O.T. 71st Anniversary of D-Day
Thanking all ally nations for the commitment and sacrifices made 71 years ago today. May we always remember D-Day, the start of the end of Hitler's reign of terror.
and the switch from a prime objective of "protect the B-17s" to "destroy as many Luftwaffe planes as possible" cleared the skies for Western Allied dominance by late 44/45.
Germany was toast in the Battle of the Bulge once the skies cleared around the New Year and allied planes could shoot German tanks like fish in a barrel.
Indeed Muttley. Under Hitler's orders, "Operation Bodenplatte" was launched during the Battle of the Bulge. It was supposed to cripple allied air power. Instead it destroyed the Luftwaffe's ability to mount any serious operations. The loss in aircraft was one thing, but the Lutwaffe experienced the loss of many experienced combat leaders. Losses which were irreplaceable.
io9 had this great video up about the military and civilian deaths of World War II. It's 15 minutes of your day well spent. D-Day was an intensely bloody day for the US and so was the remainder of the campaign in 1944-45. Thank you doesn't really come close but thanks to all the veterans that are still with us, and to those who have passed.
Saw this the other week. Very sombering.
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It's especially sad that much of it was self-inflicted as a purposeful military tactic. It was Stalin's mode of operation. He had already killed millions more of his own people before the war had even started.
Life was cheap in the Soviet Union, and they fought their war accordingly.
this weekend. Thanks, Vets.
I've been to the beaches and to the cemetery. I am a pretty jaded person usually but I was really moved by the experience. What is so ironic is how peaceful and beautiful it is. The waves are quietly rolling in and the birds are singing and yet you try to get your head around the carnage and gore that took place on that very spot. You find yourself whispering even though there is no other person in sight. Few people realize that France gifted the cemetery land to the U.S. and it is actually American soil.
"You are about to embark upon the great crusade toward which we have striven these many months. The eyes of the world are upon you...I have full confidence in your courage, devotion to duty and skill in battle."
Gen. Dwight Eisenhower
My father, who turned 18 in July of 1944, was in the army but never made it overseas.
Growing up in Detroit, he saw first-hand the tooling up of Detroit's war production.
He was fond of saying: "All a German spy had to do was stand on the street corner, count the tanks coming off the assembly line ... and defect."
Many have cited Detroit's 2.5 ton truck as what really won the war. That's an overstatement, of course ... but it is true an Army lives or dies based on its supply train. The US 2.5 ton truck was the workhorse for moving men and material.
Logistics wins wars, and the Deuce and a Half was a primary instrument in the battle of logistics.
There were 2 major truck designs built in the U.S. and used by the allied powers during the war.
The GMC/White 2 1/2 ton truck primarily used by the U.S and our British allies,
The Studebaker 2 1/2 ton truck that was supplied solely to the Soviet Union via Persia.
The supply of the Studebaker trucks to the Russians freed up Soviet resources to build tanks... Like 57,000 T-34's...
Without the Soviets overwhelming superiority in armor, the eastern front would have had a very different ending. The Russians would not have without the logistical advantage supplied by the Americans.
Logistics wins wars, and the Deuce and a Half was a primary instrument in the battle of logistics.
On land ... and on the sea the Liberty Ship. In the early years of the war the Germans were winning the battle of the Atlantic, sinking enormous amounts of merchant marine tonnage. US war material could never be transported in the Deuce and a Half without first being transported over the water.
I'm deep into William Manchester's epic "The Last Lion," a three-part biography of Winston Churchill. I'm in volume three right now, and it's June 1942 ... a year after the start of Operation Barbarossa ... and the beginning of the German spring offensives in the east.
Stalin was demanding a second front to take the pressure off the German offensives in the east. The Allies did not have the sea lift to successfully land sufficient troops in Europe at that time. They opted for a landing in west Africa to (a) establish a second front somewhere, and (b) put pressure on Rommel's rear, thus taking away the threat on the Suez and the oil fields of Iraq and Iran.
Those who think Operation Barbarossa was a clear strategic blunder from the very beginning are, I think, missing the larger picture. The invasion caught the Soviets completely off guard. The objective was never just Moscow. The objective was the agricultural capacity of the Ukraine and the oil fields of the Caucasus. Had Germany taken those objectives it could have starved the Russians of both food and oil.
Germany nearly achieved those objectives. In the early summer of 1942 it looked as if they would. Hence Stalin's increasingly strident calls for a second front.
They had more courage than I could ever dream having for myself.
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Being only like 12 or 13 when he passed away, I never fully understood/appreciated the significance of hearing firsthand from someone that took part in the Invasion of Normandy, let alone Omaha.
Plus he actually seemed to really enjoy talking about it. I remember he often mentioned that people don't realize how damn far of a distance it truly was getting up the beach. For this man in particular, his landing craft (like many) didn't make it ashore. So they had to wade through some 150 yards of water before facing what was about a quarter-mile, uphill trek.
Obviously that's pretty f***ing FAR when you're under a barrage of bullets with hardly any cover. Those were some brave souls.
Not to mention wearing a soaked wool uniform, carying all of your equipment, ammunition, food and water. THEN having to scale a damn cliff to take out concrete machine gun bunkers. Oh yeah, THEN having to fight through the brutal meatgrinder of the various hedgerows and villages in Normandy. No pre-determined tour of duty; you're in it until you win, get seriously wounded, or killed. One tough generation of Americans.
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My grandfather was in the 79th Signal Corps, D+5. Recently found his notebooks with diagrams on how to wire large networks of telephones, dated a few months before the invasion. He had all sorts of amazing stories about those days, including the fact that Patton would come and make a phone call, and then just hang around after to talk and unwind with the guys. Glad I got all of it on tape.
Not quite related, but my grandfather was an airplane navigator in the south pacific at 22. I'm 26 right now and would shit my pants if i even was interviewed by the armed forces. RIP the greatest generation.
My dad's father was in the British XXX Corps, and they went up Juno Beach that day, which was one of the more difficult landings due to choppy water. A fair number of my grandfather's friends - one or two of them childhood friends - never made it out of the water actually. He was also involved in Market Garden a few months later. I can't even imagine...I really don't know if I would want to imagine.
There's a fair chance your Grandpa and mine crossed paths. My Grandpa spent the war in Texas in the Army, training medics for the European theater.
I definitely tip my hat to the men and women that fought in those battles. Stories about WWI and WWII have always amazed me. The bravery and the determination displayed against seemingly unsurmountable odds... I guess that's what made America what it is today. Best country in the world!
And...who else has college football!?!
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You've got an interesting family history there!
When I was in art school at UM one of the shop staff was a German guy who was a boy in the Berlin area at the very end of the war. He said many German soldiers were frantically searching for American units to surrender to because they knew their fate with the Yanks was going to be far better than if they were captured by the Russians. The latter essentially meant certain death in horrible POW conditions, assuming they weren't shot immediately after capture to begin with.
For those interested in the topic, read The Longest Day by Cornelius Ryan.
(The movie version is okay; the book version is simply outstanding.)
And for those really interested in the history of WWII, gird your loins and read William Shirer's The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. It's long, it's dense, it has a billion footnotes ... but it is one of the best renderings of history from the perspective of someone who was there.
Shirer was a journalist and his book reflects like. Easiest 1500 page book I've read.
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My grandfather was lucky. He crossed that beach on June 7...
The Battle of the Bulge was no cakewalk, however. He was lucky again, fought through it, and went on to live a long, happy, productive life. I miss him all the time.
All this crap out there about Bruce Jenner's "courage"...
I was in Normandy last summer and took a 2-day D-Day tour, and it was of the most moving/interesting experiences I've ever had. Here's a photo I took of a sign on Omaha Beach on a previous trip (about 20 years ago). The sign is no longer there.
Sometimes I think our country needs to go through something like this again just to gain some perspective.
We're closing in on a time very shortly when there won't be anybody left from WWII.
Many thanks to everyone that was a part of D-Day.
Nope, I'd prefer we not have another global war that killed millions upon millions of people. No "perspective" (what does that even mean, anyway?) is worth that.
The rationing and living within means part I meant.
He lied about his age and enlisted in the Navy in 1942 at age 17. He ended up on an LCT MK6 and participated in the second wave assault at Omaha beach. They were taking on troops and mechanized units from the larger transport craft and ferrying them to shore. He never talked about what he saw until the 50th anniversary in 1944, which was the first time I'd ever seen him break down in tears. It still stuck with him all those years—watching all the LCTs on either side of them getting blown out of the water, but he was lucky and made it through. He said the worst part, though, was the fact that they were under strict orders not to pick up any men on the beach—as soon as they disgorged their cargo, they had to pull up the ramp and get back to the main transports for another load... which meant that injured or panicked troops were pounding and screaming for them to let them back on, but they had to ignore them and leave them in the surf.
He's in the front row immediately above the white vertical stripe on the ramp.
At some point, my FIL adopted a small dog and he named it Meatball. I doubt Meatball was at Normandy, but I don't know whatever happened to him.
This shot is presumably well before the landing.
At some point after the beachheads had been solidified, they got some shore leave, and eventually he got to see Paris.
He just celebrated his 90th birthday, and he's still going strong. Pretty good for a poor Mexican kid from Detroit's southwest side. He's a hero in my book.
He's a hero in my book now, too. I have nothing but the utmost respect for all of those who served in that war. What an amazing generation.
the record of the LCT my father-in-law was on:
http://www.navsource.org/archives/10/18/180542.htm
Not 100% sure since there are no photos, but regardless it's an amazing thing to have so much data online