1.)By 7:16 PM US Time on the 5th, Six Horsa Gliders land at Pont de Bénouville (renamed Pegasus Bridge)and the Pont de Ranville (renamed Horsa Bridge) with 180 Brit Airborne who take both bridges by 7:35 PM (12:35 AM Jun 6th).By 8:00PM US time (1:00 AM June 6th France time)on June 5th, The 101st and 82nd Airborne Paratroopers were dropped over the Cotentin peninsula- some right into the middle of the town of St. Mere Eglise, many into marshes.
2.) By 9:00 PM ( US time on June 5th, the first wave of British bombers leaves Britain to bomb the beachheads of Normandy. Lancasters heavily loaded.
3.) At 9:51 US (2:51 AM France) the USS Ancon, flagship of the Omaha assault force, drops anchor 11 miles off the coast of France-undetected.
Don’t remember much, but remembered this date yesterday.
Woke up from a sleep and said “Tomorrow’s D Day”
God bless all the guys who made it and didn’t make it.
I just heard this yesterday on SirusXM, it’s available for free on YouTube. It is not the actual historic news bulletins, but rather a drama following the life of one soldiers wife on the homefront. Very moving and worthwhile.
One of Orson Welles’ masterpieces, a half hour drama written and performed shortly after the D-Day invasion of France during WWII for his “Almanac” half hour radio series. Agnes Moorehead is the wife of a pilot over France during the invasion and using sound Welles transcends time and space, at the top of his game. The huge historical event really concentrated his great abilities. Cleaned and restored by Tormented Artist Ink Studios.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ft1UNKlZ_PE
It’s because of those men that the world isn’t speaking German.
My Father's battalion landing at Utah Beach. In a way they were very fortunate.
They were to land on D-Day but while crossing the channel their ship developed engine trouble and had to return to England. It was several days after D-Day when they did land.
Time flowed backwards on June 6, 1944?
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There are very, very few things made more clear by putting the most recent item at the beginning. A narrative of historical events is not one of them.
Other than that it was very interesting. Since they were GMT+2 because of double summer time, we are up to:
03.30 Assault troops begin boarding landing craft.
03.35 The HQ of the 6th Airborne Division lands by glider north of Ranville.
My uncle was there. Navy Medic. Saw a lot, I’m sure. Never talked about it. Ever.
My dad never talked about the war either, except for a few fun times that weren’t combat-related. People that saw the elephant rarely spoke of the experience. And if they did, it was excessively hard to do.
June 6 is also the anniversary of the Battle of Belleau Wood in which the US Marines stopped the German spring offensive of 1918.
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General Dwight D. Eisenhower arrived in London to command Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF) for the last five months of planning for D-Day. During that time he achieved much more than the oft repeated portrayal of someone managing a political/military alliance. Though he never led troops in combat, his leadership sustained many unprecedented initiatives for the successful Normandy landings. The air assault exemplifies the frightful uncertainties plaguing this “Day of Days”.
The night before D-Day, 20,400 American and British paratroopers dropped behind the Normandy beaches from 1,250 C-47 aircraft plus gliders. This massive assault was attempted just 17 years after Charles Lindberg flew the Atlantic solo for the first time.
To the last moment Ike’s air commander, British Air Chief Marshall Leigh-Mallory, saw only tragic forebodings reinforced by memories of American paratroop losses in North Africa and Sicily, and the German catastrophe on Crete. The German losses there were so severe that Hitler forbid any further massive air assaults. Leigh-Mallory anticipated over half the planes and gliders would be destroyed before reaching the drop zones with surviving paratroopers fighting isolated until they were killed or captured.
The transports would arrive over Normandy the night of June 5 in three streams from 160 to 300 miles long; thereby allowing the Germans up to two hours to reposition night fighters and anti-aircraft artillery for maximum slaughter of the transports. Most pilots were flying their first combat mission and many would make multiple trips that night. Leigh-Mallory had received specific intelligence the German 91st Air Landing Division, specialists in fighting paratroopers, and the 6th Parachute Regiment inexplicably moved into the area around St. Mere-Eglise, where the American divisions were to land. Many questioned whether these movements meant the deception plan for D-Day directing attention to Pas de Calais was breaking down.
Ike remained strategically committed to the airborne assault. In the American sector it would enable the early capture of Cherbourg. Without port facilities, the limited logistic support across the beaches could doom the entire invasion. In the British sector the paratroopers would secure the left flank of the entire invasion.
At the same time he was devoted to the men. The evening before D-Day, Eisenhower left SHAEF headquarters at 6 PM and traveled to Newbury where the 101st Airborne was boarding for its first combat mission. Ike arrived at 8 PM and did not leave until the last C-47 was airborne over three hours later.
In My Three Years with Eisenhower Captain Harry C. Butcher says, “We saw hundreds of paratroopers with blackened and grotesque faces, packing up for the big hop and jump. Ike wandered through them, stepping over, packs, guns, and a variety of equipment such as only paratroop people can devise, chinning with this and that one. All were put at ease. He was promised a job after the war by a Texan who said he roped, not dallied, his cows, and at least there was enough to eat in the work. Ike has developed or disclosed an informality and friendliness with troopers that almost amazed me”. The famous picture of Eisenhower supposedly forcefully delivering last minute instructions to the troopers actually involved talking about his experience working in a store when he was a kid.
In Crusade in Europe General Eisenhower says, “I found the men in fine fettle, many of them joshingly admonishing me that I had no cause for worry, since the 101st was on the job, and everything would be taken care of in fine shape. I stayed with them until the last of them were in the air, somewhere about midnight. After a two hour trip back to my own camp, I had only a short time to wait until the first news should come in”.
One of the first D-Day reports was from Leigh-Mallory with news only 29 of 1,250 C-47’s were missing and only four gliders were unaccounted for. That morning Leigh-Mallory sent Ike a message frankly saying it is sometimes difficult to admit that one is wrong, but he had never had a greater pleasure than in doing so on this occasion. He congratulated Ike on the wisdom and courage of his command decision.
Today we rest in the comfort of historical certainty and will never understand the courage required to live this history forward. The above represents only one of many crushing anxieties Eisenhower persevered through. Most planning discussions aroused the specter of Gallipoli, the Somme and Passchendaele, where the British incurred murderous losses for gains of only yards. And this time the allies were intending to undertake an amphibious and air assault more daunting than any campaign of WW I.
Partial bibliography:
Crusade in Europe by General Dwight Eisenhower
My Three Years with Eisenhower by Captain Harry C. Butcher
The Secret Life of Stewart Menzies Spymaster to Winston Churchill by Anthony Cave Brown
D-Day by Steven E. Ambrose
Top 10 Deadliest Battles of World War I
http://www.toptenz.net/top-10-bloodiest-battles-of-world-war-i.php
Battle of Messines (1917)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Messines_(1917)#Casualties
Invasion of Normandy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasion_of_Normandy
This example helps one appreciate the anxieties aroused from memories of Gallipoli, the Somme and Passchendaele, where the British suffered catastrophic losses for gains of only yards. By some historian assessments, the most successful attack by British forces in WW I was the Battle of Messines in 1917. The battle lasted June 1-12, and involved 216,000 men of whom 24,562 became casualties. They attacked on a five mile front and penetrated 10 miles.
Taking this battle as a starting point, the Normandy invasion from five beachheads established a lodgment about 10 miles deep on a 40 miles front. The effort required 50 days. Therefore, a WW I veteran could make an optimistic estimate of about 400,000 casualties, given he completely disregarded the fact that the D-Day landings were significantly more hazardous than any offensive attempted on the Western Front. In fact by July 24 there were 120,000 casualties.
Picture of Eisenhower
http://www.freerepublic.com/perl/pings?more=330525619
D-Day Pictures
http://blogs.denverpost.com/captured/2009/06/05/the-65th-anniversary-of-d-day-on-the-normandy-beaches/#
D-Day: Presidential radio address to the nation
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jeI3vwz3p4
The U.S. Navy amphibious command ship USS Ancon (AGC-4)
Also participated in the North Africa, Sicily, and Italian landings.
After Normandy, she went to the Pacific and participated at Okinawa, and was scheduled for the invasion of Japan. She was present for the surrender at Tokyo Bay.
My maternal grandfather was on the beach that day. He only spoke of it one time to the family. He said that he couldn’t understand why so many people around him died and he didn’t even get a scratch.
John has a long moustache
God Bless our Soldiers.
I post this every year:
https://archive.org/details/CBD440606CBSDDayCBS
Here’s another network’s version:
https://archive.org/details/NBCCompleteBroadcastDDay
A great many fine, young men spent a sleepless night tossing and turning, praying, and scared sh*tless, then died in the morning.
God bless all who took part.
“D-Day” by Stephen Amrose has a lot of first-hand comments. The Omaha Beach section was particularly grisly.
There was one guy who lost all his gear getting off the landing craft just before it blew up, crawled ashore, went back and dragged the wounded out of the incoming tide, picked up an M-1 and grenades from a deal comrade, took out a pillbox with them, clawed his way up the Vierville exit, through a mine field and the legless casualties. When he reach the top, he took a break and remembered “Gee, today is my 18th birthday.”
My WWII vet dad grouses about the use of the term ‘D-Day’ for the Normandy invasion because “D-Day” is a place holder term widely used in the military-
it seems that when an operation order is written the date that it commences isn’t firm- so ‘D-Day’ is a place holder in the op order... the time that it will jump off is listed as ‘H-Hour’... the second day of the operation is ‘D+1’ and so forth.
So there’s a D-Day for every one of the hundreds if not thousand operations of the war.
I tell him he’s fighting a losing battle, that D-Day for June 6 looks likes it’s gonna stick in the public mind but I don’t think he will quit the fight.