NOSTALGIA USA DIGITAL MAGAZINE
Vo l ume I, Number 4
A l l Th ing s No st o l g ia "
SPECIAL EDITION REMEMBERING
June 2016
features
3 A llied L eaders 4 Com m ander 5 Preparations 6 Battle Plan 7 Pointe D u H oc 8 Ut ah Beach 9 O m aha Beach 10 Gold Beach 11 Juno Beach 12 Sword Beach 13 A ir Force O ps 14 N avy O ps 15 M edical Ser vices 16 War Cor respondents 17 St ars W ho Ser ved 18 D - D ay in the Pacific 19 Battle of Siapan 20M onthly Specials 21 T hanks to O ur Veterans of World War I I
Article Title
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consetetur sadipscing elitr, sed diam nonumy eirmod tempor invidunt ut labore et dolore magna aliquyam erat, sed diam voluptua.
Artile Title
Article Title Goes Here
39
39 Article Title Goes Here
39
ALLIED LEARDERS
President Roosevelt's Address to the British Prime minister Churchill Address George VI-K ing Speech on D-Day to the British People M ay 8,1944 N ation and Prayer for O ur Troops on D-Day June 6,1944
Ronald R eagan- 40th A nniversary of D - D ay
Commander General Dwight D. Eisenhower l aunches Operat ion Overl ord O n this day in 1944, now known as D-Day, future President Dwight D. Eisenhower, then supreme commander of Allied Expeditionary Forces in World War II gives the go-ahead for a massive invasion of Europe called O peration O verlord. Back in America, President Franklin Roosevelt waited for word of the invasion?s success. By the first week of June 1944, N azi Germany controlled most of Western Europe. Allied forces, numbering 156,000, were poised to travel by ship or plane over the English Channel to
PreparationsFor Invasion O peration Fortitude was the code name for a World War II military deception employed by the Allied nations as part of an overall deception strategy (code named Bodyguard) during the build-up to the 1944 N ormandy landings. Fortitude was divided into two sub-plans, N orth and South, with the aim of misleading the German high command as to the location of the imminent invasion. Both Fortitude plans involved the creation of phantom field armies (based in Edinburgh and the south of England) which threatened N orway (Fortitude N orth) and Pas de Calais (Fortitude South). T he operation was intended to divert Axis attention away from N ormandy and, after the invasion on June 6, 1944, to delay reinforcement by convincing the Germans that the landings were purely a diversionary attack.
BattlePlan T hisarticle isdedicated to the memory of those who died on Tuesday 6 June 1944 in pursuit of freedom. It is through their sacrifice that we enjoy the freedoms we have today. In this the first part of the story of D-Day, 6 June 1944 we concentrate on the build-up to the invasion. By Ian R Gumm
O peration OVER LOR D, as the invasion of N orthwest Europe is known, was the largest amphibious assault to have ever taken place and involved almost three million Allied troops from twelve participating Allied nations. It took more than two and a half years to plan and prepare and culminated in the capture of Paris 80 days after the Allied forces landed on the coast of France. It began in the early hours of Tuesday 6 June 1944 when three Allied Airborne Divisions were dropped by parachute and reinforced by gliders to secure the flanks of the invasion area. T hese airborne landings were followed up by a massive air and naval bombardment of the German coastal defences in preparation for the early morning amphibious assault. At 06.35 hrs the seaborne landings commenced with the amphibious assaults in the American sector at U TAH and OM AH A Beaches, which
PointeDuHoc Why an attack on the Pointe du H oc ? Situated just between O maha Beach and U tah Beach, the Pointe du H oc dominates the sea of its vertical cliff from 25 to 30 meters high. It is set with a battery: 6 French 155 mm howitzers . It is necessary to destroy this battery since it represents a threat for two landing beaches (O maha and U tah). T his is the mission given to a special American unit, especially created for the occasion, the 2nd R angers Battalion. T he Pointe du H oc was the objective, in the previous days and months the landing, of massive bombardments. T he position, at the top of cliff, remains however very difficult to conquer.
T H E LAN DIN G H -H our was scheduled for 0630 on June the 6th. T he R angers approached the point with their flotilla of ten landing craft and four DU K W's, but the seas were rough and one LCA sank after taking on excessive water. Ten minutes later, a supply craft sank leaving only one survivor. In the confusion and strong tide, they approached the beach near Pointe de la PercĂŠe, at over 3 miles east of their objective. R udder immediately realized his error and headed west toward the point, but not
But, because of the shelling from the U SS Texas and others, earth had piled up at the base of the cliff and the DU K W's couldn't approach close enough to the cliff to effectively use their ladders. O n the other hand, the piling at the base gave the men somewhat cover from enemy fire and also made the height to climb less. After several failed attempts (due to the weight of soaked ropes) and due to the assistance of naval artillery (especially the British destroyer the Talybont), the R angers finally struggled to the top after incurring only 15 casualties. As men reached the top, they went off in small groups to accomplish their missions. T hey reached the gun emplacements only to find that they had been removed and telephone poles had been temporarily installed. Lt. Col. R udder then split his command into two. O ne group stayed behind to establish a command posts, while the other went in search of the missing guns. T he second group headed south and found the guns in an apple orchard, where they had been removed in order to be saved from the bombardment. T hey were unguarded and were destroyed with thermite grenades. T he primary mission of the R angers had been accomplished. U p to this point, the German defenders had not yet recovered from their initial
UtahBeach T his was the westernmost point of the allied assault and was a late addition to O peration O verlord. British Field M arshall, M ontgomery, called for the expansion of the invasion front and as a result, U tah Beach and Sword Beach were added. T he U S VII Corps was tasked with assaulting this stretch of N ormandy coastline with the 4th Infantry, known as the Ivy Division, leading the assault. American casualties were light and the securing of the beach was considered a perfect success. Somewhat overlooked due to the losses that were suffered on O maha Beach; however, the overall casualty rate, including losses incurred on a training exercise and the Airborne troops involved, the casualty rate was a lot higher than people imagine.
O m ahaBB U ta ee aacchh
K nown by many as "Bloody O maha", this beach is probably more well known than the other four due to the film, "Saving Private R yan". T he film starts with the assault on O maha Beach in the Dog Green sector. Although a fictitious story, loosely based around true stories, the beach scene assault is something that most people will not forget.
O mahaBeach
T he 29th Infantry, 2nd R angers and the 1st Division led the assault that fateful morning on June 6th and many thousands never made it off the beach. To pay homage to these brave men, there are many memorials that are dotted along the 5km's of coastline.
O mahaBeach
Saving Privat e Ryan - Omaha Beach Scene
Men of t he 16t h Inf ant ry Regiment seek shel t er f rom German machine-gun f ire in shal l ow wat er behind "Czech hedgehog" beach obst acl es, Easy Red sect or, Omaha Beach.
G oldBeach O wing to the direction of the tides, British troops began storming Gold, the middle of the five D-Day beaches, nearly an hour after fighting got underway at U tah and O maha. T he Germans initially put up robust resistance, but in sharp contrast to O maha, an earlier aerial bombardment had wiped out much of their defenses. British warships also proved effective. T he cruiser H M S Ajax, for example, displayed such pinpoint accuracy from miles away that it apparently sent one shell through a small slot in a German artillery battery?s concrete exterior? the military equivalent of a hole-in-one. O n shore, meanwhile, armored vehicles known as ?Funnies? cleared away minefields and other obstacles. W ithin an hour, the British had secured a few beach exits, and from there they rapidly pushed inland. T hey also captured the fishing village of Arromanches, which days later became the site of an artificial harbor used by the Allies to unload supplies.
JunoBeach By AUTHOR OF ARTICLE At Juno, Allied landing craft once again struggled with rough seas, along with offshore shoals and enemy mines. Upon finally disembarking, Canadian soldiers were then cut down in droves by Germans firing from seaside houses and bunkers. The first hour was particularly brutal, with a casualty rate approaching 50 percent for the leading assault teams. In the confusion, an Allied tank inadvertently ran over some of the wounded, stopping only when a Canadian captain blew its track off with a grenade. Other Canadians lacked any tank support at all. After fighting their way off the beach, however, German resistance slowed immensely, and the march into the interior went quickly. In fact, the Canadians advanced further inland than either their American or British counterparts. Though they didn?t quite meet their objective of taking Carpiquet airport, they captured several towns and linked up with the British on adjacent Gold Beach.
SwordBeach Around midnight, British airborne troops, along with a battalion of Canadians, dropped behind enemy lines to secure the invasion?s eastern flank, just as the Americans were doing near U tah. W ithin minutes, they had taken hold of Pegasus Bridge over the Caen Canal and nearby H orsa Bridge over the R iver O rne. O ther airborne troops destroyed bridges over the R iver Dives to prevent German reinforcements from arriving, and they also took out a key German artillery battery in a bloody firefight. T he British then landed on Sword at 7:25 a.m., around the same time as at Gold but before Juno. Although moderate fire greeted them, they soon secured beach exits with the help of the ?Funnies.? M oving inland, they connected with the airborne units but faced relatively strong resistance in farmyards and villages. In a late afternoon counterattack, German forces made it all the way to the beach in one location, only to be turned back. T he Allies would not be able to unite all five D-Day beaches until June 12.
June 6th 1944 air raids in N or m andy
ArmyAIRcO RPSO nD-day
D-Day operations
At the first hours of June 6, 1944, in middle of the night, the 8th and 9th Air Force of the U SAAF belonging to the 2nd Tactical Air Force, supported by British and Combined forces bombers (and in particular Free France crews), are charged, within the framework of the N eptune O peration, to destroy all the important objectives targeted the previous months of the D-Day by reconnaissance aircraft. T hus, 360 heavy bombers supported by 269 light bombers fly over the transport convoys and the warships which move towards the N ormandy coasts. T hese bombers attack the fortifications of the Atlantic Wall, in spite of the presence of many clouds, which handicap the location of the targets. 92 radar stations are bombarded, from the point of Barfleur to Le H avre, so that the allied armada can't be noticed by the radio operators of the Kriegsmarine. 74 stations are destroyed by aviation, the operation is rather a success. But the bombardments of certain objectives on the coast (artillery batteries, support batteries, strongpoints), proved to be a relatively difficult operation. Indeed, the large number of clouds obstructed the bombers crews. 67 of the bombers cancelled their mission because of the bad atmospheric conditions, while the others tried to achieve their mission. All the landing beaches are bombarded by the allied planes, and many objectives are destroyed or damaged. For example, the American sector of U tah beach is massively bombarded, in particular the coastal artillery batteries of the Cotentin located near Azeville and Crisbecq. But between Longues-sur-M er and Grandcamp-M aisy, the targets were not reached, or only a little, by the bombardments. T he landing beach of this sector is O maha Beach, where soldiers from the 1st and 29th american
American and Allied glider pilots did m to help win the war in Europe. T fragile planes, towed behind C-47s or o powered aircraft, were responsible putting large numbers of infantry troop the ground during major assaults. P behind their tow-planes, these pilots o found themselves released early off-course, often under fire, and had to down wherever they could find an space. Landings were dangerous frequently fatal.
HowTheNavySavedD-Day By Edward G. Simmons
As a historian, I have read a lot about our war against H itler in Europe and thought I knew about D-Day. I am among those who watch the movie T he Longest Day (1962) whenever it is on television. T he many human stories of those who braved the beaches or parachuted further inland are inspiring, especially since they are based on interviews with participants in the invasion. T he story of the terrible situation on O maha Beach was repeated in Steven Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan (1998), which created an even more realistic experience of what it was like to be pinned down under the cliffs of O maha Beach. T hese movies give an impression that D-Day was mostly about the men who landed on the beaches - a story centered on the armies of the countries which landed that day. O f course everyone knew the N avy ferried troops and supplies to the beaches. T he idea of the N avy playing a central role was parodied in T he Americanization of Emily (1964) as an admiral decides the N avy is being overlooked and wants the first dead man on O maha Beach to be a sailor. What made the admiral's orders crazy was that the planning for D-Day virtually guaranteed the first casualties of the invasion would be N avy personnel whose job was to disable mines and clear obstacles so that soldiers and vehicles could make it to the beach. A little thought brings to mind the realization that soldiers, their vehicles, and all the supplies needed by fighting men arrived on the coast of N ormandy by ship. Craig Symonds, retired from teaching history at Annapolis, makes us aware that the N avy played a far more significant role in the success of the N ormandy invasion than has been generally recognized. During a key hour when everyone was pinned down on O maha Beach, ships provided fire power that was crucial in getting troops headed inland. T he
Medical ServicesonD-Day Medical Service in the Invasion of Normandy This 1944 War Department film is a detailed report on how the U.S. Army organized emergency medical treatment, transportation, and hospitalization before and during the D-Day invasion.
These are but a few of War Correspondents who bravely covered D- Day in words and photos.
Compl ete Broadcast Day June 6,1944
D oon Cam pbell Seventy years ago, Reuters correspondent Doon Campbell was the first reporter to set foot on the N ormandy beaches with the sea-borne forces seeking to liberate Europe from N azi Germany.Campbell was 24 at the time, the youngest British war correspondent covering the invasion. H e stayed with Reuters for 30 years, covering other events including the assassination of Gandhi. H e died in 2003, aged 83. Roger Greene a few days after the June 6, 1944, D-Day landing in France. Greene was the first seaborned war correspondent to land on the beach of N ormandy in the D-Day invasion.
Robin D uff M ar tha Gellhor n World War I I D - D ay I nvasion radio new s broadcast
W illiam Walton parachuted into France with the 82nd Airborne Division on D-Day reporting for T IM E.
Rober t Capa
Rober t Capa was with the soldiers of the 16th Regiment of the 1st Infantry Division landed at O maha Beach on June 6, 1944, photographer Robert Capa, in the employ of LI FE magazine, was among them. H e is credited with iconic photo of O maha beach. Robin D uff, BBC War Correspondent assigned to the U .S Forces. U sing a specially developed midget recorders for front-line reporting.
Roger Greene
D oon Cam pbell
W illiam Walton
ActorswhoServverdO nD-Day
D avid N iven: T he British actor was a Lt. Colonel of the British Commandos. H e also worked in the intelligence branch and was later assigned to the U .S. First Infantry. N iven was one of the first officers to land at N ormandy.
A lec Guinness: T he British actor operated a British Royal N avy landing craft on D-Day.
Rober t M ontgom ery: American actor M ontgomery enlisted in World War II before the U nited States entered the war. M ontgomery became a PT boat Lt. Commander and was part of the D-Day invasion on board the destroyer, U SS Barton (DD-722).
Charles D ur ning: American actor Durning served in the U nited States Army. H e was in one of the first waves to land on O maha Beach during the D-Day invasion. Durning was the only soldier in his company to survive
Jam es D oohan: Canadian actor Doohan served in the Canadian Army. Doohan was in the Juno Beach invasion on D-Day. During the invasion, Doohan was shot in the leg, chest and lost his right middle finger.
SaipanJune17,1944
During the Pacific War, the M arianas emerged as one of the primary targets for the Allies in 1944. It was there that Japanese troops occupied the islands of Guam, Tinian and Saipan. During the M arianas Campaign they would become the next battlefields, with hundreds of thousands of Japanese and U .S. troops sent to the M arianas in June, July and August. Among the first targets was Saipan. At Saipan there was already a Japanese airfield, and so it was good position for Allied airfields that could provide air support for further operations in the Pacific and expand the range of U .S. bombing missions. As such, the U SA sent approximately 70,000 thousand M arines to take Saipan and defeat the 30,000 Japanese troops stationed there. Another of the targets was M ount Tapochau. M ount Tapochau was a 1,554 foot mountain that the Japanese troops retreated to. T he Americans sent in three divisions to clear the mountain, but weeks were still required to take M ount Tapochau. U .S. tanks and artillery had little impact at M ount Tapochau, and there was little air support for the M arines.
Loremipsumdolor sit amet
N evertheless, the Japanese troops could still not hold the mountain. After the fall of M ount Tapochau, the Battle of Saipan gradually came to a close. T he Americans advanced further northwards, and wiped out the remaining Japanese troops. T he battle was effectively over when they reached the northern end of Saipan. T he Allies had won D - Day in the Pacific War. T he fall of Saipan was the first victory in the M arianas, and left the door open for further advances at Guam and Tinian. W ith Japan's empire crumbling, Tojo resigned after the battle. H owever, despite this Japan did not surrender; and the Pacific War continued into 1945. Lee M arvin, June 18, 1944, during the assault on M ount Tapochau in the Battle of Saipan, during which most of his company were casualties.
O LdTimeRadioDVD Old Time Radio Collection Used Drive Sale. Drives have been factory referbished. Special pricing
1T B Western Collection
1T B Scifi/H orror Collection
only $59.49 + Shipping
only 99.49 free shipping
only 99.49 free shipping
only 5 available
Click to see list of shows
Click here to Purchase
Click here to Purchase
Click here to Purchase
Contact dennis@nostalgiausapublishing.com www.nostalgiausapubishing.com www.oldtimeradiodvd.com memoriesman@twitter