D-Day - the Normandy landings

[skipper734]

That's totally unfair. The French played an active part in the process. "A 1965 report from the Counter-insurgency Information Analysis Center details the results of the French Resistance's sabotage efforts: "In the southeast, 52 locomotives were destroyed on 6 June and the railway line cut in more than 500 places. Normandy was isolated as of 7 June." There were also Free French troops landing on the beaches

And as Buzzer pointed out, there were between 15,000 and 20,000 French casualties during the landings

The 15-20,000 were all civilian causalities, due mostly to Allied bombing. I beg your pardon, I have just reread my sauce on the French team and the was not 77 there was 177. All of this is due to Degaulle, his attitude to the British, the Americans and the Communists in his own country. He wasn't told of the invasion until the day before, he was that much of a security risk to the Allies.

 

[Norman Potting]

View attachment 54716

Makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up every time I read it. Amazing to think that this bit of paper actually went to D-Day.

please tell me this worked? I went all advanced and everything.

I have pressed the invisible thumbs up for this!

 

[Hillian1]

View attachment 54716

Makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up every time I read it. Amazing to think that this bit of paper actually went to D-Day.

please tell me this worked? I went all advanced and everything.

Brilliant.

With your permission, I would like to print this off and put it up in the Pub later.

 

[symyjym]

Thanks. So many anecdotes about the second world war are leaving us daily. Dan Snow is doing a great job trying to archive them.

Indeed, apparently this was an Eisenhower message and he prepared a transcript of a follow up message if we failed.

Here's what it says:

"Our landings in the Cherbourg-Havre area have failed to gain a satisfactory foothold and I have withdrawn the troops. My decision to attack at this time and place was based upon the best information available. The troops, the air and the Navy did all that Bravery and devotion to duty could do. If any blame or fault attaches to the attempt it is mine alone."

http://www.dailyfinance.com/2012/06...-eisenhower-drafted-in-case-the-nazis-won-on/

 

[Surf's Up]

Try to imagine how you'd feel if you were on one of those landing crafts on D-Day just as the ramp went down and you launched yourself into the water and ..................?

 

[Westdene Seagull]

Try to imagine how you'd feel if you were on one of those landing crafts on D-Day just as the ramp went down and you launched yourself into the water and ..................?

Looking at footage of the first troops landing you see many of them mown down by machine gun fire. I can't imagine how scary it must be just to run up a beach and hope the bullets don't hit you. Puts into sharp perspective our everyday complaints like not being able to stand up at football. RIP the fallen.

 

[withdeanwombat]

6 Commando were billeted in Hove.

My Dad threw his money to some children when he left. He didn't think he'd be back.

He got shot and wounded during the landing, but recovered to be posted back to join the fight through France and into Germany.

 

[skipper734]

Try to imagine how you'd feel if you were on one of those landing crafts on D-Day just as the ramp went down and you launched yourself into the water and ..................?

The beach landing from Saving Private Ryan must be pretty close, watch it on a big screen and crank up the volume, horrendous

.

 

[symyjym]

Try to imagine how you'd feel if you were on one of those landing crafts on D-Day just as the ramp went down and you launched yourself into the water and ..................?

Yep, or parachuting in for German target practice, or gliding in on wooden planes designed to break up on landing, or being in a floating tank being dumped in the sea just off the coast.

 

[Gwylan]

The 15-20,000 were all civilian causalities,

Of course they were - apart from the 177 commandos that you mention, there were no French armed forces by then.

But those casualties would have included those Resistance fighters sabotaging railways, laying explosions, transmitting messages etc

 

[drew]

The beach landing from Saving Private Ryan must be pretty close, watch it on a big screen and crank up the volume, horrendous

.

Agree, but would add that you should try and remember what you were up to on your 19th Birthday, what you were thinking of, what your life was like at that age and then imagine what it would be like to swap that for being in a landing craft heading towards one of those beaches!

 

[W.C.]

Try to imagine how you'd feel if you were on one of those landing crafts on D-Day just as the ramp went down and you launched yourself into the water and ..................?

This is the thing that always gets me. Moments like that, or going over the top into a hail of machine gun fire. Unimaginable. Depictions of those men waiting to go, writing letters home, be it in fiction or documentary form just choke me up.

 

[surlyseagull]

http://www.theguardian.com/artandde...y-landings-scenes-in-1944-and-now-interactive

Incredible pictures ,so interesting ,thanks

 

[skipper734]

Of course they were - apart from the 177 commandos that you mention, there were no French armed forces by then.But those casualties would have included those Resistance fighters sabotaging railways, laying explosions, transmitting messages etc

The Poles didn't have any Armed Forces either. Yet thousands of them died as part of Allied forces on land sea and Air. There is some history that cannot be rewritten, where none exists to rewrite.

 

[Daddies_Sauce]

Incredible pictures ,so interesting ,thanks

Indeed, incredible how little has changed with regards to the properties in the then and now comparisons (apart from the roundabout), when you consider the damage all around. Very clever, and very humbling.

 

[Mannie]

My mother was a young girl in Arundel during the war. Two Canadian soldiers were billeted in their small cottage in Queens Lane in the lead up to D Day. My mum recalls the road leading up to Swanbourne Lake was rammed with army vehicles and equipment and then overnight they all disappeared at once. Obviously it was for the landings, but the locals didn't know why they had left so suddenly at the time.

My father also recalls the Canadians in Worthing at the time. He was serving in the Navy during the war and whilst on home leave got in to a fight with some of them in a pub in Montague St. Only time he was arrested in his life and the police officer told him it was for his own protection!

There were a huge number of Canadians - there is a pub in Cuckfield with photos of the infantry and mechanised brigades rumbling past on their way to the embarkation points

 

[Mackenzie]

My Grandad was a Brighton fisherman, he took his little boat to St. Valery to get the troops off the beach. He's gone now, but I'm very proud of what he did.

 

[edna krabappel]

Thank you, I'll give it a watch when I get a chance.

There's a moment when one chap says to the camera, with tears in his eyes, "Every single man on my landing craft was killed", and follows it up with "That was a sad day".

I defy you to watch him & not have a lump in your throat

 

[dangull]

As great of a achievement that D-Day was, it was only possible because 3/4 of the German army was fighting on the Russion front.

 

[Bulldog]

My mum used to tell me that they knew the invasion was imminent because all the Canadian soldiers stationed in Worthing had packed up and moved out, but no one knew exactly when it was to happen.
On the morning of the 6th she heard so much aircraft noise that she went outside to take a look, and the sky was black with planes, all in formation, heading south. Then they knew, today was the day.
Shortly after, the news came over the wireless, the invasion had begun.