Posted on 06/05/2007 8:57:58 AM PDT by doug from upland
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Neal Boortz
Tuesday, May 28, 2002
Bush in Normandy … Not a Clinton Repeat
I watched the television coverage of President Bush in Normandy yesterday. All in all, a good event. No posturing. No phony tears. No convenient stones on the beach.
Stones on the beach? Surely you remember, don't you? It happened during Clinton's visit to this very same spot on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Normandy invasion. Clinton wanted to go for a solitary stroll on the beach. Everyone else was to stay back ... just let him think. Let him reflect on the brave men who lived and died on that sand.
Clinton, of course, knew that the television news cameras were up there above the beach, recording every moment of his reflective walk. Clinton came upon a group of stones scattered on the beach. He stopped, knelt down and arranged the stones into the shape of a cross. Cameras rolling. What a moment! Who knows how many votes that amazing moment of reflectivity might have been worth in 1996. It certainly didn't hurt.
It was what the cameras didn't show that makes this story. The cameras weren't there earlier that day when a group of Clinton aides walked down that very same beach. The cameras weren't there when those aides stopped at the precise spot where Clinton would later fashion his rock cross. The cameras weren't rolling when those aides reached into their pockets, came out with some rocks, and scattered them on the beach.
And Why Do I Still Bring Up the Clintons?
Or, as the left would like to phrase it, "bash" the Clintons? Because they're still powerful, that's why. Bill is still corrupt. He's still a sociopath, and he's still without any moral scruples at all. Hillary is still a socialist, she's still a liar, she's still drunk with a desire for power ... and she intends to run for president.
They're dangerous, and I'll continue to point out their threat and their dishonesty as long as we are all around.
Thanks for the D-Day post.
Thank you! Please make sure you post a separate thread so FReepers don’t miss it.
("What if" in History - No. 3) June 1, 1944: NEW YORK TIMES breaks OPERATION OVERLORD
Free Republic ^ | 12/25/2005 | Origionally Posted by Doug from Upland
Posted on 06/06/2006 5:11:23 AM PDT by AirBorn
("What if" in History - No. 3) June 1, 1944: NEW YORK TIMES breaks OPERATION OVERLORD DFU "what if" in history | June 1, 1944 | Jonathon Risen (fictitious name)
Posted on 12/26/2005 7:15:58 PM PST by doug from upland
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Jonathon Risen, New York Times Dateline: France June 1, 1944
The NEW YORK TIMES, always first with breaking news, has discovered that a daring invasion is planned on the coast of France on June 5 in an effort to liberate the courageous and valiant French citizens from the Nazis. If the weather conditions are not right, we have learned that Gen. Dwight Eisenhower may delay the invasion for a day.
OPERATION OVERLORD will be a massive Allied invasion of Western Europe that will include simultaneous landings on five beachheads by U.S., British, and Canadian forces.
When Eisenhower's chief meteorologist, James Martin Stagg, informs the general of a break in the weather, Eisenhower will announce -- “O.K. We'll go.”
Within hours of the decision to go, an armada of 3,000 landing craft, 2,500 other ships, and 500 naval vessels--escorts and bombardment ships--will began to leave English ports. At night, 822 aircraft, carrying parachutists or towing gliders, will roar overhead to the Normandy landing zones. They will be just a fraction of the air armada of 13,000 aircraft that will support "D-Day."
The largest of the D-Day assault areas, Omaha Beach, stretches over 10 km (6 miles) between the fishing port of Port-en-Bessin on the east and the mouth of the Vire River on the west. The western third of the beach is backed by a seawall 3 metres (10 feet) high, and the whole beach is overlooked by cliffs 30 metres high.
Utah Beach is the westernmost beach of the planned five landing areas. It will be assaulted by elements of the U.S. 4th Infantry Division. In the pre-dawn hours, units of the 82nd and 101st airborne division will be airdropped inland from the landing beach. Their plan is to isolate the seaborned invasion force from defending German units.
Sword Beach is the easternmost beach of the five landing areas of the planned invasion. It will be assaulted by units of the British 3rd Division, with French and British commandos attached. Shortly after midnight on D-Day morning, elements of the 6th Airborne Division will launch a daring glider-borne assault, hoping to seize bridges inland from the beach and also silence artillery pieces that could threaten the seaborne landing forces.
H-Hour (the time the first assault wave is to land) at Gold Beach is set for 0725 hours, one hour later than the scheduled landings on the American beaches owing to the direction of the tide, which move from west to east and bring high water later to the British beach.
Juno Beach is the second beach from the east among the five landing areas of the invasion. The Canadian 3rd Infantry Division will invade Juno Beach.
Sources have told us that this invasion could be the beginning of the end for the Nazis. Although TIMES editors held a meeting to discuss whether this information should be reported, it was decided unanimously that it is news and our first obligation is to journalism and reporting the story. We do hope, of course, that Allied casualties are kept to a minimum.
Count on the NEW YORK TIMES for all your war coverage. If it's news, we will have it first.
I prefer this speech:
The Speech Somewhere in England June 5th, 1944
“Be seated.”
Men, this stuff that some sources sling around about America wanting out of this war, not wanting to fight, is a crock of bullsh—. Americans love to fight, traditionally. All real Americans love the sting and clash of battle.
You are here today for three reasons. First, because you are here to defend your homes and your loved ones. Second, you are here for your own self respect, because you would not want to be anywhere else. Third, you are here because you are real men and all real men like to fight. When you, here, every one of you, were kids, you all admired the champion marble player, the fastest runner, the toughest boxer, the big league ball players, and the All-American football players. Americans love a winner. Americans will not tolerate a loser. Americans despise cowards. Americans play to win all of the time. I wouldn’t give a hoot in hell for a man who lost and laughed. That’s why Americans have never lost nor will ever lose a war; for the very idea of losing is hateful to an American.
You are not all going to die. Only two percent of you right here today would die in a major battle. Death must not be feared. Death, in time, comes to all men. Yes, every man is scared in his first battle. If he says he’s not, he’s a liar. Some men are cowards but they fight the same as the brave men or they get the hell slammed out of them watching men fight who are just as scared as they are. The real hero is the man who fights even though he is scared. Some men get over their fright in a minute under fire. For some, it takes an hour. For some, it takes days. But a real man will never let his fear of death overpower his honor, his sense of duty to his country, and his innate manhood.
Battle is the most magnificent competition in which a human being can indulge. It brings out all that is best and it removes all that is base. Americans pride themselves on being He Men and they ARE He Men. Remember that the enemy is just as frightened as you are, and probably more so. They are not supermen.
All through your Army careers, you men have bitched about what you call “chicken sh— drilling.” That, like everything else in this Army, has a definite purpose. That purpose is alertness. Alertness must be bred into every soldier. I don’t give a f-— for a man who’s not always on his toes. You men are veterans or you wouldn’t be here. You are ready for what’s to come. A man must be alert at all times if he expects to stay alive. If you’re not alert, sometime, a German son-of-an-a—hole-bitch is going to sneak up behind you and beat you to death with a sockful of s—t! There are four hundred neatly marked graves somewhere in Sicily, all because one man went to sleep on the job. But they are German graves, because we caught the bastard asleep before they did.
An Army is a team. It lives, sleeps, eats, and fights as a team. This individual heroic stuff is pure horse s—t. The bilious bastards who write that kind of stuff for the Saturday Evening Post don’t know any more about real fighting under fire than they know about f-—ing! We have the finest food, the finest equipment, the best spirit, and the best men in the world. Why, by God, I actually pity those poor sons-of-bitches we’re going up against. By God, I do.
My men don’t surrender, and I don’t want to hear of any soldier under my command being captured unless he has been hit. Even if you are hit, you can still fight back. That’s not just bull sh— either. The kind of man that I want in my command is just like the lieutenant in Libya, who, with a Luger against his chest, jerked off his helmet, swept the gun aside with one hand, and busted the hell out of the Kraut with his helmet. Then he jumped on the gun and went out and killed another German before they knew what the hell was coming off. And, all of that time, this man had a bullet through a lung. There was a real man!
All of the real heroes are not storybook combat fighters, either. Every single man in this Army plays a vital role. Don’t ever let up. Don’t ever think that your job is unimportant. Every man has a job to do and he must do it. Every man is a vital link in the great chain. What if every truck driver suddenly decided that he didn’t like the whine of those shells overhead, turned yellow, and jumped headlong into a ditch? The cowardly bastard could say, ‘Hell, they won’t miss me, just one man in thousands.’ But, what if every man thought that way? Where in the hell would we be now? What would our country, our loved ones, our homes, even the world, be like? No, G—damnit, Americans don’t think like that. Every man does his job. Every man serves the whole. Every department, every unit, is important in the vast scheme of this war. The ordnance men are needed to supply the guns and machinery of war to keep us rolling. The Quartermaster is needed to bring up food and clothes because where we are going there isn’t a hell of a lot to steal. Every last man on K.P. has a job to do, even the one who heats our water to keep us from getting the ‘G.I. Sh—s.’
Each man must not think only of himself, but also of his buddy fighting beside him. We don’t want yellow cowards in this Army. They should be killed off like rats. If not, they will go home after this war and breed more cowards. The brave men will breed more brave men. Kill off the G—damned cowards and we will have a nation of brave men. One of the bravest men that I ever saw was a fellow on top of a telegraph pole in the midst of a furious fire fight in Tunisia. I stopped and asked what the hell he was doing up there at a time like that. He answered, ‘Fixing the wire, Sir.’ I asked, ‘Isn’t that a little unhealthy right about now?’ He answered, ‘Yes Sir, but the G—damned wire has to be fixed.’ I asked, ‘Don’t those planes strafing the road bother you?’ And he answered, ‘No, Sir, but you sure as hell do!’ Now, there was a real man. A real soldier. There was a man who devoted all he had to his duty, no matter how seemingly insignificant his duty might appear at the time, no matter how great the odds.
And you should have seen those trucks on the rode to Tunisia. Those drivers were magnificent. All day and all night they rolled over those son-of-a-bitching roads, never stopping, never faltering from their course, with shells bursting all around them all of the time. We got through on good old American guts.
Many of those men drove for over forty consecutive hours. These men weren’t combat men, but they were soldiers with a job to do. They did it, and in one hell of a way they did it. They were part of a team. Without team effort, without them, the fight would have been lost. All of the links in the chain pulled together and the chain became unbreakable.
Don’t forget, you men don’t know that I’m here. No mention of that fact is to be made in any letters. The world is not supposed to know what the hell happened to me. I’m not supposed to be commanding this Army. I’m not even supposed to be here in England. Let the first bastards to find out be the G—damned Germans. Someday I want to see them raise up on their piss-soaked hind legs and howl, ‘Jesus Christ, it’s the G—damned Third Army again and that son-of-a-f-—ing-bitch Patton.’ We want to get the hell over there.” The quicker we clean up this G—damned mess, the quicker we can take a little jaunt against the purple pissing Japs and clean out their nest, too. Before the G—damned Marines get all of the credit.
Sure, we want to go home. We want this war over with. The quickest way to get it over with is to go get the bastards who started it. The quicker they are whipped, the quicker we can go home. The shortest way home is through Berlin and Tokyo. And when we get to Berlin, I am personally going to shoot that paper hanging son-of-a-bitch Hitler. Just like I’d shoot a snake!
When a man is lying in a shell hole, if he just stays there all day, a German will get to him eventually. The hell with that idea. The hell with taking it. My men don’t dig foxholes. I don’t want them to. Foxholes only slow up an offensive. Keep moving. And don’t give the enemy time to dig one either. We’ll win this war, but we’ll win it only by fighting and by showing the Germans that we’ve got more guts than they have; or ever will have. We’re not going to just shoot the sons-of-bitches, we’re going to rip out their living G—damned guts and use them to grease the treads of our tanks. We’re going to murder those lousy Hun c-— suckers by the bushel-f-—ing-basket.
War is a bloody, killing business. You’ve got to spill their blood, or they will spill yours. Rip them up the belly. Shoot them in the guts. When shells are hitting all around you and you wipe the dirt off your face and realize that instead of dirt it’s the blood and guts of what once was your best friend beside you, you’ll know what to do!
I don’t want to get any messages saying, ‘I am holding my position.’ We are not holding a G—damned thing. Let the Germans do that. We are advancing constantly and we are not interested in holding onto anything, except the enemy’s balls. We are going to twist his balls and kick the living sh— out of him all of the time. Our basic plan of operation is to advance and to keep on advancing regardless of whether we have to go over, under, or through the enemy. We are going to go through him like crap through a goose; like sh— through a tin horn!
From time to time there will be some complaints that we are pushing our people too hard. I don’t give a good G—damn about such complaints. I believe in the old and sound rule that an ounce of sweat will save a gallon of blood. The harder WE push, the more Germans we will kill. The more Germans we kill, the fewer of our men will be killed. Pushing means fewer casualties. I want you all to remember that.
There is one great thing that you men will all be able to say after this war is over and you are home once again. You may be thankful that twenty years from now when you are sitting by the fireplace with your grandson on your knee and he asks you what you did in the great World War II, you WON’T have to cough, shift him to the other knee and say, ‘Well, your Granddaddy shoveled sh— in Louisiana.’ No, Sir, you can look him straight in the eye and say, ‘Son, your Granddaddy rode with the Great Third Army and a Son-of-a- G—damned-Bitch named Georgie Patton!’
“That is all.”
Yes, indeed. A great speech.
I have his campaign ribbons, and a pamphlet the 4th ID issued to the troops. Plus his VERY funny war stories. And his memory.
It would be great if you were able to share those by scanning them and posting.
Took me a good 15 minutes to bleep out all the obscenities. ;)
Exactly what I had in mind. That episode is an eye opener for sure.
I bet the men appreciated them at the time with no bleeping out.
He moved aft, and moments later the ramp drops and German machine guns rake the boat. Capt. killed immediately, along with everyone else in the front. The boat had stopped a bit short of the beach and when several of the guys jumped, they were over their heads and the equipment pulled them down...
Mike became the Capt. and he and the rest were pinned down for almost 2 days by machine gun fire. He said it was a living hell.
Battle plans for the Normandy Invasion, the most famous D-Day.D-Day is a term often used in military parlance to denote the day on which a combat attack or operation is to be initiated. "D-Day" often represents a variable, designating the day upon which some significant event will occur or has occurred; see Military designation of days and hours for similar terms. The initial D in D-Day has had various meanings in the past, while more recently it has obtained the connotation of "Day" itself, thereby creating the phrase "Day-Day."
By far, the best known D-Day is June 6, 1944 — the day on which the Battle of Normandy began — commencing the Western Allied effort to liberate mainland Europe from Nazi occupation during World War II. However, many other invasions and operations had a designated D-Day, both before and after Operation Overlord. The invasion of France was originally planned for June 5, 1944 but bad weather and heavy seas delayed that.
The terms D-Day and H-Hour are used for the day and hour on which a combat attack or operation is to be initiated. They designate the day and hour of the operation when the day and hour have not yet been determined, or where secrecy is essential. There is but one D-Day and one H-Hour for all units participating in a given operation.
When used in combination with figures, and plus or minus signs, these terms indicate the point of time preceding or following a specific action. Thus, H−3 means 3 hours before H-Hour, and D+3 means 3 days after D-Day. H+75 minutes means H-Hour plus 1 hour and 15 minutes.
Planning papers for large-scale operations are made up in detail long before specific dates are set. Thus, orders are issued for the various steps to be carried out on the D-Day or H-Hour minus or plus a certain number of days, hours, or minutes. At the appropriate time, a subsequent order is issued that states the actual day and times.
The earliest use of these terms by the U.S. Army that the Center of Military History has been able to find was during World War I. In Field Order Number 9, First Army, American Expeditionary Forces, dated 7 September 1918: "The First Army will attack at H hour on D day with the object of forcing the evacuation of the St. Mihiel Salient."
D-Day for the invasion of Normandy by the Allies was originally set for 5 June 1944, but bad weather caused Gen. Dwight. D Eisenhower to delay until 6 June and that date has been popularly referred to ever since by the short title "D-Day". (In French, it is called Le Jour J or, occasionally, Le Choc.) Because of this, planners of later military operations sometimes avoided the term. For example, Douglas MacArthur's invasion of Leyte began on "A-Day", and the invasion of Okinawa began on "L-Day". The Allies proposed invasions of Japan that would have begun on "X-Day" (Kyūshū, scheduled for November 1945) and "Y-Day" (Honshū, scheduled for March 1946).
I'd look at Band of Brothers, instead. Involves real people that were really there, not just a good story. 'Ryan' is a good 2nd choice, though.
I saw the series and read the book. The movie followed the book fairly closely - for a change.
'A Bridge Too Far' would be a good choice as well. Not that it had anything to do with the Normandy Invasion.
The most touching part of BoB, was at the end of the episode when Winters talks about what he promised to God should he survive “D plus 1.”
That was "Operation Market Garden" which was Monty's foul up. Band of Brothers covered that one as well.
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