the longest day: Eighty years ago, these veterans counted their life expectancy in minutes
Today, Among those greeting President Biden, who was 18 months old on D-Day, was 99-year-old Staff Sergeant George Mullins, of the 101st Airborne. He landed on Utah Beach in a glider and fought through Europe for 11 months until he reached Hitler’s eagle’s nest in Berchtesgaden, Germany.
Our Fathers took up the battle against radical totalitarian fanatism in New Guinea, on the Solomon Islands as well in Italy, Frence, and North African.
Take a moment for Our Fathers
My dad took part in the Dieppe raid much earlier in WWII. According to Wikipedia, lessons learned during that debacle were useful in the decision making in the D-Day landing…although “lessons learned” during times of war strikes me as something of an oxymoron. Lessons are rarely…if ever…learned/acted upon.
I saw on my hometown’s Facebook page that the town really pushed the boat out…with a handful of seriously old oldsters who must’ve served during WWII
I just watched several History channel episodes about D-Day. LOTS of lessons learned were detailed. Just one that I’ll note. Key parts of France were covered with hedge rows that slowed the progress. Someone discovered that if you welded a set of steel wedges on the front of a tank you could plow right through them rather than getting stuck or flipped up exposing the soft underbelly. Conveniently the Germans had left plenty of steel on the beaches (as barriers) and as the tanks were brought ashore they could modified right there. The majority of tanks were modified.