Eighty years ago, as of Wednesday, June 6th, 2024, the Allied landings on the beaches of Normandy started as part of Operation Overlord. This was the beginning of the turning point in WWII against the fascists. Even the youngest veterans from that operation, those who were underage at the time, are pushing 100.
- Army Times, WWII vet says 'greatest generation' fits because 'we saved the world'
Now, he proudly lays claim to being part of "The Greatest Generation."
"Because we saved the world," he said.
He has made the trip back to France before but says his return this year for the 80th anniversary of D-Day is special for the people of Europe, and for himself.
- France 24, Juno Beach, where locals honour the memory of Canadian D-Day veterans
More than 14,000 volunteer soldiers from across Canada – fighting alongside British and US troops – seized the beaches of Normandy on D-Day to help liberate the region from German occupation. Eighty years since that fatal day in June 1944, a handful of local inhabitants have made it their mission to preserve and pass on the lesser-known stories of Canadian soldiers.
- Reuters, D-Day: What to expect from 80th anniversary in Normandy
Veterans and world leaders will meet in Normandy, northwestern France, on June 6 to mark the 80th anniversary of the 1944 D-Day landings, when more than 150,000 Allied soldiers invaded France to drive out the forces of Nazi Germany.
Eighty years later, Normandy's beaches and fields still bear the scars of the fighting that erupted on D-Day, history's largest amphibious invasion.
- VOA, American veterans being honored in France at 80th anniversary of D-Day
"I know my brother and I never looked at it as we were any kind of heroes, nothing like that," Margol said recently of himself and his twin brother Howard, who served with him. "It was just our time. That we were asked to serve. And we did."
- US News, A Mass Parachute Jump Over Normandy Kicks off Commemorations for the 80th Anniversary of D-Day
On Sunday, three C-47 transport planes, a workhorse of the war, dropped three long strings of jumpers, their round chutes mushrooming open in the blue skies with puffy white clouds, to whoops from the huge crowd that was regaled by tunes from Glenn Miller and Edith Piaf as they waited.
- RTL, Normandy: As war again shakes Europe, leaders mark 80 years since D-Day
Western leaders will this week mark on the beaches of northern France 80 years since Allied troops surged into Nazi occupied Europe in the World War II D-Day landings, haunted by the war again raging on the continent as Ukraine battles Russian invasion.
- VOA, US veterans get heroes' welcome in France ahead of D-Day anniversary
Many of those flying in over the weekend into Monday were older than 100, pushed on wheelchairs by relatives and aides.
"It's unreal. It's unreal. Wow," 107-year-old Reynolds Tomter said at Paris Charles-de-Gaulle airport as students waved U.S. and French flags and held up photos of the veterans.
- Army Times, Black medic who saved dozens on D-Day posthumously honored
"The tide brought us in, and that's when the 88s hit us," he said of the German 88mm guns. "They were murder. Of our 26 Navy personnel there was only one left. They raked the whole top of the ship and killed all the crew. Then they started with the mortar shells," Woodson said.
Woodson was wounded while still on the landing craft. But for the next 30 hours he treated 200 wounded men all while under intense small arms and artillery fire before collapsing from his injuries and blood loss, according to accounts of his service. At the time he was awarded the Bronze Star.
- Christian Science Monitor, Near 80th anniversary of D-Day, British women recognized for their non-combat roles in the Allied forces
As the 80th anniversary of D-Day approaches on June 6, hundreds of thousands of women who worked behind the scenes in crucial non-combat jobs for the Allied forces are finally getting the recognition they deserve.
- Brattleboro Reformer, Centenarian veterans are sharing their memories of D-Day, 80 years later
Few witnesses remain who remember the Allied assault. The Associated Press is speaking to veterans about their role in freeing Europe from the Nazis, and what messages they have for younger generations.
- Brattleboro Reformer, The last WWII vets converge on Normandy for D-Day and fallen friends and to cement their legacy
Veterans of World War II, many of them centenarians and likely returning to France for one last time, pilgrimaged Tuesday to what was the bloodiest of five Allied landing beaches on June 6, 1944. They remembered fallen friends. They relived horrors they experienced in combat. They blessed their good fortune for surviving. And they mourned those who paid the ultimate price.
They also bore a message for generations behind them, who owe them so much: Don't forget what we did.
- New York Times, D-Day's 80th Anniversary Might Be the Last for Many WWII Veterans
It is 80 years since the Allied invasion of Normandy, and the average age of veterans hovers at 100. Once they are gone, how will their sacrifices be remembered?
Please add additional links in the comments below.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 06, @03:57PM (6 children)
Only posting AC because an ideal I absorbed from my father's generation is that basking in glorly, particularly somebody else's is not what you do. There was none of that "thank you for your service" stuff back then. People were *expected* to serve, and looked upon poorly if they didn't.
All my healthy older relatives on both sides contributed. My grandmother was a "Rosie", although she didn't actually rivet.
All of them came back, except for one--a man of 30 on my father's side, the uncle I never met. The circumstances of his death were never disclosed to me. I suspect it was either horrific or prosaic. Perhaps he was cut to pieces by an explosion, bled out from shrapnel, or picked off by a lucky shot from some nazi who got him when he thought he was safe but wasn't. I'll never know. He was KIA several weeks after the invasion.
RIP, my uncle.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 06, @04:04PM (3 children)
I have an aunt whose father was in Bomb Disposal in the British Army. He survived the hostilities but died from an unexploded bomb very shortly after the war had been won. A particularly brave man, and a tragic loss.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by janrinok on Thursday June 06, @06:36PM
He was still fighting his war. He has my utmost respect.
I am not interested in knowing who people are or where they live. My interest starts and stops at our servers.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 07, @09:03AM (1 child)
A late acquaintance was just a little too young to serve in WWII, as expected/obligated. Yet the war still got him. After the war, he and his friends were in the woods and he stepped on a mine which blew off his balls and knee caps while killing the two friends next to him.
There are still a lot of old munitions about. Here are examples about Germany and the UK, but other countries are affected:
https://www.dw.com/en/who-disarms-germanys-wwii-bombs/a-49452146 [dw.com]
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/10000-people-were-evacuated-because-of-an-unexploded-wwii-bomb-180983871/ [smithsonianmag.com]
Every few months there are reports around Europe of construction teams finding old munitions from WWII. In the general region where I was living at the time, 20+ years ago, some kids found some old grenades or such and brought them back to their apartment complex, which then had to be evacuated.
WWII was before depleted uranium ...
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 08, @02:09AM
"Frankfurt police announced late on Friday that a World War II bomb discovered at Frankfurt Airport had been successfully detonated.
The phosphorus bomb was discovered during construction work around the new Terminal 3."
https://www.dw.com/en/wwii-bomb-at-frankfurt-airport-detonated-safely/a-69305742 [dw.com]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by janrinok on Thursday June 06, @07:15PM
I am not interested in knowing who people are or where they live. My interest starts and stops at our servers.
(Score: 2) by driverless on Thursday June 06, @08:49PM
For anyone reading about D-day, here's the soundtrack to accompany it [youtube.com].
(Score: 5, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Thursday June 06, @04:17PM (2 children)
My grandparents (all four) were born and raised in Tennessee on family farms of roughly 200 to 400 acres, with too many siblings to practically divide the farms into sustainable livings for them to have families of their own.
My grandfathers both served, relatively safe rear area assignments, and after the war they all relocated to Florida to work dual income basic trades (mechanic, hairdresser, security guard, teacher) have two children each, modest 3 bedroom suburban houses and send their children to University to get degrees, work as dual income teachers, have their own two children in their own 3-2 suburban house, send their children to University,..
Our perspective on US society post D-Day was roughly 40 years of remarkable stability. Dad was lucky enough to not be drafted for Vietnam. His less lucky schoolmates came back seriously disturbed, when they came back at all.
The 40 years since then have been a relative shit show full of substance abuse / addiction issues, economic bifurcation: half the family barely makes enough to survive, the other half has more than they need... Children with significant developmental disabilities... These things all existed before D-Day, but were much less prevalent, in our experience, during the 1945-1985 timeframe.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by canopic jug on Thursday June 06, @05:42PM (1 child)
These things all existed before D-Day, but were much less prevalent, in our experience, during the 1945-1985 timeframe.
The general draft ended in the US the early 1970s but it seems to have picked up again by the mid 1980s with the economic equivalent: Since then the US has more or less had an economic draft. While I would say that a year of obligatory national service would be a very good thing, even with non-military options for service, it would have to be for everyone not just certain economic classes.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday June 06, @08:49PM
We know several (white) military career families who net approximately four times my single income. I know several (white) ex military who make roughly double my single income for relatively easy work in the private sector. I'm not saying that brown people can't make big bucks from the military, just that from my exposure it appears easier for Anglos to rise through the ranks.
I also have two white neighbors who are Gulf War II vets with varying degrees of PTSD, physical injury in the line of duty, alcoholism and one Meth addiction. One has a working wife and three kids living something like a median income lifestyle, and the physically injured meth addict and his GF seem to live even more frugally on his disability check.
The US military has been an economic opportunity for lots of people, but not every applicant is accepted.
I do think that a year (with easy option to extend to two) of civil service, military and non military options, would be a good thing for US society, but with today's mess of home schooling, high school dropouts, and heterogenous post secondary education, it would be a challenge to transition to every single citizen doing some kind of civil service somewhere in the 18 to 23 age range.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 5, Interesting) by janrinok on Thursday June 06, @06:09PM (2 children)
I had uncles who took part in the D-Day landings (and survived), and other family members who died fighting elsewhere.
It is amazing to see the respect and gratitude of French people today for all those who took part in the 2nd World War, and particularly those involved with the Allied liberation of France. From school children to a few remaining resistance fighters, and everyone in between, they know what was involved and they remain grateful. Every town and village celebrates its own liberation day. I have not witnessed anything like this in any other country.
Perhaps we who have never lived in an occupied country will understand the feelings that those who have now share. The words liberty and freedom have a different meaning to them when compared to those of us who use the same words to refer to everyday life. They have passed those memories and feelings to their children and grandchildren. It is humbling to watch.
I am not interested in knowing who people are or where they live. My interest starts and stops at our servers.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by turgid on Thursday June 06, @08:54PM
When I was a boy in school, the old people coming up for retirement and those already retired, were World War II veterans., including my grand parents. When I was very young, our school janitor came to class one day to tell us of his experience on the Arctic Convoys during the war. I remember him telling us about keeping watch for submarine periscopes. I don't think we really appreciated what a dangerous job that was. Many of those ships were sunk with all hands lost.
We have no idea the Hell these people went through to fight for our freedom and to to fight to liberate those occupied by the Axis.
A few years ago I was working with an Italian guy. He said that when they were in school, people from the Italian Resistance, who resisted Mussolini's fascists, came in to their classes to recount their experiences first hand.
The majority of the people who went through that to give us our freedom have now gone. They are no longer around to tell their stories. We must not forget.
Not only did they fight for our freedom, and many gave their lives, but they were determined to build a better world for all on the other side. They gave us Human Rights laws, better housing, health and education. They built a Europe, certainly, where borders could be dismantled and where people could trade and move freely. Neighbours were no longer separated by arbitrary national borders.
Of course, then came the Cold War and the Iron Curtain. That's a story for our generation to tell. There are young people today who don't know that there was a Communist dictatorship in Eastern Europe, that Germany was divided and that people were shot for trying to cross borders from East to West.
Let's not forget.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 3, Insightful) by pTamok on Thursday June 06, @09:42PM
One of my grandfathers participated in the early part of World War 2 on the Allied side. He was rendered unconscious by a nearby shell explosion and woke up in a troop/hospital train in a tunnel on the way to hospital, having been evacuated unconscious. He never knew who saved him. He never saw service again. For the rest of his shortened life, shell fragments were working their way out of his body. He had been an ex-serviceman, and was called-up at the start of the war.
The other lived in a country occupied by the Axis powers. One of his sons joined the resistance, disappeared for the duration (lived rough in a forest), and never spoke of his war. The other sons were 'creative' in making life difficult for the occupiers, courting punishment, and possibly the death penalty had they been caught.
Nobody sane wants to participate fighting in a war. Unfortunately there are plenty of people who want war for their own purposes, often secure in the knowledge that they will not be called to fight.
There is no glory in war, merely a waste of lives.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 06, @07:41PM (5 children)
It's one thing that "The Greatest Generation" was conned and coerced into killing their racial brothers by the Jew-controlled media and their Shabbos Goy race-traitor politicians and war profiteers, with no ability to get truthful information or spread that information, but it's quite another that 80 years later, Bolsheviks' stooges can't be bothered to learn anything about the rat-faced Jew and what really happened even though nearly everyone has the internet.
The fact is, you and your ancestors are complicit in White genocide and sided with the same Bolshevik rats that killed around 100 million Whites in Russia and another XXX million in China. Now, the same Bolshevik Communist Jew scum that were selling kids for sex in Berlin in the 30s are pushing drag queens and "gender transition" for your kids now in the "victor" countries, and financing and orchestrating the invasion and destruction of all White nations they have been allowed a foothold in. They push White genocide psyops on TV/internet 24 hours a day, discriminate against Whites for employment in our own lands, are openly stealing all wealth, and every other subversion imaginable. Hell, some vile Jewess is probably going to be the new president of Mexico, ffs. How obvious does it have to be for moronic, cowardly slaves to wake up?
Hitler was right, and was trying to save his people, the holocaust is a stinking pile of Jew lies, and the US fought on the wrong side. Now, willfully ignorant, cowardly Whites are funding the same game plan for WW3. The Jew makes lots of money, gains more power and control, and millions of Whites die. It's not that complicated.
Adolf Hitler: The Greatest Story Never Told: https://odysee.com/@%E4%B8%89%E6%9C%A8%E7%9C%9F%E9%BB%92:8/Adolf-Hitler-The-Greatest-Story-NEVER-Told:d [odysee.com]
Europa: The Last Battle: https://odysee.com/@EuropaTheLastBattle:b/Europa---The-Last-Battle-Part-1:09?lid=d1332db6d95c052bf61be20d145d4b663a50aabc [odysee.com]
The Jews, Communism, and the Russian Revolution: https://odysee.com/@TheFascifist:c/The-Jews,-Communism-and-the-Russian-Revolution:8 [odysee.com]
White Genocide: In Their Own Words: https://odysee.com/@Slammdcrxx:8/White-Genocide-Is-Real---In-Their-Own-Words:a [odysee.com]
Hellstorm: (ZOGBots murder their own people for the conniving Jew): https://odysee.com/@ZillaFrez38:9/Hellstorm---Exposing-The-REAL-Genocide-of-National-Socialist-Germany-Documentary:c [odysee.com]
(Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 06, @07:58PM
Out of mod points or this would be getting a -1, Spam.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 06, @09:28PM (1 child)
I'm the guy with the uncle KIA'd by you SOBs. After the war, my father met and married my Jewish mother, who was a WAVE. He was part of the long line of logistics that sent guys like you up in smoke, and my lips curl in a smile thinking about that.
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 06, @11:15PM
Your alleged uncle was KIA'd by the Jews pulling the strings of the Shabbos Goy traitor president that sent him to kill his brothers overseas, based on fabricated atrocity propaganda. Furthermore, your dad is a dumb-ass race traitor (probably indoctrinated by the Jewsus cult to worship Jews) and your mom is a subversive parasite, making you a rat-faced "Jew" too. No wonder you smile at the thought of White men doing the Jews' dirty work based on Jew lies. Long line of logistics...? A long line of duped ZOGBots maybe.
Your fellow rats running Big tech, "acquired" with their usury profits, can't censor the truth about WW2 and the Hollowhoax any longer. You will get the justice you so richly deserve, as the whole world starts to learn the truth about The Jew.
#JusticeForTheJew
Notice how all these Bolshevik scum mod with "spam", when they want to censor the truth. You could just mark with "disagree" or "flamebait", but you have no integrity or argument, so you attempt to censor.
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday June 06, @10:12PM (1 child)
Your ancestors suck cocks in Hell. Have a Spam mod.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 06, @11:11PM
Your comment raised up the visibility of the offending post. Anything which gets modded too high causes the original comment (the spam) to break out and become visible.
tldr; don't mod this post up either
(Score: 3, Interesting) by RedGreen on Thursday June 06, @09:35PM (3 children)
Just like back then the chicken shit bastards today do exactly the same as was done to allow the war to start. Sit around and talk about peace and freedom while doing as little as possible to fight the evil. It can be observed everyday with the appeasement assholes and their let us not go to far or fast least we upset the murdering bastard Putin. This war could have been over long ago if they had supported the brave Ukrainians to the hilt and flooded the place with weapons. Better yet the fucking spineless Yankess could have moved a few troops into the place to discourage any Russian moves as they were spouting on about the coming invasion while doing jack shit about it. And still they let the Chinese off the hook lest they stop their kowtow and get up off their knees from sucking Xi's dick. If I was Taiwan I would be developing some nuclear weapons real quick as those type of "friends" are totally useless to depend upon, and if it is good enough for the North Koreans it is good enough for them. And if the fucking Chinese do not like it screw them tell them there is our red line cross it and we nuke the shit out of you morons. The time is well past for these parasite corporations to be told to move on to the next shit hole country like India to exploit the slave labor and lax environmental standards there. While were are at it tell that scumbag Modi if he wants them jobs he dreams of and God has promised him then the Hindu nationalism garbage stops as well. You become true democratic open society or you can go pound sand up your ass, you get treated just the the other fucking murdering bastards in this world. In short it time for these useless fucking chicken shit bastards we have leading us to get off their fucking asses and give us actions not fancy useless words pretending to so something useful for the planet..
"I modded down, down, down, and the flames went higher." -- Sven Olsen
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 06, @11:28PM
The war in Ukraine was orchestrated and is continually fueled by the usual suspects. I will not fund a captive, enemy government to buy weapons to kill Whites in foreign lands. End of story.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Thursday June 06, @11:35PM
IMO, half a dozen countries providing weapons (including 100k artillery shells per month from the US alone) and declaring explicit permission to strike targets within Russia with those weapons is just about as close to WWIII as I ever want to see.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by cmdrklarg on Friday June 07, @10:05PM
You can thank a number of people, including the Florida Orange Man, House Speaker Mike Johnson, and the entire so-called "Freedom Caucus" for fucking around on useless political theater while Ukranian supplies dwindled.
The world is full of kings and queens who blind your eyes and steal your dreams.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Beryllium Sphere (r) on Thursday June 06, @11:49PM (1 child)
Vous avez tout quitté et pris tous les risques pour notre liberté. Nous ne l’oublions pas.
(Score: 3, Informative) by cmdrklarg on Friday June 07, @09:59PM
For those like me who are ignorant about the French language:
The world is full of kings and queens who blind your eyes and steal your dreams.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Friday June 07, @12:03AM
We need one of those guys with a camera to interview random people on the street, and on campuses. Who knows what D-Day was? How many people died in the Holocaust? Who was killed? (bonus points for anyone who names someone other than the Jews) How long did the war last? How many people died in the war? Somehow, I don't think the college campuses are going to score highly. Maybe a little higher than Man on the Street, but not much.
Do political debates really matter? Ask Joe!
(Score: 5, Insightful) by epitaxial on Friday June 07, @01:13AM
Our former president was a draft dodger and said anyone who died or was captured in war was a loser, including John McCain.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by tangomargarine on Friday June 07, @02:44AM (5 children)
They've been doing a World War II week-by-week series on YouTube, that recently passed VE-Day. While I knew that the Nazi invasion of Russia turned into a big slog slowly getting pushed back, I hadn't realized just how quickly Germany collapsed once D-Day happened.
https://www.youtube.com/@WorldWarTwo [youtube.com]
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 4, Interesting) by corey on Friday June 07, @10:50AM (2 children)
Thanks for the link. I’ll check it out. My dad has a big set of folders filled with magazines telling the story of WWII. He’s very into it because he was born in Rotterdam during WWII. He tells some crazy stories that i find hard to imagine. The family was so poor that my oma fed him boiled grass at times. The kids would go out to the potato farms and try to dig up any remaining little potatoes to eat after the Nazis had taken all the crop (for rocket fuel). And the family doctor told her to put him aside just after he was born because she had about 8 other kids (became 13 at the end). The Nazis bombed Rotterdam back to the stone ages. That’s why if you go there now, it’s all glass crisp high rises and new buildings, not old architecture like other cities in Europe. My opa became a Dutch saboteur and was eventually captured. He was never the same after he got out of the POW camps. The whole family upped and came to Australia after the war and life has been good ever since.
Something that my parents were sticklers about was never waste food. My mum would put any amount of leftovers in the fridge for another day and got cross at my (married etc) sister when she kept giving good leftovers to the dogs or in the bin. I guess that comes from not having any food when you’re poor as hell.
(Score: 3, Informative) by tangomargarine on Friday June 07, @02:33PM (1 child)
I've heard that they were going to bomb Rotterdam to get the Netherlands to surrender, but unfortunately they surrendered while the bombers were already in the air...sadly, after the radio operators in the planes had turned off their radios because they pulled double duty on the bombsights. So even with the Nazis being total dickbags it needn't have happened.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2, Informative) by khallow on Friday June 07, @05:25PM
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Thexalon on Friday June 07, @11:44AM
Whoops, beat me to it (I linked their 24-hour D-Day coverage specifically). That team has really been doing fantastic work. The same team previously covered World War I [youtube.com] week-by-week, 100 years to the day before the episode aired, so they got some good experience with that format.
They cover not only the military history, but also aspects like Bletchley Park, the Manhattan Project, the human spying efforts, and also make a point of very seriously covering the atrocities on all sides.
I wish that the History Channel had done something like this, but they were too busy talking about aliens and ghosts to worry about history.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: -1, Troll) by jdoe on Friday June 07, @07:29PM
What kind of retarded slave thinks they will get the truth about anything, especially WW2, at JewTube? While don't you just watch a WW2 "documentary" from Bolsheflix? lol. You people are beyond help.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Thexalon on Friday June 07, @11:39AM
If you want an extremely in-depth look at what happened that day, from extremely lucky and extremely unlucky paratroopers to the heroics of Norm Cota, the D-Day 24 Hours [youtube.com] series done by the channel World War 2. That crew has been doing serious military history coverage for almost a decade at this point, and has a good sense of what to focus on.
And of course, one D-Day veteran we should all celebrate is James Doohan: Scotty lost a finger that day.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.