D-Day Plus 80

Eighty years ago on this date, Allied land, sea, and air forces invaded Normandy to begin the liberation of Europe from Hitler's evil empire.  Four years earlier, the Nazi blitzkrieg had overrun the free states of Europe, and only Britain was left to defy him.  But the forces of darkness would not enjoy their triumph long.  After careful preparation, the tables were turned on June 6, 1944, as the greatest assemblage of armed forces in the history of the world breached the supposedly impenetrable walls of Hitler's Fortress Europe, leading to his utter defeat the following year, and Japan's too.

After the Fall of France in June 1940, Winston Churchill. in courageous words that echo down the halls of history, steeled his countrymen for what was to come next:

What General Weygand called the Battle of France is over. I expect that the Battle of Britain is about to begin. Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilization. Upon it depends our own British life, and the long continuity of our institutions and our Empire.

The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us. Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this Island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science.

Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, “This was their finest hour.”

We who were born after the war have lived our whole lives in those "broad, sunlit uplands," however hilly or rocky they may have seemed in part; in the Western world at least, we have lived in times of peace and plenty, blessed with a panoply of comforts and conveniences undreamed of by any previous generation, and available to all but the most abjectly poor.  

Antibiotics, vaccinations, and ingenious new treatments for all sorts of bodily ills and injuries have allowed us, collectively, to live longer, healthier, and consequently happier lives than any generation who came before us.  How very lucky we were, how blessed, to have lived in the second half of the twentieth century, and into the first quarter of the twenty-first.  In material terms, the human race never had it so good.

And yet, times change.  Mr. Starmer. who in all likelihood will shortly be the next prime minister of Great Britain, said just the other day, "The post-war era is over and a new age of insecurity has begun."  He might be putting it mildly.  I think all halfway intelligent people must view the current trend of things as very alarming - frightening - horrifying, even.  

But today I will say only that I am mindful of and deeply grateful for the sacrifices made by those soldiers, sailors, and airmen in 1944, who died so that my generation could grow up in peace and prosperity and freedom.  May they rest in peace and rise in glory.  

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70 Years On: D-Day

Today, President Obama, Queen Elizabeth II, and other Allied leaders have gathered on the Normandy coast to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the D-Day landings, which, at great cost in the blood of soldiers, sailors, and airmen, ensured the doom of the Nazi tyranny and all the freedoms we take so casually for granted today. I hope that all my truckbuddies will take just a single minute out of their day to reflect upon the enormous sacrifice offered up on that cloudy, gloomy day so long ago now, when the future was far from certain, and the way forward so full of deadly peril.

An official newsreel showing the preparations for the invasion:




Supreme Allied Commander Dwight D. Eisenhower's address to the troops on the eve of the invasion:




King George VI broadcast this message to Britain, the Empire, and the world on D-Day:




President Franklin D. Roosevelt's broadcast to the nation on June 6, 1944, the famous D-Day Prayer:




On the CBC, Prime Minister Mackenzie King spoke to the people of Canada:




And a personal viewpoint with vivid color film taken before and after the invasion by newsreel cameraman Jack Lieb:




Finally, Part 1 of a fascinating series of transcriptions of CBS Radio's live coverage of the invasion, with European reports relayed to New York:




Lots of recent video interviews with surviving veterans of D-Day are at the National WWII Museum website here, like this one:

In Memoriam: D-Day

It was a huge, huge thing back there in 1944. The whole country, indeed the whole world, had been waiting anxiously for many weeks to hear that the invasion of Europe had begun. Nobody knew when or where it would be, but everyone knew casualties would be high; and every family had somebody in the service. You can listen to the very first reports from CBS News here, beginning before dawn that day; it's a radio broadcast, natch. The first confirmation of the invasion comes at the :49 minute mark.

My dad was in the Army Air Corps, stationed in England. He didn't go over on D-Day, it was a few weeks afterward when they were ready to start setting up regular air bases. But even so, they still got bombed and attacked, and had to shoot back. Like most guys from that war, he rarely ever spoke about what he'd seen and done. He was one of the lucky ones who came back alive and in one piece, ready to take up his GI benefits and go to college. A lot of men weren't so lucky. Yet their victory remains a glorious one. Peace to their ashes, from a grateful world.

(Milt Priggee via The Daily Slab)