lyonsden1193

Today is D-Day. perhaps a little prayer or thought to all those US Canadian & British Relatives and family members who had the nerve to go through with it and give us what we have today.

lansbury

and the Australian, New Zealanders, the service men and women from countless other Commonwealth countries, and not forgetting those who served with the Free French Forces who were liberating their homeland that day.

E3only

Was watching a documentary couple of days ago. So heart breaking...

Thydney

Yeah all 177 of them

lansbury

there might not have been many of them but the Free French Commandos lead by Philippe Kieffer took on the attack on the port of Ouistreham. 21 killed and 93 wounded.

Scouse Express

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6f6U1UTMAlk

A Brutal response to D-Day, was in store for these Villagers.


Jim.

Thydney

You're not wrong but you think they could muster more men to liberate their own country. Did you know that when Paris was liberated the entire French army could only just manage a company of white Frenchmen the rest of their army was from their colonies.

lansbury

There's a reason their crack troops are the French Foreign Legion

Thydney

I get really angry about the way that dwarf tried to imply it was the yanks who won the war and we were bit players.

Octang Frye

Yes, a toast is in order to the veterans, both living and dead.

Thydney

Indeed

lyonsden1193

My oh My... Have you not been watching your TV!! Everybody knows John Wayne & Gary Cooper won the war!

What is all this talk about the French? do I detect some latent Gallic blood?

seriously......Every Veteran deserves our thanks

S Folinsky

I join in the prayers and gratitude.

One uncle did not get to Europe until November 1944 and joined the 3rd Army as a replacement. He always to told us youngsters that he was simply involved in some "minor mopping up." Otherwise, he never talked about it other than to note "I would rather have been somewhere else." If you care to, look up the timing, it was not "minor mopping up." He is in uniform in his wedding picture -- and has a CIB and Purple Heart.

My Dad's older brother was in the 8th Air Force in 1943 in the B-24. Most of his tour was was before the P-51 Mustang went into widespread service. [The P-51 was an example of the cross-fertilization of US and British technology, but I digress]. We know he was grounded twice for medical reasons and both times the plane did not return.

My father was, in his words, "damn lucky," my parents spent the first 18 months of their marriage at a light house at Tibbets Point, New York. Dad went to sea in Spring 1945. To this day, I have mixed feelings about the atomic bombings in Japan -- my father was an able bodied seaman on a target staging for Operation Olympic.

Out of curiosity, and because I do not want to be US-centric: How many participants here can name all five D-day beaches? The UK beaches were Sword and Gold, Canada was Juno and the US were Utah and Omaha. "Omaha Beach" has entered the historical lexicon of US History, right up there with Valley Forge and Gettysburg. I'm wondering how US Centric this is.

S Folinsky

IMHO, a lot of the credit goes to the Red Army.

Here is the favorite WWII song of the British Army. Bill Mauldin noted that the only good song of the period was this German one -- everybody wanted to go home!

robin1234

To be fair, Free French forces served all over the world on land, sea and in the air for the entire war; most of those men were not necessarily on hand for the liberation of Paris.

Apparently French military deaths in the second World War amounted to 217,000