June 6, 78 years ago
Remember
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23 responses to “Remember”
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Nancy, you can be such an…..
I have come to view the Queen as an important symbol of that Greatest Generation. Sure, she served in a non-combat, home-based job, but she was in uniform with so many others of that family of warrior-kings (and her late husband saw plenty of sea actions). She and my mother were only weeks apart in age, and Elizabeth soldiers on. Her passing in my mind will truly mark the end of that era. She may be one of the last to go.
Visiting that beach and that cemetery still burns in the memory. I had a great uncle, my mother’s uncle, who crossed it on D +3 or 4 with his infantry division, and he stayed with the division all the way into Germany, ending the war as a first sergeant. It is a conversation I never had with him. Like most real combat vets, getting him to talk about it proved impossible.
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My grandfather was the same, the only stories he would share were about his shipboard travel. He was a combat engineer in the pacific.
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Arse? I can be. I even try to be on most (every) occasions.
But really, was it me who chose to publish it in such close proximity? Years ago, 5 execs of IBM were killed in a small plane crash. The Times Herald (rip) ran the story and published an ad for the very same make of aircraft in the adjacent column. I notice such things.
My wife’s uncle died that day over Ste. Mere-Eglise. His first combat mission, I think. He arrived in England in late May.
Elizabeth would have been 16, or so, but you’re correct, she’s the last very public vestige of that generation. But please try to resist the Republican urge to gush. Queen of England, remember.
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Again, easy to associate her w my mother, also 18 on D-Day. Mom was in Bedford that Sunday when the telegrams came.
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I cannot imagine what it must have been like in Bedford on that fateful day. I guess Uvalde is the closest analogy. I spent a day in Bedford a couple of years ago. Magnificent tribute!
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Every church bell started to ring as word spread. She was visiting a roommate, a family that got one.
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My father landed in Italy around Anzio area – I think he landed after the big battle there. Never spoke of any part of his service. One of my regrets is I never really asked him to – I think he would have shared if I had asked.
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A movie, Band of Brothers – actually a mini-series I believe – went from D-Day to V-E Day and I found it fairly interesting.
That same series then went to the War in the Pacific.
Yes. There is no question in my mind had we not acted and many gave their lives and many others received life-long injuries, save for them and all who supported them, the world would probably be a very different place today but the kind of evil that precipitated that war – still exists and still requires us to stand against it.
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Amen to that.
My Dad landed on Saipan about a week after Normandy. He said it was worse than Iwo Jima about a year later.
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The fighting in the Pacific was very different than Europe.
Not sure there is a memorial place in the Pacific like there is for Normandy.-
USS Arizona certainly counts as one. Nothing would have drawn my uncle back to any of those islands or countries. Cactus Air Force (line chief) on the Canal and stayed with Marine Aviation for the next 40 years.
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Dad spent some time ashore in American Samoa. For all the time I knew him, going back was all he ever wanted to do. His idyllic dream. Dreams are plans too, I guess.
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The American cemetery on Okinawa is dramatic, but nothing like the Euro cemeteries.
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doesn’t look like much on satellite…
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80 years ago (1942) my grandfather was trying to get off of the sinking Yorktown. Today was the last day of the Midway engagement. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/eebfdf324e26a3a869fc77ca9a520d737a48d649c2d75abbeb0bf84b387eb6f7.jpg
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And from that point forward, the Japanese Navy was in retreat. Bravo!
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He was just 15. Easy to get in back then if you didn’t have a birth certificate. Grandaddy stayed in the Navy until just after the Korean War. Moved from galley cook to the head chef for the officers.
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My uncle the Marine had served on a carrier before the war. When one was parked offshore at the Canal, he says (all his stories came with handfuls salt) he swam out there and climbed up a line just so he could cadge a meal in the chief’s mess.
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Naval officers ate like kings. I believe your uncle! How did our president nearly forget about June 6th?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jcsshJ7GfvE&t=50s
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