The 80th anniversary of D-Day

[Liut]

And thank you to the Americans and British who fought their way through North Africa and Italy for two years before Normandy. That seems to be the forgotten front of WWII.

Agreed ... but not me.
I watch "Patton" probably four times a year!

 

[three_bags_full]

The 29th Infantry Division was a National Guard division, and was manned (from since before the war) by soldiers mostly from Virginia and Maryland - hence the high number of casualties from a Valley town like Bedford. The 29th landed on Omaha (with the Big Red 1) to open the invasion.

My friend Joe Balkoski was the Division historian and is a fabulous author. He wrote a trilogy of books on the 29th in Europe. I highly recommend them.

Beyond the Beachhead: The 29th Division... book by Joseph Balkoski

Bedford Boys was an awesome book, and I'll check this one out, too.

 

[UPChip]

My grandfather spent some time in North Africa and composed an ersatz memoir. Also did some plane painting and/or went 'over the hump.' There's been some conjecture that he might have painted at least one very famous plane but it's pretty hard to tie everything together, as he was stricken with Parkinson's and difficult to understand for as long as I knew him.

 

[Brooklyn Bridge]

My grandfather was in WWII, but he developed Alzheimers and died when I was young and wasn't able to gather much about his time in Europe.

I'll add this thread about the deception that confused the Germans about the true landing spot.

 

[Twirling Time]

I've read about the Allied deceptions and they were devious, but German fortifications were quite strong up and down the whole French coast. Even so, they weren't withstanding hundreds of thousands of onshoring troops at any point. The feint certainly saved thousands of Allied lives, though.

 

[Michael_ Gee]

Given what was already known about amphibious landings (quite a lot, there had already been dozens of them in the Pacific, not to mention Italy and North Africa), the limited naval bombardment on Jone 6 was probably the Allies' most deadly blunder. Of course, that mistake pales besides such beauties as "I know there's an invasion, but the Leader is asleep and we're afraid to wake him."

 

[Twirling Time]

We need to be careful not to conflate 1944 technology with today's technology. With today's technology, every machine gun nest in the invasion area would've had a time on target missile strike and the worst affliction for the Allieds might've been athlete's foot or a heel blister. But this was 1944 and it was tough.

 

[Batman]

Given what was already known about amphibious landings (quite a lot, there had already been dozens of them in the Pacific, not to mention Italy and North Africa), the limited naval bombardment on Jone 6 was probably the Allies' most deadly blunder. Of course, that mistake pales besides such beauties as "I know there's an invasion, but the Leader is asleep and we're afraid to wake him."

Always found it incredible that Operation Torch, the invasion of North Africa, started with an amphibious invasion launched from Norfolk. The soldiers who stormed those beaches crossed the entirety of the Atlantic Ocean undetected and went ashore straight from their troop ships.

 

[dixiehack]

The whole course of history might have changed if some higher-up Nazis were fond of doing English-language crosswords.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D-Day_Daily_Telegraph_crossword_security_alarm

 

[micropolitan guy]

Speaking of significant anniversaries, today is the 148th anniversary of Little Big Horn.

An amazing place to visit. Except for the Visitor's Center, nearby I-90 and a Conoco station, it looks pretty much the same as it did in 1876.