6/6/44

[SB]

Be worthy.

Make it count.

[tango uniform]

A very moving 5:41.

I could only imagine what 5:41 was like 75 years ago this AM on the Northern Coast of France.

Freedom is not free.

[iceman]

I read this morning that only about 3% of WWII vets are still alive. If you know one let him know you appreciate it.

[mcski]

I had a language prof in college that was hard as nails old school Eastern European. Spoke more languages fluently than I could count. He looked a little like George C Scott in Patton only tougher. Lost most of his family in the war. He had immigrated here sometime in the 60s. Anyway, one class we somehow got into talking about dday and he told the story about a visit he made to Normandy when he was in his 40s a few years before to pay his respects. He believed that event not only changed but saved his life and the remaining family he had. He talked about how he couldn't believe those guys could be so brave and felt he owed it to them to at least see what they saw. So, he waded out until he was chest to neck deep before he turned around to face the beach and try to imagine what that saw and faced that day. I think everyone in class that day realized what a big deal it was for some if they didn't already.

[summit]

[ncskier]

I read this morning that only about 3% of WWII vets are still alive. If you know one let him know you appreciate it.

Took the youngest for a haircut last month. Old guy sitting in the chair was waiting for his son, who looked to be late 60's early 70's. So I figured the dad had to be 90's. Turned out he was a B-24 bomber vet from WW2. He was eager to talk and my 13 year old was enamored that this old guy standing before him, sharp as tack told him of joining the army air force two days before his 17th birthday and had to wait until he was 17 with his parents signature to ship out to basic training. Finished his 25 bombing runs and was promoted to lance corporal at the ripe age of 20. He went home, worked for Johnson and Johnson for 40 years, raised a family and told us he never expected to live this long. We shook hands and thanked him again for his stories.
I went home and looked and my 16 year old, sitting on his bed, day off from school, with X-box headset on and i-phone by his bed and couldn't imagine him only 6-9 months removed from the veteran who at the similar age was flying bomber runs over Europe. Youth forged by the depression and hardened by war.

[SB]

Blessings on the SC family.

[DaveTV]

My father was there. I still have his ammo pouch, carries some small tools in the truck.

[mcski]

My uncle was killed on 6-6-44 in one of those wooden gliders delivering troops just inland beyond the beach. He was my mom's older brother and her hero even before the war. She was tough as nails, but she wouldn't talk about him because it was just too painful. That was long before I was born and I didn't realize just how painful until she absolutely refused to go see Private Ryan under any circumstances. She got tears just at the mention of the movie. She was tough as nails and dealt w most of life's hurdles w ice water in her veins. But not about that day.

RIP Francis

[summit]

Photo Collection: https://www.denverpost.com/2019/06/0...ersary-photos/

[wooley12]

Survivor of Omaha Beach. Went in with the second wave to hit the beach. He told me that the 2nd wave was worse than the 1st by it is said that every mans combat experience is a 6 foot circle. He remembered wading in through what he called a "human soup". 3 days later he was being transported to a hospital in England. I feel fortunate that I was there to capture this image of a D Day vet on the daily walk he has taken for 30 years as he passed in front of the American flag flying at half mast in honor of John McCain.

[evdog]

Photo Collection: https://www.denverpost.com/2019/06/0...ersary-photos/

If you're gonna post the link post your password too eh, so we can actually look at the pics.

[summit]

If you're gonna post the link post your password too eh, so we can actually look at the pics.

I don't have one. Open it in incognito, or Google the link, or just hit escape as the page loads before the pay me script executes.

[XXX-er]

you don't necessarily need to see action to be affected, both my parents came of age as civilians in war zones and I think it fucked them up

[Cono Este]

My mother was born on 6/9/44. They passed her around the wounded troops that were arriving from Normandy.

My great uncle, was on a RN mine sweeper, and the story goes, he had to shoot out the life preservers on the floating dead.


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[old goat]

Listening to some of the interviews the one that struck me was a guy who went ashore with a flame thrower and was wounded immediately. His job was to take out pillboxes. 75 years later he still blames himself for all the GI's that were killed by the pillbox he didn't take out, considers himself a failure.

The story of Ray Lambert and Ray's Rock is something else too. https://www.npr.org/2019/06/06/73012...tions-sacrific

In 82-3 I was in Tucson and visited the Pima Country Air Museum which was next to Davis Monthan AFB where they mothballed old planes. Lots of WWII bombers B-17's, 24's, and 29's. The docents who explained the planes were guys who had flown missions in them.

One of the better parts of my job was that I saw a fair number of WWII vets with medical issues that stemmed from the war. The patients who were after them on my schedule had to wait while we talked.

[Phall]

Grandpa was there, albeit not seeing front-line combat, as a Commander on a CG vessel, we have some of the pics he took from the deck. I really need to dive into that history box the next time I am home.

[old goat]

One of the guys I met drove a landing craft--survived six landings on D-Day.
A few years ago I heard an interesting piece on the boats--they were designed after Louisiana bayou craft and built down there. They were shipped by rail to the east coast on flatbed cars and painted while they were on their way. They were plywood except for the steel ramp so none survive today.

The landing scene in Private Ryan is the most terrifying thing I've ever seen in the movies--makes Jaws look like a Mickey Mouse cartoon.

[iceman]

Mt Uncle was there. Said they hit a sandbar far off the beach. The gate dropped, he ran across the sandbar and off the other side, and with 60 pounds on his bank he sank like a stone in the deep water just past the sandbar. Said he ran across the bottom and up the other side as it got shallow.

My father landed 2 weeks later. He was a B.A.R. man, carried that thing across France and into Germany. How many Germans he killed with it we'll never know, as he never talked about it. About all he did say was that the Germans were much better soldiers than us, better-trained and with better equipment. But they were exhausted and "we just overwhelmed them".

[wooley12]

"as he never talked about it.."

My FB feed is full of posts by the children of WWII vets who fought and killed at the front of the front. That is the most common phrase that appears.

[iceman]

Yeah he never did. My uncle on the other hand had no qualms. Later he became the National Commander of the DAV, so he ended up talking about the war his whole life. He died in 2005 with a German machine-gun bullet still lodged against his spine.

[Buster Highmen]

My late dad, a Navy vet stationed in the Pacific as a doctor, never talked about it and hated military holidays; he lost his brother in the Battle of the Bulge.

[wooley12]

D Day story I found when I was looking at the morning reports and saw 5/4/44 Capt. Lytle promoted to Major. 5/5/44 Major Lytle moved from duty to hospital.

"Just prior to the invasion Rudder and Major Cleveland Lytle, the commander of Force A, got into an argument over the assigned task. According to some reports, Lytle thought the focus of the attack should be on Battery Maisy rather than Pointe du Hoc and that the Rangers were attacking in the wrong place.

Other reports had Lytle in an alcoholic stupor loudly proclaiming that the mission was suicide. And that the Free French forces reporting that the guns had already been moved from Pointe du Hoc. Either way, Rudder felt that Lytle was unfit for command, relieved him on the spot and took personal charge of the assault on Pointe du Hoc.

Lytle didn’t go quietly, having to be manhandled out of the door by several Rangers, and knocked out the Regimental Surgeon. He later commanded a Regiment in the 90th Infantry Division and was awarded the Silver Star and the Distinguished Service Cross."

[PNWbrit]

Spent two childhood camper van summer vacations in Normandy in the mid 70s. Taken to all the famous D-Day spots. Arromanche, Sainte-Mère-Église, Du Hoc, the graveyards. Clambered over the remains of the mulberry harbor still sitting in the surf and several just still sitting there where they'd stopped Sherman tanks.

I remember being allowed to stay up late one night shortly before the first vacation there to be allowed to watch The Longest Day in preparation and then afterwards staging reenactments of all the key engagements with Action Men and or battalions of 1:32 scale Airfix soldiers. I think in fact some of the Airfix soldiers were taken on vacation with us.





Even to a 6/7 year old the history of the place was enough to cause goose bumps... and pretend machine gun noises.

[old goat]

The Normandy coast is littered with Norman castles and German pill boxes--amazing how similar they look, other than in size. On top of Pointe du Hoc there is no level ground, just confluent shell craters. The American cemetery is hard to look at--so many young men who died far from home, never got to have a life, their families never got a chance to say goodbye. They left home and just never came back.

"Now as I sit here safe at home
With a cold Coors Lite and the TV on
All the sacrifice and the death and woe
Lord, I pray that I'm worth fighting for." Lyle Lovett, "Natural Forces"