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On June 6, 1944, 150,000 Allied soldiers clambered aboard heaving landing craft and braved six-foot swells, waves of machine-gun fire, and more than 6 million mines to claim a stretch of sand at a place called Normandy. Their mission was to carve out an Allied foothold on the edge of Nazi-occupied Europe for the army of more than one million that would follow them in the summer of 1944. This army would burst forth from the beachhead, rolling across Europe into the heart of Germany, liberating millions, toppling a genocidal regime, and ending a nightmare along the way. But it...

~ D-DAY, June 6, 1944 ~ NORMANDY INVASION May 1944 had been chosen at the conference in Washington in May 1943 as the time for the invasion. Difficulties in assembling landing craft forced a postponement until June, but June 5 was fixed as the unalterable date by Eisenhower on May 17. As the day approached and troops began to embark for the crossing, bad weather set in, threatening dangerous landing conditions. After tense debate, Eisenhower and his subordinates decided on a 24-hour delay, requiring the recall of some ships already at sea. Eventually, on the morning of June 5, Eisenhower,...

Tomorrow marks the 80th anniversary of D-Day at Normandy, the largest seaborne invasion in history, which begun of the liberation of France and western Europe from the Nazis. Operation Overlord, the code name given to the invasion, saw more than 150,000 troops from the Allied forces land on five beaches in Normandy. Candles will be lit on graves across Normandy this evening to remember the fallen, while world leaders, including the King and US President Joe Biden will be attending events on Thursday in commemoration. Monday June 5, 1944 7.30am: At this moment precisely, naval officers are breaking open their...

General Dwight D. Eisenhower arrived in London January 2, 1944 to command Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF) and to direct the last five months of planning for D-Day. Eisenhower’s study of leadership skills required he never express the apprehension and doubt, which inevitably arise as strain and tension wear away endurance. He was determined always to present confidence and optimism to those around him. He brought with him a confident, battle tested team that had led successful landings in North Africa, Sicily, and Salerno, despite experiencing German counterattacks nearly driving the Allies into the sea on the last two...

U.S. President Joe Biden touched down on French soil early Wednesday morning ahead of Europe’s D-Day commemorations as Ukraine’s ongoing war with Russia continues to roil the continent. Flying aboard Air Force One, Biden landed at Paris Orly airport to be welcomed by Prime Minister Gabriel Attal. Along with French President Emmanuel Macron, British King Charles III and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, AFP reports Biden will on Thursday salute the heroism of the Allied troops who gave their lives often far from home in the landings on June 6, 1944 to free Europe from Nazi occupation. It will be...

Commemorations have begun to mark the 80th anniversary of the D-Day Landings in France which changed the course of the Second World War liberating Europe from the Nazi's.

Freedom isn't Free. Just sayin...

I hadn't intended to write about war songs this week. But I was struck by some of the responses to yesterday's D-Day special, and, as always, impressed by the resilience of the accompanying music. It's eighty years since June 6th 1944, four score and six since the first troops shipped out, and yet that sound remains unmistakeable. For those who were there, a few bars of "White Cliffs of Dover" will always mean a crowded railway platform in East Anglia as the troop train pulls out, and a snatch of "Maybe It's Because I'm a Londoner" will always evoke the...

A World War II Veteran who claimed he was the first Allied soldier to receive a message that the Nazis had surrendered vowed to keep the historical document in his family despite intense interest from museums. Bernard Morgan — who turns 100 on Wednesday — was working as a codebreaker for the Royal Air Force around May 6, 1945, when he received a world-changing message through his Typex machine. “The German War is now over. At Rheims last night the instrument of surrender was signed which in effect is a surrender of all personnel of the German forces – all...

Distraught Jewish veteran Mervyn Kersh was one of nine D-Day veterans to march past the Cenotaph on Remembrance Sunday - but he fears another war could be on the horizon and the sacrifices of the Greatest Generation could be in vain. The father-of-three, 98, served in the Second World War as a private with the Royal Army Ordnance Corps, fighting through Belgium, Holland and Germany. He was also sent to help survivors of Adolf Hitler's death camp: Bergen-Belsen, where 70,000 or more people died including many Jews. Speaking yesterday, as he remembered his comrades, Mervyn said tearfully: 'It was a...

OMAHA BEACH: Last Living 1st Wave D-Day Officer on Storming Normandy | 34:07American Veterans Center | 269K subscribers | 227,941 views | June 6, 2023

In the final row of graves in an obscure cemetery in southern Spain, is a tomb dedicated to William Martin - a British officer killed during the Second World War. Except that Martin wasn't real. He was invented by British spies as part of a daring and successful plot to fool Hitler about the invasion of Sicily, using the corpse of an unknown man dressed up like an officer and carrying a case full of fake documents. Now, ahead of the release of new film Operation Mincemeat which documents the mission, calls are growing to exhume the grave so the...

The men at Omaha did not believe America had to be perfect to be good—just far better than the alternative. Seventy-nine years ago this week, the Allies assaulted the Normandy beaches on D-Day, June 6, 1944. Their invasion marked the largest amphibious landing since the Persians under Xerxes invaded the Greek mainland in 480 B.C. Nearly 160,000 American, British, and Canadian soldiers stormed five beaches of Nazi-occupied France. The plan was to liberate Western Europe after four years of occupation, push into Germany, and end the Nazi regime. Less than a year later, the Allies from the West, and the...

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Seventy-Nine years ago during the night Allied paratroopers landed behind the the beaches of Normandy, France, to be followed at dawn by thousands of amphibious troops landing on those beaches, I can not let this day go by without a tribute. June 6, 1944 was not just another day at the beach and for many it was their last day and for those who lived it was their longest day for the rest of their lives.

Every day, memories of World War II—its sights and sounds, its terrors and triumphs—disappear. Yielding to the inalterable process of aging, the men and women who fought and won the great conflict are now in their 90s or older. They are dying quickly—according to US Department of Veterans Affairs statistics, 167,284 of the 16 million Americans who served in World War II are alive in 2022.

79 years ago today, my grandfather jumped out of a plane. He was 17 years old when he joined the 101st Airborne Division, and at the ripe age of 18, he boarded a C-47 aircraft with the rest of his company destined for Normandy. On June 6, 1944, he jumped out of that plane onto Utah Beach, becoming a part of what would become the largest amphibious invasion in military history, Operation Overlord, or, as it's more commonly known, D-Day. Though only 18, my grandfather was one of the oldest soldiers in his company. He recounted how many, like himself,...

The men of Normandy had faith that what they were doing was right, faith that they fought for all humanity, faith that a just God would grant them mercy on this beachhead or on the next. It was the deep knowledge — and pray God we have not lost it — that there is a profound, moral difference between the use of force for liberation and the use of force for conquest. You were here to liberate, not to conquer, and so you and those others did not doubt your cause. And you were right not to doubt.IMHO, one of...

General Dwight D. Eisenhower arrived in London January 2, 1944 to command Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF) and to direct the last five months of planning for D-Day; the most difficult and complicated military operation ever attempted. Eisenhower’s study of leadership skills required he ignore opportunities for fear and doubt, which inevitably arise as strain and tension wear away endurance. He persevered to present confidence and optimism to those around him. For that reason, he brought with him a confident, battle tested team that had led successful landings in North Africa, Sicily, and Salerno, despite experiencing German counterattacks nearly...

VIDEOSince today is the 79th Anniversary of the D-Day landing on June 6, 1944 I thought it would be a good time to compare the amazingly similar voices of Dwight D. Eisenhower and Clark Gable. In this video you can hear Eisenhower's D-Day message to the allied troops as compared to Clark Gable's recruitment speech for the Army Air Force. I also mixed up the segments of each so you can hear them speak closer together in order to better compare the similarity of their voices.