D-Day

[ryan8558]

101st airborne vet talking about the M1 Garand

 

[Sean]

https://twitter.com/Channel4News/status/1136346577839239168

 

[doowdniw]

My dad missed D-Day. He'd done his beach landing in Yugoslavia with "Mad JacK" and was still there.

 

[about_average]

101st airborne vet talking about the M1 Garand

When I was a kid one of the local hardware stores had a table full of M1's for sale one time when i went in.
A couple of men where there looking at them, I guess they were vets from their conversation.
Man 1: You couldn't pay me enough to carry one of those home.
Man 2: I don't know, I might buy one, take in to my back yard and piss on it.

I'm guessing they'd had all they wanted of WWII.

 

[about_average]

At this moment, 75 years ago today:

– West of Utah Beach, American paratroopers of the Dog Company (505th PIR) are involved in heavy fighting near the town of Neuville-au-Plain.

– Omaha Beach: the two 75 mm guns of Pointe de la Percée, the cause of many destructions, are put out of action by destroyer USS McCook.

– Omaha Beach: the Wn 65 strongpoint at the junction between the Easy Green and Easy Red beach sectors and protecting the E1 exit is stormed by American soldiers.

– General Feuchtinger is ordered to move his 21st Panzer Division to the west of the Orne Canal and to engage it north of the Bayeux-Caen line.

 

[about_average]

Oops, I forgot about Double Summertime (GMT +2) in England.
So at this time, 12 noon, 75 years ago:

– Utah Beach: 4 beach exit routes (causeways) are controlled by paratroopers of the 101st Airborne Division.

– Utah Beach: the 2nd battalion of the 8th RCT enters Poupeville.

– Utah Beach: Dog Company of the 501st Parachute Infantry Regiment reaches the village of Angoville.

– Pointe du Hoc: the last 6 defenders of the observation post surrender to the American Rangers.

– Pointe du Hoc: Colonel Rudder sends Morse the message “Arrived at Pointe du Hoc. Mission completed, urgent need of ammunition and reinforcements. Many losses.”

– Omaha Beach: due to the lack of ammunition, the Houtteville battery (4,500 meters from the beach, near Colleville-sur-Mer) refuses to execute a gun salvo fire order against the landing craft on approach. The battery only fires with one 105 mm gun after the other.

– Churchill delivers his speech in the House of Commons, informing the British deputies of the liberation of Rome and the beginning of the Normandy landings.

 

[oralaccents]

Anyone can look this stuff up. Are you one of those ww2 fetishists?

 

[oggbashan]

Salute
by oggbashan©

Salute

He's gone to join his ancient comrades,
Without ceremony or martial parades.
He slipped quietly away without a fuss
But left his painful memories for us.

Seventy years ago he watched his men die.
Now together with them he'll forever lie.
He landed alone, bereft, on Omaha Beach
His men drowning, out of his clutching reach.

He lived with the memory of those he had lost,
Never forgetting that peace has a bloody cost.
He lived and remembered to tell those at home
Always painfully remembering being there, alone.

Salute the brave warriors who lived and died
For our freedoms. Remember. Give thanks with pride.

My friend was a commander of a swimming Sherman tank that sank off Omaha Beach on D-Day, drowning his whole crew. He shed his equipment and swam ashore, landing with no weapon. He grabbed a rifle from a dead GI and was part of the breakout. He never forgot the crew he had lost.

Forty years later:

And someone before D-Day or shortly afterward caused me grief. In the 1960s there was a stocktake of old anchors for which at the time I was responsible. Several were missing. Since the average weight was 30 tons each, dockyard pilfering was unlikely.

They had been last recorded early in May 1944 and not seen since. I inherited a fat file about them. They had been intended for pre-Dreadnought battleships.

Eventually I suggested that they might have been taken to anchor components of Mulberry Harbours and therefore should be regarded as 'expended in action'. My bosses accepted my suggestion and I wasn't charged personally with losing them.

 

[someoneyouknow]

And Obama is very sorry to all the countries we offended that day.

https://66.media.tumblr.com/27cad638f9345b850c46942b2461261b/tumblr_psnpgjHDYx1rbam90o1_500.jpg

 

[someoneyouknow]

Had Hitler released the Panzers, this wouldn't be an issue.

Just sayin.

 

[oralaccents]

Had Hitler released the Panzers, this wouldn't be an issue.

Just sayin.

The german military leadership were all having sex with their mistresses.


https://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/nazi-germanys-biggest-d-day-mistakes-20849

 

[oggbashan]

Had Hitler released the Panzers, this wouldn't be an issue.

Just sayin.

Even if he had, they were in the wrong place, expecting a landing around Calais. They would have been wrecked by Allied aircraft and ship's artillery before they got to the beach head.

 

[oralaccents]

By D Day, germany had all but ceded france.

A war of attrition would have achieved the same result and saved more lives than anyone can calculate.

 

[oggbashan]

By D Day, germany had all but ceded france.

A war of attrition would have achieved the same result and saved more lives than anyone can calculate.

Proof? The Germans lost tens of thousands on D-Day.

 

[oralaccents]

Proof? The Germans lost tens of thousands on D-Day.

I was thinking of people, not sides.

Putin can turn off the lights in Kiev whenever he feels like it.

And everyone in the Ukraine knows it.

Russia will own Ukraine with virtually no loss of lives on either side.

 

[oggbashan]

I was thinking of people, not sides.

Putin can turn off the lights in Kiev whenever he feels like it.

And everyone in the Ukraine knows it.

Russia will own Ukraine with virtually no loss of lives on either side.

And how many people have already died in Ukraine?

 

[oralaccents]

And how many people have already died in Ukraine?

No idea, but my guess is far fewer than any equivalent battle for similar real estate in WW2.

 

[SpeareChucker]

And how many people have already died in Ukraine?

Are we talking about Stalin?

 

[BotanyBoy]

Are we talking about Stalin?

That was for the GREATER GOOD!!!!

 

[RocketLauncher]

Time to watch The Longest Day.

John has a long mustache.

Major Pluskat: Are you deaf?! Can't you - [a blast holes the bunker roof] - Dammit, can't you hear for yourself?!? Yes! We're under fire! Yeah - under fire!! Those five thousand ships the Allies couldn't possibly have, as you say - they've got 'em! Yeah, they've got 'em!!

 

[doowdniw]

Had Hitler released the Panzers, this wouldn't be an issue.

Just sayin.

That's what happens when you have a corporal, who thinks he's smarter than his generals, running the war.

 

[milehighcityman]

When I was a kid, growing up in a small town, my family sat in the very same pew at church every Sunday. In the pew in front of us, every Sunday, was a little old couple, man and wife. Very nice people, soft spoken. My father was always very deferential to that old man. I found out later that little old man was in that first wave at Omaha beach. It wasn't until all those old men in our church died that I learned what they had done. I guess none of them considered themselves special because they had all been to hell and back.

 

[oralaccents]

The loss of a sense of duty to community and country is the USA’s achilles heel.

 

[milehighcityman]

When I was a kid one of the local hardware stores had a table full of M1's for sale one time when i went in.
A couple of men where there looking at them, I guess they were vets from their conversation.
Man 1: You couldn't pay me enough to carry one of those home.
Man 2: I don't know, I might buy one, take in to my back yard and piss on it.

I'm guessing they'd had all they wanted of WWII.

Its a pretty sweet rifle. But its heavy.

 

[Biggs_Darklighter]

The M1 is a great rifle.

Dudes that landed on the beaches had titanium balls.