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You are here: Home / Politics / America / Britain, Canada, France, and D-Day: Gold, Juno, and Sword

Britain, Canada, France, and D-Day: Gold, Juno, and Sword

by Adam L Silverman|  June 6, 201811:46 pm| 65 Comments

This post is in: America, Foreign Affairs, Military, Open Threads, Silverman on Security, War

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(Map 1: Normandy Landings)

Earlier today I did a post on the 74th anniversary of D-Day and the Normandy landings. This focused on the US, specifically as it highlighted the 82nd Airborne Division’s reenactment of their portion of the campaign over twitter. D-Day, however, was not just about the US’s efforts. It is important, given the current realities of the US’s relations with its closest allies, to remind ourselves what our allies and partners not only contribute as allies and partners, but what they are capable of doing. So before the 6th turns to the 7th, I wanted to take a moment and focus on Britain’s, Canada’s, and the Free French Forces’ portions of Operation Overlord, which were the landings on the Normandy coast’s named Gold (Britain), Juno (Britain and Canada), and Sword (Britain and France).

The planning for Operation Overlord was met with skepticism by Canadian and British military leadership as a result of the failure of the Allied raid at Dieppe on the French coast in 1942. From the BBC:

The British and Canadians had suffered their own disaster at Dieppe on 18 August 1942. More than two thirds of a 6,000-man raiding force had been left behind on the shingle beach, dead, wounded and prisoners.

On the eve of D-Day the Allied leadership was in a state of neurotic anxiety. Just after midnight on 6 June, a restless Churchill, haunted by memories of the disastrous Allied landings at Gallipoli 29 years earlier, bade his wife goodnight with the words, ‘Do you realise that by the time you wake up in the morning twenty thousand men may have been killed?’

The same night, the chief of the imperial general staff, General Alan Brooke, confided to his diary that ‘… it may well be the most ghastly disaster of the whole war. I wish to God it were safely over ‘.

Nevertheless, Britain and Canada prepared to take part in Overlord. From Veterans Affairs Canada:

Allied aircraft paved the way for the landings, bombing the coastal defence in the months leading up to the attack. On June 6, 1944—D-Day—a massive Allied force crossed the English Channel to engage in Operation Overlord. Their destination: an 80-kilometre stretch of the heavily-defended coast of Normandy. There were five landing zones, given special code names: Juno Beach (Canada); Gold Beach (United Kingdom); Sword Beach (United Kingdom and France); and Utah Beach and Omaha Beach (United States).

Seven thousand vessels of all types, including 284 major combat vessels, took part in Operation Neptune, the assault phase of the D-Day offensive. Destroyers and supporting craft of the Royal Canadian Navy did their part and shelled German targets while many Royal Canadian Air Force planes were among the 4,000 Allied bombers (plus some 3,700 fighters and fighter bombers) which attacked the German beach defences and inland targets.

More than 450 Canadians parachuted inland before dawn on June 6 and engaged the enemy. A few hours later, some 14,000 Canadian troops began coming ashore at Juno Beach in the face of enemy fire. Their mission: to establish a beachhead along an eight-kilometre stretch fronting the villages of Courseulles-sur-Mer, Bernières-sur-Mer, and Saint Aubin-sur-Mer. Once secure, the troops would push inland to capture the city of Caen, an important communications centre for the Germans.

Many Canadian soldiers in the Normandy campaign were young and new to battle, but their courage and skill meant they often helped lead the Allied advance against a determined enemy. Canadians soon captured three shoreline positions on D-Day and established themselves near the village of Creully, but this was to be only the beginning of the struggle to liberate France. Savage fighting in Normandy continued and grew even more intense as Canadian forces faced powerful German Panzer tank divisions in the struggle for Caen.

Through the summer of 1944, the fighting continued through choking dust and intense heat. The conditions were terrible and the enemy was ruthless, but the troops moved forward. Canadians played an important role in closing the “Falaise Gap” in mid-August as the Germans finally retreated in the face of the Allied offensive. On August 25, 1944, Paris was liberated by the Allies, bringing the Normandy campaign officially to a close.

And once again the BBC (emphasis mine):

On Gold, Juno and Sword beaches, British and Canadian troops were supported by the specialised assault vehicles of 79th Armoured Division. On all three, German strongpoints initially inflicted heavy casualties, but a combination of Petard mortar and Crocodile tank soon smashed the defences.

On Gold and Juno, British and Canadian forces pushed inland rapidly. On Sword, British 3rd Division was held up three miles short of Caen by a network of German defensive positions along a ridge. Finally, late that afternoon, the 21st Panzer Division launched a counterattack. Some units managed to reach the coast, though they were too weak to hold their positions.

The world learned the invasion was underway from German state radio, which announced landings in Normandy on its 07.00 news service, and promised the invaders would be swiftly annihilated.

A special BBC news bulletin came two-and-a-half hours later. John Snagge announced that D-Day had come and all was going according to plan. At 12.00 Churchill repeated this news in a statement to the House of Commons. Despite Eisenhower’s worries about the situation on Omaha beach, by mid-afternoon it was clear that even on Omaha the battle was running in the Allies’ favour.

When Churchill again addressed the House of Commons at 18.00 it was to announce an astounding success. To secure a lodgement on the coast of France, the Allies had taken 10,000 casualties, 3,000 of whom were dead – mostly airborne troops or those who had landed at Omaha Beach.

Losses were far lighter than anticipated, a tribute to years of planning and preparation, a bold command decision, and a lot of good luck.

I want to make sure to include the Free French Forces’ contribution. There weren’t a lot of them involved in the landing and assault on Sword Beach, but they fought with distinction.

On June 6, 1944, the Free French land forces deployed on Sword Beach are composed of two troops and a section. There are 177 commandos (1er Bataillon de Fusiliers Marins) led by Commandant Philippe Kieffer.

In the early hours of June 6, 1944, four sticks of 8 paratroopers from Free France belonging to the 3rd battalion under Bourgoin were dropped over Brittany.

The Free French air forces that participated in Operation Neptune from June 5 to 6, 1944, are the following: 3 fighter squadrons and 2 light and heavy bomber squadrons (which had previously fought in North Africa).

On many Allied war ships participating in Operation Overlord, one could find some crewmen French Libres. There are four Free French ships (which had been almost all built by the British):

In front of the German coastal artillery battery of Longues-sur-Mer (between Omaha Beach and Gold Beach) are deployed the Free France cruisers “Montcalm” and “Georges Leygues”.

In front of Omaha Beach is the Free France destroyer “Roselys”.

In front of Juno Beach is the Free France destroyer “La Combattante”.

 

(Image 1: Kieffer Commando’s Monument)

Here’s a documentary about the Allied – British, Canadian, and Free French – portion of Operation Overlord:

Open thread!

 

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Reader Interactions

65Comments

  1. 1.

    Raoul

    June 6, 2018 at 11:52 pm

    I visited Normandy in April of 2017, including the beaches and the big US cemetery. I was struck then by how much our service members sacrificed. And how much international relationships matter. And what a godawful f**kup Trump was going to be.

    And damn if we aren’t here, now, with the Orange Egomaniac ruining many of our global ally relationships. Gaaaahhh.

    PS – If anyone is thinking of a visit, Bayeux is a good town to base one’s explorations. And do take 90 minutes to also visit the Bayeux Tapestry. It’s a very interesting history lesson from centuries ago – the tapestry is a narrative, and well presented.

  2. 2.

    Major Major Major Major

    June 6, 2018 at 11:59 pm

    highlighted the 82nd Airborne Divisions reenactment of their portion of the campaign over twitter.

    Thanks for that, by the way, I sent that to my dad and he loved it.

  3. 3.

    HumboldtBlue

    June 7, 2018 at 12:03 am

    Mad Jack Churchill aside, the event makes for extraordinary study.

    On another note, I can hear Monk, Bugs Bunny and Joplin in this wonderful piece.

  4. 4.

    Origuy

    June 7, 2018 at 12:08 am

    France has agreed to loan the tapestry to the British Museum beginning in 2022. It will be the first time the tapestry has crossed the channel in 950 years.

  5. 5.

    Raoul

    June 7, 2018 at 12:08 am

    @Origuy: Wow!

  6. 6.

    Ruckus

    June 7, 2018 at 12:12 am

    @HumboldtBlue:
    How old is that kid? He’s got it going on. He’s the mad jack of the piano.

  7. 7.

    HumboldtBlue

    June 7, 2018 at 12:15 am

    @Ruckus:

    16?

  8. 8.

    Adam L Silverman

    June 7, 2018 at 12:16 am

    @Major Major Major Major: You’re welcome!

  9. 9.

    Adam L Silverman

    June 7, 2018 at 12:18 am

    I’m going to go rack out. I’m pooped. Been a weird week sleep wise. You all have fun and catch you all on the flip.

  10. 10.

    cmorenc

    June 7, 2018 at 12:23 am

    There hasn’t been any generation in the US since the ones who went through WW2 who understood the essential importance of collective action and sacrifice for everyone’s good anywhere near that well since. Where did we lose that?

  11. 11.

    Ruckus

    June 7, 2018 at 12:23 am

    @HumboldtBlue:
    Maybe it’s because I’m a few decades past that but he doesn’t look 16 to me. And I work with a couple of teens who look a lot older than him.
    @Raoul:
    Thanks for the tip on where to stay. I don’t know if I will be able to but I’d like to do another visit to some of the museums in Europe about the war. I was able to see some there when I was in the navy but I’d really like to go and do a tour of them. Along with going to DC to see the wall. (Have to see the Smithsonian, Air and Space as well! Have seen the AF at Wright-Paterson a number of times. If you like flight it is a great place to go and spend hours.)

  12. 12.

    piratedan

    June 7, 2018 at 12:23 am

    even that oldie flick The Longest Day made sure to give a nod to the French forces that took part, both the Naval element and Commandos and their assault on Ousterdamn….

    hoping that we understand that defeating our own fascists will probably take a similar element because if we do vote these fuckers out of power and they don;t transition the control of those branches of government, we could very well see Civil War Version 2.0 with real guns and shit. and I fully expect some of the bastards to take refuse in the sweet welcoming arms of Mother Russia….

  13. 13.

    Major Major Major Major

    June 7, 2018 at 12:26 am

    @cmorenc: The 80’s, I’m told.

  14. 14.

    piratedan

    June 7, 2018 at 12:26 am

    @cmorenc: started when “Tailgunner Joe” McCarthy played the country for fools, the media wasn’t in the complete hands of those who valued a buck over any sense of ethics back then….news actually meant news not political gossip and character assassination.

  15. 15.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    June 7, 2018 at 12:29 am

    Didn’t see it mentioned earlier, but today was the 50th anniversary of RFK’s death.

  16. 16.

    Psych1

    June 7, 2018 at 12:30 am

    My FIL was in the first group to land on Omaha beach along with many of his best friends, he never talked about it. He also was one of the first to enter Paris. He did tell us about that. All they had to serve the troops was artichokes. They melted butter in helmets using their zippo lighters. He came back on the Queen Mary, slept on a cot in the emptied swimming pool. He talked about that too. Never spoke about the combat.

  17. 17.

    Chet Murthy

    June 7, 2018 at 12:36 am

    @Psych1:

    Never spoke about the combat.

    I don’t know what there is to read, to understand what they went thru, but Michael Herr’s _Dispatches_ (Vietnam War) seemed to give what might be some flavor of it. Not difficult to understand why most people who survived it, could only speak of it to other survivors, if at all.

  18. 18.

    Gemina13

    June 7, 2018 at 12:37 am

    My junior high school history teachers were fond of showing us kids newsreels and documentary footage of World War II, probably because they were kids when it actually happened and they understood how important it was to see it. It wasn’t sugarcoated – in fact, I remember laughing at the irony of one teacher telling us, “Okay, kids, let’s settle down and relax with a good war film” – but it was still somewhat removed. We knew soldiers were being shot and bombed, but hell, we were the kids who grew up watching Friday the 13th and Halloween; there wasn’t blood, so there wasn’t much impact.

    Decades later, I watched Saving Private Ryan with my mother, who lost several cousins in the European and Pacific theaters at that time. (Being a soldier paid more than coal mining, and these boys came from large families.) The scenes of Normandy Beach shocked me into silence; I couldn’t even hide my eyes when one soldier picked up his arm and carried it with him. When it was done, I turned to my mother and gasped, “And we won that battle?” She said quietly, “Makes you think, doesn’t it?” And it did – about the Godawful loss and sacrifice, and the dread of ever having to do it again.

    But it also made me think that we should not only bolster our schools’ civics curricula, we should include as much visual footage as we can in our history classes. Many people (myself included) can learn just fine from the written word, but if you really want to slap people in the face with actions and their consequences, then video is a valuable tool.

  19. 19.

    Yutsano

    June 7, 2018 at 12:41 am

    @Psych1: @Chet Murthy: My 98 year old grandfather was in the Battle of the Bulge. To this day he still won’t discuss it. I’m hoping we can get him to a historian so he can change his mind before he loses his mental faculties.

  20. 20.

    Bill Arnold

    June 7, 2018 at 12:44 am

    Thanks for this, nice detail. (Am pacifist self, so please forgive any vocabulary mistakes.)
    My father (deceased, 2014) landed at what must have been Mulberry “B” at around D+10weeks IIRC, rifleman with the US Third Army under Patton. Those temporary harbours (UK spelling because UK-developed) worked really well.
    (Wounded, back to front lines, ended up in Czechoslovakia, the Third Army stopped by Eisenhower from reaching Prague. He hid in a coal train car under the covers to cross into USSR-controlled territory to visit a girlfriend in Prague, and returned the same way, with a crystal ashtray (still have it) given to him by her parents. Never got the full story, which was doubtless interesting.)

    @Yutsano:
    My father finally opened up a little bit in the 1990s, writing maybe 5 pages of memoirs including a description of the fighting in a small German town. It took me a lot of deep conversations to draw out details about a few other things.

  21. 21.

    Gretchen

    June 7, 2018 at 12:57 am

    @Yutsano: My Dad was in the Battle of the Bulge too. He wanted to talk about the war when he’d been drinking when I was young and stupid and thought it was boring. When I was older I realized how much he had to tell and tried to get him to tell me. By then he had stopped drinking and wouldn’t talk about it at all. He wouldn’t talk about it sober. He landed on DDay-3 or 4 and was one of the first Americans to enter the concentration camps, not knowing what they would see before they got there. He was the gentlest and kindest of men. I wish he hadn’t seen what he saw. And I wish I hadn’t been too stupid and selfish to listen to him when he wanted to talk.

  22. 22.

    Gretchen

    June 7, 2018 at 1:01 am

    Dad at one point was in charge of security under Gen. Patton. A plumber showed up saying he was there to set up a shower for Patton. Dad hadn’t heard of it and sent him away. Patton made his displeasure with Dad known.

  23. 23.

    Ruckus

    June 7, 2018 at 1:01 am

    @cmorenc:
    Lots of reasons we lost it. We’d won a war (not close to alone but if you are American you barely knew that) and everyone was tired of war for a start. Of course we kept getting in them for much worse reasons and that didn’t help. We got complacent to a degree and overly sold on ourselves. That was easy, we had the means and most of the resources for production, which many other countries had lost. Our conservative side decided that all that growth could be exploited for money and control and that complacency didn’t help.
    We had gone through a depression, and then another world war, 20 yrs after the first. Working was different than today, everything was done by hand. Accounting/banking, all done with pen and ink. Manufacturing, all done by manual labor. Farming, mostly manual labor. Even driving a truck was hard work. Anything shipped had to be loaded by hand, ditches dug by hand, most construction, done by hand. You had to work together to get most anything accomplished. A lot of that still happens of course but not most things. Forklifts, power steering, airlines, washing machines/dryers, computers, etc, etc, etc have all changed how we work, how we work together, what amount of physical labor it takes just to get through the day.
    Don’t forget the conservative backlash to the Civil Rights fight that separated us not just based upon color but upon a desire for basic equality that many people want for everyone regardless of their color. Look what that’s done to our politics. The dipshit not in charge is the result of that conservative bullshit of separating us along racist/no equality =/= the original intent of the formation of this country. Work together? Conservatives don’t even want liberals to live. Of course it wasn’t at all equal before the Civil Rights fight and while I don’t think it’s as bad as it was, it ain’t great either. But, and this is a big butt, look at the coast states, the places that are more liberal. Those states for the most part people work together to try and be even better. Could things improve? Damn right they could, should and have to. But look at the states that are trying to take all of us back to a time when this not working together was worse.

    So to summarize. the biggest hinderance to us working together to improve this country is conservatism.

  24. 24.

    burnspbesq

    June 7, 2018 at 1:03 am

    @HumboldtBlue:

    16 going on 17. Two years older than the equally ridiculous Joey Alexander.

  25. 25.

    GregB

    June 7, 2018 at 1:10 am

    It seems like only yesterday when the US joined with the Axis powers to fight the evil Canadians.

  26. 26.

    Ruckus

    June 7, 2018 at 1:11 am

    @burnspbesq:
    Almost 17? Well that makes all the difference then. He still looks 12.

  27. 27.

    burnspbesq

    June 7, 2018 at 1:13 am

    @GregB:

    It was gratifying to see the allies come together in the wake of the Bowling Green Massacre.

  28. 28.

    Villago Delenda Est

    June 7, 2018 at 1:20 am

    @cmorenc: Vietnam started the rot. Because of the basic dishonesty of the entire operation. LBJ only persisted with it because of his fear of “losing Vietnam” the way Truman “lost China”, thanks to rabid anti-communists such as Richard “I am not a crook!” Nixon. Reagan further eroded what was left with his own dishonest foreign policy misadventures.

  29. 29.

    philbert

    June 7, 2018 at 1:21 am

    @cmorenc: I wonder the loss of WWII from living memory is big part of the change. My parents were WWII and I am totally Boomer. Post-war, there was consensus: Yes, That Happened. It was a universal experience both home front at in uniform. No one could argue the reality of mobilization and the casualties. Now, wars etc are not a universal or even widely-shared experience. WWII was universal. Korea and Viet Nam, not the whole country was involved, but the wars were a dominant experience for the country. Now, it’s just news, with reality determined by opinion. We go shopping while our troops, many of them, have spent more time at war than any in the past. I wonder if many of their post-service issues is that service is so less common. Post WWII, any worker on the floor could look a manager in they eye, they may well have both been there. This, all through the post-war boom. Not now. So few can understand. I haven’t been there and can’t pretend to.

  30. 30.

    Jager

    June 7, 2018 at 1:33 am

    My old man and I were sitting by the fire at our lake house one night, I told him this conversation from Vietnam, December 1969.

    “What are you thinking about LT?”

    “A cold beer and Cindy Wilson’s blue eyes.”

    “That blonde one in the picture?”

    “Uh huh. What are you thinking about Arguello?”

    “My mom’s pork tamales and If I had studied instead of fucking around, I’d be the starting right guard for Colorado State.”

    My WWII vet father looked at me, laughed and said, “Exactly”

    “

  31. 31.

    NotMax

    June 7, 2018 at 1:39 am

    Gave a nod in the already earlier post to Admiral Ramsay (British), who coordinated the massive number of naval personnel and thousands of watercraft of Operation Neptune.

    195,700 naval personnel were used in Operation Neptune, led by 53,000 U.S. and 113,000 British troops.
    [snip]
    6,939 vessels were in the armada: 1,213 combat ships; 4,126 landing ships/craft; 736 support ships; 864 merchant ships. Source

    Shall also mention again the contributions of the French resistance,.

    Through the London-based État-major des Forces Françaises de l’Intérieur (French Forces of the Interior), the British Special Operations Executive orchestrated a massive campaign of sabotage to be implemented by the French Resistance. The Allies developed four plans for the Resistance to execute on D-Day and the following days:

    Plan Vert was a 15-day operation to sabotage the rail system.
    Plan Bleu dealt with destroying electrical facilities.
    Plan Tortue was a delaying operation aimed at the enemy forces that would potentially reinforce Axis forces at Normandy.
    Plan Violet dealt with cutting underground telephone and teleprinter cables.

    The resistance was alerted to carry out these tasks by messages personnels transmitted by the BBC’s French service from London. Several hundred of these messages, which might be snatches of poetry, quotations from literature, or random sentences, were regularly transmitted, masking the few that were actually significant. In the weeks preceding the landings, lists of messages and their meanings were distributed to resistance groups. An increase in radio activity on 5 June was correctly interpreted by German intelligence to mean that an invasion was imminent or underway. However, because of the barrage of previous false warnings and misinformation, most units ignored the warning.

    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.” Source

  32. 32.

    Chet Murthy

    June 7, 2018 at 1:42 am

    I’ve been thinking about these men. They weren’t supermen. Just ordinary men who gave their lives, so that a guy like me, with bad eyes, flat feet, and even at my fittest, no warrior, could have a decent life, spent entirely *thinking* (and sure, typing). I was contemplating what role I might play, if there were a war, and I came up with: (a) medical orderly (stretcher carrier), (b) ammunition runner (?). And after that? Nuthin’.

  33. 33.

    Planetpundit

    June 7, 2018 at 1:46 am

    Admiral Bertram Ramsey, who commanded Operation Dynamo the Evacuation at Dunkirk June, 1940, commanded the naval element of Operation Neptune, the landings in Normandy June, 1944. He brought them home and led them back.

  34. 34.

    Jager

    June 7, 2018 at 1:50 am

    @NotMax: One of my best friend’s father was a corporal in the Royal Winnipeg Rifles. He landed at Juno Beach on D Day

  35. 35.

    SFBayAreaGal

    June 7, 2018 at 2:01 am

    The rot was there. Ask the black soldiers how they were treated after the war. Ask the Japanese American soldiers how they were treated. The rot was just hidden.

  36. 36.

    M. Bouffant

    June 7, 2018 at 2:06 am

    From the SECOND REPORT TO THE SECRETARY OF THE NAVY
    Covering combat operations 1 March 1944 to 1 March 1945
    By FLEET ADMIRAL ERNEST J. KING
    COMMANDER IN CHIEF, UNITED STATES FLEET, AND CHIEF OF NAVAL OPERATIONS
    (Issued 27 March 1945)
    :

    On D-plus-2 day, for example, TEXAS’ 14-inch guns demolished the railway station at Isigny and effectively scattered a convoy of German vehicles moving through the town square. It is not surprising that a German Government broadcast on 16 June, recorded by the BBC expressed admiration of the military value of this naval gunfire. These “floating batteries,” it said, “enabled the invaders to achieve overpowering artillery concentrations at any point along the coast.”

  37. 37.

    NotMax

    June 7, 2018 at 2:07 am

    Haven’t seen much mention of it here today.

    Also on June 6, 50 years ago.

    Was glued to the radio after the first announcement of the shooting, so it was well into the wee hours on the East coast that finally managed to try to get some shuteye.

    Fifty years after his death, Robert F. Kennedy’s words remain powerful. At ceremonies Wednesday at Arlington National Cemetery, speakers paid homage to his oratory by simply reciting excerpts of his speeches to a crowd of several thousand that gathered to remember him.

    Civil rights leader and U.S. Rep. John Lewis of Georgia quoted Kennedy’s speech after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., which occurred just two months before Kennedy himself was shot and killed.

    “What we need in the United States is not division. What we need in the United States is not hatred but love, and wisdom, and compassion for one another,” Lewis said.

    Emma Gonzalez, a survivor of the Parkland school shooting in Florida, read a quote from a 1966 speech Kennedy gave in apartheid-era South Africa.
    [snip]
    Dozens of members of the Kennedy clan, including Robert Kennedy’s 90-year-old widow, Ethel, attended the ceremony, which included a rendition of “This Land is Your Land” by country music star Kenny Chesney.
    [snip]
    Former President Bill Clinton gave the keynote speech Wednesday, and said Kennedy’s words are “truer today than they were then.” Source

  38. 38.

    Jager

    June 7, 2018 at 2:11 am

    @NotMax: Steve Lopez did a wonderful story about the bus boy who cradled RFK’s head at the Ambassador Hotel that night, it was in the LA Times on Sunday.

  39. 39.

    frosty

    June 7, 2018 at 2:11 am

    @Raoul: We visited in 2014 and stayed in an Air BnB on the main street of Bayeux. I heartily recommend the town — the only one not destroyed by the war. The patiserrie just down the street from us did a great business thanks to my sons (oh, and us too!).

  40. 40.

    frosty

    June 7, 2018 at 2:14 am

    @Ruckus: if you get to London, lood up the Churchill War Museum, not sure what the official name is. They shuttered it in 1945 and opened it up 50 years later. The map of the North Atlantic where they tracked convoys is still on the wall. With the pinholes!

  41. 41.

    frosty

    June 7, 2018 at 2:16 am

    My uncle Roger was second pilot of a C-47 in the 9th Troop Carrier Command on June 6th. All he ever said to his family was that he “towed gliders over Normandy.” Thanks to the internet, my brother and I could do some research:

    He dropped the 101st Airborne the night of June 5/6, towed gliders with the 82d on the 6th, then dropped paratroopers and gliders for Dragoon in Southern France and Market-Garden in Holland, resupply for Bastogne and gasoline for Patton, then Varsity invading Germany across the Rhine. Overall, he was part of seven campaigns.

  42. 42.

    NotMax

    June 7, 2018 at 2:24 am

    @Jager

    Different sources, same poignancy.

    In an interview with StoryCorps, Mr Romero explained the moment the senator was shot in front of him and his final words: “I remember extending my hand as far as I could and then I remember him shaking my hand and as he let go, somebody shot him. I kneeled down to him and put my hand between the cold concrete and his head just to make him comfortable.

    “I could see his lips moving so I put my ear next to his lips and I heard him say ‘Is everybody ok?’ and I said ‘Yes, everybody’s okay’.”

    Mr Romero then retrieved his rosary beads for the Catholic senator: “I could feel a steady stream of blood coming through my fingers. I had a rosary in my shirt pocket and I took it out thinking that he would need it a lot more than me.”

    The then 17-year-old said he went to school the next day because he “didn’t even want to think about” the horrifying experience, but was recognised on the bus.

    “This woman was reading the newspaper and you could see my picture in there with the senator on the floor,” he explained. “She says ‘This is you, isn’t it?’ And I remember looking at my hands and there was dried blood in between my nails.”Source

    WaPo link to an AP story.

    Conspiracy theorists later would accuse Romero of being a plant to help kill Kennedy. Others criticized him for being selfish for wanting to shake hands with Kennedy again. Those charges used to hurt Romero, who now lives in San Jose, California, and works as a concrete and asphalt paver. He has visited the grave of Robert F. Kennedy with his daughter Elda Romero at the Arlington National Cemetery.

    He’s still angry that Kennedy never had the opportunity to lead the fractured nation and tackle poverty and discrimination.

    Romero, after 50 years, has accepted his place in history, even though he wished no one knew his name.

    “People often say I was at the right place at the right time.” Romero said. Then after a long moment of silence said, “No, the right place at the right time would have been me … taking that bullet.” Source

  43. 43.

    Brachiator

    June 7, 2018 at 2:32 am

    @NotMax:

    Haven’t seen much mention of it here today.

    Also on June 6, 50 years ago.

    Politico has a good, long essay on “The Bobby Kennedy Myth.” It’s worth a read, even though I think it is largely wrong in its central message.

    Many on the left have learned the wrong lessons from his ill-fated presidential bid.

    But here is one thing I know, as we observe the 50th anniversary of RFK’s death.

    I had a history teacher who loved Bobby Kennedy and had donated to his campaign. I don’t remember if she had done any work for the campaign. But she got us to follow his attempt to gain the nomination, to make history real, and not just old facts about the past. We all watched as the California Primary results came in so we could write a report about it.

    Like I said, she loved Bobby Kennedy. She was so hurt by his death that she had to take a leave of absence. I grew up in Texas, and knew people who were very sad about JFK. But I was a child then. And I have relatives who own a mortuary, so I have seen many kinds of grief. But never such intense grief for someone who was not family.

    But I remember my teacher, and grown ass men like Rams football stars Roosevelt Grier and Deacon Jones absolutely devastated by RFK’s death. It was like a piece of the universe that held hope in its heart had died. People carried on, but they were never quite the same. Some gave up. Others found ways to get back up, and find hope again.

    Ultimately, I think I learned much in seeing the degree to which Bobby inspired people, how much he meant to them, how deeply they loved and respected him.

    But it’s not the headlines I remember, or the horrible image of Kennedy lying on the floor. It is the memory of the searing grief that many people like my history teacher felt.

    Politico link

    https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/06/05/rfk-bobby-kennedy-myth-legend-history-218593

    ETA. Maybe there is also a through line, from the WW II generation to the Vietnam generation to the Parkland generation. There are always challenges and opportunity, and people and forces that try to crush the best of us. It’s tough to keep going, but it’s even tougher if you give up.

    I was hoping that there might be a separate thread for RFK, but hopefully this fits a little, and even though I’m in Southern California, it’s getting late here.

  44. 44.

    Gretchen

    June 7, 2018 at 2:53 am

    People need to remember that those heroic 18 year olds in the DDay invasion weren’t all volunteers. Some people are heroes because they are left no other choice. My dad was trying to get a commission in the Navy and was promised a stateside commission to be posted in Philadelphia, but his references didn’t respond before the draft got him. He was part of the DDay invasion, he was in Patton’s army, he spent a lot of time behind enemy lines. But, given the choice, he would have gone for the desk job in Philadelphia. Heroes don’t always choose heroism.

  45. 45.

    opiejeanne

    June 7, 2018 at 3:05 am

    @Raoul: thanks for that info. I wanted to visit the area but our time in France was limited so we had to choose what to see. Maybe next time we head over we can see something besides Paris (I love Paris). The first time we went we spent 4 days in the Loire Valley and 10 in Paris. The other time it was 10 days in Paris and we still didn’t see everything we wanted to see there.

  46. 46.

    Origuy

    June 7, 2018 at 3:13 am

    I was in sixth grade in 1968. The Indiana primary was shaping up to be important. Bobby flew into the little airport outside of Bloomington; my school was only a few miles away, so they bused us to the airport to see him get off the plane. I was a fan; my parents were Republicans, but my mother hated Nixon. He seems so exciting and full of life. A few days later, he won the Indiana primary and it seemed like his campaign was taking off. Then his death, only two months after Martin Luther King, and the chaos of the Democratic Convention, made me feel like nothing would be the same again.

  47. 47.

    opiejeanne

    June 7, 2018 at 3:21 am

    @HumboldtBlue: Amazing talent. He’s 15 or 16 in that video.

  48. 48.

    columbusqueen

    June 7, 2018 at 3:44 am

    Was Sword Beach where that Scottish bagpiper played during the landing?

  49. 49.

    J R in WV

    June 7, 2018 at 4:19 am

    My Uncle John was a socialist, and attempted to get a Conscientious Objector exemption from the draft which was impossible because he wasn’t outwardly religious. So he joined the American Friends Service as and became an ambulance driver for the Free French, in North Africa, then in Sicily, and then was sent home with a Croux de Guerre and jaundice.

    He was my Dad’s next oldest brother. He didn’t talk at all about the combat he saw, obviously as an ambulance driver, he was very near the action routinely. I don’t expect all the ambulance drivers got the Croux de Guerre.

    My uncle George was a Chief on a heavy Cruiser in the South Pacific, a clerk routinely, but everyone had a battle station. I don’t know what George did during the battles, but his Cruiser was there for many landing operations, and provided anti-air cover for carriers. He could very well have put on a helmet and run a gun crew, or a damage control team. He never talked about the war, although he did bring back some captured Japanese weapons.

    My Mother’s brother, my uncle Bill, was a turret gunner on a heavy bomber in the South Pacific, and we found his wings in Mom’s jewelry box after Dad died. So Bill gave his only reminder of the war to his little sister. He never spoke of war at all, from my reading I believe turret gunners dropped down into their turrets when they neared any defensive positions, or their target, and were alone in a heavy glass bubble until after action. I have no doubt he had fellow crew members shot to rags by Zero’s machine guns, flak shrapnel, etc. He would not speak of his service, at all, ever. I gave his wings to his son, my cousin, who was glad to have them. His father died pretty young with lung problems, he smoked Luck Strikes and drank a little, whiskey, bourbon mostly.

    They all came home more of less in one piece, all had kids. My dad enlisted in the Army under a program where he was allowed to finish the semester at college, then he took a long bus ride to a center in Huntington, where a doctor listened to his chest and called snother doc over to listen as well. As they chatted with each other about what they heard, they mentioned a heart murmur, and dad asked “Is that good, Doc?” Well, it was, as it got him a 4f classification, and he worked at the family business through the war, as a lot of the men were gone away to war.

    I was in the USN on an ship built in 1942-43, stationed in Key West from 1970-72, and in a Mississippi shipyard for overhaul from 72-73. MS was a shitty place for everyone back then, worse for sailors of color by far. The Jim Crow laws were over by then, but the assumptions and behaviors of Jim Crow were still obviously hateful and despicable. But no one was shooting at anyone in uniform in America.

    A next door neighbor was an infantryman, fought in the Bulge, all across Europe, was able to talk about one thing, the concentration camp his unit found, I think he forced himself to talk about it to try and make others understand what his unit of young men found that cold day. He didn’t actually talk about combat, but you didn’t notice that for a year or two, after hearing what he could talk about.

    Don Watts was his name. I’m sure he is dead now, he wasn’t a spring chicken when I knew him, 30 odd years ago. We bought hay from him, and his bull serviced my milk cow, a very country connection.

  50. 50.

    SectionH

    June 7, 2018 at 4:21 am

    @Origuy: Oh yeah, you were our vassels for centuries, British peasants. ;-> Just a reminder here…

  51. 51.

    Jacal Charles Calthrop

    June 7, 2018 at 4:23 am

    @Origuy: BTW there exists in Portsmouth, England a modern equivalent of the Bayeaux tapestry. It’s called the Overlord Embroidery (for operation overlord) and it was commissioned in 1968 & finished in 1972. Same basic technique, embroidery appliqué (but of course a lot more finished & detailed), it mimics the Bayeaux talestry’s visual history of events leading up to the invasion, the invasion itself, and the victory.

  52. 52.

    SectionH

    June 7, 2018 at 4:49 am

    So family, Wars: my Dad tried to join the AAC in 1940 – he was rejected as too old ~25? After Pearl Harbor, of course he was called up. He did end up in the AAC, but mostly spent the rest of the war Training Navigators. I suspect it’s an important thing, y’know to get to your target, and hit the thing you want to hit… not sexy, but important.

    Otherwise, my Mom’s HS sweetheart joined the Navy, and did the Murmansk run. Yeah. My uncle was shot down and spent 3? years in a POW camp in Germany. That fucked him up srsly.

    Mr S’s father got 3 purple hearts – one in Italy, one in the Bulge, and I srsly can’t remember – maybe in the actual landing in southern France. He did get put in charge of smoothing things out with the locals in the southern city, for a minute, until he got to be dumped into the Bulge. His purple hearts were all earned under actual fire.

    FFS, I could tell more stories. Why in the AF should we have to? Isn’t that the real question?

  53. 53.

    Ben Cisco

    June 7, 2018 at 6:11 am

    https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/remembering-d-day-s-african-american-soldiers-veterans-day-n682016

    The belief is pervasive that there were no soldiers of color on the beaches of France on one of the most important days of World War II. None of the many films made about D-Day like “Saving Private Ryan” show black soldiers storming Omaha Beach. Most history books don’t mention them.

    It is a sore point among black veterans.

    But they were there, landing under brutal fire early on June 6, 1944. The men of the 320th Barrage Balloon Battalion were packed tight with infantry troops aboard small metal boats that motored toward the Normandy coast obscured by smoke and fire. It was a harrowing ride, and even worse when they landed as early as 9 a.m.

    —

    By the time the sun set on June 6, 1944, some 2,000 African Americans had landed in Normandy. They were engineers, stevedores, and gunners. They carried the wounded to safety and buried the dead. They drove ambulances, earth-movers and the trucks that would supply the front lines. Black quartermasters won praise from Gen. Dwight Eisenhower for salvaging their trucks sunk in deep water — and saving significant quantities of blood plasma and medical supplies that would save lives on Omaha Beach. Eisenhower praised the 320th Barrage Balloon Battalion for carrying out its mission “with courage and determination” and said the men exposed like sitting ducks on the sand “proved an important element of the air defense team.”

  54. 54.

    Bobby Thomson

    June 7, 2018 at 6:40 am

    Canada is the older brother who always backs our play even when we start fights.

    Trump is a dipshit of the highest order.

  55. 55.

    CliosFanBoy

    June 7, 2018 at 7:59 am

    @Gemina13: I show that scene to start a section on WWII. And I remind them that most of the soldiers were their age (18-22)

  56. 56.

    Uncle Cosmo

    June 7, 2018 at 8:27 am

    @Psych1: @Chet Murthy: @Yutsano: @Gretchen: Posted this awhile back but it may bear repeating – take it for what it’s worth:

    Dad was drafted at age 30 in 1943, when they took anyone who could halfway walk. Ended up a diesel mechanic in the Pacific. Landed on Leyte & Okinawa but never on the first day.

    Many years later – I was maybe 11 or 12 – I was relating to him some stories told by a friend from down the block from his dad, who’d manned a machine gun on a Marine landing craft. Dad’s face got darker & darker & finally he burst out, Don’t you believe a word of it! I had never heard him that angry.

    What? I shot back, Are you trying to tell me Mr. Anderson’s a liar?!

    Damn right I am! (And he never cursed either.)

    And how would you know?

    Because no one who went through that ever wants to talk about it! Ever!

    His unit lost one man in the war – shot by mistake by one of his buddies as they lay scared shitless waiting for Jap infiltrators in slit trenches their first night on Leyte. He, himself, was happy to say he’d “never fired a shot in anger” in uniform.

    Years later I found out that units like his often landed before their equipment & until the motor pool was up & running they served as stevedores unloading landing craft as they came into the beaches. I have no idea what kind of blood & gore & body parts he saw littering those landing zones. He never talked about that. He told us all sorts of funny stories about life in the South Pacific – but he took the rest of it with him to his grave.

  57. 57.

    Sloane Ranger

    June 7, 2018 at 11:05 am

    @frosty: Do you mean the Cabinet War Rooms in Westminster? Definitely worth a visit!

  58. 58.

    Stan

    June 7, 2018 at 12:12 pm

    The planning for Operation Overlord was met with skepticism by Canadian and British military leadership as a result of the failure of the Allied raid at Dieppe on the French coast in 1942

    There was quite a split in the allied leadership on the invasion planning. The US generally wanted to invade France as early as possible and floated proposals to do it as early as 1942 and 1943. Churchill was dead-set against it and proposed the African (TORCH) and Italian campaigns instead, and would have pursued other peripheral operation had he gotten his way. It was only in the final months leading up to OVERLORD that he actually got on board with it personally. This is not to denigrate the British Army or navy who obviously gave it their all.

    I am not sure Dieppe was really a ‘failure’ – it kinda depends on what you think the objective was. My theory is it was imply meant to show the Soviets that the British were serious about fighting the Germans, and that an invasion across the channel would be extremely difficult. It took place at a terrible low point for the allies. So those men (mostly Canadian) were sacrificed to make a political point.

  59. 59.

    HumboldtBlue

    June 7, 2018 at 12:36 pm

    @columbusqueen:

    Yes, his name was Bill Millin and he died in 2010, I believe. They still remember his in Portsmouth

  60. 60.

    Chris

    June 7, 2018 at 1:13 pm

    @cmorenc:

    I suspect it started with the postwar rise of the suburban middle class society as the new normal. The values of that community tended to be much more individualistic than those of poorer generations who had no choice but to work together for common goals.

  61. 61.

    Raoul

    June 7, 2018 at 1:40 pm

    @cmorenc: The Korean war weakened it, and Viet Nam finished off our sense of collective action.

  62. 62.

    Uncle Omar

    June 7, 2018 at 4:53 pm

    @Sloane Ranger: Absolutely worth the effort. The Cabinet War Rooms also contain a Churchill Museum. The whole show opens at 0930 and if you’re not there until 1000 you’ll have a long wait and be jostled by what seems like half the population of the UK.

  63. 63.

    gammyjill

    June 7, 2018 at 5:32 pm

    My father was in the aleutions during the war and didn’t see action. But my uncle and former FIL, and many other men I knew were in the South Pacific and did participate in heavy action. Oh, the stories they don’t tell…

    On another point, I’ve visited Normandy about five or six times, taking my sons each twice, and, of course, have walked the Allied Cemetery. (Also the one in Luxembourg). But the last time I was there, I drove to – of all places – the German cemetery, located sort of behind the Allied one. It’s a strangely beautiful and serene place. The graves seem to hold two or three bodies each and is a shaded place. If you go to visit the Allied cemetery and have a little extra time, see if you can tack on a visit to the German cemetery.

  64. 64.

    Ruckus

    June 7, 2018 at 9:22 pm

    @Psych1:
    @Chet Murthy:
    I served in the navy, late 69 to 73. Spent 2 months early 73 in the Long Beach Navy Hospital. Most of the fellas in there were wounded Marines. Every day I had to sit in a ward with some of them, most of whom I believe had PTSD, some severe, some worse. They would talk in that ward. But not outside of it. They want to forget, they want to never have to think about it again. But they can’t. Some were physically wounded, most were mentally wounded. There are very few people for whom wholesale killing is great, for everyone else it is the worst thing they will ever see. I’ve met guys who have that same look in their eyes and on their faces within the last 2 yrs, at the VA. Guys who are in their 30s. Combat is combat. It probably wasn’t any different in Roman times. It wasn’t during WWII, Korea, Vietnam, the current middle east, or any other war……. It is possible that a person can talk their way through it, to learn to live with it, but inflicting that upon someone else? There’s a good reason they don’t talk about it.

  65. 65.

    Ruckus

    June 7, 2018 at 9:33 pm

    @Chet Murthy:
    Warrior?
    No one is a warrior. There are people who learn how to fight and then do. There are people who die trying. But a warrior is something from stories, books and movies. Killing or being killed doesn’t make anyone great. Even those people who risked far more than most to save someone(s) else. People from all walks of life have done this when they had to. Calling someone a warrior indicates they did it for glory or fame or honor. There is no honor in killing someone. Sometimes there is a need for it. Sometimes we honor those who did what they had to do for some “higher” reason. We appreciate military personnel who are particularly proficient at their duties. But there is no such human as a warrior. It’s a character.

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