# You are about to embark upon the Great Crusade...



## AWP (Jun 6, 2018)

As I type this, 74 years ago today, the Landings on Gold, Sword, and Juno beaches are 30 minutes old; Omaha and Utah were 90 minutes ago. The Rangers at Point du Hoc are now 50 minutes past and in 30 minutes the Brecourt Mansion assault will begin. The airborne landings started roughly 7 hours ago and Sainte-Merè-Église passed into 82nd Airborne lore 3 1/2 hours ago.

Adolf Hitler has less than a year to live.



> Soldiers, Sailors and Airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Force!
> 
> You are about to embark upon the Great Crusade, toward which we have striven these many months. The eyes of the world are upon you. The hopes and prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere march with you. In company with our brave Allies and brothers-in-arms on other Fronts, you will bring about the destruction of the German war machine, the elimination of Nazi tyranny over the oppressed peoples of Europe, and security for ourselves in a free world.
> 
> ...


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## AWP (Jun 6, 2018)

And if it failed?



> And that night in a drafty cottage, under the roar of wind and planes, Eisenhower penciled a note on a small pad in his tight, precise, hand that he would need to deliver if the invasion went wrong.
> 
> "Our landings in the Cherbourg-Havre area have failed to gain a satisfactory foothold and I have withdrawn the troops," Eisenhower wrote. "My decision to attack at this time and place was based upon the best information available. The troops, the air and the Navy did all that bravery and devotion to duty could do. If any blame or fault attaches to the attempt it is mine alone."



The Speech Eisenhower Never Gave On The Normandy Invasion


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## Devildoc (Jun 6, 2018)

The entire operation defies speech.  No words are adequate for what happened and what those men gave.


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## DA SWO (Jun 6, 2018)

Was thinking about this last night, may make my son watch the Longest Day this afternoon.


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## AWP (Jun 7, 2018)

I'll have to go back through these Facebook pages. This sounds like a really neat thing to do. I'm happy to see some AF units take pride in their history. 

Air Force’s First ‘Social Media Reenactment’ of the D-Day Invasion



> Both wings will use their official social media to post real-time accounts and photos of events that unfolded for their respective units on D-Day. These perspectives will be drawn from historical and personal observations as well as the official histories of both wing. The “social media re-enactment” will start at 7 pm EST and run until 6:30 am the following morning. All historical posts will use the hashtag #DDayRemembered.
> 
> The 437th Airlift Wing can be found on Facebook and Twitter at 437AW and the 315th Airlift Wing can be found on Facebook and Twitter at 315AW.


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## Gunz (Jun 7, 2018)

It's unfortunate that December 7th and June 6th are fading from the public memory. When I was a boy I remember some of my male teachers (veterans) reading accounts of Pearl Harbor and D-Day to the class on those dates. Fascinating...for the boys at least. My 4th grade teacher, Mr. Forshner, brought his M1 into class for show-and-tell


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## CDG (Jun 7, 2018)

9/11 is fading from public memory. People just don't care that much. Keep the TV on, cell service going, and Starbucks open, and the American public is largely satisfied.


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## Blizzard (Jun 13, 2018)

This post is a late but as this story illustrates, maybe it's never too late.

The following story and the pictures above are from several years ago (2004, I think) but I just read it again today and still find it to be an incredible story.  Story credit, as told below, goes to zerobunkerofficial:

"On June 6th, 1944, David Silva (left) was 19 years old when he landed on Omaha Beach with the 116th Infantry Reg. 29th Division. Upon reaching the sand, he was hit 3 times in the chest by an MG sitting on top of the bluff. 

Simultaneously, 21 year old Heinrich Severloh (right) of the 352nd Infanterie-Division was manning his MG42 on the same sector that Silva was on. As the day progressed and the Allies overtook the beachhead, Heinrich became a POW.

In the mid 1960s, Silva was contacted by Heinrich after he found Silva's name in the book The Longest Day as one of the survivors of the Easy Red sector. Both men met in Germany and after sharing their details of that day, Heinrich realized that he was the one who shot Silva on the beach.

Almost 60 years later, both men met on the same landing sector of Omaha beach and shook hands, and this photo captured it all.

Silva said: "I forgave him, even though he didn't want me to. I think he really wanted this, he was hurting alot".

Heinrich said: "There was no glory on the beach that day, just a lot of blood and screams and young men dying. With Silva, you can apologize, the others who died out there, you can no longer apologize. I visit them at the cemetary....we were all boys."

In addition, there is this perspective from Germans on the beach that day:


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## Deleted member 12579 (Jun 15, 2018)

CDG said:


> 9/11 is fading from public memory. People just don't care that much. Keep the TV on, cell service going, and Starbucks open, and the American public is largely satisfied.



There have been times I have thought I was the only one who felt this way but now I realize most people over 45 feel this way. I think if you took all the phones away from the millennials there would be a national crisis.


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