today in history
Jun. 6th, 2007 08:00 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
drewkittyOn June 6, 1944, sixty-three years ago today, the invasion of Normandy began. This was the invasion of Europe by the Allied forces to overthrow the Nazi occupation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D-day
The Germans had heavily fortified the beaches in many places. Family history states that my uncle on my father's side was a landing ship driver on D-day. From an armored cockpit, he took waves of fifty troops to the beach under murderous artillery fire. When the ramps went down, the interlocking fields of fire from the heavy machine guns in bunkers above tore into the men as they desperately tried to 1) get off the landing craft, 2) get out of the surf before drowning, 3) get to cover on an open beach under heavy (in volume and caliber) machine gun fire, and 4) advance to contact and attack uphill against the enemy bunker complex.
My uncle had dropped two loads of troops and believed that all of them had died. He went back to the ship for a third load. The men climbed down into the landing craft using nets and found in the landing craft hold what you would expect: dead bodies, blood, piss, vomit and shit.
One of the soldiers asked my uncle, "What are we getting into? What can you tell us?"
My uncle apparently replied, "It's pretty bad. It's pretty bad." and outlined the situation.
The questioner moved up to the front of the landing craft and was killed instantly when the doors went down at the beach.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Normandy
On Omaha Beach, "The official record stated that "within 10 minutes of the ramps being lowered, [the leading] company had become inert, leaderless and almost incapable of action. Every officer and sergeant had been killed or wounded [...] It had become a struggle for survival and rescue". There were about 2,400 casualties on Omaha on D-day, most in the first few hours. Commanders considered abandoning the beachhead, but small units, often forming ad hoc groups, eventually took the beach and pressed inland."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omaha_Beach
Over 9,000 American soldiers are buried at one cemetery overlooking the Atlantic Ocean in Normandy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normandy_American_Cemetery_and_Memorial
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D-day
The Germans had heavily fortified the beaches in many places. Family history states that my uncle on my father's side was a landing ship driver on D-day. From an armored cockpit, he took waves of fifty troops to the beach under murderous artillery fire. When the ramps went down, the interlocking fields of fire from the heavy machine guns in bunkers above tore into the men as they desperately tried to 1) get off the landing craft, 2) get out of the surf before drowning, 3) get to cover on an open beach under heavy (in volume and caliber) machine gun fire, and 4) advance to contact and attack uphill against the enemy bunker complex.
My uncle had dropped two loads of troops and believed that all of them had died. He went back to the ship for a third load. The men climbed down into the landing craft using nets and found in the landing craft hold what you would expect: dead bodies, blood, piss, vomit and shit.
One of the soldiers asked my uncle, "What are we getting into? What can you tell us?"
My uncle apparently replied, "It's pretty bad. It's pretty bad." and outlined the situation.
The questioner moved up to the front of the landing craft and was killed instantly when the doors went down at the beach.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Normandy
On Omaha Beach, "The official record stated that "within 10 minutes of the ramps being lowered, [the leading] company had become inert, leaderless and almost incapable of action. Every officer and sergeant had been killed or wounded [...] It had become a struggle for survival and rescue". There were about 2,400 casualties on Omaha on D-day, most in the first few hours. Commanders considered abandoning the beachhead, but small units, often forming ad hoc groups, eventually took the beach and pressed inland."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omaha_Beach
Over 9,000 American soldiers are buried at one cemetery overlooking the Atlantic Ocean in Normandy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normandy_American_Cemetery_and_Memorial
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Date: 2007-06-06 08:04 pm (UTC)I've also visited Normandy. Whatever one can say of the last hour and a half of "Saving Private Ryan"-- the first thirty minutes or so (the part showing the initial beach landing and assualting the cliffs) are entirely accurate. That men actually survived and got off that beach going farther inland in the face of determined resistance is amazing. Visiting the cemetery at Colleville-Sur-Mer (overlooking the beaches of Normandy) was quite a sobering experience. Lets ya know we owe a lot to the "greatest generation".