To commemorate the Allied invasion of Europe, which began 72 years ago today, here is one of my favorite speeches, delivered 32 years ago at Pointe du Hoc, Normandy, by Ronald Reagan. The text can be found here. June 5 was the 12th anniversary of Ronald Reagan’s death.
I cannot imagine what those young men thought and felt that June day in 1944, except that they had a mission assigned to them that they were honor bound to fulfill, that it would be difficult, and that they might not make it to the end of that day. I will do them the honor of always remembering what they did, and call them heroes.
I remember what my mother said about my older brother, who joined the Navy when he was 17, in 1943: “He left as a boy, and came home a man.”
Today we honor all of those men, many of them who left this earth those fateful days in June, 1944, and others who survived, but never forgot.
More:
D-Day as it happened: AP’s June 6, 1944 dispatch:
The newsflash came on a slip of paper in a red-and-white striped courier pouch: “EISENHOWERS HEADQUARTERS ANNOUNCES ALLIES LAND IN FRANCE.”
The Associated Press had some two dozen writers and photographers among the Allied forces as they landed on Normandy’s coast on June 6, 1944. From Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower’s London headquarters, Wes Gallagher — who later went on to become AP’s general manager — wrote up the first Allied official dispatches announcing D-Day and sent them in the sealed pouch to AP’s London office by military courier, after the military censor authorized their release.
SUPREME HEADQUARTERS ALLIED EXPEDITIONARY FORCE (AP) — Allied troops landed on the Normandy coast of France in tremendous strength by cloudy daylight today and stormed several miles inland with tanks and infantry in the grand assault which Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower called a crusade in which “we will accept nothing less than full victory.”
German broadcasts said the Allies penetrated several kilometers between Caen and Isigny, which are 35 miles apart and respectively nine and two miles from the sea.
Prime Minister Churchill told the House of Commons part of the record-shattering number of parachute and glider troops were fighting in Caen, and had seized a number of important bridges in the invasion area.
German opposition apparently was less effective than expected, although fierce in many respects, and the Germans said they were bringing reinforcements continuously up to the coast, where “a battle for life or death is in progress.” Continue reading ….
Stella's Place 
Thank you, stella.
And thank you to all who served– those who came home and those who died.
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Thank you, Stella. That was indeed a memorable speech for a day we shall never forget.
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Thank you Stella.
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Thank you, Stella. We should never forget.
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Email from three years ago. I can’t verify the truth of each of the stories, but the underlying rightness of them is undeniable.
Email of the day:
DeGaulle said he wanted all US military out of
France as soon as possible.
Rusk responded,
“Does that include those who are buried here?”
DeGaulle did not respond.
You could have heard a pin drop.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
When in England, at a fairly large conference,
Colin Powell was asked by the Archbishop of Canterbury
if our plans for Iraq were just an example of
‘empire building’ by George Bush.
He answered by saying,
“Over the years, the United States has sent many of
its fine young men and women into great peril to fight for
freedom beyond our borders. The only amount of land we have ever
asked for in return is enough to bury those that did not return.”
You could have heard a pin drop.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
There was a conference in France
where a number of international engineers were taking part,
including French and American.
During a break, one of the French engineers came back into
the room saying,
“Have you heard the latest dumb stunt Bush has done?
He has sent an aircraft carrier to Indonesia
to help the tsunami victims.
What does he intend to do, bomb them?”
A Boeing engineer stood up and replied quietly:
“Our carriers have three hospitals on board
that can treat several hundred people;
they are nuclear powered and can supply
emergency electrical power to shore facilities;
they have three cafeterias with
the capacity to feed 3,000 people three meals a day,
they can produce several thousand gallons of
fresh water from sea water each day,
and they carry half a dozen helicopters for
use in transporting victims and injured to and from their flight deck.
We have eleven such ships;
how many does France have?”
You could have heard a pin drop.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A U.S. Navy Admiral
was attending a naval conference
that included Admirals from the
U.S., English, Canadian, Australian and French Navies
At a cocktail reception, he found himself standing with
a large group of officers that included personnel from most of those countries.
Everyone was chatting away in English as they sipped their drinks,
but a French admiral suddenly complained that,
whereas Europeans learn many languages,
Americans learn only English.
He then asked,
“Why is it that we always have to speak English in these conferences
rather than speaking French?”
Without hesitating,
the American Admiral replied,
“Maybe it’s because the
Brit’s, Canadians, Aussie’s and Americans
arranged it so you wouldn’t have to speak
German.”
You could have heard a pin drop.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
AND THIS STORY FITS RIGHT IN WITH THE ABOVE… Robert Whiting,
an elderly gentleman of 83, arrived in Paris by plane.
At French Customs, he took a few minutes to locate his passport in
his carry on. “You have been to France before, monsieur?”
the customs officer asked sarcastically. Mr. Whiting admitted that he had been to France previously. “Then you should know enough to have your passport ready.” The American said, “The last time I was here, I didn’t have to show it.”
“Impossible.. Americans always have to show their passports on arrival in France!” The American senior gave the Frenchman a long hard look. Then, he quietly explained, ”Well, when I came ashore at Omaha Beach on D-Day in 1944 to help liberate this country, I couldn’t find a single Frenchman to show a passport to.” You could have heard a pin drop.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I am proud to be of this land — AMERICA
I am proud to be an American
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👍👍👍👍👍
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Forvwhatbit’s worth the ‘all Americans out of France’ quote’s attributable to LBJ: http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/united-states-of-america
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Most of the rest of that was rather nauseating. 😉
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That was LBJ….
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I had heard a lot of stories of how the French are insufferably arrogant to Americans. I have been embarrassed by the behavior of some American tourists abroad, only some. We went to Paris. My husband and I sat at an outside bistro on one of the main streets. The server wouldn’t even put a place mat on our table. She took forever to finally get around to us, waiting on many who sat down after we did. Obvious, passive-aggressive behavior. As we traveled around, I felt that many store employees could speak English, but would not, so we fumbled along as best we could.
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There have been reasons put forth as to why they, and every other country that has killed everyone but the welfare class in the race to socialism, act arrogant.
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French are arrogantly insufferable to everyone, even each other. We hsadFrench friends when we lived in Germany in the early 60s. As our base was close to France we’d go to France for a weekend and out friends would speak French but as they were from the south of France and we were in the Alsace region the locals were snotty with them. As long as they were going to be snotty to me period I just spoke German and got my jabs in.
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Considering their years under German rule after the Franco-Prussian war, that must have really made an impression.
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Yeah, they never did take to order, civilization and good beer.
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I’ve seen northerners act snotty to southerners here. Apparently they think a southern accent indicates imbecility. Southerners have their ways of getting even, also.
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Part of the Northern prog plan is to grtbthevmedia to,pirtray the South and the Southerners as the root of all cultural/racial problems in the US. You see any program on TV built in or around the South starting folks with a terribly terrible phony Southern accent and the IQ of a cabbage. All ya gotta do is put someone in a commercial who has a Southernish accent and a sleeveless shirt and you know who the foil-fool is.
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Beautiful post Stella. My father served as a 1st. Lieutenant with the Army Corp of Engineers, and did recon in France WWII. I’ll prolly spend the day thinking about him.
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“Corps”…..**** I miss my edit function.
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I’d mentioned beforevthat my grandfather was a oberst (colonel) in the German Combat Engineers ( called Pioneers in Germany) in WWI and WWII. I was a Combat Engineer from ’74 and keptbthe MOS as primarynor secondary through my retirement, best branch in the Army.
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I swear I edited this but the *^%# iPad just does what it wants. Smack in the process it goes blank, reloads and posts sans corrections. It’s did a Jobs on me again…
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Feel your pain. Now and them I’m forced to use our old second-generation iPad….which regularly crashes anytime I even get near the Tree House.
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I just type for s@#t.
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😀
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Well that’s certainly interesting wages…
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Time n’ a half too
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Wiw, you must earn a pile…
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LOL….
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That’s probably the prissy Apple product fainting as it comes into contact with anything more conservative than a Starbucks menu.
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My husband’s family came from the German-speaking area of Luxembourg, and his uncle’s wife was German. I remember his family recalled staying overnight at their in-laws, while in Germany , and finding some “interesting” uniforms still in the closets. 🙂
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Communists got everything from my Mom’s family estate, including the estate. Now here I am in America facing Hillary….how history repeats itself, eh?
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My wife has stated the same thing several times.
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My paternal grandmother’s family was German, from the Alsace region. The other paternals were from Bavaria.
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We were Ponerania and Thuringia, Vandal genes are shot thru the family. Probably accounts for the lack of second dinner invitations.
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