The Longest Day

[BFritz21]

(06-07-2020, 09:55 AM)jfkbengals Wrote: I recently learned there was an inland encampment known as Maisy Battery that played an integral part in the invasion, and it has only recently begun excavation.  If you go to the beaches, you should probably check out the other at the same time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maisy_battery

I haven't been to Europe at all, but seeing that it is a bucket list item for you both I wanted to make sure you were aware of it's existence...

I never knew that, even though I'm a WW2 nerd, but that's just another way the Germans were so perfect about everything and were the perfect machine.

The only thing that kept Germany from ruling Europe and God knows where else was Hitler breaking his treaty with Russia by invading and then refusing to pull out during winter. 

(06-11-2020, 08:35 PM)Beaker Wrote: I have always been fascinated with WWII. Got to Normandy in 2015. Went to Utah and Omaha Beaches, Point du Hoc, St Mere Eglise and the Airborne Museum, and the American and German cemeteries. Knowing as much as I did about those places and their stories made it very powerful to me.

One of the most powerful and emotional things for me was going to Omaha beach. I went at low tide (which was when the invasion took place so the landing craft could avoid the German obstacles. I went all the way down to the water and stood with my feet in the water looking back to the beach, imagining having to cover that ground while being shot at. Most movies you see portray it as about 50-100 yds to cover. Its more like 300-500 yds. The soldiers were totally exposed with only obstacles and craters for cover. I imagined trying to run for my life, with an 80 pound pack....soaking wet. Incredible that ANYONE survived. And the reason we were able to take the beach was that we simply overwhelmed the Germans with numbers. Even with machine guns there were simply too many to mow down.

Normandy is such a HUGE bucket list item for me.  I don't know how well I'd do on the beaches or in Europe in general, but seeing a place where the world changed forever would just be mind-blowing.