Today is the Day of Days.. 6/6

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Icecobra

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Today is the 70th anniversary of the day of days. Today in the wee dawn hours of 1944 airborne troops were dropped out of airplanes landed in gliders and were staring at the cold dark sky over the English channel. Today would be the very last day in the lives of some 10,000 men in the fight for freedom and to prove freedom is not free. You know how much something costs when you begin to spend peoples lives to obtain it. 30,000 paratroopers were transported behind German lines and behind the Atlantic wall. 101st division and the 82nd airborne tasked with seizing bridges and stopping German re-enforcements from heading to the beaches. Estimates for casualties among paratroopers were expected as high as 70%. Now on ships 100,000 men were preparing to board landing craft to head for the beaches. The beaches code name Juno, Sword, Gold, Utah and Omaha. The American's would assault Utah and Omaha, British Gold and Sword the Canadians would take Juno. It all begins ok and everything is on target and on time. It was critical that each wave had to move off the beach to make room for follow up waves arriving. Gold, Sword, Juno went off according to plan and men and equipment began to move inland fairly quickly. Utah was meeting some medium resistance and taking casualties. On Omaha it was a nightmare from the first boat ashore. As the first ramps dropped there was no fire coming from German positions. American soldiers began to run across 300 yards of open sand towards to sea wall. After about 20 seconds the Germans began to fire and immediately the Americans began to take heavy casualties. As the second wave of boats approached the ramps dropped and German machine gunners fired right in to the boats killing almost every man aboard the landing craft. This is a carnage we cannot fully grasp today. Entire units, 30 men wiped out in seconds. Dropped in to a shooting gallery the men were slaughtered in minutes. At this point 90% casualties and every single officer killed that had reached the beach.

In the end we know they prevailed and fought against every thing to get a toe hold on the beach. By noon they had breached the Atlantic wall and were moving inland slowly.

It is today we celebrate 70 years since those soldiers gave the ultimate sacrifice for us all to live free... Now take a long hard look back and ask are we better off now than we were then. Thank a Vet....
 

Tom

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Great post!!!!! We shouldn't forget these great heroes.....
 
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