D-Day, the 6th of June

I'm surprised MG'ers with a sense of history haven't posted a thread on the anniversary of D-Day, 44 years ago.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D-Day

Were any of you serving on that Armada, or your relatives?

Bazza

 

6th of June is the Swedish national day honouring king Gustav Vasa who became king this day in 1523 after skiing through the county Dalarna and kicking some sorry Danish behinds...

Became a bank holiday only 3 years ago though, and is still not widely celebrated.

 

we can only hope our current "liberation effort" will turn out as well

Solange- my butt is half danish,,,and it's not sorry at ALL!!:-D

 

My father was there. I was 4 years old in Dallas, Tx.
That really was the longest day. Heroes all. God Bless 'em.

 

...I thought that was 64 years ago.:confused

Well, my father was involved in that somewhere, but a little (14 years), before my time.

 

My father was also on the beaches at Normandy but i was not born until he came home in 1946.

being ex military i always go to the remembrance service but to be honest i did not think to post it here being that MGs is a predominantly US site and although many Americans died there i did not if it was recognised in the US.

 

Got confused with (19)44 and 64 years ago. Bazza

===

 

My father, was an Artillery Gunner in WW2. He sprayed AA fire at Nazi Bombers and his station recorded several dozen V1 missile sightings. The rookies would always try to shoot them down, but even with the help of 'tracer' rounds, the V1 flew too high and too fast for normal AA to hit them. After the D-Day landing, the second wave included artillery and supplies. My dad, was the lorry(truck) driver for the crew's howitzer field gun. He was the youngest in his crew having just turned 18. 17 year old boys that had their 18th birthday in the same year were allowed to 'join up'. My grandfather, being a 'bobbie' ( cop ) and a veteran of WW1, fighting the Turks, didn't see any problem with that.

His battle group eventually caught up with General Montgomery's main corps near Caen in France. That's where my dad met Canadians for the first time. He said they were like Americans, big and strong, but unlike the 'yanks', they were polite, knew how to 'look smart' on parade and most of all they knew how to kill 'Jerry'. They fought as if they had never heard of the legendary Nazi War Machine.

He said "They have no fear, the stupid bastards. It brought tears to my my eyes to see so many Canadian lads die, but they kept charging until the objective was taken. The news would reach us of the latest successful Canadian raid, and it did our hearts good to know that 'Jerry' could finally be beaten.".

These days, we know that the war ended with the Allies victorious. But taken in the context of the time - The Germans were mythic warriors to the Brits of 1944. Everyone in Britain knew somebody that was related to one of the quarter million man British professional army evacuated from Dunkirk. All of them, every last one of them, knew what the Germans could do, and each of them would tell you just how scary that run to the coast of France truly was.

By 1944, though, the bulk of the German armies were occupied trying to survive the Soviet onslaught. If the Hitler/Stalin treaty was still in effect, my dad reckons, that the United States of Europe would have been declared by 1944 and no amount of British Canadian or US armies could have ever mounted an invasion. Worse yet, the Nazis would have a nuclear bomb first, and since German scientists could build rockets (- both the USA and USSR used captured German Scientists to launch their space programs), I'm sure it would have been a short step to U-Boat launched rockets on New York!

Thankyou Master of the Universe ( aka DNA), for making Hitler and Stalin insane megalomaniacs, at the same moment in history. If it were not for that, then, Sprechen Sie Deutsch?

 

I'm still very grateful that the allied troops liberated Europe otherwise we would have been "slaves" as my father said. He died on Sept. 19 1944 during a German bombardment of the city I was born in, a day after my city was liberated. Therefore, my heartfelt thanks to all of the soldiers who fought so hard (many of them who died) against the German war machine.