D-Day

[fan_since79]

The invasion began about 15 minutes from now, exactly 70 years ago. The first troops from the 101st Airborne landed behind enemy lines in Normandy. More than 150,000 would follow over the next 24 hours.

 

Complete timeline:

 

http://dday70.org/timeline/

 

[Gavin]

My grandfather was in the first wave. He only talked about the war once with my grandma. I can't imagine what he saw.

[NJHalo]

That first scene from Saving Private Ryan was brutal.

[TobiasFunke]

Patton slapping a soldier in Italy ended up saving our ass in the invasion.

 

So many things could have gotten wrong (and/or right) during the invasion.

[Tank]

That first scene from Saving Private Ryan was brutal.

 

the first twenty minutes are an absolute remote dropper for me. so very, very powerful.

[Vegas Halo Fan]

My father was career military. Fortunately he was not in the D-Day invasion. A man in his Air National Guard unit (where he served after WW II and Korea) was. He could barely bring himself to talk about it. About all that he would say was that it was horrific beyond description, seeing men dying all around you and wondering if you were next.

[fan_since79]

The actions of Leonard Lomell, one of the Rangers who landed on the beach that morning, were critical to the success of D-Day. Even though he was shot before hitting the beach, he managed to scale a wall and take out the five 155-millimeter cannons that would have inflicted even more horrific damage on the Allies had they been fired. The cannons had been moved and hidden nearby, but were operational and ready to fire, and Lomell found them and disabled the gears with "thermite" grenades.

 

Just one of many amazing stories of that day.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_Lomell

Edited June 6, 2014 by fan_since79

[LBHalos17]

We owe it all to those boys..

I've been under fire before, but I couldn't even nightmare the loud, insanity they ran through to change the tide of the War.

 

Thanks

[LBHalos17]

As far as "Saving Private Ryan," I don't watch it around other people because the scene of Ryan walking through the Normandy graves gets me on a lot of levels.