Tell us your D-Day stories, thoughts

Those brave men who died during the invasion didn't die in vain. They changed the course of history and should never be forgotten.

God Bless Them All!

The world owes a debt of gratitude which can never be repaid to the men of OPERATION OVERLORD who stormed the beaches of Normandy. Never have the principals of democracy hung more in the balance, when the sacrifice of the lives of our brave service members decided the fate of history and the destiny of millions... God rest their souls, my tears do not do them justice, I salute them all.

The most important day in the twentieth century. Had the landings failed, Hitler, conceivably achieves a stalemate in Europe. Truman, would then have had to drop the bomb on " friendly " nations while still concentrating on Japan. how different would the world look today ?

We will never be able to repay the debt we owe to the brave men who gave their everything....May the Lord of us all Bless their souls...

My father would be 90 if he was alive today. He was 25 years old when he fought in the invasion of Normandy, D-Day. He was with the 101 Air Borne. He never spoke of the war or D-Day the rest of his life. He serve his country, came home and raised his family. He took all those memories of D-Day to his grave.

What a critical point in history. Canadian, British, and American troops storming Hitlers atlantic wall. A pivotal day in the ongoing fight against history's madmen. That courage and commitment from the troops in harms way and those back home supporting them is something we need to emulate today as more of history's madmen [take your pick!] threaten the western world with their nuclear ambitions and terrorism. 

We must harden our resolve and continue our support in the current battles to keep these monsters in check. We must never surrender our freedom!    

In 2008 I was honored to be able to visit the National D-Day Memorial in Bedford,VA. and learn the story of the "Bedford Boys"and the ultimate sacrifice of Company A. I must admit to being stunned when at the visitors center purchasing the book and a few momentos an elderly volunteer lady at the register simply said the her brother was one of the "Bedford Boys" lost on D-DAY. No word's I could have mustered seemed appropriate.

I feel strongly that this story should be mandatory study in all of our high schools so that we as a nation never forget.

I have always been intrigued by World War 2 and have studied it extensively. Over the course of American history alot of men gave their lives but none can compare to the atraucities and sacrifice those men endured that day. All people from all nations should give a great deal of graditude to those men. Even the survivors of the invasion were in some sense mentally a casuality after witnessing the events of that day.

Find the cost of freedom, buried in the ground
Mother earth will swallow you, lay your body down (CSNY)

They died so we can live free...the cost however is not free...vigilance and personal responsibility are required everyday...once freedom is taken for granted our childrens' death is the price to pay.

Namaste

As a boomer born in 1954, I grew up in that shadow of greatness that these men and women acheived in saving the world in WWII. In 1972, I joined the 101st and served as a paratrooper to try to keep their heroics alive and to try, in some small way, albeit impossible, to be a little like them. In 1974, at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, I was forunate enough to meet many of these great men on the 30th anniversary of the invasion.

In 2004, on the 60th anniversary, I visited, with three others, the Normandy beaches. One need only walk through the American cemetary there to understand the breadth of their sacrifice. On that trip, I met many surviving veterans and not one felt that they did more than just their simple duty to their country. There is not a more apt description for these individuals than Tom Brokaw's "Greatest Generation". Surely no one gave more to save our way of life.

We must never forget that sacrifice and teach our children and their children the stories of what these brave souls accomplished that cold gray morning in northern France and, more importantly, that those freedoms that we all too often take for granted have come at a very dear price.

God bless every soldier, living and gone, who participated in the D Day landings and WWII.

Seeing the movies is usually enough to guarantee respect for the valor of the men who stormed the beaches. But then to actually see the cemeteries at Normandy (and elsewhere), and all the grave markers, was truly a moving experience. RIP.

Too many of our brave soldiers drowned before reaching the beach because they were so overloaded with equipment. Indeed, some survived getting to the beach only after discarding much of their gear to allow them to swim, float, run and generally maneuver more easily. When some left the Higgins landing craft, they dropped into water over their heads, instantly bobbing upside down, because of the weight of the equipment, to drown. While Eisenhower always said the Higgins boats won the war, they afforded little protection for the troops. On Normandy, once the ramps were lowered, many soldiers were mowed down before leaving the craft by pre-sighted enemy beach guns. Military planners shamefully erred by not having less individual equipment load, more armor on the Higgins craft and with rear ramps. As it were, too many of our young soldiers were sacrificed, doomed to die before ever reaching the beach. After spending the last night of their lives on the safety of ships, imagine what went through their minds just before the ramps fell to a Normandy hell! What bravery for America and, sadly, too many younger generations today do not have a clue of what it really was like D-Day and how so many of our guys died horrible deaths.

I think i will watch "Band of Brothers" this weekend.

My 85-year old father landed on Sword beach--the British & Canadian forces landed on Gold, Juno & Sword beaches, north of Utah & Omaha beaches where US forces landed. He arrived at 5 a.m. in his Sherman tank, equipped with a flail which was a rotating drum attached to the front of the tank which lashed the beach with chains, thus exploding anti-personnel mines. Note the invasion was scheduled to begin at 6 a.m. but he had this job to do on the beach before the troops got off the landing craft. He was a member of the 22nd Dragoons, and attached to the 79th Armoured Division (and no, that's not a typo--that's the English spelling of Armored). His unit was led by Montgomery, who had offered the services of the Flail tanks to US forces but had been told they wouldn't be needed at the US beaches. On D-Day his unit reached the outskirts of Caan, but had to be recalled as they were in danger of being encircled by Rommel's Tiger tanks. It took them several weeks to get back to Caan. At the end of the day on June 6, his unit was somewhat perplexed to find there was no location for them to gather & re-group. It was discovered that they were expected to be 100% casualties. Fortunately, they lost few men that day and so I'm here today to tell the story. Dad's still in England, and 15 years ago we re-enacted storming the beach, but now he's just too old to do it again. In 1944 the "flail" was considered too "experimental" to work by many establishment officers, but it did work, and saved troops lives on the British beaches. It was not until we arrived in the USA in 1963 that my father discovered why his American Sherman tank had a French engine. Who knew Chevrolet was an American brand? Certainly no one in England. Still, come Saturday I'm sure dad will shed a tear or two for comrades lost--forevery young men in his memory. He spent his 21st birthday in a slit trench near the Maginot line. I won't forget his stories, and we're already passing them along to my grandsons.

My father was assigned to the 316^th Troop Carrier Group, and they dropped the 82^nd Airborne during the early morning hours of June 6, 1944 under Operation Overlord. Their drop time was H-Hour - 6, which translates to dropping the Airborne 6 hours before the D-Day Beach Invasion. The Group flew a re-supply on D-Day + 3, and on D-Day + 9, where they landed on a temporary landing strip just behind the beach bringing in medical supplies and whole blood, and transported wounded soldiers out. For this, he was awarded the Air Medal. For reference, the Air Medal is awarded to any person who, while serving in any capacity in or with the Armed Forces of the United States, shall have distinguished himself/herself by meritorious achievement while participating in aerial flight.

I am still blessed to have my father - he turns 87 years old today! We owe our freedom to these veterans, and I'm proud to be my father's daughter.

I am speaking of my father whom is alive at 84 but still has his memories of D-Day. USS Doyle ran along the shore line before the invasion and fired on pill boxes, to soften up these positions. It has been a story I grew up with along with photos of that day, I look at most of the movies and think how it must have really been and am proud of that generation. I hope we never forget the whole idea of an invasion and what it took to get on shore....

My dad was 19 when he landed on Omaha Beach on D-day +1, he was captured a couple of weeks later and spent the rest of the war as a pow.  Dad does not like to talk about what happened, I have been able to get a few stories from a little prodding.  I can't imagine being 19 years old and being thrown into hell on earth.  There is not enough thank yous to cover what these men and women did for our freedom.  My dad is now 84 and in failing health and I am thankful for each day that I have with him.......he is my hero. 

God Bless them and we owe them all our thanks for the life we have today. I just do not think we should be going around the world and pleasing our enemy's the way we are today. this to me is a sign of weakness shames us.

My father landed on Utah beach ear;y on the morning of the 7th. He was awarded the Bronze Star and also fought in the Battle of the Bulge. Never did he speak of the horrors we all know he lived. We live in The Land of the Free BECAUSE of The Brave. May God Bless them and every man and woman who ever served our nation.

God bless all solders past and present. Its not the war they remember but their friends they left behind. My heart cries out pain and sorrow for all the loses. WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam, Desert storm I and II, And the present wars in Iraq and afganastan and other uknown battles that we know nothing about, fought by brave young men far from their mothers breast. May God protect them and comfort them in their times of need and if they should die in battle may they be accepted into heaven as the keepers of peace they are and know eternal peace.

I wasn't around then, but thank God for those men who were and did that mission. That day changed the world.

My father Jim Schulze was in the first or second wave onto Omaha beach. He really didn't like to talk about the war very much, but decades later before he died he told me what it was like and it was almost eactly like the landing depiction in "Saving Private Ryan". He said the bullets were so thick that you could actually see them. As in the movie when the ramp went down all the soldiers in front were killed immediatyely and he jumped over the side with his BAR rifle and crawled to shore with his head barley above water so he wouldn't get shot. Years after his death and the movie came out there was a picture of a soldier, in a time magazine article showing him crawling ashore with just his face and helmet visible. That image was my father and it floored me and all my family. He was 23 years old at the time and made it through the war in one piece, but there were only 7 men left out of his original company at the end of the war. Yes they were all brave and all subsequent generations owe a great deal to this finest generation that made our country what it is today. God Bless them all.

When you consider the importance of that invasion on the history of the world (Hitler, the Holocaust, etc.), what jumps out is the critical importance of luck and planning.

      GOOD LUCK: #1) Rommel had said he thought the first 6-12 hours of any D-Day invasion of Europe would determine the fate of the war: Stop them on the beaches, or lose the war, basically. He had done a pretty effective job of creating barricades along the Atlantic coast of northern France, but he believed the key was to be able to throw in the Panzer divisions asap after an invasion, and slaughter the Allies on the beaches. His superior officer disagreed, believing the Panzers were too vulnerable to air attacks on the beaches; he wanted to hold them in reserve. A major battle between the generals ensued over who had command-control of the tanks. Hitler intervened, and personally took control of the tanks. No one could move them without his permission.  Here is how luck intervened in those critical first few hours: Hitler was famous among the generals and his staff for taking sleeping pills, and for chewing out whoever woke him early without cause. When the invasion started, the Allied counter-intelligence had tricked the Germans into believing Normandy was but a feint, that the real invasion was coming in Calais. So, no one woke Hitler UNTIL ALMOST NOON, and the Panzers sat idly by during the crucial first 12 hours.

    #2) After looking at the weather reports on June 5th, Rommel decided the weather was too rough for an invasion for the next couple of days. So, he made a last-minute decision to take his wife to Paris to celebrate her 50th birthday. When the invasion started, it took hours for Rommel to be notified, and hours more for him to proceed to Normandy. Those hours were crucial. Perhaps Rommel would have woken Hitler and sent in the Panzers to destroy the landings on Omaha, Sword, Gold and Juno beaches.

    #3) UTAH BEACH: The Allies accidentally landed further north than they intended on Utah Beach, which was lucky because the site they had chosen was secretly much more heavily fortified. At 0610, Brig.Gen. Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. was the first general to land on shore, perhaps on the very first Allied landing craft of the day, saw the mistake and realized its advantage. He sent word back to all the ships, "We'll start the war right here." Utah turned out to be probably the easiest landing, and the troops poured ashore.

    BAD LUCK: #1) OMAHA BEACH was a disaster several ways over. Photographs in late spring led the Allies to believe this would be the easiest of the beaches. However, Rommel built some of the toughest bunkers and gun-placements on the Atlantic here -- at the point of the deepest, widest beaches in Normandy, meaning the soldiers had to cross wide-open spaces in the face of heavy gun fire, manned by a recently added entire division of well-reseted, battle-tested veterans. This was one of the very toughest beaches on the Atlantic. Although both the Navy and the bombers were supposed to have heavily blasted both the beaches and any bunkers, they missed by several miles -- because of the cloud cover and rain. The bad weather also churned heavy seas -- which meant over 2/3's of the amphibious tanks needed to clear the beaches sank before hitting land, leaving the few men and tanks that did land as sitting ducks. Omaha was where the most troops and material were to be pushed ashore -- and it was a disaster zone, the worst of all the D-Day beaches.

     GOOD LUCK: #4) The Navy had been ordered to stop blasting and pull back when the soldiers hit the beach at Omaha. However, upon witnessing the slaughter of troops, several destroyers risked running aground, sailed in close to shore, lowered their guns and fired at point-blank range, destroying almost half the German's big guns -- all while disobeying orders. This gave the soldiers the respite to attack, which they did.

    GOOD LUCK: #5) General Norman Cota of the Rangers landed at Omaha at 0730, and saw all the men pinned down on the wide, wide beaches, being slaughtered by the 85 machine gun nests, 35 pillboxes and more. He quickly abandoned their preconceived battle plan, and decided they had to storm the bluffs directly. Repeatedly standing over his men, urging all the soldiers to rise up, run or die on the beaches, he somehow luckily missed being hit, while men all around were killed. Gen. Cota famously yelled out, "Rangers, lead the way!" And they did. The Rangers and their general, covered by Navy destroyers disobeying orders, led the charge that overtook the Germans on Omaha Beach. Cota's phrase is now the Rangers' official motto.

    All in all, good luck and bad luck piled up, as the bodies did, with probably the fate of the landing decided within the first 6 hours of landing. By noon, the Allies had their foothold on the continent -- and they poured in the supplies and men needed to win the war.

There is no possible way to adequately thank those veterans who protected our lives and our freedom! There is no possible way to fully understand the sacrifices made by these truly heroic people - many of which were killed before even being old enough to legally drink!

There is a reason they are called the "Greatest Generation"

If you know a WWII veteran, or happen to come across one in your daily travels, please take 5 seconds out of your day to shake their hand and thank them for their heroic service to our country! It's the LEAST we can do to show our appreciation!

I am a history buff who helped a Utah Beach vet edit his memoirs. When you consider the importance of that invasion on the history of the world (Hitler, the Holocaust, etc.), what jumps out is the critical importance of luck and the clever leadership and initiative of the Allied forces.

GOOD LUCK: #1) Rommel had said he thought the first 6-12 hours of any D-Day invasion of Europe would determine the fate of the war: Stop them on the beaches, or lose the war, basically. He had done a pretty effective job of creating bunkers, barricades and more along the Atlantic coast of northern France, but he believed the key was to be able to throw in the Panzer divisions asap after an invasion, and slaughter the Allies on the beaches. His superior officer disagreed, believing the Panzers were too vulnerable to air attacks on the beaches; he wanted to hold them in reserve. A major battle between the generals ensued over who had command-control of the tanks. Hitler intervened, personally taking control of the tanks. No one could move them without Hitler's personal permission. Here is how luck intervened in those critical first few hours: Hitler was famous among the generals and his staff for taking sleeping pills, and for chewing out whoever woke him early without cause. When the invasion started, the Allied counter-intelligence had tricked the Germans into believing Normandy was but a feint, that the real invasion was coming in Calais. Hitler had been up late the night before, and took a heavy dose of sleeping pills. So, no one woke Hitler UNTIL ALMOST NOON, and the Panzers sat idly by during the crucial first 12 hours.

#2) After looking at the weather reports on June 5th, Rommel decided the weather was too rough for an invasion for the next couple of days. So, he made a last-minute decision to take his wife to Paris to celebrate her 50th birthday. When the invasion started, it took hours for Rommel to be notified, and hours more for him to proceed to Normandy. Those hours were crucial. Perhaps Rommel would have woken Hitler and sent in the Panzers to destroy the landings on Omaha, Sword, Gold and Juno beaches.

#3) UTAH BEACH: The Allies accidentally landed further north than they intended on Utah Beach, which was lucky because the site they had chosen was secretly much more heavily fortified. At 0610, Brig.Gen. Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. was the first general to land on shore, perhaps on the very first Allied landing craft of the day, saw the mistake and realized its advantage. He sent word back to all the ships, "We'll start the war right here." Utah turned out to be probably the easiest landing, and the troops poured ashore.

BAD LUCK: #1) OMAHA BEACH was a disaster several ways over. Photographs in late spring led the Allies to believe this would be the easiest of the beaches. However, Rommel built some of the toughest bunkers and gun-placements on the Atlantic here -- at the point of the deepest, widest beaches in Normandy, meaning the soldiers had to cross wide-open spaces in the face of heavy gun fire, manned by a recently added entire division of well-reseted, battle-tested veterans. This was one of the very toughest beaches on the Atlantic. Although both the Navy and the bombers were supposed to have heavily blasted both the beaches and any bunkers, they missed by several miles -- because of the cloud cover and rain. The bad weather also churned heavy seas -- which meant over 2/3's of the amphibious tanks needed to clear the beaches sank before hitting land, leaving the few men and tanks that did land as sitting ducks. Omaha was where the most troops and material were to be pushed ashore -- and it was a disaster zone, the worst of all the D-Day beaches.

GOOD LUCK: #4) The Navy had been ordered to stop blasting and pull back when the soldiers hit the beach at Omaha. However, upon witnessing the slaughter of troops, several destroyers risked running aground, sailed in close to shore, lowered their guns and fired at point-blank range, destroying almost half the German's big guns -- all while disobeying orders. This gave the soldiers the respite to attack, which they did.

GOOD LUCK: #5) General Norman Cota of the Rangers landed at Omaha at 0730, and saw all the men pinned down on the wide, wide beaches, being slaughtered by the 85 machine gun nests, 35 pillboxes and more. He quickly abandoned their preconceived battle plan, and decided they had to storm the bluffs directly. Repeatedly standing over his men, urging all the soldiers to rise up, run or die on the beaches, he somehow luckily missed being hit, while men all around were killed. Gen. Cota famously yelled out, "Rangers, lead the way!" And they did. The Rangers and their general, covered by Navy destroyers disobeying orders, led the charge that overtook the Germans on Omaha Beach. Cota's phrase is now the Rangers' official motto.

All in all, good luck and bad luck piled up, as the bodies did, with probably the fate of the landing decided within the first 6 hours of landing. By noon, the Allies had their foothold on the continent -- and they poured in the supplies and men needed to win the war.