Originally Posted by LarryBible (Post 2953570)

Thanks for posting this Dynalow!

I think one of the best books about Audie is "No Name on the Bullet." It was thoroughly researched and written long after his death, the mid eighties I think. The story in your link was covered well in the book as well as many details of his life, before, during and after the military all the way to his death in 1970 or so.

BTW, it's kind of interesting that we are talking about Audie Murphey in a D-Day thread. He saw more fighting than most of the soldiers that hit the ground on D-Day, but he was not in Northern France on D-Day.

As tribute to soldiers who DID see the beaches on D-Day, many of them even non coms and officers had never been in combat. This is not in any way taking anything away from them. They fought hard through some really tough circumstances including the Battle of the Bulge for many of them. As opposed to the tough soldiers that fought their way through France and on into Germany, seeing about a year of combat, while Audie saw about three years.

I've always had a bit of curiosity in the back of my mind. The soldiers that were sent onto the beaches with no combat experience, I wonder if this was by design or necessity. I think it was by necessity, but I always wondered if maybe it was by design. Would a soldier that had never seen combat be more willing to charge the beach than those who had already suffered through the horrors of blood and guts? Just a thought of curiosity.

Originally Posted by LarryBible (Post 2954189)

Sounds like a fun trip Strelnik! I've never been to that part of France. I've been to Paris a number of times and to Monaco & Nice. Monaco and Nice and all along the Med in that area are my favorite places in France.

Originally Posted by chazola (Post 2954284)

Where I live on the South coast of Kent here in merry old England has a lot of WW2 connections. As well as being Battle of Britain central (a little fight we had with Hitler before you guys joined in :)), there are several stars & stripes flying not far from me near fields and beaches where U.S. aircrew lost their lives, and are kept pristine and tended to regularly with flowers.

The village I live in also housed pumping stations for operation 'pluto', which was an undersea pipeline which pumped fuel from the England to France after D-day. The pumping stations were disguised as normal houses and they're still here, turned into liveable houses now. There's loads of pill boxes (anti-invasion defences) that survive too.

I can see France from my local beach on a clear day, and you realise just how close the Germans were to us... I have done quite a few trips to the northern beaches, really nice countryside and coast with a lot of German concrete defences still there.

Originally Posted by tonkovich (Post 2954572)

visited omaha beach, normandy etc. in summer 1979. water was freezing. still some pillboxes around. totally wide open and desolate on the beaches. no cover anywhere. those guys had "cojones".

my father said the whole country - USA - knew the invasion was coming. "D-Day, H-Hour" etc. and they held their breath. he was 14, read the papers, listened to the radio every night.

sad? to say the least? that so many lost their lives in those first few days. some drowned before they even hit the beaches.

not sure you could get such commitment - from the soldiers- and support -from the populace - in today's world. on the other hand, not sure such a situation will ever occur again, at least in our lifetimes

Originally Posted by LarryBible (Post 2954189)

Sounds like a fun trip Strelnik! I've never been to that part of France. I've been to Paris a number of times and to Monaco & Nice. Monaco and Nice and all along the Med in that area are my favorite places in France.

Originally Posted by tonkovich (Post 2954572)

sad? to say the least? that so many lost their lives in those first few days. some drowned before they even hit the beaches.

not sure you could get such commitment - from the soldiers- and support -from the populace - in today's world. on the other hand, not sure such a situation will ever occur again, at least in our lifetimes

Originally Posted by tonkovich (Post 2954572)

visited omaha beach, normandy etc. in summer 1979. water was freezing. still some pillboxes around. totally wide open and desolate on the beaches. no cover anywhere. those guys had "cojones".

my father said the whole country - USA - knew the invasion was coming. "D-Day, H-Hour" etc. and they held their breath. he was 14, read the papers, listened to the radio every night.

sad? to say the least? that so many lost their lives in those first few days. some drowned before they even hit the beaches.

not sure you could get such commitment - from the soldiers- and support -from the populace - in today's world. on the other hand, not sure such a situation will ever occur again, at least in our lifetimes

Originally Posted by strelnik (Post 2954756)

I spoke to my late father about this. He died in 2005 at the age of 91.
He was an MP and in military intelligence during the war.

He was also around when 9/11 happened and he said that it was NO comparison to the shock and anger that was felt following the attack on Pearl Harbor and even worse when the details of the Bataan Death March came to light.

There were people in this country that wanted to exterminate every living person in Japan, and senators who wanted to nuke the entire island. I really have the feeling that Truman was a reluctant user of the A-bomb, but if they wouldn't surrender unconditionally, then he would do what he had to do.

I asked my father about the Japanese internment camps, which were so controversial; and he countered that they probably saved a lot of lives. There were movements in some cities to lynch Japanese!

Fortunately, people were able to tell Japanese from Chinese and great sympathy for the Chinese existed, because they had been established in California, and the 1930s newspapers talked about the Japanese atrocities in China.

The fact that news was sparse and slow in coming made it worse. People chewed on things longer.

Maybe that's better than the flood of news we get, maybe not. Don't know.

Originally Posted by dynalow (Post 2954443)

Thanks to the townspeople for honoring our lost airmen. :)

We do the same here to honor British sailors who died off Hatteras in 1942, helping us combat the U-Boat threat.
Hyde County, NC - Attractions - British Cemetery

Originally Posted by dynalow (Post 2954760)

One D-Day veteran I heard on the news last week said that the first 10 minutes of Saving Private Ryan pretty accurately depicts the initial landing.

Equally significant in the discussion of a "re-run" effort to me is whether we have the manufacturing capability to gear up for war as quickly as the country did in WW2. You can argue that the war would have been a lot more difficult had the country not began to gear up manufacturing before Dec. 7.
I honestly don't know if today we have the ability to simultaneously gear up an armed forces of millions of men and more millions in factories and plants around the country. It was eight months after Pearl Harbor when the Marines landed on Guadalcanal. To go from disaster to all out combat and victory in the Solomons in eight months reflects a national effort never before or since done on the planet.
I agree with you...I doubt we could do it again. I also don't think it'll ever be necessary. War is a much different endeavor today.