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D Day…let’s not be like France
Posted by Raven on June 6th, 2005
61 years ago today, the Allies began the invasion of Normandy. Never forget, like France has.
We awakened at two o’clock in the morning on June 6th. This was my twenty-first mission, and take-off was at 4:20 in the morning. It was still dark. A steady rain was falling and we could hardly see to taxi, much less fly. But there was no holding back and we poured on the coals, taking off at twenty-second intervals between shifts.
By the time we cleared the end of the runway, we could barely see the lights of the airplane ahead of us. We climbed on instruments, and when we broke out on top of the cloud bank, we could see B-26s and all kinds of other airplanes circling around, and it was really a beautiful sight.
By following prearranged signals, we tacked onto our squadron leader and subsequently were on our way across the Channel. We were part of the spearhead of the invasion, entering the coast of France near Cherbourg over Utah Beach. Our targets were coastal guns and blockhouses along the beach, which we were to hit in collaboration with shelling by naval vessels. We were among the very first aircraft to hit the invasion target.
As we moved in toward the beaches, we could see an armada of invasion vessels in the channel below us, their courses converging toward the several invasion beaches. I had the surging feeling that I was sitting in on the greatest show ever staged — one that would make world history. As we flew nearer to the target, that feeling increased to exhilaration and excitement, for it was truly a magnificent operation. We saw hundreds upon hundreds of ships below, moving toward the coast of France, and when we approached the target area, we could see the big naval guns shelling the coast…
Check out this site for lots of good images as well as written and oral histories of this day.
June 6th, 2005 at 8:06 am
Awesome post! Never forget.
June 6th, 2005 at 8:30 am
I love the headline: “Let’s not be like France.” A model of understatement.
June 6th, 2005 at 8:35 am
Tsar of Uncouth Youth
Today’s dose of NIF – News, Interesting & Funny … Welcome to yet another Monday
June 6th, 2005 at 9:22 pm
Wavemaker…LOL France forgets it’s own history nevermind our’s. It’s why they are the way they are.
June 6th, 2005 at 11:34 pm
Thank you for that article. My husband’s grandfather gave his life that day, so that we could live in a world free from the tyranny of Nazi’s and other such criminal governments.
June 7th, 2005 at 5:20 am
I don’t think the French matter: Those weasels can be swallowed by an earthquake, reconquered by Germany or, if there’s any sound thinking in Euroland, France can become a nuclear waste dump.
They simply don’t count, and if they did it would be as an enemy of the U.S.
When they had that major heat spell three summers ago, where over 10,000 senior citizens died, largely in part due to the assininity of the French healthcare system(thank God Arafat got into that, signing on for his own demise), a great right thinking French blogger known as the Dissident Frogman made the observation that the French had managed to kill off all the Frenchmen who might remember what we did for them in WW II.