Thread: June 6, 1944: The World War II D-Day invasion of Normandy, France

Operation Overlord & Neptune (D-Day documentary)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIjmOcp_xhQ

Published on Oct 18, 2013

Operation Overlord was the code name for the Battle of Normandy, the operation that launched the invasion of German-occupied western Europe during World War II by Allied forces.

The operation commenced on 6 June 1944 with the Normandy landings (Operation Neptune, commonly known as D-Day). A 12,000-plane airborne assault preceded an amphibious assault involving almost 7,000 vessels. Nearly 160,000 troops crossed the English Channel on 6 June; more than three million allied troops were in France by the end of August

Allied land forces that saw combat in Normandy on D-Day itself came from Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States. Free French Forces and Poland also participated in the battle after the assault phase, and there were also minor contingents from Belgium, Greece, the Netherlands, and Norway. Other Allied nations participated in the naval and air forces.

The battle for Normandy continued for more than two months, concluding with the closing of the Falaise pocket on 24 August, the Liberation of Paris on 25 August, and the German retreat across the Seine which was completed on 30 August 1944.

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D-Day account from 98-year old Army Veteran, Jim Livaudais...a member of the Greatest Generation.



D-Day survivor: 'I wasn't a good solder; I was a lucky soldier'

All Jim Livaudais has left from his service with the 82nd Airborne are his garrison cap, his decorations displayed in a shadow box and a few photos of him in uniform.

Stars and Stripes

Article at the Page Link:

http://www.stripes.com/news/army/d-d...zSZJM.facebook

Fox News

A 94-year-old World War II veteran from Alabama is making the trip of a lifetime to attend D-Day ceremonies in France, a journey he nearly wasn't able to make because he didn't have the proof of his citizenship needed to get a passport.



94-Year-Old World War II Vet Gets Passport Just in Time to Attend D-Day Event in France

Sherwin Callander and his granddaughter Elaine Oakes landed in Paris Tuesday to...
Fox News

94-year-old World War II vet gets passport just in time to attend D-Day event in France

Published June 03, 2014FoxNews.com

June 2, 2014: Ninety-four-year-old World War II veteran Sherwin Callander talks to the media after a naturalization ceremony.AP

A 94-year-old World War II veteran from Alabama is making the trip of a lifetime to attend D-Day ceremonies in France, a journey he nearly wasn't able to make because he didn't have the proof of his citizenship needed to get a passport.
Sherwin Callander and his granddaughter Elaine Oakes landed in Paris Tuesday to attend the ceremonies for the 70th anniversary of D-Day, after getting help from social media and Callander’s local congressman to overcome financial and passport issues that threatened to thwart his trip. Oakes announced they had landed on her Facebook page.
Callander heard last month about ceremonies for the 70th anniversary of D-Day and said he thought it would be meaningful to attend. He hadn't been back to France since landing on Utah Beach during the invasion of Normandy on June 6, 1944 and had cherished memories of buddies lost that day.
However, Callander hit a snag when he went to get a passport. Born in Canada in 1920 to an American mother and having lived in the United States since the age of 3, Callander didn't have any documentation that proved his U.S. citizenship.
He also didn't have enough money to pay for the trip.
Oakes decided to take action. She set up an account two weeks ago on an online fundraising website to tell the story of the man she calls "Papa" and his wish to go to Normandy. She set a goal of $5,000. By Monday, donations from 249 people totaled just over $10,000.
Oakes also helped her grandfather work through a bureaucratic maze to get the necessary papers for his passport, and she credits the office of their congressman, U.S. Rep. Mo Brooks, with speeding things along. On Friday, Callander learned he had an appointment with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services in Atlanta to get a certificate of citizenship, which was followed by an appointment at the passport office to get a specially expedited passport.
After getting the citizenship certificate Monday morning, Callander recited the Oath of Allegiance to the United States flanked by two active U.S. Army members who also happened to receive U.S. citizenship that day.
Specialist Iddrisu Ibrahim, 28, who was born in Ghana, and Specialist Gulam Ali, 25, who was born in India, beamed alongside Callander, repeatedly telling him how honored they were to meet him.
Callander enlisted in the Navy as a young man after hearing from recruiters from different branches of the military.
"When they said, 'You'll have a girl in every port,' I said that's the branch I want," he said with a chuckle.
He saw action on many fronts during World War II but made it through "without a scratch," he said.
He was stationed at Pearl Harbor in December 1941 but was out at sea on the day the Japanese attacked. He recalled returning the next day to see the devastation and helping to pull bodies of dead servicemen from the water. He also served in Italy and north Africa. And then there was France, where he recalls being "scared to death" during the D-Day invasion as friends died beside him.
"I had tears in my eyes and I had prayers in my heart, and I just prayed I would come through," he said.
He plans to visit the graves of his fallen comrades while in Normandy.
After the war, Callander used the GI Bill to train as a plumber, a trade he worked in for decades. He married twice and had several children and many grandchildren.
After leaving the citizenship office, Callander was escorted to the passport office across town, where he got his brand new passport with hours to spare before he and Oakes boarded a plane for Paris Monday night.
"I'm just going to try to enjoy everything, hug every girl I can see and go back on the beach and reminisce a little bit," he said.


The Associated Press contributed to this report

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2014/06/03...ent-in-france/

70 years after parachuting into Normandy, WWII vet plans to jump again

As a 23-year-old private in the 101st Airborne, Jim Martin parachuted into...
news.yahoo.com

Video and Article at the Page Link:

http://news.yahoo.com/world-war-ii-v...iacontentstory

Five facts you may not know about the Normandy invasion
The oldest American to come ashore during the D-Day invasion, a 56-year-old...
Stars and Stripes

5 facts you may not know about the Normandy invasion

By Robert H. Reid Stars and Stripes
Published: May 28, 2014

A U.S. Coast Guard landing barge approaches the shore at Normandy, France, on, June 6, 1944.
U.S. Coast Guard

Five facts you may not know about the Normandy invasion:

Bloody A Company

For most the men of A Company, 1st Battalion, 116th Infantry, Normandy was their first taste of combat. For many of them, it would be their last. Four companies of the regiment, from the Virginia National Guard, were tapped for the first wave at Omaha Beach. A Company was tasked with seizing the road leading from the beach to the French town of Vierville a few miles inland. Even before the first landing craft hit the beach, things began going wrong. Strong current left many soldiers seasick and disoriented. U.S. bombers that were supposed to soften up coastal defenses had missed their targets because of thick clouds, leaving German gunners unscathed and ready to spray the beach with intense machine gun, mortar and artillery fire. A Company hit the beach in Dog Green Sector about 6:35 a.m., met by withering German fire. Within 15 minutes all the company’s officers and most of the NCOs were dead. More than 60 percent of A Company were killed or wounded.

Veteran joins the fight

Many of the soldiers who landed at Normandy were new to combat when they hit the beaches. But one combatant had already been in the war since Day One. The USS Nevada was docked at Battleship Row at Pearl Harbor when the Japanese attacked on Dec. 7, 1941. The USS Nevada was struck by one torpedo and six aerial bombs, suffering 60 dead and 109 wounded. Nevertheless, her crew ran the ship aground to prevent the Japanese from sinking her. The vessel was refloated, refitted at Puget Sound and sent to the European Theater. On D-Day, the USS Nevada fired on German positions in support of the Normandy landings and later returned to the Pacific in time for the battles of Iwo Jima and Okinawa. Following the war, the USS Nevada was decommissioned after 30 years in the fleet and was scuttled in the Pacific in 1948.

Old Man and the Beach

The oldest American soldier who came ashore at D-Day didn’t have to be there. He was 56 years old, suffered from arthritis and heart trouble and had been relieved once in a dispute with Gen. George Patton. He was also the son of a president of the United States. However, Brig. Gen. Theodore Roosevelt Jr., then on the staff of the 4th Infantry Division, begged the division commander for permission to join the assault on Utah Beach, even appealing to his distant cousin, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who approved the request. Brig. Gen. Roosevelt landed at Utah with the first wave, personally changing the plan of attack under fire after German resistance proved stronger than expected. Nearly a month later, Roosevelt was awarded the Medal of Honor and recommended for promotion to major general. When Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower phoned to give him he news, he was told that Roosevelt had died of a heart attack the night before on July 12, 1944. He was buried with his comrades at the U.S. cemetery in Colleville-sur-Mer, Normandy.

The first to die?

Among the first American officers killed in the D-Day landings was mortally wounded even before he could join the fight. At 2 a.m. June 6, 1st Lt. Robert Mathias was standing in the door of a C-47 preparing to jump with his platoon from the 82nd Airborne Division’s E Company, 508th Parachute Regiment. Suddenly German ground fire ripped through the aircraft, striking Mathias and knocking him to the floor. As the door light turned green, signaling time to jump, survivors said Mathias picked his bloodied body off the floor, shouted “Let’s Go,” and sprang from the aircraft. His lifeless body was found on the ground, still hooked to his chute.

Not all the problems were from the Germans

As if the Germans weren’t enough of a threat, American paratroopers at D-Day had to contend with their own equipment. American parachutes were equipped with buckles to release the gear once paratroopers hit the ground. It took so long to unhook the buckle, especially in the dark, in swampy ground and underfire, that a significant number of paratroopers were killed by Germans as they tried to wrestle out of their chutes. After the landings, the U.S. switched to quick-release buckles used by British airborne forces and which are in use today. After-action reports complained that the 75 pounds of gear carried by assault troops — including ammunition, rations, heating units and even French language phrase books — proved too bulky and reduced mobility, especially for soldiers trying to wade ashore under fire.

http://www.stripes.com/news/5-facts-...pOtjQ.facebook

On June 6, 1944, nearly 160,000 Allied troops landed along a heavily fortified, 50-mile stretch of French coastline in the historic operation known as D-Day. More than 9,000 Allied soldiers were killed or wounded on the beaches of Normandy, but by day’s end, the Allies had gained a foothold to begin liberating Europe.

http://www.defense.gov/home/features/2014/0614_dday/



70th Anniversary of D-Day and the Invasion of Normandy
On June 6, 1944, nearly 160,000 Allied troops landed along a heavily-fortified,...
U.S. Department of Defense (DOD)


Article and videos/photos at the page link:

http://www.defense.gov/home/features/2014/0614_dday/

From the Greatest Generation...WW II heroes in Normandy

Photo - American Battle Monuments Commission

When WWII Vets Embark to France from an Airport, the Crowd Gives Them a Rousing Patriotic Sendoff

By Michael Hausam 1 day ago

Video at the Page Link: God Bless Our Veterans

Celebrating the seventieth anniversary of D-Day, Delta had a send-off ceremony at Detroit Metro Airport for a group of World War II veterans who were traveling to France. Just prior to boarding a plan bound for Paris, gate attendant Anna Marie Barile sang the Star Spangled Banner and a fellow passenger recorded this video. And it is fantastic.

http://www.ijreview.com/2014/06/1446...ate-attendant/

World War II As You Have Never Seen It: Rare Color Footage Of The D-Day Landings

By Steve Straub On May 30, 2014 · 28 Comments · In Video



When the warship HMS Belfast fired the shot that launched the D-Day landings, it was carrying an unlikely passenger – Hollywood film director George Stevens.

With Allied forces set to storm the Normandy beaches of Nazi-occupied France, Stevens was on-board making a unique 16 millimeter color film journal.
He had made his name in the 1930s, directing the likes of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers in ‘Swing Time’ (1936) and Cary Grant in ‘Gunga Din’ (1939).
But in 1942, after seeing Leni Riefenstahl’s Nazi propaganda movies, Stevens enlisted.
General Dwight Eisenhower assigned him to head up the combat motion-picture coverage, a unit covering the war in black-and-white 35 millimetre film for newsreels and military archives.
But while documenting the Allied forces’ advance towards Berlin, he took with him a 16 millimeter camera and boxes of Kodachrome film on which he would shoot a personal visual diary of the war.
The film canisters of the war were developed back in the US, but Stevens stored them and for decades they went untouched.
That changed when his son, George Stevens Jr, also a filmmaker, decided to make a documentary on his father’s life and was amazed to discover what he found. An emotional Stevens remembers the first time he watched the films, astonished to see his young father heading to France on HMS Belfast.
“This film came on and it was sort of grey-blue skies and barrage balloons, those big things that hung in the sky, and it was on a ship. It turned out (to be) the HMS Belfast, and it was suddenly I realized the morning of the 6th of June, the beginning of the greatest seaborne invasion in history,” he said in a recent interview.
“I had this feeling that my eyes were the first eyes that hadn’t been there who were seeing this day in colour, and I watched this film unfold and on this ship – and all of these men with their flak jackets and anticipation of this day – and around a corner on the ship comes this man – helmet and jacket – and walks into a close-up, and it’s my 37-year-old father. It was so moving.”
“We thought at the time that this was the only color film of the war in Europe. As it turned out, there was some German film that had not yet been discovered,” he said.
“But it is the greatest body of color film, and World War II was a black-and-white war. That’s how we see it. That’s how we saw it. And suddenly to see it in color, it just took on a whole other dimension.”
Watch this amazing color footage of WWII:



Source: APTN / George Stevens Productions / Warner Bros

http://www.thefederalistpapers.org/v...d-day-landings

D-Day: By the numbers

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...&v=PjJVGLSOesI

Listen to General Eisenhower's speech to Allied troops before D-Day, one of the most pivotal battles of WWII.