(no subject)

[caddyman]

It's not fashionable these days to celebrate the exploits of the Forces, but I have to say that I rather wish I'd been able to go over to Normandy to watch the 60th anniversary commemorations of D-Day.

I've done the tour of the battlefields - though not as yet, Pegasus Bridge, where the 6th Airborne Division secured the invasion's left flank.

Watching the celebrations on the TV has brought a lump to the throat of this old softie, watching the time-thinned ranks of the veterans as the Old Boys march with quiet dignity through Arromanches with the invasion beaches in the background.

I tend to think we can always be proud of the British Serviceman, even if we can't always be proud of the politics that send him away from home. But 60 years ago today, these men embarked on the first step of the liberation of North-West Europe, and we should be proud of them, because as trite and clichéd as it sometimes sounds now, the world in which we live would have been a very different and darker place had they not done so, and won.

It is the anniversary of something which has helped shape the modern world, and represents a feat unparalleled in history. The beginning of the end of the last, and arguably only, just war in Europe.

Comments

[delvy.livejournal.com]

You're not the only one that feels that way. My parents took my sister and I to Belsen when I was 11 years old so that we would *never* forget. I wish some politicians had seen the fields of teh somme and verdun, the battlefields of Normandy and the camps in Germany and Poland; perhaps they'd have some more perspective.

[jfs.livejournal.com]

I was reading an account by a journalist in the Daily Mail during the week about taking his father back to Normandy each year for the D-Day commemorations. He wrote really movingly about how he'd always seens his dad as just his dad, until they went to Normandy and he saw how well respected he was, because he had the campaign ribbons.

It didn't matter how old the french were - even school kids treated him with respect - it's something they're brought up with.

Something missing here, I fear.

It was a very moving piece.

[littleonions.livejournal.com]

I am particularly proud of one service man and more than grateful that he survived.

[caddyman.livejournal.com]

Pater or Gramps? ;-)

[caddyman.livejournal.com]

I agree. I think it's because we were lucky enough not to have to undergo an occupation like they did.

And that's largely because of geography.

[littleonions.livejournal.com]

Dear old Dad.

[nyarbaggytep.livejournal.com]

I am kind of proud of bits of WW2, not so proud of Bomber Harris and Dresden etc. D-Day is a better bit. And I absolutely agree that the people who did the actual graft and the bleeding and the being traumatised etc. deserve a *huge* heft of respect.

Have you seen this...

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I am kind of proud of bits of WW2, not so proud of Bomber Harris and Dresden etc. D-Day is a better bit. And I absolutely agree that the people who did the actual graft and the bleeding and the being traumatised etc. deserve a *huge* heft of respect.

Have you seen this...
<a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0609607995/qid=1086599206/sr=1-2/ref=sr_1_2_2/026-1662493-3829221"IBM and the Holocaust</a> - I haven't read it yet, but have been recommended it.

[caddyman.livejournal.com]

I think it's too easy to be critical of decisions such as bombing Dresden all these years later. At the time the facts weren't so clear, and memories of Warsaw, Rotterdam, the East End of London, Coventry, Liverpool and Belfast etc etc were current.

I don't see Bomber Harris as a bad guy, just one with limited information at his disposal in certain cases.

As to the book, no I haven't read it, but I could see it happening. A large number of corporations' questionable wartime activities - and not all of them German, are still being unearthed now.

[cybersofa.livejournal.com]

Definitely visit Pegasus Bridge. Given that it was too small and needed replacing, the French have done a fantastic job of preservation, information, and remembrance. (A statue of Major Howard stands at the exact spot where his glider landed, etc.)