Seventy-Eight Years Ago

Seventy-eight years ago, some very nervous young (and not so young) men were boarding boats in England in preparation for an invasion of France. My father was one of the men who landed at Utah Beach.

A website called allthatsinteresting reports:

Brig. Gen. Teddy Roosevelt Jr. — the eldest son of President Theodore Roosevelt — landed with the first wave of soldiers at Utah Beach. After personally scouting the area, he determined that their location was better, as there were fewer German defenses.

“We’ll start the war from right here!” he stated, and he rerouted the rest of the landings to his location.

Roosevelt led the 8th Infantry despite using a cane – he had arthritis and a bad heart. Maj. Gen. Barton, the commander of the 4th Infantry Division, later recalled meeting Roosevelt on the beach:

While I was mentally framing [orders], Ted Roosevelt came up. He had landed with the first wave, had put my troops across the beach, and had a perfect picture (just as Roosevelt had earlier promised if allowed to go ashore with the first wave) of the entire situation. I loved Ted. When I finally agreed to his landing with the first wave, I felt sure he would be killed. When I had bade him goodbye, I never expected to see him alive. You can imagine then the emotion with which I greeted him when he came out to meet me [near La Grande Dune]. He was bursting with information.

That’s called courage and leadership.

A website called business insider posted the following in 2012:

On this day 68 years ago, nearly 3 million Allied troops readied themselves for one of the greatest military operations of world history.

D-Day. And the push that led to Hitler’s defeat.

At least 160,000 of those troops landed on the shores of Normandy, France. As they stormed the beaches, General Dwight D. Eisenhower’s confident words summed up the incredible significance of their mission:

“You are about to embark upon a great crusade, toward which we have striven these many months. The eyes of the world are upon you,” he wrote in a famous letter sent to troops before the assault

“We will accept nothing less than full victory! Good Luck!”

But there was another letter General Eisenhower wrote in case the operation failed:

“Our landings in the Cherbourg-Havre area have failed to gain a satisfactory foothold and I have withdrawn the troops. My decision to attack at this time and place was based upon the best information available. The troops, the air and the Navy did all that Bravery and devotion to duty could do. If any blame or fault attaches to the attempt it is mine alone.”

Great leaders accept responsibility for their failures as well as their successes.

 

From The Military Times

Yesterday The Military Times posted a story about D-Day. I would like to share some of that story so that people who may not have studied that day and what it meant can appreciate what the young men involved did on that day.

The story reports:

Seventy-two years ago, on June 6, 1944, Allied troops waded ashore on the beaches of Normandy to liberate Nazi-occupied Europe. The night before, on June 5, American airborne forces had landed on the western flank of the invasion area near Sainte-Mère-Église, while British airborne forces secured the eastern flank and Pegasus Bridge. They jumped out of C-47 Dakota transport planes, through darkness and into glory. Some arrived by glider. Pvt. John Steele of the 82nd Airborne landed on the steeple of the church at Sainte-Mère-Église. He managed to survive by playing dead.

…On Utah Beach — all of the landing sites had code names — 56-year-old Brig. Gen. Theodore Roosevelt Jr. (the oldest son of former President Teddy Roosevelt) landed about a mile from his intended target. When asked whether to re-embark the 4th Infantry Division, he simply said, “We’ll start the war from right here!”

…Eisenhower planned the invasion from his offices at 20 Grosvenor Square in London. Number 1 Grosvenor Square was the wartime location of the American embassy. Averell Harriman presided over lend-lease aid from 3 Grosvenor Square, helping to fund our wartime Allies. The OSS (Office of Strategic Services), forerunner of the CIA, had its offices at 70 Grosvenor Square. Small wonder that this neighborhood was known as Little America at the time. Some wags even referred to Grosvenor Square as Eisenhowerplatz.

Imagine if an operation like the Normandy landing were to occur today in 2016. In the age of social media, interactive polls would ask: “Which beach do you prefer, Normandy or Pas de Calais?” Could all the members of the 101st Screaming Eagles, painted in Indian war paint with Mohawk haircuts, be counted upon not to post their pictures on Facebook? That seems doubtful.

…This June 6, raise a glass and toast the heroism of all those young men who fought to liberate America’s oldest ally from Nazi occupation. Without their service and sacrifice, our world would be a darker place. General Patton may have summed it up best when he said, “It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather we should thank God that such men lived.”

DDay2016My father was one of the men who landed on Utah beach. I can’t image what those men went through. I only hope that somehow as America is faced with the Islamization that has happened in most of Europe we will find the same courage that America had in 1944.

A Welcome Perspective

English: "aerial view of Omaha Beach, Nor...

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Today the North County Times posted a very thoughtful editorial by Susan Estrich. The editorial deals with her recent trip to France that included Normandy. She talks about the driver who drove her out to Normandy. He commented that he felt France had been wise to stay out of the war. He felt that it was unfair that Marshal Petain was prosecuted for treason after the war because he made peace with Hitler. When asked about the Jews, the driver said he didn’t know.

Ms. Estrich reminds us:

There were many righteous men and women in France who tried to save their Jewish countrymen and -women. Clearly, that did not include my driver’s family. Nor the Vichy government. All told, 76,000 Jews were sent to concentration camps in France. Refugees were among the first to be rounded up. Pity those who thought they would find refuge from Hitler in France. They were as much in the dark as I was. They paid with their lives. All but 2,500 of those sent to the camps in France died.

Ms. Estrich then points out that because it was January, most of the places she wanted to visit near Normandy were closed, but the American cemetery and the small museum next to it were open. She then comments on the beauty of Omaha Beach, reminding us that it was not beautiful on June 6, 1944.

She tells us:

Omaha Beach is quiet. Even on a rainy day, it is beautiful. But it was not beautiful on D-Day. The ocean was dyed red with the blood of brave Americans who waded from their boats into enemy fire —- kids who gave their lives to save each other, to liberate the French, to defeat evil.

On that day, as the tape in the museum says, they carried the fate of the free world —- “the entire free world” —- on their young shoulders.

They saved the world.

My father was one of the people who landed on the shores of France on June 6, 1944. He was one of the lucky ones who landed on Utah Beach instead of Normandy Beach. He was one of the lucky ones who came home safely. His generation paid a tremendous price so that Europe and America would remain free.

Ms. Estrich concludes:

My friend Annie was the one who told me to go to Normandy. She is the child of survivors, born in Munich after the war. She said that standing in that cemetery, she was overcome with pride to be an immigrant to this country.

For all our problems, we are still the luckiest people on the face of the globe. And one of the reasons for that is because of those young soldiers who gave their lives for our freedom —- and for the freedom of people like my driver and his family. He may not know enough to appreciate that. But I do. God bless America.

Sometimes it is good to reflect on the challenges and accomplishments of the American past. I feel that some day in the future we may be called to meet similar challenges. I hope we are still up to the task.

 

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Attempting To Rewrite American History

Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected to four term...

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America is a country that has Christian roots. If you read some of our founding documents–the Mayflower Compact, the Declaration of Independence, and the Constitution–you find God acknowledged in all of them. The respect for God and the need for prayer are part of America’s tradition–the first Thanksgiving Proclamations were issued by the Continental Congress between 1777 and 1784. George Washington issued the first Presidential Thanksgiving Proclamation in 1789.

That is part of who we are, but not everyone is happy about that. Fox News reported on Thursday that the Obama administration has announced its objection to adding President Franklin Roosevelt’s D-Day prayer to the World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C.

The article reports:

D-Day was one of the major events of the war. It was the beginning of the end of the war and the beginning of the allied victory. It was a totally risky undertaking, and when you read the reports of the time, it was not assured that the landing would be successful. I have said on this blog before that my father was one of the people who went ashore that day (on Utah Beach), so this is very important to me.
As a conservative, I am not FDR’s biggest fan, but his prayer was earnest and needed to alert the American people to the gravity of the situation and unite them behind our soldiers. That prayer is an important part of our war effort and belongs at that monument.
I have posted FDR’s prayer in the past–this is the link: rightwinggranny.
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