JUNE 6, 1944 | Normandie, France
Into The Jaws of Death
A Landing Craft from the U.S. Coast Guard-manned USS Samuel Chase disembarks troops of Company A, 16th Infantry, 1st Infantry Division (the Big Red One) wading onto the Fox Green section of Omaha Beach (Calvados, Basse-Normandie, France) on the morning of June 6, 1944. American soldiers encountered the newly formed German 352nd Division when landing. During the initial landing two-thirds of Company E became casualties. (Omaha Beach, Wikipedia)
A Landing Craft from the U.S. Coast Guard-manned USS Samuel Chase disembarks troops of Company A, 16th Infantry, 1st Infantry Division (the Big Red One) wading onto the Fox Green section of Omaha Beach (Calvados, Basse-Normandie, France) on the morning of June 6, 1944. American soldiers encountered the newly formed German 352nd Division when landing. During the initial landing two-thirds of Company E became casualties. (Omaha Beach, Wikipedia)
Omaha Beach, as seen from the Normandy American Military Cemetery in 2013
On a Personal Note:
My grandfather, Julien George, worked as a printer for a small-sized printing company during WWII. The printing house was located a few blocks away from Nazi and Vichy-France administrative buildings, not exactly the kind of neighbors you want when you're working for a Resistance movement.
My grandfather's position allowed him to secretly print forged documents and IDs intended for Jews, French Resistance fighters, British and American pilots seeking to leave Nazi-occupied France.
My grandfather had five children. He printed these forged IDs until the Nazis were kicked out of France in 1944.
At the end of the war, my grandmother inadvertently found out that her husband had endangered the lives of the whole family over several years, while keeping her in the dark. Unquestionably, being caught by the Nazis meant a one-way ticket to Auschwitz for the whole family.
She never forgave him.
The café where my grandfather nightly delivered the forged documents to Resistance fighters still exists.
I go there for a drink, once in a while.
The printing house was demolished a few years ago.
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Never Forget the sacrifices they made for us.
ReplyDeletePutin reflects the 20th century Nazism today. Slava Ukraïni!
ReplyDeletePeople like your grandfather are essential to prevent the world from descending into a hellscape. Bravo to him.
ReplyDelete🙏
DeleteFin 1966 nous avons du effectuer un travail pour comparer les deux visions opposées sur ce "jour le plus long" d'une part et "Ils arrivent" ; instructif tant des positions du même fait peuvent être opposées ; ce qui est clair et non contesté c'est la démolition de cités françaises pour faciliter cet événement
ReplyDeleteJe ne vois pas très bien ce qui est "contesté"... La seule grande "nouveauté" est née de l'ouverture des archives britanniques, qui ont révélé que le décryptage des messages d'Enigma avaient joué un rôle de premier plan dans l'élaboration et le succès d'Overlord.
DeleteBritain Releases World War II Code-Breaking Papers
April 19, 2012
The British government has released two 70-year-old papers written by Alan Turing, the mathematical mind who was instrumental in breaking the German Enigma codes during World War II.
The BBC says the U.K.'s Government Communications Headquarters was releasing the papers on the occasion of the centenary of Turing's birth. The GCHQ, the British equivalent of America's National Security Agency, is quoted as saying that the typed papers with handwritten notes had previously been restricted because of their "tremendous importance."
Turing and the Bletchley Park team were tasked with breaking the sophisticated codes used widely within the German Wehrmacht, particularly by the submarine forces. (NPR, April 2012)