Thread posted by FReeper MNJohnnie: Ernie Pyle from Normandy..D-Day June 1944
"As one officer said, the only way to take a beach is to face it and keep going. It is costly at first, but it’s the only way. If the men are pinned down on the beach, dug in and out of action, they might as well not be there at all. They hold up the waves behind them, and nothing is being gained.
Our men were pinned down for a while, but finally they stood up and went through, and so we took that beach and accomplished our landing. We did it with every advantage on the enemy’s side and every disadvantage on ours. In the light of a couple of days of retrospection, we sit and talk and call it a miracle that our men ever got on at all or were able to stay on."
Thanks for that, Dita.
I found one of Pyle’s books among my Dad’s belongings. He
was a wonderful eye-witness to history and died too soon.
It was wonderful that he named every soldier, sailor, marine,
and airman that he ever interviewed. For their families back home!
When I found that Normandy meadow scene a few days ago ..I could not resist.Thank you “Dita” and for the Ernie Pyle excerpt..
I spent my childhood listening to the war news on the radio every evening with my family.