D- Day June 6, 1944

[bbjohn]

I just realized this is June 6, the 69th anniversary of the D-Day landings in Normandy. This massive invasion across the English Channel by Allied forces was the largest amphibious operation in history. This marked the beginning of the end of the Nazi empire in Western Europe, just as the battles at Stalingrad and Kursk marked the beginning of the end for the Nazis in Eastern Europe.

Here's something to consider. If the invasion had failed, I don't doubt the Soviets would've defeated the Germans, though I don't know how long it would've taken them. If the Western Allied (primarily American and British) forces had not been present in Western Europe, there would've been nothing to stop the Soviets from taking the entire continent, except for the portions of Italy under Western Allied control.

The "Iron Curtain" could've been the English Channel.

The men who invaded Normandy and liberated Western Europe from the Nazis were, at the same time, preventing another dictatorship from coming in.

The people of Western Europe who were liberated by the Western Allies may owe these fighting men a greater debt than they realize.

- Big Bad John

[kham]

This statue is on a road leading down to Utah Beach. If it looks a bit familiar, it should. Major Dick Winters agreed for his likeness to be used ,provided it was dedicated to all those who stepped up into leadership roles and made D-Day a success. In so doing, perhaps a new generation of leaders would be inspired.

[bbjohn]

My dad's uncle was one of the first ashore at Omaha Beach. He wasn't part of the first wave. He came in before the first wave. He was involved in demolition work as it related to amphibious landings. His job was to go in and destroy or disarm the many barricades and traps the Germans had set for the Allied landing boats and troops. Once he did that, he was to dig in and wait for the invading troops. He dug a foxhole and waited. After a short time, for some reason, he felt uncomfortable and decided to dig a second foxhole a few yards away. Just after he climbed into that one, a German 88-mm shell landed just in front of his old one. He would've been killed if he hadn't moved.

It looks like God wasn't quite done with him yet.

My dad's uncle didn't talk about what happened to him at Omaha Beach for many years. He also didn't talk about Iwo Jima or the other amphibious landings he was involved in. However, I understand he had some horrific nightmares.

It took him more than 50 years for him to open up and talk about what had happened to him. A visit to Omaha Beach seemed to have had a cleansing effect on him. When he finally began to talk about what had happened, our family was amazed. We had no idea everything he had done. This man was a true hero.

I've noticed something about real heroes: they don't brag about what they've done. In the case of my dad's uncle, he knew had no right to brag. The price he and others paid was so great, they didn't want to brag. It hurt too much to even think about what they had done and been through.

There were many, many heroes in World War II like my dad's uncle. They didn't blow their own horns. They survived the Depression, then saved the world and rebuilt America when they got home. No wonder they've been called "The Greatest Generation."

- Big Bad John

[jack c]

My father was on a troop ship in the Navy at the tail end of the war in the Pacific. But just watch the first half hour of "Saving Private Ryan" and you can understand, vaguely, just what these young men had to go through. I am not sure I could have done it, being in the baby boom spoiled generation. Yes, the Russians bled the most, but Stalin let the first Western Front collapse while he was allied with Hitler and the USSR stole half of Poland. Come June 21, 1941, all of a sudden, he was our best buddy, begging Churchill for help.

Next year will be the 60th anniversary, farther in the past than was the Spanish-American war when I was born - hard to believe. Vietnam is farther in the past now than WWII was when I was young - I clearly remember the 20th anniversary of Pearl Harbor. Time marches on; in the long run, the right guys prevailed during and after WWII. We are now in another continuous war with radical fundamental people who cannot defeat us - they can only injure and scare us. Wait a decade or two until China develops - then we will see what the next century will be like. When the British negotiated a 99 lease on Hong Kong, they figured it was forever, and that they would still be able to push China around in 99 years - WRONG! We will see. I cry at the end of "Saving Private Ryan" every time I watch it because I try to understand the sacrifice that the US and British and Canadians went through in that campaign. The saved the world. The Soviets suffered worse - but their leadership was no better than Hitler. Strange history.

[bbjohn]

jack c-

You're right about the leadership of the Soviet Union. It's true the vast majority of the fighting and dying in the war against Nazi Germany was done by the people of the Soviet Union. However, Joe Stalin and the Communist Party were the equals of Hitler and the Nazis in terms of pure evil.

When the Germans invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941, they were initially greeted as liberators from Stalin's rule. Then the SS came through and began enforcing Nazi racial policy. Hitler created something Stalin never could: a genuine patriotic fighting spirit among the people of the Soviet Union.

As one saying at the time put it, "Stalin may be a #@!%&*!, but at least he's OUR #@!%&*!"

The Red Army didn't start turning things around until the officers who had been purged by Stalin in the 1930s were "rehabilitated" and sent out to do what they were trained to do. Stalin proved to be almost as good a military leader as he was an economist and political leader.

You brought up the point that Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union had an alliance through the Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact of 1939. They divided Poland between them, and the Germans gave the Soviets a free hand against Finland and the Baltic states of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia.

That alliance ended June 22, 1941, when Germany invaded the Soviet Union with more than 2 million men in 100 divisions spread out over a 300-mile wide front. For years, observers in the West wondered how the Soviet Red Army could've been taken completely by surprise. How could such a massive build-up of men and supplies have gone unnoticed by Moscow?

We now know that it was noticed. Soviet agents in Eastern Europe risked their lives to get information on the pending invasion back to Moscow. In some cases, they knew the units involved, where the main points of penetration would be, and the approximate date of the invasion.

All of this was ignored by Stalin. He said these reports were nothing more than provocations by the British. Thus, the Red Army was caught completely off guard. The people of the Soviet Union paid a horrible price for Stalin's stupidity.

Of course, those agents who reported the impending invasion were either betrayed to the Gestapo or sent to the Gulag. The Soviet authorities couldn't have someone embarrassing the Maximum Leader.

To think there are still Russians who think Stalin was a strong leader. Maybe the "cult of personality" built up around him was so strong, that, even today, there are people who can't see him for the brutal, paranoid monster and moron that he was.

[Duncan Edwards]

The real blood letting came after the war as Stalin killed as many of his countrymen as Hitler did. Possibly more.

[Mynock]

To think there are still Russians who think Stalin was a strong leader. Maybe the "cult of personality" built up around him was so strong, that, even today, there are people who can't see him for the brutal, paranoid monster and moron that he was.

Brutal yes....monster yes....paranoid maybe (is it paranoia if they really are out to get you?)......moron no. As someone who's grown up steeped in the values of personal liberty and freedom, I find his methods atrocious, but I can't say they didn't work. In only about two decades he took a country who's only real claim to fame was agriculture and turned it into an industrialized world superpower the equal of the US. Without this transformation Hitler would've rolled through Russia like a lawnmower through a nest of baby rabbits and the outcome of WWII could have been very different. Access to the resources of Asia would have put the Nazis in a much stronger position.

[jack c]

Stalin repeatedly and heatedly accused the US and UK of withholding the Invasion a year just to bleed the USSR. It was held a year, but so that resources could be obtained and men trained to enable possible success.. Eisenhower, his British female driver-lieutenant notwithstanding, was the right personality in the right job. Read his pre-written note to be issued if the beach-heads did not hold; it takes full personal responsibility, something refreshing compared to politics today. With the Normandy success, Hitler's doom was accelerated by a year or so. Rest in peace those whose white crosses and stars of David line the fields there now.

Russia's current leader is no sweet-heart, either.

[bbjohn]

Okay, so moron was the wrong word. I was trying to find a word to describe a leader who brushes off multiple claims the neighbor who over the years had declared himself your enemy is massing men and military supplies on your border. Maybe there isn't a word for it as it sounds so hard to believe.

The industrial development of the Soviet Union was actually enhanced by World War II. The development of new factories east of the Urals and the importation of equipment, machinery and tools allowed the Soviets to step up production all through the war years. A lot of this could not have been done without the support of the Americans and the British.

Stalin's first five-year plan has been overrated as to what it accomplished. A lot was done, but it came nowhere close to the goals that were set.

Stalin also purged the Soviet armed forces of their best officers in the 1930s. The Red Army only began to turn things around when Stalin turned over command to his generals, many of whom had been purged earlier.

Although the Soviet Union was on the winning side of World War II, they were severely weakened by the conflicts that took place on their own soil. They remained weak for many years after the war. It's said Nikita Khrushchev's bluster in the 1950s was meant to convince the world the Soviet Union was strong so they wouldn't realize how weak they were.

The Soviets created some great weaponry during the war. The Germans were surprised when the T-34 tanks began turning their Panzers into mince meat. The Yakovlev fighter planes were as good as any in the world. The Il-2 Sturmovik is considered the best attack aircraft of the war. Stalin said it was as essential to the Red Army as air and bread.

Were Stalin's methods effective? Yes, up to a point. However, he seemed to be most effective when he stopped being Stalin and let others who knew what they were doing handle things. I can't help but wonder if the Soviet accomplished all that they did because of him or in spite of him.

It's probably some of both.

Big Bad John

[kham]

The T-34/76 was a good tank, far superior to Mk IIIs and IVs, but when the Mk IVs began to be equipped with the L48 gun, things weren't as rosey. Tigers? Fuggetaboutit.... The degree of superiority there was about the same as an M1A1 or Leopard II versus anything else. The 34/85 now, was a good tank, but that didnt show until 43/44, by which time things were going pretty pear shaped for the German Army. It was one of the best tanks in the world into the 1950s, with the exception of the Panther, which was good enough that the French used them through the 50s. That 75/L70 gun was a real killer. Gun inferiority could fill volumes, it is possibly a scandal nearly as big as the political/service/bureaucracy bullshit that crippled the Mk14 torpedo. The 76 was a good gun -- if you stayed in 1943. There was an alternative, which was offered by the British, but they were told thanks but no thanks, the 76 will win the war.... and then it unexpectedly! (theres that word again) didnt work against Tigers and Panthers, and the assorted AFVs used as Tank Destroyers. Strangely enough , the 17-pounder which was impossible! to fit in a Sherman turret, was made to fit, and equipped British and Canadian Sherman Fireflies in about a 1:5 ratio in a tank platoon. And it killed Tigers just fine. The US Army never got any until May 45, which was a bit late to do anything useful.

As to air support, the IL-2 was a fine aircraft, but I think you would find a great many Thunderbolt and Typhoon pilots who would dispute the "best" claim