[snip] The fiercest fighting was on Omaha Beach where the enemy was positioned on steep cliffs that commanded the long, flat shoreline. Troops leapt from their landing boats and were pinned down for hours by murderous machine-gun fire that turned the beach into a vast killing field. “If you (stayed) there you were going to die,” Lieutenant Colonel Bill Friedman said. “We just had to . . . try to get to the bottom of the cliffs on which the Germans had mounted their defenses.” By midday, the Americans had surmounted the cliffs and taken Omaha Beach at a heavy cost: over 4,700 killed, wounded, or missing out of the total of approximately 35,000 who came ashore that day, a loss rate of more than 13 percent. [/snip]
Yogi Berra was one of the few who was in the front lines & didn’t so much as get a scratch.
While not officially a flag day, I like to post the colors, even though only older veterans immediately get it. Lots of other people pick up on it after pondering it for a moment.
My maternal Grandfather was there.
Normandy’s success was entirely dependent upon Patton’s deception of an invasion at Pas de Calais.