Wednesday, June 6, 2012

After the storm of D-Day comes the peace

Too many things on my mind made me totally forget that on this day in June 1944, Allied forces comprising British, American, Canadian and many others took part in the great push that was potentially, make or break for winning or losing the war.

I have stood in the circular cinema in Arromanches and watched the newsreel footage, so dramatic, so terrible and, at the same time, a wonderful tribute to human sacrifice.

I cannot imagine what it must have been like to leap off a landing craft into an uncertain depth of water and then face the machine gun and shell fusillade from the German held cliff tops.

Thousands did and lived to tell the tale while thousands more fell before they even reached the beaches.


We owe them all a great debt and this clip is refreshing inasmuch that it features the beaches of Normandy as they are today........empty of troops but littered with remnants and memorabilia of the fight and, above all, peaceful.

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