D-DAY Remembrance Thread
 

https://goo.gl/images/s0sWj9

God bless all those brave Americans who stormed the beaches for the freedom of others.

Feel free to share any stories you have. (Family members present, visiting the battlefield etc)

Awesome pic!! Had to possess balls of steel to land on that beach...God bless those that fell that day-

It's amazing to think about what those guys went through,

- No tank support (Poor bastards in tanks)
- Low Tide (much more land to cover)
- Pre-sighted Mortars and MG nests with double and sometimes triple crossfire zones
- Tripod mounted MG42's (One of the best machine guns ever built 2,000 round per minute)
- German Artillery that was not hit from bombing
- A harden German position with a combat harden German unit instead of conscripts (can you even believe what D-Day would look like if Utah/Juno/Sword/Gold would have been just as bad as Omaha?! Would have been talking 20-50K dead in one day)

Thank god at least at Omaha some Naval Captains literally BEACHED their destroyers to direct fire on the pillboxes.

I've read alot of great books about D-Day but my favorite will always be...

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon....1yfM33gAgL.jpg

I was fortunate enough to visit Normandy last April with my wife. We did the full D-Day tour, and then did a guided "Band of Brothers" tour where we followed in the footsteps of Easy Company from Normandy to Bastogne. It was incredible, awe-inspiring, and humbling.

Setting foot in the places where so many men gave their lives in the fight against true, unconditional evil is something I'll never forget.

We had visited Oscar Schindler's factory and Auschwitz in Poland just days prior, so seeing first had what these men were fighting for made it all the more impactful.

Pointe Du Hoc was insane. The US Government owns the land, and it is a protected battlefield site – it has literally not changed since the war. The battlefield is littered with craters and bunkers – most of which are riddled with bullet holes on the inside. If you don't know the story of Pointe Du Hoc, look it up. It gives me goosebumps. The 2nd and 5th US Army Ranger battalions assaulted the point, which is a 100+ foot vertical cliff. Even though the site had been under heavy bombing, it was still heavily occupied by the German 352nd. The Rangers climbed the cliff with a ****ING GRAPPLING HOOK and stormed the bunkers. Their reinforcements launched late due to timing issues, and accidentally landed on Omaha, far down the shoreline. This left nearly 300 Rangers pinned against the shoreline with limited supplies and ammo. Days later, when reinforcements were able to work around behind the Nazis, the 2 battalions had been reduced to around 90 men. The bunkers are FULL of bullet holes. The wooden ceilings are charred from flame throwers. It's unreal.

The cemetery at Omaha Beach is beyond words. I have two great uncles from opposite sides of my family buried there, which I knew going in...but I was shocked to see that these two men were buried just 4 graves from one another. They both died on the same day, D-Day, and were the same age. Imagine that. These two guys who never met one another stormed a beach and gave their lives so that their family members could eventually cross paths and make my existence possible. That's incredible.

The most powerful thing we witnessed, without a doubt, was a rendition of the National Anthem at the cemetery. In attendance were about 8 veterans who had fought on the beach. From the vantage point, you overlook the cemetery, and down below...the beach. All of them stood to salute the flag, sobbing. One man was wheelchair bound, and his son and grandson held him upright at his request.

They call these guys the greatest generation for a reason.

One of my bucket lists is to go see this, I bet I would be moved to tear like I was at Arlington cemetery

Ultimate respect for what they did. Unreal.

We did the Pearl Harbor thing a few years back when we were there. Really interesting experience.

Planning to do the Normandy one soon.

Do it man. It's worth whatever $$ it takes. And whenever you do go, do guided tours. I have studied up enough on WW2 to know a lot. But I was shocked at how little I did know compared to the experts.

That, and they have access to private farms and battle sites that are not publicly accessible.

You'll be shocked at how much rural France looks like the Kansas City countryside. That, and how little it's changed since the war. There are still mass amounts of buildings with holes in the sides of them, or bullet holes in stone walls, etc.

The other amazing thing is that, in Paris, they don't care much for Americans. In Normandy, they love us. One waiter we talked to actually told us "I'd be speaking German if it were not for Americans."

I didn't do a formal tour, but did some of the BoB tour on my own, and had the same experience - harrowing, to put it mildly. Pointe du Hoc was absolutely unbelievable - the size and quantity of the craters was insane, and the idea of scaling that cliff is crazy. Walking on Omaha, and seeing the pillboxes still in the bluffs was incredibly humbling - it's almost inconceivable the beach was taken. The feats of that day are truly incredible.

Agreed. So, so humbling. Visited a few years ago. Looking out the pill boxes on Omaha with the tide out and I teared up. Our guys were sitting ducks... Not to mention the church where US medics took care of german and Allied wounded and there is still blood stains on the pews with stained glass windows featuring American paratroopers...

My granddad was a medic but was across the sea in England and followed behind the wave to Berlin working mostly in the field hospitals from my understanding. He didn't talk about it very much.

The Ironic part for me is that he had boots on the ground in England, France, Germany and was in Berlin during the occupation hating Russians(hated them and said in many ways we fought the wrong People..not to dilute the obvious reasons to fight Germany, he said the German people were good.)

He was one of the guys who wouldn't stand to be honored when they ask for veterans and didn't want a Military funeral because he didn't think he deserved it because he wasn't Infantry. I understand...but I don't understand. Perspective I guess and he saw so many bad things that happened to the men he called the true heroes.

Use to have a neighbor that was the only survivor of his unit that landed on Omaha beach. Served in Europe until the war was over. The neighbors had no clue he was in WWII. He was a retired teacher to them.



The guy walked bent over at the waist with a bad back. He insisted in bringing the trashcans back up from the street to our and the rest of the neighbors houses weekly. I went out one day to help and he said, "I may be slow these days but I learned a thing or two in the military, dont touch these cans or youll find out what I was taught". And then he smiled real big and went back to struggling with the trash cans.

I'm a WWII buff I have read so much stuff and it's still not even scratching the surface.

But one cool bit about D-Day is that several Naval Captains literally BEACHED their destroyers on Omaha to train their guns right at the Pill Boxes.
https://padresteve.files.wordpress.c..._positions.jpg
People don't seem to understand that the entirety of the 1st wave was almost wiped out completely. (here is a picture they did to illustrate it)
http://lh3.ggpht.com/-jfoK2Hba8k0/Uk...jpg?imgmax=800

The is mention of it in the book "The Longest Day", but there is also a book from a German perspective. Two German pilots took off in their FW-190 and came over the landing sites....... The German pilot lead literally said something to the affect of "The war is already over" when he saw the 4,000+ ship fleet
https://media.iwm.org.uk/ciim5/7/159/large_000000.jpg

Spent a week in France, and all but one day of it in Paris. This was not my experience at all. Just FTR.

The one day I didn't spend in Paris was spent travelling to Normandy to take a tour of the D-Day beaches, etc. It was fantastic. Very interesting, informative, humbling etc. One day is pretty rushed, and it' s a long day if you do it as a day trip out of Paris, but I highly recommend going there one way or another.

Note, while there you (unlike me :( ) should check out the Bayeux Tapestry.

It's RIGHT. DAMN. THERE. And yet we just could not squeeze it in.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayeux_Tapestry

So one of the neatest facts about D-Day is that on that day, in addition to the largest invasion fleet in the history of the world hitting the beaches of Normandy, the SECOND largest invasion fleet in the history of the world had just sortied out of Pearl the day before. The US Fifth Fleet, heading for Saipan and soon to engage in the Battle of the Phillipines Sea, often called the Great Marianas Turkey Shoot, which ultimately ended Japan's ability to engage in large fleet engagements. Fifth Fleet included some 800 ships. As a result of this battle, Admiral Nagumo, who had commanded the carrier fleet which hit Pearl, committed suicide, and Hideki Tojo, Prime Minister of Japan since the start of the war, resigned.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle...Philippine_Sea

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Saipan