June 6th 1944

[Rossi]

It is good to be in this corner of the digital domain where people actually care and remember the significance of this day in history. Like the people who visit Auschwitz and act as though it is an amusement park, failing to comprehend the immensity of suffering inflicted upon innocents within its' barbed wire enclosures. I am afraid, the farther removed we become in time from these events, the less they will be marked by those engaged in lolita worship and the total immersion in the vapid and hollow world of "popular culture". So, it should be our goal not only to remember, but to enlighten others as to the real and world changing events that have come before the latest "star" cheated on their spouse or the latest dreg of humanity posed on a beach somewhere.

I will give that one a huge BAM! So true. We are having a neighbor BBQ celebration tonight at my home. I have 4 neighbors who have Grandfathers who served in WWII and one perished on Omaha Beach. We took 2 hours away from this manic life today and went to the VA grave site in St. Paul to salute, honor and talk about our Granddads. 85 and sunny so we sat by each man's resting place and told stories and shed a few together but also laughed as we talked about them too. They all 4 impacted our lives greatly. DDAY is forgotten much by the generations and it pains me. I don't just platform this day. Each day is a gift! Appreciate this thread and the men who are here who are the best collecting brothers in the world today!

Salute!

[Nacogdochian]

What made this Allied success at Normandy all the more impressive was that halfway around the world the United States Navy was simultaneously conducting another major amphibious operation—not thirty miles across the English Channel but three thousand miles across the wide Pacific Ocean. Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, commanding a force of 600 ships, landed the Second and Fourth Marine Divisions, backed by the army’s 27th Infantry Division, on Saipan in the Mariana Islands on June 15.

Assaults against the nearby islands of Tinian and Guam soon followed and they became essential bases from which to launch B-29 bomber missions against Japan. Meanwhile, naval aviators decimated Japanese airpower in a free-for-all of aerial combat that came to be called the Marianas Turkey Shoot.

[TWS]

Appreciate the insightful commentary here. The Campaign in Italy was "a hard slog" to put it extremely mildly. Those veterans have my utmost respect. Many bitter battles were waged there. I recently read "The Day of Battle" by Rick Atkinson and strongly recommend it for those wishing to study the Italian campaign. The author doesn't pull any punches IMO.

Mr. Atkinson wrote an entire series with "The Day of Battle" about the Italian campaign being the middle book. The first is "An Army at Dawn" which covers the campaign in North Africa and the third one is the topic of this thread. It is "The Guns at Last Light" and covers the campaign in Europe, starting with the Normandy Invasion. Note that the thesis of the trilogy is to cover the American involvement in the war, so no slight to any of our allies reading this post. For many of them the war began a couple years earlier.

[reneblacky]

D Day +4 now AEST
Hope you all can enjoy these first hand narratives via this link, scroll down and you will see.
Warriors In Their Own Words | First Person War Stories | World War II

[reneblacky]

I must say these are really worth a listen
RAAF had a small part of the "Day of all Days"
Lest We Forget

[FALLSCHIRMJAGER]

My Granddad (as some of you know), now aged 94, veteran of the first wave assault of Sword beach ( Lincoln Regiment). Thanks gramps, without you and your fellow brave souls, life and collecting militaria would not exist as we know it!! Leon.

[HistoryMan]

whos there this year ???

[BrodieBartfast]

75 years, one of the big milestones... Every year these events recede further into the past, and will soon be gone from living memory entirely. All the more reason to remember those brave men and their deeds on that fateful day. One cannot imagine the terror of being in one of those landing craft, surrounded by seasick comrades, with the grey Normandy coastline growing closer. It makes the problems of today feel very small indeed.

My great grandfathers were both 'D-Day Dodgers', both fighting in Italy at the time the invasion was launched. Not that that was a position to envy. The fighting around the likes of Monte Cassino was no less dangerous. Each and every man who fought in that terrible war deserves our eternal gratitude. Those who came home, and those who did not.

Lest we forget.

B.B.

[HistoryMan]

75 years, one of the big milestones... Every year these events recede further into the past, and will soon be gone from living memory entirely. All the more reason to remember those brave men and their deeds on that fateful day. One cannot imagine the terror of being in one of those landing craft, surrounded by seasick comrades, with the grey Normandy coastline growing closer. It makes the problems of today feel very small indeed.

My great grandfathers were both 'D-Day Dodgers', both fighting in Italy at the time the invasion was launched. Not that that was a position to envy. The fighting around the likes of Monte Cassino was no less dangerous. Each and every man who fought in that terrible war deserves our eternal gratitude. Those who came home, and those who did not.

Lest we forget.

B.B.

I will be in Cassino in 3 weeks

[Jan]

I always put this one on display on June 6th.

Best,

Jan