#Allied Invasion of France

[deadpresidents]

Order of the Day message delivered to Allied forces from General Dwight D. Eisenhower, Supreme Allied Commander, prior to the D-Day invasion, June 6, 1944.

[thepastisalreadywritten]

Leon Gautier (October 27, 1922 - July 3, 2023)

[govikings]

2016 - Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial

[vox-anglosphere]

On this day in 1944, the hinge of European history began to turn.

[blackswaneuroparedux]

A load of Porkies: Verlaine’s poetry and the French resistance on D Day 1944

Les saglots longs Des violons De l'automne Blessent mon coeur D'une langueur Monotone.

- Paul Verlaine, Chanson d’automne (1866)

6 June 1944 marks the commemoration of the historic D Day landings in Normandy. Every year I exchange messages with family members, friends, and also some of my army veteran comrades with whom I served in the past. The simple messages of remembrance are a reminder to us of the sacrifices made by British and the Commonwealth, American, and the French on that fateful day when Allied forces stormed the beaches on Normandy.

I remember receiving one post from an ex-veteran friend who flew with me. It was a picture of a local delicacy, Lincolnshire Chine, a traditional dish of cured pork and parsley only made in Lincolnshire, and a cryptic message underneath, ‘chanson d’automne’.

My friend is too witty for his own good sometimes and even I was stumped. He had read modern languages at Oxford and so was always prone to quoting French poetry at every opportunity, no matter how inappropriate the situation - like the time we were fortunate to have avoided a rocket attack from the Taliban but for some cool headed piloting and as we took a breather to thank God we made it out he bursts into poetry. He was (and still is) ferociously clever but wears it lightly behind his amiable character. It’s not surprising that our senior officers didn’t warm to his dry wit in the officers mess as he often lampooned the more boorish of the officer class that passed through our mess as guests. At heart he was a farmer and he longed to go back to his family farm lands in Lincolnshire after his time was up flying helicopters in the British army.

I nicknamed him Lucy after the great Roman patrician, soldier, and statesman, Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus. Cincinnatus was the outstanding Roman military leader who displayed humility, loyalty, and modesty. At the height of his power and fame he displayed the highest civic duty by giving up everything to go back to his simple farm life - which in time became the Roman civic ideal. I still think the nickname suits my ex-comrade in arms very well.

Drinking wine gives me moments of clarity and it slowly dawned on me what his cryptic message had meant.

Chanson d’Automne (1866) was a poem by the celebrated French poet, Paul-Marie Verlaine. His poem Chanson d’Automne (1866) is among the most beloved in French poetry. It captures his nostalgia for lost time in fewer words, and possibly just as well, as does Proust in six volumes.

Although it might have surprised Verlaine had he known it, the first lines of his poem were used by the British in the Second World War to signal the start of D-Day to the French resistance, which began the Allied invasion of Nazi-occupied France. D-Day (or "Operation Overlord") was a herculean planning task, requiring remarkable coordination both between the British, American, Free French, and Commonwealth armies, and with French resistance fighters on the ground, who were charged with helping aerial bombers disrupt German transportation routes, so as to impair the Germans' ability to send reinforcements.

But what had Paul-Marie Verlaine got to do with a side of cured pork from Lincolnshire?

Paul-Marie Verlaine lived and worked in Lincolnshire in 1875, teaching French, Latin and drawing at William Lovell's school. He had spent eighteen months in prison for shooting and wounding his lover Arthur Rimbaud and, when released in January that year, considered becoming a Trappist monk before deciding (the next best thing?) to become a school master in England. He came to London, registered with an employment agency and was soon heading north to this remote and, on the face of it, inhospitable backwater. Verlaine then spent a year as a schoolmaster in the village of Stickney, just north of Boston, Lincolnshire, in the mid-1870s and it is said that he became enamoured with this Lincolnshire delicacy. Verlaine continued to search for stuffed chine as he journeyed around Britain, but as is still the case today, he failed to find it outside Lincolnshire.

Unless you’re from Lincolnshire then the chances are you’ve never heard of stuffed chine. Unique to Lincolnshire, stuffed chine is a traditional dish made with cured pork and parsley. Once a county staple, its popularity has declined over the years as the younger generation looks to more modern cuisine and the older cuts are slowly forgotten. In the days before fridges and freezers, families would cure their meat to last them through the lean winter months. Each family would have a couple of pigs to kill - some of the meat would be salted and hung, and the rest used fresh.

Communities were tightly knit and there was often a friendly agreement between neighbours to stagger their kills and share fresh meat among the families, who then reciprocated when they in turn killed their pigs. Neighbours would pass on and receive this “pig cheer” all through the winter months while the pig killing went on, thus ensuring they always had fresh meat.

Once spring approached, however, they would look to use up some of the meat that had been salted and put away. Stuffed chine was traditionally served when the May Hiring Fair was in town (a kind of outdoor employment exchange, where people made themselves available for temporary work), and the largest chine was usually saved for Christenings – seeing a fresh row of parsley growing in a garden was often the sign that there was a baby on the way!

When the time came to use the chine it was soaked in cold water overnight, then carefully sliced from the spinal side towards the rind. Finely chopped parsley was packed tightly into the deep pockets in the flesh, then the joint was turned over and the process repeated on the other side. Next, the chine was very tightly wrapped up in muslin or an old pillowcase and simmered until cooked through. The cooked meat was left to cool still wrapped in cloth in order for it to set. Once completely cooled it was unwrapped, sliced thinly and served with a sprinkle of vinegar to cut through the fat.

Few butchers still use this traditional method as the cooked chine has to be carefully sliced by hand to avoid the bones, which due to the large bone-to-meat ratio makes it quite an expensive cut. For this reason many butchers choose to use collar bacon instead, which contains no bone and can therefore be sliced by a machine. There is something rather beautiful about the strips of pink salty pork divided by the flashes of punchy green parsley that immediately draws you in when you see it standing proudly in the butcher’s shop.

My ex-veteran friend’s witty post was a reminder how deeply immersed the British and the French (as well as the Germans) were in sharing a common currency of shared culture even in the bloody carnage of war. It was at 9.15pm French time on 5 June 1944, the opening notes of Beethoven's 5th, forming the Morse for V for Victory, sounded across the airwaves of BBC's Radio Londres into France. The speaker, Franck Bauer, read out personal messages that were known to individual Resistance groups in France. Hundreds of messages were sent out on the eve of the invasion, such as “Les carottes sont cuites” (The carrots are cooked), "La mélasse demain donnera le cognac" (Molasses tomorrow will bring forth cognac), and ““Jean a une longue moustache” (Jean has a long moustache).

But the most famous of all were verses from Verlaine's 'Chanson d'automne' destined for a Resistance group in central France. For the Resistance, these were a call to arms. All of these messages were picked up by the 15 Army listening post in Tourcoing, but although the Germans knew these messages were destined for the Resistance, they didn’t know their exact meaning. During the night of 5/6 June, the Resistance would carry out over 1,000 acts of sabotage, knocking out phone lines and blowing up railways, thus playing a vital and often overlooked role in the success of D-Day.

One of my favourite details of the whole D Day plan was how the Allies alerted the French that it was time to begin sabotaging rail-lines. On 1 June 1944, to tell the resistance to stand by for further alerts, the BBC transmitted the first three lines:

Les sanglots longs Des violons De l'automne

Per Arthur Symons' translation: "When a sighing begins / In the violins / Of the autumn-song".

The Germans wrongly believed that these lines were addressed to all Resistance circuits in France, and that when the next three lines were broadcast it would mean that invasion would follow within forty-eight hours. The lines were directed to a single Resistance circuit, Ventriloquist, working south of Orléans, instructing it to stand by for the next three lines, which would be the signal for it to carry out its railway-cutting tasks - in conjunction with the Allied landings.

Then, on June 5, to signal that sabotage efforts should begin, the next three lines were sent:

Blessent mon coeur D'une langueur Monotone

Symons: "My heart is drowned / In the slow sound / Languorous and long."

Both lines were intercepted by German forces, who took them as significant but didn't take adequate action; for one thing, they overestimated the scope of the sabotage operations to come. The second three lines of the Verlaine poem were broadcast over the BBC to the Ventriloquist Resistance circuit, instructing it to act at once in carrying out its railway-cutting sabotage. The SS Security Service radio interception section in Paris heard this as it was broadcast.

Believing, rightly, that the broadcast of the section of the poem was related to invasion, but wrongly, that it was an Allied call for railway sabotage throughout France, the Security Service immediately alerted the German High Command in the West.

An hour later, the German Fifteenth Army warned its various corps that intercepted messages pointed to an invasion within forty-eight hours (the parachute landings were fewer than three hours away). The German force responsible for most of the imminent assault area, the Seventh Army, which had received too many false warnings in the past, took no action.

The combination of airstrikes and ground sabotage proved extremely successful, especially as they wound up forcing the Germans to cross the Seine via ferry. The Germans ended up sending two panzer divisions all the way from the Russian front to fend off the invasion, but because of sabotage and bombings,  it took less time to travel from the eastern front to France than it did for them to proceed from eastern France to Normandy.

This is a good time as any to also point out at the Allied invasion of the Nomandy beaches would not have gone as well as they did without the help and support of the French themselves. I think there has been a skewering of perceptions that the D Day landings and the subsequent liberation of France was purely due to the Allied forces. What gets overlooked is the bravery and courage of the home grown French Resistance that played a crucial part also.

Truth be told as Allied soldiers stormed the beaches of Normandy on D-Day, 6 June 1944, the French Resistance were paving the way for their arrival. The French Resistance, the covert volunteers who had been struggling against the Nazis since 1940, leaped into action. They put their lives on the line as at no other time in the Second World War, risking everything to help the professional soldiers. This was their chance to liberate their country, and they seized it with both hands.

The French Resistance first emerged following the fall of France in 1940. With the nation’s armed forces shattered, some French people fled to Britain to remain free and continue the war. Most others bowed, with varying degrees of willingness, to the occupiers and the collaborating Vichy regime. But a few took another path, forming cells of spies and guerrillas who kept the hope of a free France alive. They provided intelligence to the Allies, sabotaged German facilities, and smuggled downed airmen and escaped POWs to safety.

The risks were incredibly high, and many Resistance members met horrible deaths at the hands of the Nazi regime. But their numbers kept growing, and by June of 1944, 100,000 Resistance members were waiting to rise up.

From the start, the Resistance had received support from elsewhere in the Allied camp. Britain’s Special Operations Executive (SOE), America’s Office of Strategic Services (OSS), and the exiled Free French forces under General de Gaulle had all made efforts to strengthen the volunteer force. They had forged connections with existing Resistance cells, fostered the growth of new ones, and provided them with supplies.

Perhaps the most important support the Allies gave came in the form of radio sets. These allowed the Resistance to more effectively coordinate with the rest of the Allies and with each other. Central to this was Radio London, a propaganda station the Allies used to keep hope alive in Europe. By transmitting pre-arranged code phrases in the personal messages part of its broadcasts, Radio London let Resistance members know about specific events, such as supply drops.

Immediately before D-Day, the Allies sent in the Jedburgh teams; three-man groups of Allied soldiers who were parachuted into France with radio sets. They joined up with Resistance cells, supporting them in their work and bringing them under Allied military leadership.

The Americans and British couldn’t afford to entirely trust the Resistance or even the Free French. Therefore, they kept details of the plans for D-Day from these critical allies until the last minute. In the lead-up to D-Day, signals told the Resistance that something was coming. They were encouraged to launch attacks on specific types of targets to prepare the way. At the start of June, a signal told them that the invasion was imminent, but when and where remained a closely guarded secret.

The Resistance carried out several distinct but related operations around D-Day: • Plan Vert – sabotaging the railway system. • Plan Tortue – sabotaging the road network. • Plan Violet – destroying phone lines. • Plan Bleu – destroying power lines. • Plan Rouge – attacking German ammunition dumps. • Plan Noir – attacking enemy fuel depots. • Plan Jaune – attacking the command posts of the occupying forces.

Some of these plans went active in the weeks leading up to the invasion. Plan Vert was particularly effective. Together with an Allied bombing campaign, the Resistance destroyed 577 railroads and 1,500 locomotives, three-quarters of the trains available in northern France. As part of Tortue, they also destroyed 30 roads and, again with British bombers, 18 of the 24 bridges over the northern stretch of the River Seine.

These attacks on the transport network were crucial to the success of D-Day. With trains out of action and roads ruined, the Germans struggled to get reinforcements to the front. The work of the Resistance crippled any potential for a significant counter-attack.

So on the night of 5 June 1944, when the crucial message arrived from Radio London, they knew attack was coming and more importantly they were ready. This is what they waited for since 1940, it was time for for Plan Violet. Across the country, they sprang into action, cutting phone lines and attacking communications centres. 32 telecommunications sites were destroyed in these attacks.

Emboldened by the Allies’ arrival, many Resistance cells went on a war footing. They ambushed German troops heading for the front. In some towns and villages, they killed or drove out the occupying authorities.

Close to the Allied landings, some of these operations were carried out in coordination with the SOE and Jedburgh teams, or with paratroopers who had landed behind German lines. As the regular forces advanced, the Resistance rose up to help and to punish the occupiers who had oppressed them for the past four years.

Unfortunately, this ended badly for some groups. Far away from the newly arrived armies, they lacked the support they needed to survive now that they had revealed themselves. Some of these groups were forced on the run. Others were killed weeks before the Allies could reach them. French leaders encouraged them to stand down and return to guerrilla operations until regular forces reached them, in hopes of saving lives.

Having understood the meaning behind my friend’s cryptic message of Paul Verlaine’s poem gave me pause for thought as I reflected on the bravery and the sacrifices made by all who took part in D Day, both on the beaches and behind occupied enemy lines.

The nature of war always reveals the true nature of those who fight. War, someone said, is not human nature, but a habit. We tell the dead to rest in peace, when we should worry about the living to live in peace.

So I messaged back to ‘Lucy’, my witty ex-comrade in arms, and quoted a stanza from Paul Verlaine well known poem, Crimen Amoris.

I knew ‘Lucy’ would understand that I understood his message on this most solemn of days to commemorate the bravery and sacrifices of the Greatest Generation through the prism of our own shared experience of war in Afghanistan:

Nous avons tous trop souffert, anges et hommes, De ce conflit entre le Pire et le Mieux. Humilions, misérables que nous sommes, Tous nos élans dans le plus simple des voeux.**

Too greatly have we suffered, angels and men, In this endless war between the Worst and the Best, Humiliated, unhappy have we been In darkling flights by the simplest vows addressed. ***

[twobluejeans]

HEARTBREAK ON TOUR!

charles leclerc x famous!reader

summary: in which the lavender haze has been lifted. or in which america’s it couple splits.

part 1: don’t start, part 2: wtf does ET know?

faceclaim: varies but for rn madison beer

ally’s radio 📻: heavily inspired by taylor swift and joe alwyn’s breakup bc im still in mourning. a lot of tswift references 🫶

liked by italyrry, parisy/n, and 83,783 others

y/nflorals Y/N GETTING EMOTIONAL DURING THE 1 LAST NIGHT IN GLASGLOW! via loveonshow

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user4 okay but the fit fire

sweetnothingy/n my show my song ❤️‍🩹

user5 man she even looks pretty when she cries this is not fair bruh

back2decemberl/n this was a religious experience. i nearly died

loveontourhs FRANCE GOT ROBBED.

dontblamemey/n SHE REPLACED INVISIBLE STRING WITH THE 1?? ARE YOU SHITTING ME?

leclercy/n @dontblamemeleclerc i’m gonna kms

liked by haileybieber, norizzland0, and 122,728 others

enews photos caught of ‘lover’ singer #y/nl/n and #charlesleclerc fighting outside a restaurant in london tonight. click link in bio for more info on the it couple’s nasty choice of words.

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arianagrande take this down immediately. please respect people’s privacy for once oml

chary/n @arianagrande ARIANA WHAT ARE U DOING HERE??

devil_leclerc this was not the family reunion i was expecting 💀

badbloody/n this feels so invasive and wrong on so many levels

trishapaytasnotreal oh this looks nasty, poor bby 🙁

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lordpercevalupdates i don’t wanna scare anyone even more but…

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user1 girl what

y/nmybeloved “i think i’ve seen this film before…”

charles.y/n @y/nmybeloved don’t even.

allmychampagney/n fell to my knees at walmart

ally’s radio 📻: i swear this gets better 😭 pls im a star 🙏

planning on making this a multi-series so i if u want a tag, pls lmk!! 💋.

[whencyclopedia]

Utah Beach

Utah Beach was the westernmost of the five beaches attacked in the D-Day Normandy landings of 6 June 1944 and the one taken with the fewest casualties. Paratroopers were also dropped behind Utah, and despite being widely dispersed and suffering heavy casualties, they managed to secure this western flank of the invasion and liberate the first French town, Ste-Mère-Église.

Operation Overlord

The amphibious assault on the beaches of Normandy was the first stage of Operation Overlord, which sought to free Western Europe from occupation by Nazi Germany. The supreme commander of the Allied invasion force was General Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890-1969), who had been in charge of the Allied operations in the Mediterranean. The commander-in-chief of the Normandy land forces, 39 divisions in all, was the experienced General Bernard Montgomery (1887-1976). Commanding the air element was Air Chief Marshal Trafford Leigh Mallory (1892-1944), with the naval element commanded by Admiral Bertram Ramsay (1883-1945).

Nazi Germany had long prepared for an Allied invasion, but the German high command was unsure where exactly such an invasion would take place. Allied diversionary strategies added to the uncertainty, but the most likely places remained either the Pas de Calais, the closest point to British shores, or Normandy with its wide flat beaches. The Nazi leader Adolf Hitler (1889-1945) attempted to fortify the entire coast from Spain to the Netherlands with a series of bunkers, pillboxes, artillery batteries, and troops, but this Atlantic Wall, as he called it, was far from being complete in the summer of 1944. In addition, the wall was thin since there was no real depth to the defences.

Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt (1875-1953), commander-in-chief of the German army in the West, believed it would be impossible to stop an invasion on the coast and so it would be better to hold the bulk of the defensive forces as a mobile reserve to counterattack against enemy beachheads. Field Marshal Erwin Rommel (1891-1944), commander of Army Group B, disagreed and considered it essential to halt any invasion on the beaches themselves. Further, Rommel believed that Allied air superiority meant that movements of reserves would be severely hampered. Hitler agreed with Rommel, and so the defenders were strung out wherever the fortifications were at their weakest. Rommel improved the static defences and added steel anti-tank structures to all the larger beaches. In the end, Rundstedt was given a mobile reserve, but the compromise weakened both plans of defence.

The German response would not be helped either by their confused command structure, which meant that Rundstedt could not call on any armour (but Rommel, who reported directly to Hitler, could), and neither commander had any control over the paltry naval and air forces available or the separately controlled coastal batteries. Nevertheless, the defences were bulked up around the weaker defences of Normandy to an impressive 31 infantry divisions plus 10 armoured divisions and 7 reserve infantry divisions. The German army had another 13 divisions in other areas of France. A standard German division had a full strength of 15,000 men.

Continue reading...

[sayruq]

Biden's visit has concluded. Israel has spent his entire visit trying to muddy the waters of what happened to Al Ahli Hospital and despite their cartoonish efforts, it hasn't worked

The Global South and especially West Asia know who is responsible for the bombing and no amount of AI voice recordings of 'Hamas operatives' can change that.

Israel war crimes continues to backfire on them even in America

Biden backing Israel has had an impact on America's image. Here's a Wall Street Journal article warning that America's continued support is turning countries towards Russia and China which is code for turning countries against America

An EU official said that the EU will pay a heavy price in the Global South for its continued, unabashed support for Israel

There's also speculation that the Biden administration knew about the bombing before it happened.

Countries that were/are allied with Israel continue to distance themselves from Israel like Russia. The reason I keep highlighting Russia is because the West has been running out of ammunition due to the Russia-Ukraine war and that includes Israel which is rumoured to have sent 80-90% of its ammunition to Ukraine. If this conflict lasts a long time, Israel will need to buy weapons and ammunition and Russia would be one of the countries they would turn to (same with China)

So, where are we in terms of the conflict? After days of waffling over a ground operation in Gaza, Israel postponed it until some time after Biden's visit and now we're back here again

Now I'm no military expert but constantly going back and forth on whether or not you'll invade Gaza is bound to do damage to your troops' morale. No wonder they're dealing with mass desertions while their citizens demonstrate on the streets. The Israeli leadership has no plan besides bombing Gaza.

I've seen people on twitter say that the hospital bombing was done deliberately to normalise IDF soldiers to mass civilian deaths in places like hospitals, schools, places of worship, etc. I don't know if I believe that - I think they wanted to push Iran and Hezbollah's buttons before hiding behind Biden. I don't think these people are thinking strategically.

As far as the possibility of regional war is concerned, all indicators show that the West preparing for the war to escalate

Seems to me the Israel has seen what Ukraine has received in just a year and a half of war. They're done receiving a paltry 3.8 billion every year and now prepared to drag out the conflict and I can't say I blame with Biden proposing a 100 billion package for both Ukraine and Israel. This will stretch America too thin as far as funding in concerned. Cracks are already showing

There are parts of the US government that is unhappy that the Ukraine war is losing attention. During the Ukraine war, you had parts of the government that wanted focus to shift from Russia to China. Because of that, the US government has spent the past year alternating between hostility to Russia and threatening to go to war with China over Taiwan. When Niger expelled France from within its borders, America was preparing to join that conflict until Mali and Burkina Faso declared they would fight with Niger. Now they're entering a third front in West Asia. In short, the mighty empire is expending a lot of resources right now and it is not the threat it was when it invaded Iraq and Afghanistan in the early 2000s.

At any rate, the ground invasion of Gaza won't go the way Israel and America hopes it will

The coalition of Palestinian resistance fighters are still patiently waiting for the IDF to come meet them. Their allies aren't backing down either

The reason I keep making these posts is to remind people that, while the genocide of the people of Gaza is horrifying, the war for the liberation of Palestine has not yet been lost.

Do not lose hope. From the river to sea, Palestine WILL be free

[sgtgrunt0331-3]

One of the best scenes from the HBO miniseries, Band of Brothers.

Lieutenant Dick Winters (Damian Lewis) and the men of Easy Company, 101st Airborne Division, load into their aircraft and fly to Nazi occupied France to be the spearhead for the invasion of Normandy.

By the early morning hours of June 6, 1944, thousands of American and British paratroopers would be the first allied troops to land in France and help spearhead the D-Day invasion.

[deadpresidents]

Operation Overlord Normandy, France D-Day: June 6, 1944

[majorhortonisonleaveinlondon]

If you’re wanting to watch Band of Brothers/The Pacific/Masters of the Air in chronological order with BoB 1st Currahee episode split up in the dates on screen I made a list

(Updated: April 12, 2024 7:58pm pst)

July, 10 1942 Easy Company Trains in Camp Tocca (Band of Brothers Ep. 1 Currahee 2001) August 7, 1942, Allied forces land on Guadalcanal (The Pacific Ep. 1 Guadalcanal/Leckie 2010) September 18, 1942, 7th Marines Land on Guadalcanal (The Pacific Ep. 2 Basilone 2010) December 1942 The 1st Marine Division on Guadalcanal is relieved (The Pacific Ep. 3 Melbourne 2010) *June 23, 1943, Easy Company Trains in Camp Mackall N.C. (Band of Brothers Ep. 1 Currahee) * June 25, 1943, 100th Bomb Group flew its first 8th Air Force combat mission (Master of the Air Ep. 1 2024)

July 16, 1943 the 100th Bomb Group bombed U-Boats in Tronbhdim (Masters of the Air Ep.2 2024) August 17, 1943 the 4th Bomb Wing of the 100th Bomb Group bombed Regenberg (Masters of the Air Ep. 3 2024) *September 6, 1943, Easy Company Boards transport ship in Brooklyn Naval Yard (Band of Brothers Ep. 1 Currahee)* September 16, 1943, William Quinn and Charles Bailey leave Belgium (Masters of the Air Ep.4 2024) September 18, 1943 -*East Company trains in Aldbourne, England (Band of Brothers Ep. 1 Currahee)* -John 'Bucky' Egan returns from leave to join the mission to bomb Munster (Master of the Air Ep.5 2024) October 14, 1943, John ‘Bucky’ Egan interrogated at Dulag Lut, Frankfurt Germany (Masters of the Air Ep. 6 2024) December 26, 1943, 1st Marine Division lands on Cape Gloucester (The Pacific Ep. 4 Gloucester/Pavuvu/Banika 2010) March 7, 1944, Stalag Luft III Sagan, Germany, Germans find the concealed radio Bucky was using to learn news of the War (Master of the Air Ep.7 2024) *June 4, 1944, D-Day Invasion postponed (Band of Brothers Ep. 1 Currahee)* *June 5, 1944 Easy Company Boards air transport planes bound for Normandy (Band of Brothers Ep. 1 Currahee)* June 6, 1944, 00:48 & 01:40 First airborne troops begin to land on Normandy (Band of Brothers Ep. 2 Day of Days 2001)

June, 7 1944 Easy Company Takes Carentan (Band of Brothers 3x10 Carentan)

August 12, 1944, The 332nd Fighter Group attack Radar stations in Southern France (Masters of the Air Ep.8 2024)

September 15, 1944 U.S. Marines landed on Peleliu at 08:32, on September 15, 1944 (the Pacific Part Five: Peleliu Landing)

September 16, 1944 Marines take Peleliu airfield (the Pacific Part Six: Airfield)

September, 17 1944 Operation Market Garden -(Band of Brothers 4x10 Replacements)

October 22/23, 1944, 2100 – 0200 Operation Pegasus (Band of Brothers 5x10 Crossroads)

October, 1944 Battle of Peleliu continues (the Pacific Part Seven: Peleliu Hills)

December 16, 1944 Battle of the Bulge (Band of Brothers 6x10 Bastogne)


January, 1945 Battle of Foy (Band of Brothers 7x10 The Breaking Point)


February 14, 1945 David Webb rejoins the 506th in Haguenau (Band of Brothers 8x10 The Last Patrol)

April 5, 1945 506th Finds abandoned Concentration Camp
(Band of Brothers 9x10 Why We Fight 2001)

April 1-June 22, 1945 Battle of Okinawa (The Pacific Part Nine: Okinawa)


May 7, 1945, Germany Surrenders V-E Day - (Master of the Air Ep. 9 2024) - (Band of Brothers 10x10 Points 2001)

August 15 The Empire of Japan surrenders end of the War (The Pacific Part Ten: Home)

[citizenscreen]

At the 11th hour on the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918, the Great War ends. At 5 a.m. that morning, Germany, bereft of manpower and supplies and faced with imminent invasion, signed an armistice agreement with the Allies in a railroad car outside Compiégne, France.

[bignaz8]

D-DAY ANNIVERSARY

“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…” With these words, Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower issued the “Order of the Day” just before the 1944 Allied assault on Normandy Beach. It’s been 80 years since that historic day, and less than one percent of Americans who served in WWII are still alive. However, the impact of their service and sacrifice will live on forever.

Code named Operation Overlord, planning for D-Day began after France fell to the Nazis in 1940. It involved Allies from several countries and was the largest amphibious invasion in military history. As H-Hour approached (5:30 a.m. local time) on June 6, 1944, demolition teams had already blasted out underwater obstacles planted by German forces. Rangers were already scaling the cliffs to knock out coastal guns, and American and British airborne divisions had been dropped in hedgerows behind the beaches overnight. Soon, the first waves of Infantry would hit the beach.

Leonard T. Schroeder, Jr. served in the 2nd Battalion, 8th Infantry, Fourth Division, where he was the commanding officer of Company F. 

He has the distinction of being the first man ashore at Utah Beach, the first beachhead, landing fewer than 60 seconds after H-Hour. Recalling the day, Schroeder said that Allied aircraft had bombed the beach heavily, creating craters that could be used as cover. Some of those craters were offshore and hidden by water. When Schroeder’s landing craft pulled ashore, he jumped off and into a water-filled crater six feet deep. He came up sputtering and struggled to rush ashore. Working his way up the beach, he was wounded by shrapnel but continued to fight. He commanded his company for three hours before collapsing into unconsciousness. He woke up at an aid station and was later evacuated to England. Schroeder received the Silver Star.

Pvt. Carlton W. Barrett served in the 18th Infantry, 1st Infantry Division and participated in the Normandy Invasion. His unit was in the third wave of Allied soldiers to come ashore at Omaha Beach, landing at about 10:00 a.m. Germans had planted mines on the beach about a foot apart, and the beach was strewn with bodies of soldiers. Barrett landed under heavy enemy fire, wading through neck-deep water. He noticed fellow soldiers around him floundering in the water and rushed to save them from drowning. Once on the beach, Barrett carried dispatches back and forth along the exposed beach while under heavy fire. He also carried wounded soldiers to an offshore evacuation boat. For his dauntless courage, Barrett was awarded the Medal of Honor.

The Allies landed over 160,000 troops on June 6, 1944, with an estimated 10,000 casualties, more than half of which were American. Today, a visit to the Normandy American Cemetery is the final resting place for 9,387 Americans and a sobering reminder of selfless service and the ultimate sacrifice made 80 years ago. 

[vox-anglosphere]

Indeed, our war heroes need to be treated with dignity and respect.

[camisoledadparis]

"Life is unfair. I got nothing but the best."

Jean Marais

He was the muse and lover of the great artist/writer/filmmaker Jean Cocteau, plus he was an actor of considerable skill and certain charisma, a film and theatre director, writer, and visual artist.

Marais was born Jean-Alfred Villain-Marais in Cherbourg to a shoplifting, sometimes violent, sometimes loving mother. He was always drawn to drama of all sorts. Expelled from school when, to amuse his friends, Marais dressed as a girl and flirted with a male teacher. As a kid, Marais worked various jobs including newspaper boy, photographer, and sketch artist.

In 1937, 24-year-old Marais first met the 48-year-old Cocteau. They became acquainted when Marais auditioned for a role in a revival of Cocteau's play OEDIPE-ROI. Cocteau cast Marais for the role, plus he fell madly in love with the young actor.

Marais and Cocteau became partners in life and art. Marais nudged Cocteau to write a special screenplay for him to play the lead role. L'ETERNEL RETOUR (1943) was that film and it became a commercial success and a critical triumph for both the filmmaker and its star.

Marais continued to act in films and plays while the Nazis occupied France during World War II. Both Cocteau and Marais stayed in Paris during the occupation despite the very real danger of having nearly everyone in the city knowing that they were a gay couple. Cocteau had some powerful connections who protected them, even after Marais punched a Vichy critic for writing a bad review of one of Cocteau's plays. Their names were posted in the French press, which was controlled by those nasty Nazis, but because of Cocteau's friends in high places, they avoided being arrested and sent to a concentration camp.

Marais tried to join the Resistance, but he was rejected for being gay and also because of his reputation for speaking candidly. So instead, he volunteered for France's Second Armored Division after the liberation of Paris and drove trucks carrying fuel and ammunition to the frontlines during the Allied invasion of Germany. Marais was eventually awarded the Croix de Guerre for his bravery during his wartime service.

During the Nazi occupation, there were other gay couples in Paris, but it was unusual for any of them to be openly living together, working together, and behaving like a married couple. They were especially brave, even maybe reckless.

After the war in 1946, L'ETERNEL RETOUR was released in the USA introducing Marais to American film fans. Photographs of his handsome face and hot body became a popular pin-up for teenage girls and for gay fans slyly aware of his real relationship with Cocteau.

Cocteau didn't consider himself a filmmaker, but poet, and LA BELLE ET LA BETE (1946), his film masterpiece, plays like a visual poem in which Marais plays three roles.

Although Marais and Cocteau's romance cooled down by the late 1940s, they remained the closest of friends until Cocteau's final credits rolled for good in 1963. After Cocteau died, Marais stated: "I bitterly regret not having spent all of my life serving Cocteau instead of worrying about my own career." Marais enjoyed that career; it lasted more than six decades. His blond, classical good looks and skillful acting can be experienced in more than 100 films and television shows.

In the 1950s, Marais fell in love with American dancer and choreographer George Reich (1926 – 2013). Reich resembled Marais; both were blonde, athletic, and unworldly handsome. Reich was the first classically trained dancer to organize an American-style ballet company in France, The Ballet HO. He danced at the Lido de Paris, the Moulin Rouge, The Ballet De Paris, and in the MGM musical film THE GLASS SLIPPER (1955) with Leslie Caron, plus he provided the choreography for Marlene Dietrich, Joséphine Baker, and Edith Piaf's nightclub acts. Reich and Marais were a couple for more than a decade.

Marais sought to reconcile romantically with Cocteau at the end of the great artist's life, but rebuffed and frustrated, he returned to his old opium habit. Marais had been legally adopted by Cocteau so that he would be his inheritor.

Like Cocteau, Marais had no problem finding the company of handsome younger men. For one of them, Serge Ayala (1943 – 2012), he helped find acting work and legally adopted him as a son, taking the name Serge Villain-Marais. This adopted son became a singer and an actor. Marais enjoyed life with his protégé until he took his final curtain call in 1998, gone from heart failure, just like his former, fabulous, famous lover. The adopted son took his own life in 2012 at 69 years old after troubling inheritance litigation with Marais's estate left him lonely and depressed.

Marais's life story served as the inspiration for François Truffaut's film THE LAST METRO (1980).

Photo: Marais et Cocteau à la terrasse d'un café de Venise, lors de la huitième Mostra de Venise, 1947