British Normandy Memorial
 

British Normandy Memorial

Official opening today - 77 years one from that day that changed the course of history and was a significant part of consigning the evils of Nazism to the dustbin of history.

Lest we forget!

I see that the US have four aircraft overflying. Are we represented?

Just watched it - deeply moving. The Arrows were there.

Memorial was the lead item on France 2 lunchtime news..

:ok:

22422 names inscribed on the memorial, extending from D-Day to the final liberation of Normandy. Another awesome statistic to add to those already recorded elsewhere for other campaigns and battles. So few of the survivors left with us now, and this cruel pandemic meant most had to attend the video link at the NMA at Alrewas.

A moving ceremony that rightly put the veterans front and centre. Like the BC memorial in London we have waited far too long for it but it is perhaps all the more impressive for that, sited as it is immediately above Gold Beach. It now joins the other allied memorials strung along the Normandy coast celebrating the start of the liberation of Europe, a liberation that was by no means a foregone conclusion. Only the tenacity and sacrifice of those who fought there ensured success.

We Will Remember Them!

I'm a little confused. At various times throughout the programe the cameras panned the panels with the names of the fallen inscribed on them. I kept seeing the rank inscription of SJT and LSJT. Were these abreviations for Sergeant and Lance Sergeant?

I believe the rank Serjeant was retained in the Rifles and later the Royal Green Jackets when the spelling changed

Serjeant also Int Corps and Corps of Royal Engineers. There is also the Serjeant Surgeon - the senior Surgeon in the Royal Household :ok:

The D-Day Memorial in the United States is near a small town in the State of Virginia.

Among the troops landing on Omaha Beach in the first wave was a unit formed from the Army National Guard from around the town of Bedford.

That unit took 95% casualties during the first ten minutes of the landing.

It was said that every family in the Bedford area lost someone on that beach.

Each year....the gallantry and sacrifice of those of all Nations that day are honored and given respect.

That is as it should be.

There is a fine book about that Battalion of Infantry called "The Bedford Boys"

Caught a glimpse of the fly past - were there only 8 Arrows or did I get that wrong?

Looked like 8: ? missing man formation?

Saw a picture of the Arrows at the Midland Air Festival later that day and there were only 8 aircraft.

Salute!

Hope Britain proles realized how brutal and inportant Normandy was. Most proles here in the Colonies just remember a movie or two.

Many do not realize that 3 outta the 5 beaches were landed by British and Canadian forces. And you know what? After a day the Allies had established a beach head and were moving east.

Gums sends...

Indeed but not very far... at least for a while. Most people don't know how brutal and intense the fighting was in Normandy (for all sides). Lots of books out there- Six Armies in Normandy by John Keegan being imo one of the best.

One of the things that amazes me is how it was planned and put together so that everything and everyone was in the right place at the right time...well almost anyway. And all without computers- just lots of bods with typewriters. The staff work must have been staggering.

"One of the things that amazes me is how it was planned and put together so that everything and everyone was in the right place at the right time2

It's worth looking at Roskill's Official History of the War at Sea for D-Day planning - astounding where everything came from and how it all had to arrive in the right place at the right time......

"Hope Britain proles realized how brutal and important Normandy was. Most proles here in the Colonies just remember a movie or two."

D-Day is remembered as a great victory - the word has entered the English language. But the slogging for the next two moths, before break-out, is somewhat (tho not totally) played down.

Admiral Sir Bertram Ramsey is one of the unsung heros of D-Day only a few people seem to remember. He died in a mysterious air crash in 1945, Ramsay's legacy has been remembered by the Royal Navy but his key role in the Allied victory has been widely forgotten. After the war ended his achievements ranked alongside those of Sir Winston Churchill, Field Marshal Viscount Alanbrooke, Field Marshal Viscount Montgomery and General Dwight Eisenhower, yet he never received the public recognition he deserved.

Brian Izzard's new biography of Ramsay puts him and his work back centre-stage, arguing that Ramsay was the mastermind without whom the outcome of both Dunkirk and D-Day - and perhaps the entire war - could have been very different:-
https://www.casematepublishing.co.uk...and-d-day.html

And this YouTube tribute:-

Thank you for posting the video.

In a general sense...exactly right.

After that "everyone at the right place at the right time" depends upon what you define as the right place and at the right time.

The Airborne Drops surely did not meet that standard.

Some of the beach landings were at the wrong place which allowed for fewer casualties.

Then there is the matter of the sixth beach.

The other factoid that should be considered....there were more casualties at Omaha Beach than all of the other four Beaches combined....Gold, Juno, Sword, and Utah.

The American 1st and 29th Divisions took approximately 24,000 wounded and killed getting across the beach and onto high ground.

The great planning somehow overlooked what kind of terrain lay behind the beaches in Normandy and did not appreciate the effect the Hedgerows would provide the defenders.

No matter how one looks at it....it was an amazing feat of arms....done on the courage and dedication of the Troops involved in the. actual combat but achieved because the excellent logistics system that was on place leading up to and during the beach assault and the rest of the War.

Salute!

My connection with that "longest day" is the landing craft were built in my home town of New Orleans. They are mightily featured at the WW2 Museum there today.

https://www.warhistoryonline.com/fea...ld-war-ii.html
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To this day I wonder why 8th AF and Bomber Command did not come in low during the night and pulverize the defensive positions. It's true that by June 1944 that there were many mobile and deadly radar-controlled AAA units, but they could still only fire at one target at a time and seems like a few hundred buffs would have made quite a dent in the Nazi defensive capability.
I guess the early parachute drops made for more tricky timing than they already had to deal with, and bombing too early would give away the exact landing beaches.
In any case, the whole thing was amazing when looking at the sheer number of units from several countries, and types of equipment they used, then the real time landing of logistics a few hours after troops stormed the beaches.

Gums sends...