Quote: (06-06-2014 10:44 PM)RexImperator Wrote:
That's what those guys had to walk into (in addition to mines and artillery, and all the rest).
The men who did so have more stones than I ever will. That was the reason why so many thousands of them dropped like flies before ever proceeding beyond the beaches. To have been one of the paratroopers that jumped or glided over on the night of the 5th, the Commandos of 6 CDO that secured Pegasus Bridge, the Dutch and Royal Marines who secured Sword Beach or the 75th Rangers that assaulted Pointe du Hoc was a terror-evoking experience that I could never begin to comprehend.
And each and very one who contributed towards this vital nail in the coffin of Nazi Germany deserve nothing but my complete and utter gratitude. From the line troops that bore the frontal brunt of the Axis defences (noting that not all the Axis defenders at Normandy were German) to the Artillerymen, Engineers and Signallers that ensured the presence of the landing force, to the Air Forces and Navies that provided aerial and marine support; to the men and women labouring in the factories and the headquarters staff pushing paper, I thank you for your efforts in liberating every square metre of European soil from Nazi oppression up to the Elbe River.
Because it is also important to note that that liberation meant one that was free not just from the grip of Nazism, but from another form of tyranny heading westward. For the peoples of Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Bulgaria, the former Yugoslavia, Romania and East Germany there was no to be no such reprieve from the prior 6 years of bloodshed. No democratic, infrastructural and economic reconstruction like the freed peoples of Western and Southern Europe. For the brave Free Czech, Polish and Yugoslav troops fighting under the aegis of their Western Allies, they were to return as political outcasts to unwelcoming homelands of a dark, new world order; or not at all, as refugees towards those nations that had given them a fighting chances those years prior.
Many thousands of their countrymen and women found safe refuge in the free nations of the UK, the USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand among others. They were given the chance to live their lives, afresh, under the democratic prosperity to cruelly denied at the Yalta and Tehran Conferences. Many of their descendants still flourish here to this day.
I'm adding this light on the anniversary of D-Day because if not for the Western Allies opening a third front, if not for the massive land presence complementing that on the Italian Campaign, the forces of Marshal Stalin, having annihilated the cream of Hitler's Panzer Armies at Operations Zitadelle and Bagration, would've enjoyed virtually unimpeded access towards the Atlantic. Continental Europe would've faced a near-total union under Soviet tyranny, quashing any easy chances for those millions to find safe haven in the West.
While I have no ancestral ties to D-Day itself, it's important to note the moral and physical impetus, no matter how indirect, it gave the Allies to liberate the peoples of South East Asia from Japanese tyranny. The occupation is still fresh in the minds of my grandparents and I am grateful for the eventual chance they found for their country to be transitioned from a British colony to later independence.
Lest We Forget.
![[Image: article-0-053CFF08000005DC-649_634x489.jpg]](http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2009/06/06/article-0-053CFF08000005DC-649_634x489.jpg)
