Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Remembering D Day

Tomorrow marks the anniversay of the assault on the beaches of Normandy. Many of us have connections to that fateful day. To those who hit the beach and are still with us, I will lift a glass in your honor. To those who didn't make it off the beach, or have passed away since then, I will have you in my thoughts tomorrow for sure.

My connection is through my father. Dad went in on the first wave, leading a rifle company. He was lucky enough to get landed on the wrong chunk of beach, and where he went in was lightly defended. Two tanks dug in on the back side of a rail bed down on the beach. A naval artillery spotter went in with him and after a little trial and error, had big shells placed directly on top of the tanks by naval gunfire. Dad's unit's mission had been to take an airfield near the bluffs. They got up on top and found the airfield by seeing British planes landing on it. It had been taken by another unit. They figured out Dad's unit went in about 10 miles from where they were supposed to have hit the beach.

It's very saddening to see how fast our WWII vets are dying off. Old age has a nasty habit of catching up to everyone. My heartfelt thanks to all our vets, and all members of America's Greatest Generation who sacrificed so much in so many ways so we can be free today.

amen

Every year I recall all the people I've known that participated in D Day. Quite a few although they are all gone now. My dad was one of them, but didn't go ashore. He was aboard a light cruiser that was tasked with shelling some German gun emplacements. At first light on D Day from where his ship was there was the invasion fleet stretching as far as the eye could see. He was still a teenager at the time...... 19; just like so many other participants of that operation.

I am going on a cruise in 2 weeks and on June 25, I will be taking a tour of Omaha Beach and Normandy. It will be a somber occasion...

My late father-in-law was in the airborne. Most of what he experienced went untold. He had stories to tell, but took them to the grave.
A neighbor was a glider trooper. He and his wife had to get separate beds because of his violent nightmares, and this continued until the end of his life.
We can never imagine what these heroes endured.

My best friend landed at Omaha on D +14. By then, the beaches were all mopped up. He was in a machine gun squad- M1917, and managed to see his first action in the hedgerows. What he remembered the most was the stench. Until you got right up to the front, you had pretty much non-stop dead stuff--dead Germans, dead cows, dead horses. The closer you got to the action, dead flesh was replaced with the smells of burnt flesh. You could kind of gauge how far away you were from the action by the smell.

I remember two stories from this time. The first was when John pulled guard duty one night. He was up close to a hedge when he heard the sound of a bolt of an MP-40 slam shut, just on the other side of the hedge. He carefully backed away and got the hell out of there. In 1995, I was with him on a trip to visit relatives in Michigan. The goofy cousin was a bit of a gun nut. He came up behind John with a recently-acquired MP-40 and shut the bolt. John went flying out of the chair and turned white. The cousin thought it was a fun practical joke. That was the last time John visited those relatives.

The other story comes from the fact that John was part of one of those "Genius Battalions." He had scored high on his aptitude tests so they put him into a high-intelligence group of similar high scorers. He had basic in Georgia and then all of a sudden, the Army changed its mind and sent them all to England for the Invasion. John was still in with a lot smart people. He had two life-long friends from Basic that were in his same unit. Both guys survived the war and went on to earn PhD's in Physics. John remarked that these were the only two infantrymen he met who carried sliderules into combat. These two guys relieved their boredom by calculating air burst tables for the M7 Rifle Grenade. They used the grenade like a mortar and could drop it on the other side of a hedgerow. They'd go out together and find Germans and drop a grenade or two on them. The CO made them stop, because the Germans always thought it was a mortar barrage and would call in counter-battery fire with real mortars and artillery.

We have a church member that took part in the D-Day invasion. He is the most respected man in the community. Very classy and very humble.

They are old men now, if they are alive.
I never stop thinking about their contribution/ 365

It’s a crying shame schools no longer teach what Americans have sacrificed for this country and way of life. Hasbeen

Father-in-law 'celebrated' his 20th birthday by landing on Omaha Beach. Sixth wave. A friend was on a Mulberry. I also knew one man who was at Pearl Harbor.

My family doctor, when I was a kid, parachuted in on D-Day.

All of them are gone now.

Here's a 97 year old vet of Normandy doing it again near Carentan, France. He was with the 101st Airborne during the invasion. He said he got a bullet through his chute and it was the worst jump he's ever made.
PARATROOPS

That right there is awesome

That is fantastic. Thanks for posting that. God bless those men and that whole generation. I doubt we will ever see there like again.

GrandDad was there. He never talked about it. Not even once.

i just finished a really good book:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07FTS1BFQ/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i1




It's D-Day told by the guy who helped get the Mulberry docks floated and towed to the beaches. This was far from just another D-Day book.

My grandpa was part of the first wave on Omaha beach. He was awarded the silver star for his actions that day. The right up states that he advanced the beach to take out an enemy pill box and was stabbed by the enemy by a bayonet. I never talked about it until the last few years of his life and even then very little was said. All real men there that day.

I had a great uncle who was in the second wave. He said only himself and 6 others from his LCI made it off the beach. He said the German muzzle flashes on the bluff looked like twinkling Christmas lights and that about every 30 seconds it occurred to him “Wow I haven’t been killed yet!” He was a machine gunner and later a company runner.

He was shot in the leg during the hedgerow fighting around Percy, not expected to return to action, and then went awol from a replacement depot in October to get back to his unit.

I’ve got the musette bag he carried from D-Day to home, a kraut bayonet, and some other trinkets, as well as a luger from a guy he killed.

We can never forget these guys and must steward our knowledge of them to our children.

My BIL's Father was with the Navy at Omaha, serving on an LST.

My Dad's Brother died at Carentan during the operation to take that town.

He should be.

We owe everything we've ever had or known to these men.


Literally.

Lots of vets wouldn't talk about it. My uncle was at Tarawa. We have no idea what all happened because he would never say a word about. One of his buddies told his son, my cousin, than Unc got a bronze star. However, I've never been able to find it in the naval records of that battle. We just will never know.