6.07.2004
D-Day Plus 1
from the Times of London, June 7, 1944:
... All we await now is the word to go forth and strike the terrific blow in Western Europe, of which General Montgomery writes in his valediction to the assault troops under his command. When this dispatch appears that blow will have been struck; and as one gazes out over an anchorage of fond remembrance in which, framed by the sweep of England?s green shore, countless invasion ships lie at their stations, the mind recoils from the dimensions of it all.
For these tight-packed ships represent only one of the rivers of men and machines that all along the coast are pouring out into the sea. Four years ago, almost to the day, the tide of war had flooded from the east into the French Channel ports before swirling back on Paris and far beyond. Now the tide has turned, and in this suspended moment in history the first mighty wave is gathered before it crashes down on the enemy's beaches. And the near observer gets no more than the fleeting awesome glimpse of it that a solitary swimmer would have of a great breaker in an angry sea.
"The mightiest armada of all time"? such phrases come glibly but say very little. Words, indeed, pale before the vastness of the reality; and writing aboard an American landing craft, I can attempt no more than to sketch in some of the impressions that have crowded upon us during the embarcation period.
Robert Cooper, Times correspondent
The mightiest armada of all time
The Allies' initial objectives on Normandy are linking their five landing zones, establishing a large foothold and seizing Caen and the port of Cherbourg.
GIs of 1st and 29th Infantry spread inland from Omaha beach.
On June 6, 1944, the 29th Division -- a National Guard outfit from Maryland, Virginia, Washington D. C. and Pennsylvania -- landed its 116th Infantry Regiment on the Dog Green Sector of Omaha Beach, where despite suffering horrific casualties they established a beachhead. By the end of D-Day, the 29th had two infantry regiments ashore along with most of the division's other units. As the division progressed in the Normandy campaign, fighting through the bloody hedgerows, it cemented its legend by taking towns such as Isigny (e-seen-yee), Vire and St. Lo. After the capture of St. Lo, which was viewed by the Allied high command as critical for the breakout of Patton's Third Army, the 29th along with the 8th Infantry Division would capture the port at Brest.
The 8th Infantry Regiment of the 4th Division was one of the first Allied units to hit the beaches at Normandy on D-day, 6 June 1944 (near Utah). They relieved the isolated 82d Airborne Division at Ste. Mere Eglise, just as they were about to be overwhelmed. The 4th cleared the Cotentin peninsula and took part in the capture of Cherbourg, 25 June.
Omaha was reinforced by the 2nd "Indian Head" Infantry and Utah by Texas and Oklahoma draftees of the 90th "Tough 'Ombres."
Dempsey's 2nd British Army unified Gold, Juno and Sword into a 20-mile-long lodgement and took the road junction at Bayeux, eight miles inland. But a British thrust toward Caen was defeated.
... All we await now is the word to go forth and strike the terrific blow in Western Europe, of which General Montgomery writes in his valediction to the assault troops under his command. When this dispatch appears that blow will have been struck; and as one gazes out over an anchorage of fond remembrance in which, framed by the sweep of England?s green shore, countless invasion ships lie at their stations, the mind recoils from the dimensions of it all.
For these tight-packed ships represent only one of the rivers of men and machines that all along the coast are pouring out into the sea. Four years ago, almost to the day, the tide of war had flooded from the east into the French Channel ports before swirling back on Paris and far beyond. Now the tide has turned, and in this suspended moment in history the first mighty wave is gathered before it crashes down on the enemy's beaches. And the near observer gets no more than the fleeting awesome glimpse of it that a solitary swimmer would have of a great breaker in an angry sea.
"The mightiest armada of all time"? such phrases come glibly but say very little. Words, indeed, pale before the vastness of the reality; and writing aboard an American landing craft, I can attempt no more than to sketch in some of the impressions that have crowded upon us during the embarcation period.
Robert Cooper, Times correspondent
The mightiest armada of all time
The Allies' initial objectives on Normandy are linking their five landing zones, establishing a large foothold and seizing Caen and the port of Cherbourg.
GIs of 1st and 29th Infantry spread inland from Omaha beach.
On June 6, 1944, the 29th Division -- a National Guard outfit from Maryland, Virginia, Washington D. C. and Pennsylvania -- landed its 116th Infantry Regiment on the Dog Green Sector of Omaha Beach, where despite suffering horrific casualties they established a beachhead. By the end of D-Day, the 29th had two infantry regiments ashore along with most of the division's other units. As the division progressed in the Normandy campaign, fighting through the bloody hedgerows, it cemented its legend by taking towns such as Isigny (e-seen-yee), Vire and St. Lo. After the capture of St. Lo, which was viewed by the Allied high command as critical for the breakout of Patton's Third Army, the 29th along with the 8th Infantry Division would capture the port at Brest.
The 8th Infantry Regiment of the 4th Division was one of the first Allied units to hit the beaches at Normandy on D-day, 6 June 1944 (near Utah). They relieved the isolated 82d Airborne Division at Ste. Mere Eglise, just as they were about to be overwhelmed. The 4th cleared the Cotentin peninsula and took part in the capture of Cherbourg, 25 June.
Omaha was reinforced by the 2nd "Indian Head" Infantry and Utah by Texas and Oklahoma draftees of the 90th "Tough 'Ombres."
Dempsey's 2nd British Army unified Gold, Juno and Sword into a 20-mile-long lodgement and took the road junction at Bayeux, eight miles inland. But a British thrust toward Caen was defeated.
# posted by Frank_D @ 12:08 
