D-Day honors

[uscga77]

On the 75th anniversary of D-day I honor my dad's very good friend Shahan Kaprielyan. Shahan was an Armenian from Turkey who had come to our country to go to aviation school with my dad. When the war started he signed up to become a bombardier. While riding the train to report he was approached by an officer. I understand you can speak five languages. We can make most anyone into a bombardier in just a couple of months but we can't teach five languages. We want you to work in intelligence. So Shahan went in on the second wave on D-day as an intelligence officer and that's how he got his citizenship. He told my dad that the beaches were covered with dead and wounded from the first wave. My dad asked Shahan if he had told his parents in Turkey what he was doing. He said, No, they would worry. And besides if I got killed they would be notified. Hand salute to my dad's good friend Shahan

[Freee-dame]

These stories about the WW2 service of FReepers’ friends and family show why we gather here at such a patriotic site.

[SES1066]

I was in the Army Infantry and could not imagine doing an amphibious landing.

My late father was in the 45th ID, Thunderbirds, and he did 4 amphibious landings in Europe; Sicily, Salerno, Anzio and Southern France. When he retired to Beaufort, SC, [Parris Island] where there were many seasoned & active Marines, none of them exceeded his landing count, even those who served in the Pacific.

He did have a gripe about how much of the popular history here in the USofA seemed to think that Normandy marked the start of the 'ground game' in Europe. His started in Sicily, Operation Husky, 10 July 1943 and continued through the march up Italy. Indeed, today, June 5th is the 75th Anniversary of the Liberation of Rome, which was the goal of the bloody and nearly botched Anzio Landing [Operation Shingle] of 22 January 1944. That butcher's bill matched almost any other amphibious landings outside of Iwo Jima, Okinawa and Peleliu.

[capydick]

Nailed it Freee-dame!