Never?
Posted on 06/05/2004 9:05:51 AM PDT by knighthawk
Hundreds of British and American parachutists dropped into north-western France on Saturday to launch poignant commemorations of the D-day landings on June 6, 1944, which hastened the end of World War II.
At the western end of the coast where the liberation of Europe from Nazi occupation began, grey parachutes blossomed open in lead-grey skies in a spectacular re-enactment of the capture by the US 82nd Airborne Division of the village of Sainte-Mere-Eglise.
The aim was to seize the village at 1:00am, five hours before 135,000 Allied troops began landing on the 100 kilometre beaches to launch the largest seaborne invasion in history.
Sainte-Mere-Eglise was the first village liberated, but many of the US soldiers who dropped there, carrying heavy guns and other equipment, drowned in deep ditches and flooded land before they could even fire a shot.
At the village of Ranville, members of the British First Parachute Regiment, were to re-enact the legendary operation to capture Pegasus Bridge across the Orne River and secure the eastern flank of the beach landings.
Britain's Prince Charles paid tribute to the 90 paratroopers who flew in darkness aboard three wooden gliders and crash-landed just after midnight on or close to the bridge in a surprise attack which has entered the annals of military history.
They were among 380 British gliders which floated into Normandy that night.
Other parachute drops were scheduled to commemorate the US 101st Airborne, which suffered serious losses while attempting to secure the western flank near Omaha Beach.
Except at Omaha, the landings commanded by US General Dwight D Eisenhower were an unqualified success, leading to the fall of Normandy in late July and then the Allied sweep through northern France into Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany.
Operation Overlord, as it was dubbed, had been in the planning since August 1943 and was meticulous and imaginative in its scope and detail.
A huge disinformation campaign including phoney generals and fake armies fooled Adolf Hitler into thinking the invasion when it came would be further north.
But 4,000 Allied troops were killed on the five beaches - codenamed Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno and Sword - on the first day and another 55,000 were to die in the Normandy campaign.
More than 20 world leaders will attend a ceremony on Sunday to pay homage to bravery of those who took part in the landings, including US President George W Bush, French President Jacques Chirac and Britain's Queen Elizabeth II.
For the first time, they will stand alongside the leaders of Germany and Russia putting the accent heavily on reconciliation, aiming to lay to rest the ghosts of the past, and rebuild ties badly frayed by the US-led war on Iraq.
Mr Chirac, a staunch opponent of the war on Iraq, thanked Americans for helping to liberate Nazi-occupied France 60 years ago.
"The French say 'thank you' to the Americans and they will not forget what they have done 60 years ago. And that is very, very important in our minds and in our hearts," he said an interview given in English to the NBC television channel.
In a letter to the French newspaper Ouest France, Mr Bush also sought to rebuild bridges, saying "countries that shared the same values" like France and the United States were "capable of getting together to accomplish what pessimists considered impossible."
"Europe owes them peace and freedom" said Saturday's Ouest France front page headline over a picture of some of the 9,387 white crosses at the US cemetery at Colleville-sur-Mer.
A former British paratroop colonel, Nick Nichols, summed up the feelings of many veterans about the German participation in this year's commemoration, saying: "Some wounds will never be healed, but we recognise that many of them died and we should give them time and space to remember too. Many of them fought gallantly and after all they were soldiers."
Mr Schroeder, who lost his own father in the war, also struck a conciliatory note in open letter also published in Ouest France.
"The Germany which had to be defeated in this war to end the Nazi nightmare is no longer the same country which I have the honour to represent today in these ceremonies commemorating June 6, 1944," he said.
Russian leader Vladmir Putin also welcomed his unprecedented invitation to the 60th anniversary in a message in Ouest France.
"In Russia we will forever pay homage to the courage of our brothers in arms, and honour all those who sacrificed their lives in the fight against the worst evil of the 20th century."
Ping
D-Day veterans set sail again
Hundreds of D-day veterans have set sail for France, retracing the journey they made exactly 60 years ago as they went to liberate Europe.
They travelled on board two ferries which joined with warships and a flotilla of smaller vessels to form a spectacular fleet in The Solent.
Thousands of people lined the walls of Portsmouth harbour to wave off the ships as the veterans mustered on the decks.
The flotilla was lead by the modern frigate HMS Gloucester and followed by warships from three other nations which took part in the D-day invasion - the French frigate Cassard, HM Canadian ship Charlotte Town and the USS Ross, named after Donald Ross, an American serviceman who took part in the Normandy landings.
An array of other craft, some of D-Day vintage, followed the warships, churning the waters of the Solent white.
The crews of weekend pleasure craft waved them off.
Sixty years ago, 7,000 vessels, from vast battleships to landing craft, left from the same waters.
Earlier, the Prince of Wales unveiled a statue of Brigadier James Hill, 93, one of D-Day's most celebrated leaders.
Brig Hill was present with his wife Joanne at the unveiling of the bronze statue at Le Mesnil where 60 years ago he rallied his troops in the vital first hours of D-Day.
The senior officer now joins some illustrious company as his statue is one of only two commemorating British officers in France. The other belongs to Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery - the commander of Allied forces in Normandy.
http://icnewcastle.icnetwork.co.uk/0100news/0200national/tm_objectid=14306213%26method=full%26siteid=50081%26headline=d%2dday%2dveterans%2dset%2dsail%2dagain-name_page.html
I just listened to the Brits dedication of a peace garden and beautiful bagpipe music...
and Chirac decrying war...Lucky for him we went to war and invaded on the beaches of Normandy...but of course that was different.
I've watched the parachutes coming down and interviews all morning.
That was the second worst evil of the 20th century, Mr. Putin.
Did the French surrender yet? As for Chiraq decrying war, the French have never believed in fighting. Woe to any future US president that lifts a finger to save their worthless hides again!
Currahee!
My exact thought when I read that...but it took years after the war before we knew that...and many today do not realize how many were killed and imprisoned under Stalin.
We defeated Germany and had access, to photograph the death camps and view all their documents...We were not able to do that in the USSR.
What irony -- the Frenchies celebrate their own freedom, bought with American, British and Canadian blood -- yet labored with all their might to keep the Iraqi people in bondage.
Is any of this being shown on any channels that you know of?
Which channel?
Never?
MSNBC
MSNBC
Thank you both!
Welsh sang hymns before D-Day
D-Day veteran Sir Nick Somerville and his fellow soldiers sang Welsh hymns aboard a ship just hours before the Normandy landings.
Sir Nick and others of the 2nd Battalion South Wales Borderers had no battlefield experience prior to that day of destiny 60 years ago.
Sir Nick, later to become a brigadier, has vivid memories of the highly significant 24 hours that made up the most important beach landing of the modern military era.
As the battalion's intelligence officer, he was responsible for keeping a diary of events and his accounts, as a 20-year-old lieutenant, now reside in the borderers' museum in Brecon.
Now aged 80, he is not returning to Normandy this year with those surviving members of the 2nd battalion as he is recovering from a hip operation.
However, he said that his thoughts will be with the survivors in Normandy and those who were less fortunate on 6 June, 1944.
Born in Brecon, where his father had been stationed with the South Wales Borderers, he served in the ranks after signing up straight from school at 18.
He was soon commissioned and joined the regiment for its assault on Nazi-occupied France.
Given bicycles to advance quickly on D-Day, Sir Nick and fellow troops from the 2nd battalion made it to the historic town of Bayeux, eight miles inland, by midnight - the furthest any allied troops had advanced that historic day.
Now living in Hampshire, the old soldier recalled the pivotal moments leading up to D-Day.
"We were due to set sail from Southampton, but firstly had to sail through Southampton Water from nearby Leamington where we'd been based," he said.
"We arrived at the docks in the city and were lashed to two other boats. We were with some American soldiers and their senior captain gave a rousing speech the night before D-Day.
"That's something I remember clearly.
"The night before D-Day we all lay on the deck of the boat and stared at the stars in the sky and it was then that the Welsh started singing.
'Heavy resistance' He added: "We were expecting strong resistance from the Germans, but there was very little on the beach.
"The trip across the Channel had been uneventful and it gave everyone time to reflect on what we had to do.
"We followed the Hampshire Regiment onto the beach and they had lost a few men and as we progressed off the beach we saw a few German soldiers in ditches.
"We had a couple of walking wounded but nothing too serious.
"However, as we walked inland we noticed a very offensive smell and we discovered that many animals such as cows had been killed in aircraft bombing raids and we were glad to move on."
Sir Nick added that there first serious battle came near the historic town of Bayeux when the borderers fought to take a German radar station.
"All the fields were mined so we had to go cross country," he said.
"We started picking up a few injuries and despite being trained to cope with horrific scenes such as a man's stomach hanging out, it was a shock when you saw your first dead soldier."
Sir Nick and the borderers eventually ended up in Hamburg less than a year later, following a series of battles against the retreating Nazis.
He realises he was one of the fortunate few.
"I won't be in Normandy for the 60th anniversary," he said.
"I made it across for the 50th when we unveiled a memorial to those South Wales Borderers who fell.
"But I've just had an operation and I'm not all that mobile, but I've been asked to write a letter for the veterans who are going across so they could read it on the bus."
"My thoughts will be with those across in Normandy over the weekend and with those less fortunate who didn't make it back home."
The one-time brigadier has the military in his blood.
Not only did his father, Desmond, fight with the South Wales Borderers at what some historians call the first D-Day - Gallipoli - during WWI, but he is related to Lieutenant Nevill Coghill.
Lieutenant Coghill and Lieutenant Teignmouth Melvill rescued their regiment's colours after the Battle of Isandlwana, just hours before the heroic stand at Rorke's Drift in South Africa, in 1879.
They now hang in the regimental chapel in Brecon Cathedral.
Desmond Somerville was a lieutenant too when he landed with thousands of others on the beaches of Gallipoli in 1915.
He too attained the rank of brigadier, but Desmond Somerville's experience of a beach landing is branded one of WWI's biggest blunders, whereas his son's Normandy encounter less than 30 years' later is regarded as one of Twentieth Century warfare's major successes.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/mid/3769869.stm
And I had thought that Eisenhower was the commander.
Montgomery was not even given the rank of Field Marshall until Sept. 1944. He commanded only the British and Canadian troops - he was Bradley's peer.
I was up early,heard Bush in Italy and when Fox stopped showing what I liked, I switched to MSNBC...I heard one paratrooper say he had done 8 jumps today?! There were the young and the old...there for the interviews...I must say MSNBC did well.
I see Chiraq and Bush appearances are coming up. I hope Chiraq manages to hide his arrogance.
For Normandy itself..Montgomery was designated Commander of the ground forces...that was for the early going...
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