly asserted that there were convictions, implied that there have been none in the Obama administration, and repeatedly evaded my rather obvious point that convictions are a lousy measure of crime. Or perhaps he's noticed his own gross hypocrisy and consciously wallows in it like a common troll.

Here's an analogy that will no doubt go swishing right over his head. I suspect that the number of policemen convicted of brutality in Spain under Franco was far less than the number of policemen convicted of brutality in an equivalently populous slice of the U.S. during the same period. Does that mean that the U.S. had more brutal policemen than Spain, or does it mean that the U.S. punished at least some of their brutal policemen, while Spain rewarded and promoted theirs? Have any Turkish policemen been fired or prosecuted for brutality in the last week or two? I don't think so. Does that prove that they're not brutal, or does it prove that Erdogan wants them to brutalize the demonstrators? Even a moron should be able to figure out that one. Whether GM can do so remains to be seen.

SteveR said...

Instead of relying on the facts as most everyone agrees are facts to criticize Reagan, GM resorts to links that don't even come close to validating his point of view. not a one time occurrence but a constant approach. Fail

traditionalguy said...

I have walked that bluff overlooking Omaha Beach. It is higher than you think. And it was lined with reinforced concrete bunkers, most of which had been destroyed by shell fire.

An important thing you realize when walking the bluff is that it was at the end of the Utah Beach line and its bunkers were designed to shoot up along the entire beach line in a cross fire rather than aiming out to sea.

That anyone survived that cross fire was a miracle. FDR had spoken a solemn live radio address to America that morning asking for the American people to fast and and pray for those brave Soldats Americane to survive that cross fire on a French Beach that day.

cubanbob said...

A elderly man I know joined the Army as a medic in 1940. Got shipped out to Hawaii and was at Schoefield Barracks when he got a Japanese wake up call. Three years later he went ashore at Normandy beach. Finished the war in Germany. He is still amazed he survived. I doubt I would have had the guts to do what he did.