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The Other D-Day
The Washington Times ^ | June 11, 2007 | Victor Davis Hanson

Posted on 06/11/2007 3:58:55 PM PDT by George - the Other

Edited on 06/12/2007 4:48:27 AM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]

The Washington Times | June 11, 2007 Sixty-three years ago this week, we landed on the Normandy beaches. As on each anniversary of June 6, 1944, much has been written to commemorate the bravery and competence of the victorious Anglo-American forces.


TOPICS: War on Terror
KEYWORDS: alqaeda; iraq; jihadists; normandy; victordavishanson
We WILL Prevail!
1 posted on 06/11/2007 3:59:00 PM PDT by George - the Other
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To: George - the Other

VDH is great - should be required reading in every statist school.


2 posted on 06/11/2007 4:06:34 PM PDT by WorkingClassFilth (Current tagline banned under hate speech laws.)
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To: George - the Other

Maybe.


3 posted on 06/11/2007 4:07:03 PM PDT by PeterFinn (Oderint Dum Metuant - "Let them Hate, as long as they Fear.")
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To: George - the Other

VDH Bump!

The Fifth estate wasn’t the Fifth column in those days.


4 posted on 06/11/2007 4:08:29 PM PDT by tet68 ( " We would not die in that man's company, that fears his fellowship to die with us...." Henry V.)
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To: George - the Other

Thanks for the post. We all know war is hell, but sometimes necessary.


5 posted on 06/11/2007 4:18:35 PM PDT by trooprally (Never Give Up - Never Give In - Remember Our Troops)
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To: George - the Other

bump


6 posted on 06/11/2007 4:19:30 PM PDT by VOA
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To: George - the Other
"...Nevertheless, the Normandy campaign reminds us that war is by nature horrific, fraught with foolish error -- and only won by the side that commits the least number of mistakes. Our grandfathers knew that. So they pressed on as best they could, convinced they needn't be perfect, only good enough, to win. The American lesson of D-Day and its aftermath was how to overcome occasional abject stupidity while never giving up in the face of an utterly savage enemy. ..."

I am saving this snippet from him.

It is an absolutely perfect summation, in my opinion!

7 posted on 06/11/2007 4:25:05 PM PDT by rlmorel (Liberals: If the Truth would help them, they would use it.)
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To: George - the Other

And this was the answer to the Wermacht. The Republic P-47 Thunderbolt shown here firing rockets. Probably no better named weapon for this website than this one. It carried 8 50 mm machine guns and could carry bonbs and rockets. From the invasion of Europe on June 6, 1944, to VE day on May 7, 1945, the Thunderbolt destroyed 86,000 railway cars, 9,000 locomotives, 6,000 armored fighting vehicles, and 68,000 trucks.

8 posted on 06/11/2007 5:07:53 PM PDT by xp38
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To: rlmorel
"Nevertheless, the Normandy campaign reminds us that war is by nature horrific, fraught with foolish error -- and only won by the side that commits the least number of mistakes."

Oh, please. Only its own refusal to commit to victory could have beaten the US. The numbers were always going to be in its favor.

9 posted on 06/11/2007 5:23:34 PM PDT by naturalized ("The time has come," He said. "The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!")
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To: George - the Other

The difference is that in WW II we had some 15,000,000 military most of which were draftees. This was more than enough to compensate for mistakes but also sufficient to win, occupy and completely control the enemy. It was the formula for winning.


10 posted on 06/11/2007 5:32:16 PM PDT by ex-snook ("But above all things, truth beareth away the victory.")
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To: naturalized

Oh, Please?

I am not sure if I am misinterpreting your tone or not, but I don’t appreciate the dismissive tone.

Too many people take the victory in WWII as a given thing. It was NEVER a given thing at the time. It is always easy to look back and say that.


11 posted on 06/11/2007 6:48:30 PM PDT by rlmorel (Liberals: If the Truth would help them, they would use it.)
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To: rlmorel

Sorry, but I just don’t think that Japan and Germany would have taken an indefinite number of nuclear strikes.


12 posted on 06/12/2007 11:26:47 AM PDT by naturalized ("The time has come," He said. "The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!")
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To: naturalized

I understand that viewpoint, but on June 6th, 1944, there were no nuclear weapons to use, and we did not even have a functioning nuclear weapon to test until over an entire year later (July 16, 1945)

On D-Day, we had no idea if those nuclear weapons we were trying to develop were even going to work. We had a lot of concerns regarding what to expect when it did go off. Out at Los Alamos, there were nervous discussions about setting off a chain reaction through the entire atmosphere. They eventually decided it would not happen, but people DID seriously discuss it. The point is, we had no idea. At 05:29:45 Mountain Time on 7/16/1945, they could have pushed the button, and then all stood there looking stupidly at each other when nothing happened.

Given what we know now, sure...there would have been no need to go into Normandy...or Iwo Jima...or Okinawa. Heck, we could have just said right after Pearl Harbor: “Okay, Japan, you just wait. We are going to clean your clock in the late summer of 1945...”

You can only fight with the resources you have at the time you are required to fight. If we had the B-29 earlier in the war in the European theatre...if we had better tanks...if we had the Iowa class battleships at Savo Island...and so on.


13 posted on 06/12/2007 12:10:26 PM PDT by rlmorel (Liberals: If the Truth would help them, they would use it.)
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