Reply to: D-Day 70th Anniversary This Week!

[barrydidit]

So, the Normandy Veterans Association disbands this year.

Well done guys. Especially those who aren't there today.

They went with songs to the battle, they were young.
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted,
They fell with their faces to the foe.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning,
We will remember them.

They mingle not with their laughing comrades again;
They sit no more at familiar tables of home;
They have no lot in our labour of the day-time;
They sleep beyond England's foam

[VectraMan]

All over the news:

BBC News - D-Day 70th anniversary: Ceremonies and staged landing held

But is it me or is 6th June actually tomorrow? Flypasts and parades and Prince Charles and Camilla walking across the famous Pegasus Bridge the day before the 70th anniversary of it being taken by troops. Even more comical are the marines staging an amphibious landing at Southsea - not only the wrong date, but the wrong place and wrong country. Why don't they do it on the actual anniversary in the right place?

No I don't know why this sort of thing annoys me.

[Gibbon]

Trouble is with commemorations is that they often turn into celebrations. Rememberance day, for me, fufills the purpose more than well enough without all this nostalgia at all these anniversaries and selective ones too.

[quackhandle]

All those damned hedges didn't help

La Bocage was very handy for hiding the nasty German 88s.

Forgot to mention that grandfather QH was busy on D-Day in Operation Taxable sitting in Rear Gunner seat for 617 Sqn dropping "window/chaff" over Pas de Calais.


qh

[EternalOptimist]

All those damned hedges didn't help

I read somewhere that more French civilians were killed by allied bombing etc in Normandy after D Day than British civilians throughout WW2.

funny enough, there isnt that much bocage between the beaches and Caen, its mostly flat rolling farmland. Over to the west and where the Americans were was a nightmare of bocage.
The British nightmare was to the east of the Orne where the paras got a bridgehead.
The Germans got in there quickly with panzer divisions, followed by 4 elite SS pz divisions. In the open, not much cover and the british/Canadians beat them. It was a stunning blow for the squareheads.
They never massed so much punch into such a tiny front and expected to lose.
The Americans get all the glory, for the breakout at St Lo and capturing cherbourg, but what the British did in the Orne bridgehead was the true story

[VectraMan]

I read somewhere that more French civilians were killed by allied bombing etc in Normandy after D Day than British civilians throughout WW2.

It was something like 80,000 if I remember correctly. Which is one of those things that doesn't tend to get talked about.

Britain lost about 500,000 people in WWII, and the US slightly less. But when you consider it was something like 13 million Russians, and possibly 50 million people killed overall, you realise our place in the war was actually quite small, at least as far the damage inflicted goes. Again history doesn't tend to remember it that way.

[original PM]

All those damned hedges didn't help

I read somewhere that more French civilians were killed by allied bombing etc in Normandy after D Day than British civilians throughout WW2.

would not suprise me at all - was pretty hellish.

apparently 40 million dead in the European Theatre of which 15 million were combatants......

[barrydidit]

I don't watch owt by Dan Snow coz they tend to be largely mediocre bollocks.

I was mulling over that point last night actually. I seem to recall him having a strop about Paxman getting the gig to do WW1 type stuff, on the basis that JP wasn't a proper historian. Which is a load of tripe really cos the historians can reasearch away to their hearts content and then get someone else to do the presenting. Sour grapes.

[OwlHoot]

Was watching Al Murrays Road to Berlin on I think it was quest this weekend - had all of Sunday devoted to it.

Apparently we struggled to take Caen amongst other objectives...

All those damned hedges didn't help

I read somewhere that more French civilians were killed by allied bombing etc in Normandy after D Day than British civilians throughout WW2.

[barrydidit]

Did anyone see 'Britains Greatest Pilot' on BBC on the weekend? I thought it was great, derring do type stuff, plus first hand observational stuff of Adolf shaking Jesse Owen's hand and converstions with Goering in jail in Nuremberg after the war. It's being repeated tonight on BBC2 at 23.20 according to the beeb site. I would highly recommend it.

I also saw a Dan Snow thing about 'last heroes' of D-Day which wasn't a patch on this, which was a great shame.

[SpontaneousOrder]

Falklands was only won back by an incredibly fine margin too. I can't remember the exact number now, but when the Argentinians surrendered at Goose Green the men of 2 para had an average of something like nine rounds left each.

[original PM]

Was watching Al Murrays Road to Berlin on I think it was quest this weekend - had all of Sunday devoted to it.

Apparently we struggled to take Caen amongst other objectives.

but even so - hero's every last one of them.

[zeitghost]

Not forgetting the D Day Dodgers of course:

Some audio NSFW.

Plus it ain't sung by Canadians, but there you go.

[VectraMan]

The BBC don't seem to know which war to promote at the moment. They just got me interested in World War I, and now we're meant to talk about World War II again.

[MicrosoftBob]

No worries though... we can all go down to the local commemoration this November 9th and act all sad and sorrowful for half an hour, and then back to the killing and maiming for another year! Yeehaw!

At least it's mainly online in FPS where no one gets hurt, unless you count wounded teenagers egos when they find out they've been shanked by an oldie