Note: A "bump" from 2008.
All day today the History Channel had several programs (three, I think, repeated) on D-Day. It's one of the most important days of the 20th century and arguably the most important of the war. It's a wonder the death toll wasn't much higher, almost a "perfect storm" towards success.
Churchill had all hospitals emptied because he feared the worst and according to one program, told his wife before she went to bed that night that "when you wake up, 20,000 men may have died while you slept."
There was Ike's decision to postpone the invasion for one day and immediately after the landings, the weather turned impossible again, absolutely no chance of postponing it again.
There was something like 5000 bombers that dropped their bombs well inland, killing nothing but cows and scaring only French farmers out of their warm beds.
There was Rommel, taking off for his wife's birthday because he thought there was no way the allies would attack in such weather and low tides.
Hitler was asleep and no one else could give the order to move the Panzers forward.
The paratroopers were dropped all over the place, far from the intended drop zones....so many things that could've led to defeat.
The only thing I can attribute the ultimate victory to is the Hand of God.
I have a cartoon strip saved, but cannot find it to scan and post. I don't even remember what the normally funny and light-hearted strip was, but it was in '94, the 50th anniversary. A boy was asking his mother why the butcher looked so sad today and she told him he remembered his buddies who died that day 50 years ago and how he had to wade through their blood to get to the beach. To be honest, it made me tear up then and still does at this moment, thinking about all of those brave young men.
Do you remember then-President Clinton on Omaha Beach during the ceremony that year? That was when he was walking along the beach and when he saw the cameras on him, he quickly kneeled down in the sand and made a cross with some rocks. Whatever little respect I had left for him disappeared in that moment because I knew why he was doing it, not out of respect for the fallen, but merely for a photo-op.
I feel guilty bringing him up in a thread devoted to REAL heroes, God Bless them all.
God Bless US all.
