This brave soldier died during the Battle of the Bulge.
Posted on 06/08/2023 5:18:11 AM PDT by MtnClimber
The men at Omaha did not believe America had to be perfect to be good—just far better than the alternative.
Seventy-nine years ago this week, the Allies assaulted the Normandy beaches on D-Day, June 6, 1944.
Their invasion marked the largest amphibious landing since the Persians under Xerxes invaded the Greek mainland in 480 B.C.
Nearly 160,000 American, British, and Canadian soldiers stormed five beaches of Nazi-occupied France. The plan was to liberate Western Europe after four years of occupation, push into Germany, and end the Nazi regime.
Less than a year later, the Allies from the West, and the Soviet Russians from the East, did just that, utterly destroying Hitler’s Third Reich.
Ostensibly, the assault seemed impossible even to attempt.
Germany had repulsed with heavy Canadian losses an earlier Normandy raid at Dieppe in August 1942.
The Germans also knew roughly when the Allies were coming. They placed their best general, Erwin Rommel, in charge of the Normandy defenses.
The huge D-Day force required enormous supplies of arms and provisions just to get off the beaches. Yet the Allies had no means of capturing even one port on the nearby heavily fortified French coast.
To land so many troops so quickly, the Allies would have to ensure complete naval and air supremacy.
They would have to tow over from Britain their own ports, lay their own gasoline pipeline across the English Channel, and invent novel ships and armored vehicles just to get onto and over the beaches.
More dangerous still, the invaders would ensure armor and tactical air dominance to avoid being cut off, surrounded, and annihilated once they went inland.
German Panzer units—battle-hardened troops in frightening Panther and Tiger tanks, with over three hard years of fighting experience on the Eastern Front—were confident they could annihilate...
(Excerpt) Read more at amgreatness.com ...
And now Klaus Schwab and the WEF have arisen from the ashes. Same goal, different tactics.
VDH ping
If those men in the landing craft knew what America would become they would have told the coxwains to turn their craft around.
“ If those men in the landing craft knew what America would become they would have told the coxwains to turn their craft around.”
No.
This brave soldier died during the Battle of the Bulge.
......as those landing craft approached Omaha Beach the FEAR FACTOR in the boat among those young men must have been OVERWHELMING if not in some cases debilitating.
What a compliment to America that her son’s, with certain death for many only minutes away, did not chicken out and ORDER under gunpoint the coxswain to turn around.
78 years later, it still brings water to this old man’s eyes and a lump in my throat every time I think about it.
Unlike in the Werhmacht where the practice was to rotate it’s soldiers, our guys stayed on the line until the war ended, or were wounded or killed.
If only we had today’s leftist media, the Germans would have known every detail of the Allies’ plans. The media would be sewing dissension among the troops and the citizenry.
Operation Pluto
Interesting 35 minute film on building the pipelines across the Channel. Just one of the many technological problems to overcome in a short time.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=FIYS_9EI5j0
Enjoy VDH always
This man served in the Africa, Sicily and D-Day France invasions before he was killed in Belgium.
As well it should
My uncle, was sent in to Utah Beach ... He was struck by shrapnel in the head. He maintained the presence of mind to keep his hand in the air, so the beach comers would see he was still alive..
He was carted off to a hospital and a metal plate inserted to keep his brain intact. Then he was promptly sent off to the Battle of the Bulge ... I know this because his mother, my grandmother told me about it, through tear filled eyes. He made it back to the USA, but not the same person she knew. I barely knew him.. but I love this woman as much as I love anyone...
I never thought about asking to ‘see’/’read’ his letters. I suppose they were given to one of his sons. I was a kid and it hurt to see her pain.
Not so sure about that. The Persians sent about 30,000 men to Greece. The Allied invasion of Sicily in 1943 involved about 160,000 men.
Whenever I read something about June 6, 1944, I always start humming the theme from the movie “The Longest Day”. Many memorable scenes.
Yet the Allies pulled off the impossible by surprising the Germans, securing a beachhead, supplying that toehold in Western Europe, and then expanding the pocket into a vast 1,000-mile front that in less than a year shattered Hitler’s defenses.
How and why did the Americans on Omaha charge right off their landing craft into a hail of German machine gun and artillery fire, despite being mowed down in droves?
In a word, they “believed” in the United States.
That generation had emerged from the crushing poverty of the Great Depression to face the reality that the Axis powers wanted to destroy their civilization and their country.
A truly great remembrance by Prof Hanson on the anniversary of D-Day.
Question - Did anyone in the Biden administration even bother to commemorate June 6 as the anniversary of D-Day. You know the one battle that started the downfall of the regime that they all pretend to hate?
FR Index of his articles: Victor Davis Hanson on FR
Town Hall: Victor Davis Hanson on Town Hall
American Greatness: Victor Davis Hanson on American Greatness
His website: Victor Davis Hanson
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Heartbreaking.. only thanks to my grandmother, can I have a clue.. thank you for sharing.
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