DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Everything Else... Commemorating D-Day

Today is the 81st anniversary of D-Day. 73,000 Allied forces were killed and 153,000 wounded. The battle — and especially Allied bombings of French villages and cities — killed around 20,000 French civilians between June and August 1944.

As a nation we should never forget those who gave their lives in this invasion to free France from the Nazis and begin the process of freeing Europe. May we remember the founding of NATO which has kept major foreign aggression at bay since 1945.

I cannot imagine what those brave men felt as they realized that they were walking into a horrible meat grinder .... seeing men to the right and left of them, in front and behind them, dying as soon as they emerged from their craft. Their bravery should never be forgotten.

I’ve read that veterans thought the Omaha Beach scene in Saving Private Ryan was very accurate. Many vets were interviewed by the screenwriters before the movie was made.

I still find that scene hard to watch but I alway do.

Your thread made me curious. Call me a Canadian homer but according to Wiki:


“Across Juno Beach and the battles inland that day, 340 Canadians were killed, 574 wounded, and another 47 taken prisoner by the Germans. These terrible losses were only exceeded by the Americans at Omaha. Despite the high losses, the Canadians advanced further inland than any other troops that day.Jun 6, 2024”

James Doohan, who played Mr Scott on Star Trek, was shot 6 times and lost a finger during the D-Day landings.

Gold, Sword, Juno and Utah all went “better” (hate to use that word) than Omaha, in large part due to the bombing that had been done beforehand. There was a lot of cloud cover. Some of the pilots dipped below the clouds which put them in harm’s way but made it easier for them to see and hit their targets (German fortifications). The pilots flying over Omaha stayed above the clouds. They were safer but missed a lot of their targets leaving the guys on the ground more exposed to better, in-tact defenses when the Germans rolled in.

I was at Omaha Beach last summer with my family a week after the 80th. I highly recommend it to anyone. A lot of the trenches and pill boxes are still there and you can walk through them. I would describe the area as “deafeningly serene.”