doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com june 6 1944

The biggest error of the Italian campaigns was committed with battle for Sicily. Because neither US or British Navies were willing to venture into the very narrow strait between Messina and the main land, German forces on Sicily were allowed to evacuate their entire force with almost all their equipment unopposed on rafts in the middle of the nights. These same forces were deployed again and again against the Allied advance in Italy in very difficult terrain for the offensive. The Allied objective of collapsing the Italian will to resist and to suck German forces away from Russian front and from the future front in France was made much more difficult by the failure to bottle up Messina.

i went to Omaha beach and Utah beach three week ago low tide, i cant imagine running up Omaha beach.we should celebrate the kids who gave there lives and the kids who went on to win the war.( mark Clarke liberated Rome on June 24 dday took his headline he wanted to be the liberator of Rome at all cost )everyone should drink a toast to the guys who won ww2 mc

Gotta love a fat boy Limey using that term- but I think he was talking about Greece and the Balkans- Anyway- Machts Nicht-- American GI's paid a heavy price at Omaha, while the Limeys and Canadians had a tad easier "show" at Gold, Sword and Juno-- but they were our Allies (in spite of Patton's distrust of both Churchill and Montgomery) and they also bled and died there to defeat Hitler and the Nazis- and thank God for that-- Patton's distrust of Montgomery's expertise at battle planning was proven, unfortunately, with Monty's flawed and then failer "Market Garden-- Market being the Airbone phase, and Garden being the ground troops- into Holland and to secure the vital bridges that would eventually take the Allies into Hitler's "Festung Europa"-- I love what the brave troops of the Airborne Units said back then: "When Hitler built his Fortress Europe, he forgot to add a roof"!!

I flew the flag today- and next time will be 14/June for Flag Day--and my VFW "Buddy" Poppy is hanging from the rear view mirror of my Jeep-- we owe them so much, and the brave men who came home from Europe and then Japan-- so few left each year now--Anytime you see a Vet- thank him for his service and sacrifice to our Country!!

My father was a Lt jg on an LST (Landing Ship Tank) during and after D Day.
I recently found out through the ships log how and when he was wounded as he would never discuss it.
16 days after D Day the LST was hit by shellfire on Omaha Beach (probably a German 88). The LST was not sea worthy and some wounded spent the night on Omaha Beach and some were evacuated. I never learned which wounded category he was in.
He and the many others like him/her made the World safe for me and allowed us to bring Communisim to defeat in most parts of the World.
I certainly miss him.-Dick

Soviet Union was our ally in World War II, Dick, and our side would not have won without it. The land and air battles of the Western Front were miniscule in size and ferocity compared to the Eastern Front. The Red Army liberated my father and thousands of other American, British, Commonwealth, Czech, Polish air crews from a POW camp 20 miles from Berlin.

Indeed very true. This book is fiction, but the author, Thomas Harris, does research and has a NYC police reporter's strong credentials-- Yes, the creator of Hanninal "The Cannibal" Lector-- in his latest, "Hannibal Rising" the first chapters deal with the Russians moving the krauts back in 1944-1945 in the Ukraine-- not a very pretty sight, and yes, the Russians raped and killed German women en route to Berlin, and took and kept very few Kraut prisoners--
The Russian people have always been oppressed and have long hard memories, their savagery against the Germans- who invaded their homelasnd in the Summer of 1941. War is a cruel and unrelenting fact of life for the Russians, but without them as Allies, we might be eating Sauerkraut for breakfast!

It's nice to see the men remembered who gave their lives on this day. My uncle, who just passed away last month, was a bomber pilot in WW ll. I don't know much about his war time as he never talked about it.

An important day to honour those who gave their lives.

While my father was slightly too young to see action, all of my uncles on both sides of the family saw action, in France, in the Navy and in the Pacific war. As well I had an aunt who worked directly under the command of Sir William Stevenson in the area of espionage. All of the previous generation saw action in the Great War with my grandfather leaving three of his brothers behind in graves in Europe.

We live in a world made possible by their sacrifice. No honour is too great.

Some of my earliest memories as a kid in the early 1950's were the World War II veterans. Some of those guys were still wearing their uniform caps and coats; and every time we visited a relative, they'd be a 8 1/2 x 11" framed portrait of a son in uniform prominently displayed in the living room. And sadly, sometimes that picture; and old memories wers all they had left of that individual's life. As a kid, I don't remember those veterans talking much about their experiences; and even when I got older and asked questions, they still had little to say. I had one uncle, "Uncle Babe" (short for Nathanial; go figure?) who piloted a LST during the D-Day invasion and participated in the first wave. He never had much to say about that day, but did speak of a few things he witnessed; the carnage on the beach, LST's receiving direct hits from the German 88's, and the bodies of floating GI's drowned when the LST they were assigned to dropped them too far from the beach in deep water. I had another uncle, Uncle Troy, who served and fought in Italy; and was twice wounded. A couple of years before he died, I talked with him a long time one Sunday afternoon about his wartime experiences, and being wounded. He fought at the battle of Monte Casino in Italy in 1944; and oddly, one of the comments he made was that he didn't understand why D-Day got so much press when the fighting was so much harder in Italy? I'm certainly not in a position to judge, just found the comment interesting. He recalled some of the things he witnessed there and told me that there were many times when both sides would agree to a short truce; and during those times both sides would gather up their dead and wounded, and he talked about bodies being stacked like "cord wood". He said there were many times during these truces when German and US troops would actually meet and "fellowship" with each other. GI's would trade chocolate and cigarettes to the German troops for things they had; and that, with the exception of the language barrier, he found them little different from himself. But once those temporary truces ended, both sides got back to the business of war and resumed the killing of each other; he said it made no sense! His first wounds came from shrapnel as an 88 shell, designed to explode above the ground, hit him in the shoulder and leg; the guy next to him was decapitated. As soon as he recovered from those wounds, he was sent back to the front; and shortly afterwards was shot in the right leg by a German infantryman, the bullet breaking his leg bone. As another GI dragged him to cover he made eye contact with the guy who had just shot him from about 30 yards away, and then he made this amazing comment to me; I hold no hate towards the German who shot me because I knew he was just a regular guy who didn't want to be there anymore than I did; that he was forced to be there because he had no other choice. The people I grew up with, those survivors from the Great Depression and WWII; are the toughest,most independent and resilient people I've ever known and I am proud to have been privileged to have lived in the world they sacrificed to preserve. This generation of people should NEVER be forgotten.

Foxy, there is little point making snide references during a time for remembering and honouring.

The facts are that as a % of population significantly more Canadian and Australians died than Americans, while the UK lost close to triple the % of men. "Had a tad easier show"? I don't think so. It was hell for all.

Arm chair quarterbacks, with the benefit of hindsight can make negative insinuations about most of the Allied Command, Americans included. But what's the point? Let's honour them all.