Operation Overlord

I heard a man on a radio programme yesterday talking about the Normandy Invasion. Amongst other things, he explained that General Montgomery has he decided for many years because of inaction/or inability to link with with other forces and was stuck at Caen.

The fella was saying what people fail to see often is the Germans kept sending valuable units to deal with Montgomery allowing other Allied units to advance more "easily".
 
Thinking of my dad today,he died 5 years ago and was aged 18 when he landed on Juno beach as a royal marine,went back to Normandy with him for the 65th anniversary the only time he had left England since the end of the war,that trip and standing on Juno beach with him and meeting the other veterans will live with me forever.....a special generation the likes we will never see again.
 
bluevengence said:
Thinking of my dad today,he died 5 years ago and was aged 18 when he landed on Juno beach as a royal marine,went back to Normandy with him for the 65th anniversary the only time he had left England since the end of the war,that trip and standing on Juno beach with him and meeting the other veterans will live with me forever.....a special generation the likes we will never see again.
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Mate, your dad was a war hero. Any man/boy that charged into what was waiting for them on those beaches were heroes.

I'm sure he was a good man and a good dad. Thanks for sharing this with us.
 
kinkyblue said:
75 years ago today, things like this were happening,

So so proud....

UBIQUE!
Just one more reason why I will forever be proud to be called a Sapper.

“Follow The Sapper

“The entire beach and hillside was covered with obstacles, a unit of Sappers had gone ahead to find where the mines were. Those guys were smack in the middle of it, German bullets coming down from up top, and our bullets going back the other way, with mortars landing everywhere. They moved in pairs, if one went down his partner picked up his kit and kept moving.

They didn’t call for a single medic, they just kept crawling up the beach as far as they could until they couldn’t no more. You could see them pulling themselves up the hillside even after their legs got shattered from the explosions, I remember all their bodies had marker flags sticking out of them. The dirt was to loose to hold the flags up and the blasts would’ve knocked them over, so the guys had shot themselves up with morphine and stuck the flags into their legs. When you got to one that was still breathing he would tell you where it was safe to step.

They were about 25 yards apart, When I got to the base of the hill I took a quick look back and that’s when I saw it. Those Sappers had made a trail with their own bodies. Now how do you not keep going after something like that….

– Infantryman’s account of 06JUN44”
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Jesus I’ve never heard that before, that is unreal, just heartbreaking to read thanks for sharing.
I remember watching Saving private Ryan and been gobsmacked at the opening beach scene I just couldn’t fathom what they must have gone through.
 
better dead than red said:
I heard a man on a radio programme yesterday talking about the Normandy Invasion. Amongst other things, he explained that General Montgomery has he decided for many years because of inaction/or inability to link with with other forces and was stuck at Caen.

The fella was saying what people fail to see often is the Germans kept sending valuable units to deal with Montgomery allowing other Allied units to advance more "easily".
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True. Monty was viewed by the Nazis as the better general and better troops and sent their better troops against him. Consequently we were still fighting to take Caen weeks after the landing (if I remember correctly it was an objective for the first 24 hrs) and in the meantime the Americans were able to break out and sweep round to Falaise - and if things had gone well - surround the German army which were able to escape through the Falaise Gap.
 
Like many matters, it's complex.
The Americans had a gung-ho doctrine, based on that used by Grant in the ACW. Basically attrition by sheer numbers. Very costly in lives, but ultimately effective as long as you have the numbers.
The British simply did not have the numbers, so their doctrine had to be more conservative. Monty was a careful general who liked everything in place before he attacked. This included supplies, fuel, ammo, etc.
Even this is a simplistic analysis. But in a nutshell, the Yanks tend not to rate Monty because they see him as "over cautious". By their standards, he was. However, he was very popular with his own troops (my Dad was one) as they knew he didn't regard them as mere cannon fodder.
They were all brave men, British, American, Canadian, French, Polish, whatever you may think of those who led them
 
You can make a good case for saying D Day was Britain last day as a superpower. Despite the Saving Private Ryan rendering of it, D Day was largely a British/Commonwealth operation, with the vast majority of the ships and the landing craft being British and Canadian. The scale of the naval side was extraordinary, the RN providing nearly 900 out of 1,200 vessels, and 3,000 out 4,000 landing craft.
 
Henkeman said:
You can make a good case for saying D Day was Britain last day as a superpower. Despite the Saving Private Ryan rendering of it, D Day was largely a British/Commonwealth operation, with the vast majority of the ships and the landing craft being British and Canadian. The scale of the naval side was extraordinary, the RN providing nearly 900 out of 1,200 vessels, and 3,000 out 4,000 landing craft.
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It’s pretty poor that film didn’t have a single British/Commonwealth person or vehicle clearly in it, despite it being a great film.

It’s not a time to be annoyed at trivial things like that though, it’s a time to remember those actually there and say thank you.
 
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Ban-jani said:
It’s pretty poor that film didn’t have a single British/Commonwealth person or vehicle clearly in it, despite it being a great film.

It’s not a time to be annoyed at trivial things like that though, it’s a time to remember those actually there and say thank you.
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Could be worse, could be U-571 ;-)
 
My Dad was there on D Day but never spoke about any of it until he became ill, only then did he start to tell me of some of the things that they went through, some horrendous but also some very funny in a strange way during the breaks in the fighting.

He never went back until the 51st anniversary, wouldn’t go on the 50th as he wanted to go out of respect and not as he said into a media circus. He was wounded in the battle for Caan by German Mortars, he had taken cover under a wooden trolley used to carry shells when an officer moved him so he could have that shelter. My dad had to take cover at the side of the trench. When the mortar landed in the trench it went straight though the trolley killing the officer with my dad getting hit with the shrapnel

Fine margins.
 
The perfect fumble said:
U-571: You give historical films a bad name...

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2009/feb/25/u-571-reel-history
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The last bit of that is slightly unfair - the note at the end about it being the RN who had done it was put in precisely because of the reaction to it, rather than to re-inforce some kind of insult. To be fair to the film, the historical inaccuracy in that sense was no more barking mad than showing a random German destroyer in the middle of the Atlantic, presumably with limitless fuel.
 
Henkeman said:
The last bit of that is slightly unfair - the note at the end about it being the RN who had done it was put in precisely because of the reaction to it, rather than to re-inforce some kind of insult. To be fair to the film, the historical inaccuracy in that sense was no more barking mad than showing a random German destroyer in the middle of the Atlantic, presumably with limitless fuel.
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If memory serves the director publicly apologised for, well, all of it basically.
 
The perfect fumble said:
If memory serves the director publicly apologised for, well, all of it basically.
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Can't remember whether it was the producer, writer - but someone behind it did yes, and it seemed pretty genuine. Real veterans had a right to be outraged, but the rest of us the reaction should just be more a roll of the eyes and a shake of the head. It's a terrible, terrible film irrespective of the historical angle. Besides, as a result of it, probably more people learned about what the HMS Bulldog crew did.
 
Henkeman said:
Can't remember whether it was the producer, writer - but someone behind it did yes, and it seemed pretty genuine. Real veterans had a right to be outraged, but the rest of us the reaction should just be more a roll of the eyes and a shake of the head. It's a terrible, terrible film irrespective of the historical angle. Besides, as a result of it, probably more people learned about what the HMS Bulldog crew did.
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You're right, it had the unintended consequence of highlighting what HMS Bulldog did, and for a brief moment, shone a light on the American propensity to claim credit for everything.
 
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