June 06, 2008
Remembering D-Day
GIs from Company E, 16th Infantry, 1st Infantry Division, are amongst the first Americans to set foot on Hitler's Festung Europa in the early morning hours of June 6, 1944. The waiting German troops greeted them with a hail of steel, MG-42 machine guns mowing down men with their distinctive "ripping-cloth" buzz. (Click on image for larger version.)
Having left the relative -- and illusory --safety of the landing craft, GIs from the 16th Infantry Regiment begin the maddeningly slow slog toward the beach, as the German defenders hit them with mortars and machine gun fire.
Men from the 16th Infantry Regiment try to find protection from the German machine gunners, hiding for a few moments behind anti-tank obstacles placed on Omaha Beach as part of Field Marshall Erwin Rommel's plan to keep the Allies from establishing a beachhead on the Normandy coast.
Photographer Frank Capa lay in the surf of the Easy Red Sector of Omaha Beach, snapping pictures from the furthest edge of the American assault, capturing the frenzied rush to get ashore and stop being a sitting duck in the surf. Capa's photos were rushed back to London, where the majority were destroyed in an accident in the lab. Only a few survived, comprising the most compelling images of the D-Day landings taken on the American beaches.
A wounded GI is helped ashore at Omaha Beach my some of his fellow soldiers. Note the still-inflated life preserver on the soldier to his left. (Click on image for larger version.)
An Army medic moves down the beach providing aid to the wounded, as exhausted troops huddle against the base of chalk cliffs, protected for the moment from the barrage of incoming German fire. (Click on image for larger version.)
Less than 24 hours earlier the same GIs had marched through the streets of seaside English towns, on the way to the docks where they'd board the troop transports for the ride across the English Channel to the Normandy coast. It's impossible not to wonder how many of these men made it off the beach the next morning. (Click on image for larger version.)
General Dwight Eisenhower issued this proclamation to the men before they set sail for France. He also wrote another letter to the American people, in case of a catastrophic defeat, accepting blame for the loss. The success of the invasion was not taken for granted by Ike. (Click on image for larger version.)
Posted by Mike Lief at June 6, 2008 06:36 AM
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Comments
Very moving. Thank you.
Do check out this to see what today's news readers would do.
Posted by: andrewdb at June 6, 2008 03:39 PM