The lack of press today about one of the greatest feats in military history tells a story in itself. Dwight D. Eisenhower gave the go ahead on one of the most complex, difficult and potentially disasterous invasions in history. The men who carried out the task did the impossible. The men who planned and executed the logistics let no problem deter them from victory. Today, we can’t even balance a budget.
The GI Generation was born between 1901 and 1924. That makes the youngest member 87 years old. This generation is dying off at a rate of 800 per day. They will be a historical footnote within the next decade or so. Americans have forgotten D Day. Those who could provide details are dead or near death. Americans don’t read books. Our schools probably have a paragraph about D Day.
This is part of the Fourth Turning dynamic. There is virtually nobody left that experienced the last 4th Turning. That is why it will be such a surprise to those who will experience it over the next 10 to 15 years. It will seem new, but it has happened before. There is just no one left to tell us about it.
I wonder what our D Day will be.
Those boys were mostly draftees. I’d like to see how today’s teenagers would handle a similar situation.
Joke: I have a French rifle for sale, never fired, only dropped twice.
Yes, It pisses me off to no end, we have forgotten what a true hero is. Whenever I see one of those brave souls around I thank them.
Teenagers this day, could NOT handle it.
Oklahoma Dan
Is that paintball reenactment near where you live?
They said the same about the kids in the 20’s and 30’s but when it comes down to iit, I’m not fooled by these childrens. It’s the happy-go-lucky ones who turn into beasts when needs be.
That D-Day gets so little play and that the Greatest Generation is all but gone is a somber reality. Those dudes were badass. They were also very human. That’s what the stuff of legends is made of.
I’m just a pup, but what made those men special, to me, is that they did WHATEVER had to be done. They gave of themselves and their lives to do the impossible. Then they put rippers on the front of tanks to take out the hedges and used their ingenuity to accomplish any task at hand. They didn’t depend on the government to take care of them. When they got home, they kicked ass in the business world as well. WW2 made men out of boys, and when they came home, they proved their worth time and time again in civilian life. That generation knew the true meaning of sacrifice, both home and abroad. They lived through the 1st Great Depression and dealt with the horrors or war. We became a better nation because of it. When all your chips are on the table and you have nothing left to lose, your perspective changes. I’ve never gone through that, but later troubles in their lives can not compare to what was faced then.
Don’t get me wrong, those who went through wars in later years also sacrificed beyone measure, but their generation as a whole didn’t and still haven’t. Folks on the homefront now don’t know the meaning of sacrifice, though I am afraid they’ll get a first hand lesson all too soon.
A couple of points:
The average age of a WW II GI was 26 (in Vietnam, 19). Think Chip Saunders. These folks had experienced hardscrabble life in the late ’30s. Many knew the old bums’ trick of using newspaper wrapped around the chest and legs as cheap insulation. it helped them survive wintertime in France.
Today’s kids are soft; in five years’ time, perhaps the better ones will be hard enough for what lies ahead.
The GAR held its’ last encampment in 1937. At the end of WW II, the six remaining members flew, by jet, to hold one last meeting. The last of them passed on in 1957. This speaks to Admin’s point about the loss of 4T living memory between cycles. There were precious few of them able to tell the men lined up at the recruiting station on dec. 8th, 1941 what years of combat would be like.
We should also remember today as the 69th anniversary of the end of the Battle of Midway, nearly as important for the Pacific war as D-day was in Europe, but without the drama of the buildup and the intensity of the fighting, face-to-face, with the foe.
“Soldiers, sailors and airmen of the Allied expeditionary Force, the eyes of the world are upon you. the hopes and dreams of liberty-loving people everywhere march with you. ” – Ike’s word to his boys on the eve of the landing. (I memorized them as a child after repeatedly hearing them on an old record dad had, “D-Day + 20.”)
My 87 y/o WW II vet neighbor’s wife old me that she gets worried when he climbs up on the roof of their carport to patch the tar roof. God bless them, every one.
Modern Illuminati Invasions don’t need grunts slogging across Beachheads. We clear the Beaches first with Robotic Drones, which well trained Nintendo Players direct from the comfort of their living room couch
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After sweeping the neighborhood clean with unmanned aircraft, we send in the Brave Pilots of the Apache Attack Helicopter brigade to knock down any terrorists still standing.
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The typical terrorist is a well armed commando like this one.
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Once cleared, we don’t need many soldiers, just a few Navy SEALS to go in and Assassinate anyone who might lead the people left
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As you can see, the days of the D-Day style invasion are over. After turning the country into a Failed State you then drop in a few brigades to surround the Oil Fields and steal the Oil. Why bother with an Invasion?
RE
Say what you will about the Towel Heads, they SERIOUSLY know how to revolt. 120 Dead Cops. Yowza.
RE
Syrian TV: 120 police killed in northern town
Updated 45m ago |
32 | 2ShareBEIRUT (AP) — Syrian TV claims 120 police and security forces have been killed by armed groups in a northern town.
It says 82 of them were killed in an attack on a security post. The report on Monday could not immediately be verified.
The confrontations occurred in the town of Jisr al-Shughour in Idlib province where Syria’s military has been conducting military operations for days as part of a crackdown on an uprising calling for an end to President Bashar Assad’s regime.
Human rights groups say at least 35 people have been killed there since Saturday.
STORY: Syrian protests grow despite attacks, Internet cut
Syria’s Interior Minister says the state will deal strongly and “decisively” with armed attacks on security forces.
Ibrahim Shaar says “we will not be silent” about attacks against the state, comments that appeared to be a prelude to an even stronger government crackdown against a popular uprising that began in mid-March.
He spoke in a terse statement broadcast on Syrian state television Monday after government reports that 120 police officers and security forces were killed in an ambush and confrontations with armed men in a tense northern town.
The TV said in its report Monday that security forces were on their way to the town in response to calls from residents to protect them from armed gangs.
Human rights groups say more than 1,200 people have died in the brutal crackdown against anti-government protesters since March.
Details of the operations were sketchy and attempts to reach residents of the town were unsuccessful, possibly because communications have been cut.
Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Who were the guys of the Greatest Generation?
Just ordinary everyday men and women placed in a position of literally do or die. A lot of them died. But there was nothing different about them that separates them from you or I. Some had balls the size of grapefruit and some cowered in foxholes too scared to move. The vast majority were average people you’d have as a neighbor who, through necessity, did very exceptional and unordinary things.
As the Fourth Turning inevitably progresses to TSHTF stage and we end up in a real war, it will indeed be much different today than in WWII. The soldier of WWII will never return and we will likely never again have a “Greatest Generation”. The next war will be fought semi-RE style; very fast, very destructive, very “remote control” (i.e. “over there if possible”) and very, very vicious and the collateral damage will be extremely high (don’t think “smart bomb”, think fallout on the winds).
Most of the next major conflict ( we aren’t talking about bull shit Iraq and Afgan stuff here) will happen in the veritable blink of an eye starting and finishing in possibly minutes to hours and there will very likely be no winners and all losers. The real death toll will occur weeks, months and years after whatever happens happens as supply chains fail, food supplies vanish, farm land is contaminated beyond use, bio-weapons that have gotten loose take their victims and complex worldwide societies implode.
None the as long as possible, the Greatest Generation and what they stood for, accomplished and saved should be honored at every opportunity for theirs’ was a real war with real global consequences should they have failed. They didn’t fail and I honor each and every one of them for as long as I’m around to do it..
MA
My mom passed away 2wks ago and before she lost her memory she would tell us really amazing stories of the Depression and WW2. Really bad stuff including personally witnessing German UBoats torpedoing ships off the South Fla shore. I heard not one word about D-Day. RIP gents! You gave it all from 1941 to 1945(including my Dad, Father-in-Law, and all of my uncles).
I disagree with Muck About (as usual) on the nature of WWIII. He apparently forsees a Nuclear or Biological Holocaust that will be unleashed over a period of weeks. I don’t think ICBMs will be used, they are too counterproductive. Some tactical Nukes perhaps, but mostly I think we will just see ever escalating Civil Wars everywhere, including the 1st World countries. Once the Civil Wars come home, we will be too busy fighting amongst each other to be mounting invasions against other countries.
Again, it would be counterproductive to use Nukes or Biological weapons on home soil also, so I think this will play itself out as mostly a conventional war, utilizing some big hardware at the beginning but gradually eating away at the hardware as military units fight amongst themselves.
There will still be opportunities for Honor in the coming Battles, long as you are fighting on the right side of the line. In WWII, with the clear threat of an explicit Fascist Dictatorship gaining Global Control, we were nominally on the right side, though what we were fighting for was in fact a more disguised form of Corporate Fascism which has expanded ever larger since.
So now the fight must turn Inward, toward the Forces of Evil destroying our own society, not the societies of others. The next generation fo Heroes will be those who give it all to Kill the Banksters. The Suicide Bombers who serve as delivery systems to the Corporate Offices of Goldman Sacks the Taxpayer and the Snipers who pick off JPM Executives as they exit their Limousines are the next generation of Heroes. The Beachhead is in the Hamptons, and when the Army of Tatooed Gangbangers lands on those Beaches, the Banksters will be eating Lead Canapes.
RE
D-Day was an incredible thing. But those who are suggesting that the current generation could not handle it need to take a step back and understand that the D-Day generation didn’t exactly handle it either. By and large, these were raw recruits, scared shitless, dropped just short of well fortified beaches. Many of them drowned before the could get away from the landing craft. A great many were killed instantly. Officers had life expectancies of mere moments in many cases. They took the beaches simply by weight of numbers. The soldiers weren’t so much fighting as simply making a run for the beaches. It was a truly horrible situation.
I do not think it is a matter of whether the current generation “could not handle it” but rather they would not allow themselves to be placed in such a situation. The national fervor generated by the attack on Pearl Harbor led to young men joining the army in droves. But did they know what they were going to face on D-Day? I think not. And they were none to happy about it whne the reality dawned upon them – be shot by your ohficers or storm the beach. What a fucking choice. It was a war that had to be fought, and there was great bravery, but in my opinion modern media and the info it provides would make it unlikely that the current generation would be prepared to storm a beachhead.
With due respect to D-Day, it is not the greatest invasion feat of WW2.
The invasion by Nazi Germany of Western Europe ending in France surrender is the most well-executed and successful of WW2.
The invasion of the USSR by Hitler and his allies (Italy, Romania and Austria participated) is the biggest in terms of manpower and equipment. It is also the most brutal.
The most successful, in terms of number of defeated countries? It is the invasion of SE Asia by Imperial Japan after the hit on Pearl Harbor. Japan won territory far greater than any in Europe – from just east of India all the way to half of the Pacific. And Japan almost took Australia, saved only by the most desperate efforts.
But what is the greatest American invasion of WW2? D-Day? No.
It is the invasion of Okinawa. It was an all-American effort. An entire Pacific fleet of a few thousand vessels, a thousand fighters, dozens of division of men. All hitting one island packed with 100,000 troops far more dedicated and brutal than any of the Nazi. And then there were the 20,000 kamikaze pilots who managed to sink dozens of ships along with thousands sailors onboard. It was the most massive invasion launched by America, fought with the most brutality, and both sides suffered the most grievous losses. To me, D-Day pales in comparison.
Now let me ask a question that might put you to shame. Who directed the Okinawa invasion? Everybody know of Eisenhower directing D-Day invasion. Everybody know Gen. Zhukov invaded Germany from the east. Everybody know of MacArthur running the Pacific campaign. But MacArthur did not participate in the grand Okinawa invasion.
It’s the same guy who directed Iwo Jima invasion. Shame on you for not knowing the guy who led both Iwo Jima and Okinawa – the greatest and the bloodiest American invasions of WW2.
Ray Spruance.
What do I win? BTW – Spruance gets more or less mixed reviews. He was outstanding in organization, but was not known for the aggression of Halsey, and was criticized strongly for letting fleeing Japanese warships get away without giving pursuit. Halsey would have chased them to the ends of the earth, but Spruance was very cautious.
One more thing – Spruance oversaw the largest loss of Navy personnel in history at Okinawa. Not really a stat that Spruance would want to be associated with, I reckon. Maybe that is why history doesn’t much highlight the battle of Okinawa and Spruance.
We won that battle, but the cost was unbelievable, in civilian as well as military personnel: 150,000 civilians were killed, 5000 Navy personnel, and 7,000 ground forces. About 100,000 Japanese soldiers died.
Maybe Spruance did a great job. As for me, I think MacArthur would have been a better choice. It couldn’t have been much worse.
The History Channel was too busy running an Ice Road Truckers marathon or some other of their new reality lineup instead. Jesus christ, TV is shit now. You used to always be able to tune to Discovery or History Channel to learn at least a tidbit of new info each night. Now you turn History Channel on to watch fat-ass idiot Chumlee be dumbfounded by questions that a 7th grader should know.
@llpoh
It’s five-star Fleet Admiral Chester William Nimitz. Commander of all forces central and northern Pacific. Nimitz was the one who signed the Japan surrender document on behalf of US, not MacArthur. Nimitz was the greatest admiral and commander in US history, exceeding that of Eisenhower or any others during WW2.
I don’t want to dump on you because you stuck your neck out but guessed wrong.
Umm – actually guessed right. Look it up. “From 1943 through 1945, with USS Indianapolis or the USS New Jersey as his flagship, Spruance directed the campaigns that captured the Gilbert Islands, Marshall Islands, Marianas, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa.” Nimitz was supreme commander, but Spruance was direct of the battle. Or so my sources say.
Also:
“Spruance then returned to the planning roll, before returning to take command of the Fifth Fleet for the invasion of Iwo Jima (19 February 1945) and Okinawa (1 April 1945).”
And “Admiral Raymond Spruance, commander of Fifth Fleet, had overall charge of the invasion operation.”
“–Admiral Raymond A. Spruance was the operation’s overall commander. ” re Iwo Jima
“Task Force 50, was part of the Fifth Fleet, Central Pacific Forces under Admiral Raymond A Spruance. Spruance, as the commander directly responsible for the invasion of Okinawa”
Spruance reported to Nimitz, but it was Spruance that was commander of the invasion forces.
What do I win?
Apollo – you said “directed” and “led”. Nimitz by no stretch of the imagination could be said to have led those invasions. It was Spruance.
I am a big Nimitz fan, by the way. Spruance I have mixed feelings about, given his record for not pursuing and for the casualty rate on Okinawa.
Lead the fight in Iwo Jima…I was going to say John Wayne but then I remembered he dies in that movie.
My granddad was in the South Pacific during WWII,he was a Marine to the last days of his life.
“D-Day was an incredible thing. But those who are suggesting that the current generation could not handle it need to take a step back and understand that the D-Day generation didn’t exactly handle it either. By and large, these were raw recruits, scared shitless, dropped just short of well fortified beaches. Many of them drowned before the could get away from the landing craft. A great many were killed instantly. Officers had life expectancies of mere moments in many cases. They took the beaches simply by weight of numbers. The soldiers weren’t so much fighting as simply making a run for the beaches. It was a truly horrible situation. “-llpoh
I agree completely with llpoh on his assesment of D-Day, based solely on general principles not my knowledge of the situation.
I am not as familiar with the history of D-Day or the other invasions and battles of WWII as Apollo and llpoh, however I am VERY familiar with historical Spin Doctoring, and the kind of history we believe to be true from films like “The Longest Day”, “Midway”, “Patton” et al are meant to portray our side as not only successful but utterly courageous and near perfect in the execution of these military battles. Its part of the zeitgeist we have all been brought up with, that this GI Generation was Brave, Selfless and basically a mirror of our Heroes from the Revolutioary War, the Founding Fathers.
A nice cinematic image, but it doesn’t mirror reality very well. All these wars, including WWII were fought mainly for very selfish reasons, and the political instability which drove people from both sides into these wars also came from political selfishness. Far as competence goes, I expect that Generals who ran the campaigns of WWII weren’t a whole lot better at it than current Generals running the campaigns in Iraq or Afghanistan. In the end, in Europe we won because the battle was being fought on their soil, it was their factories getting bombed, and they did not have a local supply of Oil to power the mechanized army. In fact, the Nazi’s by the end of the war were reduced to using synthetic means to get enough liquid fuel from coal in order to run the war machine.
“As a highly developed industrial state, Germany was dependent even in peacetime on external sources for an adequate supply of oil. Even though Germany’s 1938 oil consumption of little more than 44 million barrels was considerably less than Great Britain’s 76 million barrels, Russia’s 183 million barrels, and the one billion barrels used by the United States, in wartime Germany’s needs for an adequate supply of liquid fuel would be absolutely essential for successful military operations on the ground and, even more so, in the air.1 For Germany, it was precisely the outbreak of the war in 1939 and the concurrent termination of overseas imports that most endangered its ability to conduct mobile warfare.
German oil supplies came from three different sources: imports of crude and finished petroleum products from abroad, production by domestic oil fields, and syntheses of petroleum products from coal.
In 1938, of the total consumption of 44 million barrels, imports from overseas accounted for 28 million barrels or roughly 60 percent of the total supply. An additional 3.8 million barrels were imported overland from European sources (2.8 million barrels came from Romania alone), and another 3.8 million barrels were derived from domestic oil production. The remainder of the total, 9 million barrels, were produced synthetically. Although the total overseas imports were even higher in 1939 before the onset of the blockade in September (33 million barrels), this high proportion of overseas imports only indicated how precarious the fuel situation would become should Germany be cut off from them.2
At the outbreak of the war, Germany’s stockpiles of fuel consisted of a total of 15 million barrels. The campaigns in Norway, Holland, Belgium, and France added another 5 million barrels in booty, and imports from the Soviet Union accounted for 4 million barrels in 1940 and 1.6 million barrels in the first half of 1941. Yet a High Command study in May of 1941 noted that with monthly military requirements for 7.25 million barrels and imports and home production of only 5.35 million barrels, German stocks would be exhausted by August 1941. The 26 percent shortfall could only be made up with petroleum from Russia. The need to provide the lacking 1.9 million barrels per month and the urgency to gain possession of the Russian oil fields in the Caucasus mountains, together with Ukrainian grain and Donets coal, were thus prime elements in the German decision to invade the Soviet Union in June 1941.3” http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/aureview/1981/jul-aug/becker.htm
Similarly, our victory over Japan only came by virtue of the fact we developed the Nuclear Bomb. Invading Japan would have been utterly catastrophic in terms of loss of life among the invading force with the technology of the time. Like England, Japan was a Fortified Island. Unlike England, it wasn’t close enough to anyplace else to even use the rudimentary Rockets and Planes of the era to do any substantial damage.
The folks who enlisted and were conscripted up after Pearl Harbor had little choice. They were desperate men with little opportunity after nearly a decade of Depression. Certainly there were brave ones, but many cowards also. Many of them died as a result of incompetence of their Commanding Officers, at many levels. This is possible to deduce from the behavior of our Generals and Military forces NOW. And in Vietnam, and in Korea as well.
As we move into WWIII here, there is no reason to believe there will be any greater competence shown in warfare by those in charge of it, nor is there any reason to believe the grunts who end up fighting the war will be any braver or more cowardly than any other prior generation of Cannon Fodder. In the end, how these folks get viewed by History is dependent on who Wins, and who writes the History Books, or in our generation, who makes the Movies.
Far as the Japanese of WWII go, they were most certainly a very brutal bunch of fighters. Their History in their own country had made them so. However, the Japanese DID try to Isolate themselves, and for about 300 years from the mid 1500s to the mid 1800s were able to do so. However, the arrival of Matthew Perry’s Gunboats changed al that, and for the Japanese, it was either buy into Industrialization or become slaves to the Gai-jin. They made a stab at World Domination, they lost and now have become the first victims of the failure of the Industrial model. A proud and brutal bunch of people they are, and this loss of face cannot be borne by the Nipponese. As a society, they will Commit Seppuku rather than live with the Shame of their failure.
Not so here of course in the FSofA. Our History is one of Killing each other, not ourselves. There will be WAR, most certainly there will be as our monetary system goes the way of the Dinosaur. The War however will be Civil War, a Class War of Haves against Have Nots. The Brutality of this War will make anything the Nips ever did in China look like a Sunday Picnic. There are no RULES in Knife Fight.
RE
There are no heroes in war , only dumb asses willing die for the glory of a fucking lie.
TIME TO FACE THE TRUTH ABOUT WORLD WAR II
METZ, FRANCE May 21, 2011
From this ancient fortress city, allow me, a former instructor of military history, to address three particularly misleading myths still lingering from World War II:
First: France’s army did not simply surrender or run away in 1940, as ignorant American conservatives claim.
The German blitzkrieg that smote France on May-June, 1940 was a major historical revolution in warfare. It combined rapidly-moving armor and mobile infantry, precision dive bombing, flexible logistical support, and new, high technologies in C3 – command, control and communications. In 1940, Germany led the world in technology: 75% of all technical books were then written in German.
France’s armies and generals, trained to re-fight World War I, were overwhelmed by lightening warfare. France was then still an agricultural society. Blitzkrieg was designed to strike an enemy’s brain rather than body, paralyzing his ability to manage large forces or fight. The Germans called it their `silver bullet.’
France still relied on couriers to deliver messages. French commander Gen. Gamelin, did not even have a telephone in his HQ outside Paris.
Britain’s well-trained expeditionary force in France was beaten just as quickly as the French, and saved itself only by fleeing across the Channel.
No army in the world at that time could have withstood Germany’s blitzkrieg, planned by the brilliant Erich von Manstein, and led by Heinz Guderian and Erwin Rommel: three of modern history’s greatest generals
They were also incredibly lucky. One bomb on a German bridge over the Meuse, or one traffic jam in the Ardennes forest could have meant the difference between victory and defeat. The French had temporarily moved some of their weakest reserve units just into the sector the Germans struck. It was, as Wellington said after Waterloo, a damned close run thing.
Germany’s new, fluid tactics shattered France’s armies. They were unable to reform their lines in spite of often fierce resistance. The fast-moving German panzers were constantly behind them. Retreat under fire is the most difficult and perilous of all military operations. After six weeks, and a stab in the back by Mussolini’s Italy, France’s armies had disintegrated.
France lost 217,000 dead and 400,000 wounded in combat. At least France did not suffer the 2 million dead it lost in World War I. Germany losses: 46,000 killed in action, 121,000 wounded, and 1,000 aircraft. By comparison, the US, British and Canadians lost only 10,000 dead and wounded at D-Day.
Second myth: the forts of France’s Maginot Line were not tactically outflanked. The Germans struck NW of the Line’s end, through the Belgian/French Ardennes Forest, a route anticipated by the French Army which held war games there in 1939. The immobile French field army failed, not the Maginot Line.The uncompleted Line was too costly, tied down too many men, and came to symbolize France’s defensive attitude. But it fulfilled its mission to defend France’s vital coal and steel industries in Lorraine.
The Line was also designed to channel any German attack through either Belgium or Switzerland.
The crews of the unconquered Maginot forts held out until the end. Those who mock France for building forts that were supposedly `outflanked’ should know the `impregnable’ modern US fortifications at Manila, and Britain’s Fortress Singapore, were both taken from the rear by the Japanese Army.
Third myth: the US, Britain and Canada defeated Germany. Not true.
The 66th anniversary of the Soviet victory in WWII just passed, totally ignored in the west. We must salute the valor of Russia’s dauntless soldiers and pilots who, like German soldiers, fought magnificently, albeit for criminal regimes.
World War II in Europe was not won at D-Day. Germany’s army and air force were already broken on the Eastern Front’s titanic battles.
The numbers speak for themselves. The Soviets destroyed 75-80% of all German divisions – 4 million soldiers – and most of the Luftwaffe. Russia lost at least 14 million soldiers and a similar number of civilians.
The Red Army destroyed 507 Axis divisions. On the Western Front after D-Day, the Allies destroyed 176 weak German divisions.
When the Allies landed in Normandy, they met battered German forces with no air cover, crippled by lack of fuel and supplies.
Had the invading Allies encountered the 1940’s Wehrmacht and Luftwaffe, the outcome may well have been different.
30
copyright Eric S. Margolis 2011
Everybody wants to be liberated , right? …ceptin’ Americans!
The best way to save a population s by blowing them up? Yes, indeed, that will surly set them free.
Revisionists challenge D-Day story
The tone was set in Antony’s Beevor’s new book, D-Day, which tries to debunk certain received ideas about the Allied campaign.
Far from being an unmitigated success, Mr Beevor found, the landings came very close to going horribly wrong.
And far from being universally welcomed as liberators, many troops had a distinctly surly reception from the people of Normandy.
The reason for this was simple. Many Normandy towns and villages had been literally obliterated by Allied bombing.
The bombardment of Caen, Mr Beevor said, could almost be considered a war-crime (though he later retracted the comment).
Many historians will retort that there is nothing new in Mr Beevor’s account.
Harrowing experience
After all, the scale of destruction is already well-established.
Some 20,000 French civilians were killed in the two-and-a-half months from D-Day, 3,000 of them during the actual landings.
In some areas – like the Falaise pocket where the Germans were pounded into oblivion at the end of the campaign – barely a building was left standing and soldiers had to walk over banks of human corpses.
The suffering of civilians was for many years masked by the over-riding image – that of the French welcoming the liberators with open arms
Christophe Prime
Historian
As for the destruction of Caen, it has long been admitted that it was militarily useless.
The Germans were stationed to the north of the city and were more or less untouched.
Twenty-five years ago, in his book Overlord, Max Hastings had already described it as “one of the most futile air attacks of the war.”
Though these revisionist accounts were written elsewhere, it is in France that these ideas strike more of a chord today.
It is not as if the devastation wrought by the Allies is not known – it is just that it tends not to get talked about.
And yet for many families who lived through the war, it was the arrival and passage of British and American forces that was by far the most harrowing experience.
“It was profoundly traumatic for the people of Normandy,” said Christophe Prime, a historian at the Peace Memorial in Caen.
“Think of the hundreds of tons of bombs destroying entire cities and wiping out families. But the suffering of civilians was for many years masked by the over-riding image – that of the French welcoming the liberators with open arms.”
‘Sullen’ welcome
According to Prime, it was during the 60th anniversary commemoration five years ago that the taboo first began to lift.
At town meetings across Normandy, witnesses – now in their 70s – spoke of the terrible things they had seen as children.
Allied troops in Caen, 1944
The destruction of Caen has been seen as militarily useless
At the same time an exhibition at the Caen memorial displayed letters from Allied servicemen speaking frankly about their poor reception by locals.
That too was an eye-opener for many Normandy people.
For example, Cpl LF Roker of the Highland Light Infantry is quoted in another new book about the civilian impact of the campaign, Liberation, The Bitter Road to Freedom, by William Hitchcock.
“It was rather a shock to find we were not welcomed ecstatically as liberators by the local people, as we were told we should be… They saw us as bringers of destruction and pain,” Mr Roker wrote in his diary.
Another soldier, Ivor Astley of the 43rd Wessex Infantry, described the locals as “sullen and silent… If we expected a welcome, we certainly failed to find it.”
Sexual violence
In his book, Mr Hitchcock raises another issue that rarely features in euphoric folk-memories of liberation: Allied looting, and worse.
“The theft and looting of Normandy households and farmsteads by liberating soldiers began on June 6 and never stopped during the entire summer,” he writes.
One woman – from the town of Colombieres – is quoted as saying that “the enthusiasm for the liberators is diminishing. They are looting… everything, and going into houses everywhere on the pretext of looking for Germans.”
The evidence shows that sexual violence against women in liberated France was common
Author William Hitchcock
Even more feared, of course, was the crime of rape – and here too the true picture has arguably been expunged from popular memory.
According to American historian J Robert Lilly, there were around 3,500 rapes by American servicemen in France between June 1944 and the end of the war.
“The evidence shows that sexual violence against women in liberated France was common,” writes Mr Hitchcock.
“It also shows that black soldiers convicted of such awful acts received very severe punishments, while white soldiers received lighter sentences.”
Of 29 soldiers executed for rape by the US military authorities, 25 were black – though African-Americans did not represent nearly so high a proportion of convictions.
Happy and thankful
So why did the “bad” side of the Allied liberation tend to disappear from French popular consciousness?
The answer of course is that the overwhelming result of the Allied campaign was a positive one for the whole of France.
It was hard for the people of Normandy to spoil the national party by complaining of their lot.
The message from on-high was sympathetic but clear: we know you have suffered, but the price was worth it. Most people agreed and were silent.
In addition, open criticism of British and American bombings raids had long been a hallmark of French collaboration.
A French woman hails an Allied vehicle in Normandy, 1944
Some accounts have disputed the idea of a warm welcome for the Allies
In Paris – which, it is often forgotten, was itself bombed by the British – pro-German groups staged ceremonies to commemorate the victims, and the “crimes” of the Allies were excoriated in the press.
After the war, abusing the Allies would have seemed like siding with the defeated and the dishonoured.
Of course, in some communities the devastation was never forgotten.
There are villages in Normandy where until recently the 6 June celebrations were deliberately shunned, because the associations were too painful.
And on the ideological front, there have been intellectuals of both left and right who justified their anti-Americanism by recalling the grimmer aspects of the French campaign – like the “cowardly” way the Americans bombed from high altitude, or their reliance on heavy armour causing indiscriminate civilian casualties.
But in general, France has gone along with the accepted version of the landings and their aftermath – that of a joyful liberation for which the country is eternally grateful.
That version is the correct one. France was indeed freed from tyranny, and the French were both happy and thankful.
But it is still worth remembering that it all came at a cost.
Once the sociopathic greedy motherfuckers suck the last drop of wealth form the plebeians starving carcass, they create a war as a distraction to give the fools purpose to live.A another game is afoot.
Then just like now , all ignorant jingoists willfully line up to be slaughtered just like those that came before.
We the US ,kept the globe safe from fascism , because there can be only one.
The “greatest generation” was just a dumb , easily led pack of starving kids looking for adventure outside the dime store novel.
It doesn’t take a hero to charge a machine gun nest. It takes maleducated boob who has never heard of free will and therefore places very little value on the gift of life of which they so violently participate in destroying .
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/jun/06/d-day-great-depression
D-Day: remembering the backstory
Before the ‘greatest generation’ ever landed on the Normandy beaches, they had long been casualties of the great depression
In America, the depression – no jobs, no money, foreclosures and evictions – lasted at least a dozen years, from the late “roaring” twenties until Pearl Harbour (when my mother finally found factory work sewing army uniforms); in Britain, it took even longer. Schools closed, kids were malnourished; you scrounged or you starved; pellagra was rife in rural areas and TB in the cities. Thousands of families – like the Joads in John Ford’s adaptation of Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath – and hundreds of thousands of young people, as in Wellman’s Wild Boys of the Road and Scorcese’s Boxcar Bertha, roamed the country in jalopies and boxcars looking for work, food, mercy.
The war came as a blessing to many such families including mine.
Suddenly, in the army, what Eleanor Roosevelt called her “lost generation” of depression kids had enough to eat, clothes that were replaced when torn, free of charge, a bed to sleep in, a job with a military occupation specialty number (mine was 745). The jeering phrase GIs used with one another, “Ya found a home in the army!”, was more than half true.
Even before generals like George Patton moulded his draftees into soldiers, the great depression drilled us in a different sort of courage, cowardice and stoicism. You shrug off what’s happening around you, keep your mouth shut, move ahead one step at a time, don’t ask questions or make waves, just do it, and keep repeating the proto-infantryman’s mantra, “Better you than me”.
For the men in the unit I later joined, the fourth division, scaling the heights of Normandy’s Point du Hoc cliffs under intense fire was a nasty but logical extension of what they’d experienced as “economic casualties” back home. My boyhood friend, Jack, who spent 112 days in frontline combat with the 103rd in wartime Europe, said it best:
“They call us guys the ‘greatest generation’. So much crap. Your mother and mine spent more time on a combat line than any soldier, only it was an undeclared war in our homes. You and me, too, we’ve been at war all our lives.”
Now we’re back in an undeclared depression (for which today’s euphemisms are “slowdown”, “recession” etc) that isn’t getting better. A whole new generation of young men and women, especially from the deindustrialised, unemployed towns, enlist for war service because there’s so little alternative. Who knows? If they don’t get killed or suffer an IED-caused TBI (traumatic brain injury), they may – as I did – find a better life in the military.
Only a cosmic nutcase would suggest that depressions are created to make human cannon fodder for war.
Casey Cason’s top 40 Countdown
Still you believe,
Nonsense Fairytales Propaganda Crap
llpoh
I will qujibble about this: “be shot by your ohficers or storm the beach” … only because I had anecdotal evidence from a friend of my father’s. He was a sergeant and said his job was to shoot any who turned away. YMMV.
I do agree that “the current generation” would be unlikely to storm a beachhead. The kids of “the greatest generation” still naively believed in the system, just as ordinary people did the the Great Depression.
But I do not discount the youth of today. Some have matured far more quickly than previous generations, and less likely to believe bullshit. Nonetheless, when the real crisis arrives, they will rise to the occasion. We see it here — at least I do — yes, a small sample, but very likely the leaders of their cohort. I wouldn’t want to be in their shoes; my army boots back in the day weren’t anything to give you the warm fuzzies.
The 14-year-old reenactment is hosted at the Oklahoma D-Day Adventure Park in Wyandotte, Okla., and was started by Dwayne Convirs in 1997 as a tribute for his grandfather, Enos Armstrong, a combat engineer who landed on the beaches of Normandy on D-Day.
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/700142004/Paintballers-commemorate-D-Day-through-reenactment.html
Wyandotte is about 35-40 miles from my home. I had never heard of this event until I read about it on TBP. Thanks, Admin!
Paintball reenactment? No the old timers I talk to are a little old for paintball. They are the frail old men, who wear hats announcing their branch of service. I have talked to a B-17 Gunner, a Marine who fought on Tarawa. I was also fortunate enough to become friends with a wonderful old gentleman, who was a real honest to goodness Paratrooper on D-Day, and who also fought in The Battle of the Bulge. He now waits to die living in a shack.
No, these real men, never played with foolishness like paintball.
I give guest lectures to Grade Schools about the D-Day invasion, and wear a reproduction Paratrooper Jump Suit. The kids love it, they love the gear, and they love the Weaponry, although the weapons are all dummy guns. I was a paratrooper my self from 1992 to 1996.
@RagBag: Sorry about the loss of your Mom. I don’t know which is worse, loosing one you love – especially an inch at a time – or after their passing you know you’re now king of the hill.
Anyhow, you have my sympathy..
MA
Administrator says:
flash’s revisionist history gets tiresome. flash doesn’t understand the concept of perspective and context. Sometimes things are actually as they appear. If flash was in charge, women wouldn’t vote and black people would still be picking cotton.
Jim ,
It’s strange that you point a finger at all the economic lies spewed by government , yet refuse to believe that the romanticized version of war as told by the victor might not be all that accurate.
From your war postings you obviously believe that the run up to current wars were a lie , but all the old bullshit about saving the world from Fascism during the run up to WWII was spot on..
Or is it that you were for Fascism before you were against it.
You’re flopping around like a dying fish.
LOL …Did you also have an uncle Joe Teddy as a toddler? Those commies sure can kill some fascist.
There is no left or right , just freedom and tyranny.
@ Jim
BTW, I’ve no problem with women voting , but the majority will vote for the FS candidate every time.
And look whose throwing out the race card, the guy whose always swiping at watermelon eating sheqilla standing on the corner in the thirty blocks of squalor trading booty for crack.
@Flash
Like Muck About, Jim buys into the “Truth, Justice & the Amerikan Way” propaganda fed to them in school. WWII is sufficiently far back in time it can be romanticized and fictionalized, much like the Revolutionary War. Note all the quotes from Dwight Eisenhower. He was a career military officer turned Politician. Of course he was going to glorify WWII and his role in it. Its what got him elected.
RE
RE
A serious question. I know you will answer it. You always do. If you have answered this before then just C&P or point me to a link.
A simple question.
It seems to me you do not believe the Germans invading and conquering Europe, plus the Japanese quest for dominating the East was a danger to the United States security either in the short or long term. Why?
@llpoh – “What do I win?” Same as what I and untold millions after WW2 have won. Where would we be without the victorious generalship of those I partially named. Spruance was operational naval commander. But Nimitz was overall strategic planner, presiding over operational commanders in naval, land, air forces, logistics, intelligence, plus liaison with Joint Chief and president. He can be compared to those I mentioned as examples (Eisenhower, Zhukov, MacArthur – all 5-star class), not Spruance.
@flash – The piece by Margolis speaks the truth. Not the romantic victorious propaganda we were saturated with after the war. That said, could the USSR win over Nazi all by themselves? Not by a long shot. 1) Soviet armament, logistics and food supplies were very significantly supplied by the US via all those dangerous convoys. 2) US led allies did land in Italy and Normandy, and there was the massive bombings out of UK. These constitute a three-front punch equal in contribution to the Soviet front. But in terms of manpower & casualties, nobody contributed more than the USSR.
War is hell. WW2 was one hell of a hell. Every country learned the most profound lesson after WW2. Except the US. Yes, that’s yet another American ‘exceptionism’ – Korea, Vietnam, etc etc. Here, war in not hell. It’s profit.
Let there be no doubt US must enter WW2.
Japan has invaded China was making plans to take over SE Asia, especially kicking the British empire out of Singapore. Then it attacked Pearl. A Japan that control SE Asia will cut off supplies from the middle east, and stop trade to Asia. Japan has already cut off everything between China and US after invasion. Anyhow, the attack on Pearl means US had to declare war.
One can make a case of US not needing to enter the European war after France was taken. US will be cut off from Europe and will surely suffer much. But one can argue let it be. In fact US did not enter the European war at that time. But then Hitler began to invade UK. The campaign was brutal and it was clear Hitler wanted no less than a surrender and occupation. The loss of UK, along with Europe, along with the Mediterranean Sea and Suez Canal, will bring grievous harm and danger to US. The final draw was the Axis alliance between Germany, Italy and Japan, followed by invasion by Germany and Japan into USSR. As soon as Japan attacked Pearl, Germany was automatically at war with the US under the Axis treaty whether the US wanted it or not. In fact it was Hitler who declared war on US, not the other way around. Within 1 month, the U boats were off the east coast sinking hundreds of ships while the US was caught unable to respond.
These are the facts, the real situation. Only fools replace it with romantics and twisted logic.
@ RE
JQ is a number cruncher .He only get’s riled at current injustices mostly due to the fact that they fuck with his bottom line.
“There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance – that principle is contempt prior to investigation”
Herbert Spencer
@ Stuck.
This is the best history book you’ll ever read on WWII.
From Booklist
Taking his swing at the origins of World War II, conservative pundit Buchanan incorporates the subject into his warnings, expressed in several populist jeremiads (State of Emergency, 2006), of the decline of the West. Certainly World War I, with which Buchanan begins, was a catastrophe for Western civilization whose ramifications continue to be felt. Buchanan’s interpretation generally holds that British and American participation in both WWI and WWII was avoidable if British leaders had recognized that Germany was no threat to the vital interests of the British Empire. Banking his thesis on such supposed benevolence from Wilhelm II and Adolf Hitler, Buchanan criticizes various British policies of the 1920s and 1930s (who doesn’t?), and argues collaterally with Hitler’s statements disclaiming fundamental conflicts with Britain. The weakness in Buchanan’s line of thinking, of course, is that by 1939, Hitler’s international word was worthless; yet Buchanan hinges his case on what might have happened had Britain let Hitler go after Poland in 1939 as it had Czechoslovakia. Speculating a better future had the West permitted Nazi Germany a free hand in Eastern Europe, Buchanan cites the historical costs of Britain and France having at last drawn the line against aggression. Convinced? Controversial as is his wont, Buchanan reminds his large readership that the immediate ignition of WWII can still be disputed. –Gilbert Taylor
Product Description
Were World Wars I and II—which can now be seen as a thirty-year paroxysm of slaughter and destruction—inevitable? Were they necessary wars? Were the bloodiest and most devastating conflicts ever suffered by mankind fated by forces beyond men’s control? Or were they products of calamitous failures of judgment? In this monumental and provocative history, Patrick Buchanan makes the case that, if not for the blunders of British statesmen—Winston Churchill first among them—the horrors of two world wars and the Holocaust might have been avoided and the British Empire might never have collapsed into ruins. Half a century of murderous oppression of scores of millions under the iron boot of Communist tyranny might never have happened, and Europe’s central role in world affairs might have been sustained for many generations.
Among the British and Churchillian blunders were:
• The secret decision of a tiny cabal in the inner Cabinet in 1906 to take Britain straight to war against Germany, should she invade France
• The vengeful Treaty of Versailles that muti- lated Germany, leaving her bitter, betrayed, and receptive to the appeal of Adolf Hitler
• Britain’s capitulation, at Churchill’s urging, to American pressure to sever the Anglo- Japanese alliance, insulting and isolating Japan, pushing her onto the path of militarism and conquest
• The 1935 sanctions that drove Italy straight into the Axis with Hitler
• The greatest blunder in British history: the unsolicited war guarantee to Poland of March 1939—that guaranteed the Second World War
• Churchill’s astonishing blindness to Stalin’s true ambitions.
Certain to create controversy and spirited argument, Churchill, Hitler, and “The Unnecessary War” is a grand and bold insight into the historic failures of judgment that ended centuries of European rule and guaranteed a future no one who lived in that vanished world could ever have envisioned.
@Stucky
Reread the following paragraph written up above:
“There will still be opportunities for Honor in the coming Battles, long as you are fighting on the right side of the line. In WWII, with the clear threat of an explicit Fascist Dictatorship gaining Global Control, we were nominally on the right side, though what we were fighting for was in fact a more disguised form of Corporate Fascism which has expanded ever larger since.”
RE
Pat Buchanan Eats Shit
“JQ is a number cruncher .He only get’s riled at current injustices mostly due to the fact that they fuck with his bottom line.”-Flash
True to an extent. However, he also is a very traditional type of ideologue. The Archie Bunker character of “All in the Family”. Railing against Liberals, Welfare recipients, Strong Patriotism, Insulting everyone he doesn’t agree with, etc. Really, TBP is practically stolen from a Norman Lear script circa 1972.
RE
Flash
Great quote from Spencer.
“There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance – that principle is contempt prior to investigation”
Herbert Spencer
True dat.
Add Spencer quote:
Sheds a welcome light on ideologues of all stripes.
I hate the French. I really despise those pukes. But on my bucket list is to find some way to set my feet on French soil, get to Normandy and pay my respects to those that did the right thing on that June day. They deserve it.
Apollo – you asked who directed the operation, and as all of the quotes I provided clearly show, that was Spruance. I can provide further quotes that also show that Spruance planned the operations – not Nimitz. If you look at histories of the 2 invasions, you will barely find a mention of Nimitz. Spruance presided over the operational commanders of all areas. Please refer to the range of quotes above. Spruance reported to Nimitz, but youm ight as well say that the President directed the operation if you want to kee[ going back up the chain of command. Nimitz was nowhere to be seen during these operations – but Spruance was right there, in command of the entire operations.
Novista – please amend my comments to include non-commissioned officers, as right you are.
RE – you still may get banned if you keep slandering the Admin. Your comment “The Archie Bunker character of “All in the Family”. Railing against Liberals, Welfare recipients, Strong Patriotism, Insulting everyone he doesn’t agree with, etc. Really, TBP is practically stolen from a Norman Lear script circa 1972” is bullshit, the comparison insulting, and Admin doesn’t insult everyone he disagrees with – usually he reserves that for you, as you are so deserving of special attention.
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RE and flash – Founding butt brothers in the one trick pony society. The same answer to every question reveals an ideology no different than an ultra-liberal or a neo-conservative.
RE
When are you going to post another rant? I need something to pick up the cat shit in the litter box with.
Have you noticed the hundreds of people begging for your rants?
Sound of crickets.
@llpoh
First of all, Admin has flamed about every last member of this board, including you. I remember one point Stuck was going to head down to Philly for a fist fight.
Second, I am Bullet Proof.
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RE