I pay my respects. Rest in peace to all involved.
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It’s sad there’s not more posts here.
D-day was the most amazing thing to ever happen in our lifetimes.(history) Over 6 thousand ships stormed France to bring peace to Europe.
With US planning, It started with 6 British in gliders who are never talked about that seriously glided to their deaths and they knew it but did it to take over a bridge… Then 23k US and British paratroopers right after that… There is so much about D-Day that many don’t know. Thank God we all came together then to destroy Germany, Italy and Japan.
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when I was in grade school, I got into reading historical war non-fiction. and I read a lot. WW2 was a part of what I read, and D-Day is one of those battles that stands out from the rest.
with fewer survivors left to tell their stories, those of us from later generations are left with written & photographic accounts from that time, plus all the documentaries, and fictional novels & movies. even now, stories never told before are coming to light, making us wonder what other stories there are that haven’t been told. I am sure that there are many stories being handed down in families that haven’t been told, because the survivor still feels the pain, and only wants the story to be told when they are gone and at peace with their Maker.
D-Day is a story of Heroism & Mistakes, Blood & Triumph. in the end, the Allied Forces prevailed and the Axis Forces surrendered, and there were few people or places that were unaffected by the war.
after WW1, it was said there would never be a war like it again. then WW2 rose from the ashes and misery left behind by WW1, and the tragedy was even greater. D-Day was a chance taken to end the war, and the chance taken was very successful.
we should remember how terrible D-Day was, because if we should have a WW3, how much more terrible would a D-Day in the Nuclear Age be? and even without using the Ultimate Weapon of Destruction, with the technological advances that have been made since WW2, any battle today on the scale of D-Day would make that battle seem insignificant in comparison.
let us remember D-Day, because if we forget, a more terrible D-Day may be in our future.
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There are stories around it too. The Serbian spy called Dusko Popov who detested fascism so much that he enrolled to be a Nazi spy then came to England to spy but walked into secret head quarters announcing he was a nazi agent and wanted to spy for the allies. The Nazis trusted him so much that they believed the misdirecting info about the d day landings that he fed them. He was a bit of a gambler and cocktail drinker and after the war he was honoured with a medal that was presented to him in a bar in which he was drinking in at the time.
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The Nazis communicated with each other with an apparently uncrackable code called the enigma code. In order to crack it Bletchley Park was created headed by a maths boffin called Alan Turning. They recruited people by setting codewords puzzles in newspapers and hiring anyone who could crack them in under ten minutes but swore them to life long secrecy . The code was cracked and German communications could be read. However , to hide that discovery from the Germans (who would have just changed the code) the decision was made to allow 99 % of known German planned attacks succeed regardless of the cost in lives. The Nazis faith in Popov was revealed in secret decoded communications. It’s a dark chapter in history.
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My grandad was in Egypt fighting Rommel (a.k.a the desert fox. Read on about Rommel. Very curious character. Didn’t allow mistreatment of prisoners and Jewish people. Was a Nazi icon untill he was suspected of an involvement in a plot to kill Hitler.) , My great uncle Harry was a Japanese prisoner of war on the Burma railway ( Death railway) and I used to go to rememberence parades with him ( very nice bloke). And I remember my great grandfather who served on the Somme in WW1 and who was lucky enough to receive a bullet that saved his life but left him with a walking stick for all his life . He was a nice man too. If we don’t remember then history repeats itself.
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I’m closing this thread now with a clip from a 94 year old veteran’s interview on British TV on the very beach he landed on 75 years ago. https://youtu.be/IJRJlcItzQw
I like mystery and spy novels, and I have read a few stories about breaking the Enigma Code. the one thing that sticks in my head is that city that they allowed the Germans to bomb so the secret of breaking Enigma was kept. oh, so I just looked online to find the city, and found a story, Coventry: What Really Happened by Martin Gilbert. totally different from what I had read before. really brings home the concept of The Fog Of War.
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Haha Coventry. The British government knew it was going to happen. But did nothing. Surely they could have dreamt up a reason to evacuate Coventry. Example like an outbreak of tuberculosis. They knew about the concentration camps. I find it sickening
which ever way reality was back then, we can’t change what happened. we can only make decisions today for the changes of tomorrow.
isn’t there a saying that goes something like, those who don’t learn from history are doomed to make the same mistakes.
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I agree. The past shocks me. Never again.
The human race needs to learn two words. Those words are “No more”
Being American, (which typically means the USA} Aae fought on two fronts. There’s many many stupid Americans that think the USA won it and if it weren’t for the US then Nazi Germany would have won.
Hell, to the fucking NO While the US fought on 2 fronts and almost single handidly beat the Japanese in the Pacific… The US broke the code to destroy the superior Japanese at Midway, but it’s the British who broke enigma, who withstood the bombing from Germany, who endured. Who made false cities by lights to throw off German planes to land their bombs somewhere without civilians. The British need more love and respect than they get when it comes to WW2.
To start D Day, while it was all under US planning, 5 Brits started it by literally flying in next to an important bridge both sides needed to win d day… They had to know they were flying to their deaths but the, 5 Brits, took over a heavily guarded by German Bridge. How is that even fkin possible? So fk ya Brits deserve the respect.
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Respect to all.
@Haunt the truth about the battle of Britain is that while we won it , so many aircraft had been lost then the Nazis could have just invaded us without resistance. Churchill was elected as prime minister during WW2 for being a warmonger. After the war we got rid of him because he was fundamentally nasty. Now Hitler chose to postpone his invasion of Great Britain to try and invade Russia. There has been plots to kill Hitler which got stopped for the very reason that allowing Hitler to rule Germany would cause Germany to loose the war. Hitler was insane. That’s why the allies won.
And what angers me is this. The bloke who broke the enigma code and saved the world was chemically castrated for being gay. Then he killed himself. A sad demise.
@Haunt I love your comments. The USA didn’t win the war and the British didn’t win the war. How about giving accolades to all the polish escapees from occupied Poland who came over to the United Kingdom to join the airforce. They became the most awesome air force ever. And there are the Gurkhas. A tribe so fierce that the Nazis feared them. And three years ago ,my country which they had fought for and died for tried to deport them Disgracefull.I am no patriot.
I think you are a Patriot, or you wouldn’t care. no Leader or Country is perfect. wrong decisions can be made, and good decisions can be unpopular.
for good or bad, the past is the past. we can’t change it. the future can be changed by the choices we make today. we just need more people to make good choices in the here and now, so there is no past that we end up regretting in the future.
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I care but I’m never going to be a patriot. I suppose Nazis justified there role in the Holocaust on the grounds of patriotism. Like I say
I.m not a patriot. I was just a nurse. I just care.
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well, if Patriotism hurts people without caring about the pain caused, being selfish and uncaring of others, then we can consider it wrong.
Patriotism that is willing to sacrifice for the well being of others when needed, selfless and caring of others, we would consider that right.
I think if we all cared about each other, we could all be a Patriot in a world full of friends. even I can dream.
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