"The Longest Day"-D-Day +75 years Anyone watching it?

6/6/19 | Hoagy62

[hoagy62]

So, is anyone watching/renting it on this 75th anniversary of the greatest invasion in world history?

My family and I are watching it.

[dfwgator]

Also, Leon Askin (General Burkhalter)

Askin was born into a Jewish family in Vienna, the son of Malvine (Susman) and Samuel Aschkenazy. According to his autobiography his first experience of show business occurred during World War I when he recited a poem before Emperor Franz Joseph. In the 1920s, he studied acting with Louise Dumont and Max Reinhardt. While working at Vienna’s “ABC” cabaret theater in the 1930s, he frequently directed the works of dissident political writer Jura Soyfer.

Askin immigrated to the United States in 1940 and, served in World War II as a Staff Sergeant in the US Army Air Forces.

Lived to the ripe old age of 97.

[dfwgator]

Meanwhile, Goebbels was busy having an affair with an untermenschen Czech actress during that time.

[CardCarryingMember.VastRightWC]

Hey! Take care when you say bad things about old Josef here. He's a very popular cult figure among many Freepers!

I am of course basing "cult-status popularity" on the number of times a celebrity's image is posted on FR. By this measure, the top five most-beloved celebrities in Freepdom are, in order: Hillary, Barack O, Nancy P, Joe Goebbels, and Helen Thomas (tied for 5th place with Viking Kitten).

[Kartographer]

One of my favorite scenes in Richard Burton playing wounded and downed Flight Officer David Campbell who has met up with a lost American paratrooper and a dead German soldier. He thoughtfully comments:

"He's dead. I'm crippled. You're lost. Do you suppose it's always like that? War I mean."

[dfwgator]

Probably my favorite line in the movie:

Col. Josef ‘Pips’ Priller : [speaking in German] Thank you, my dear Hans! You have just killed both of us!

[slams down phone]

Luftwaffe major : It is getting very difficult to get any sleep around here.

Col. Josef ‘Pips’ Priller : Your prospects for a long sleep have just improved. The invasion has begun at Normandy. We are to fly there and attack with our two planes.

[Retain Mike]

I saw it in the theater in 1960, but was traveling today, so didn’t dig it out. However,I often ended up as a dishwasher at the country club in 1964 and years after till college graduation. I noticed the chef always limped as he moved around the kitchen. He saw my puzzled look, and said he got the limp from a wound received when he was with the Rangers at Pointe De Hoc. Such is one of the stories I remember among so many others I could tell or have forgotten. The movie has had an all different meaning for me after that time.

[Retain Mike]

I bet it is Kurt Jurgens.

[dfwgator]

When 007 first met Goldfinger:

[irv]

I have it on right now.

[Vermont Lt]

And the German’s boots were on the wrong feet.

[Huskrrrr]

Watched many times. The scene with Richard Burton is my favorite.

[luv2ski]

Not watching it tonight but have seen it many times. Terrific movie! We are watching the National Geographic D-Day special on the invasion. I learned a lot I didn't know from it- like the portable piers the allies put in place once they had secured the beaches. Also, amphibious tanks were used that I didn't know about. We were fortunate Rommel went back to Germany for his wife's birthday and no one had the courage to wake Hitler before 10 am!

My favorite part of The Longest Day is when the lookout gets up early and uses his binoculars to survey the sea. Then he looks again and there are 1000s of ships on the horizon. At that moment he poops his pants. :-D

[Equine1952]

Navy Destroyers nosed up as close to the beach as they could and men with rifles topside as well as the ships guns supported the Ranger’s climb up the cliffs. It was a truely heroic effort for everyone involved. The entire enormity of the battle is hard to get in perspective. Every movie star in the world wanted in that movie. They said no one would come to see it. They were wrong.

[21twelve]

I used to do a lot of work at Hanford in Washington State where they built the first reactors to get the uranium. My mom told me “That’s where Stan Mindy went. He built aircraft wings there.”

“Um - that may be what he told you mom, but that’s not what he did there. He help build the A-bombs.”

“No - it was aircraft wings - I’m sure of it.”

Actually, Stan may have thought that he WAS building wings. Everything was very compartmentalized, with only a few of the big wigs knowing what was being developed.

[TMN78247]

I had planned to watch it tonight on DVD. - Alas, no electrictity since 1600 hours & still sitting here with candles/flashlight in the dark. = NOT even a guess from the city as to when we will have electricity again.

Last bad storm, I lost all the food in my deep freezer. = !@#$%!

Yours, TMN78247

[ProtectOurFreedom]

That’s what my uncle told me. He knew he was running an isotope separation process, but didn’t know what for. After the war, he worked at Los Alamos machining plutonium cores. About 8 years ago (he was 90), we were talking about his work and I casually inquired about machining precision and tolerances. He stopped, paused for a few moments, and said “I can’t tell you that - it’s classified.” You really have to respect a man like that who takes his oath seriously and to his grave. My dad (my uncle’s brother) was like that, too. At the end of his career, all he could tell me about the huge defense project he was managing “Son, you wouldn’t believe how important this is to our national security.” Not a word more to his dying day. What a great generation!

[Finalapproach29er]

“Molasses today bring Cognac tomorrow...”

[jmacusa]

Or when the British padre, all soaking wet, is told he landed on the German side he says “Sir, anyone can make a mistake!’’.

[jmacusa]

Major Werner Pluskatt.

[jmacusa]

I recently finished a book called “The Girls Of Atomic City’’. All about the thousands of young women who worked on The Bomb.("The Gadget'') The security was lethal.If you so much as opened your mouth or looked sideways at something you weren't supposed to you were out of there and fast.