Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/d-day-landing-sites-then-now-normandy-beaches-1944-70-years-later-1450286

On June 6, 1944, Allied soldiers descended on the beaches of Normandy for D-Day, an operation that turned the tide of the Second World War against the Nazis, marking the beginning of the end of the conflict.

Today, as many around the world prepare to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the landings, pictures of tourists soaking up the sun on Normandy's beaches stand in stark contrast to images taken around the time of the invasion.

Reuters photographer Chris Helgren compiled archive pictures taken during the invasion and went back to the same places to photograph them as they appear today.

(Pictures in spoilers, so I don't kill the mobile users)































Edit: Posted prematurely

This one is my favorite:





Damn, how much them hedges have grown in 70 years

Very good find, many thaks.

Maybe it's me being a Debbie downer pessimist, but I'd never swim on those beaches. The amount of UXO that has to be there...


Then again, never heard about it happening.

Interesting to see so many of the concrete bunkers are still there. I'd have thought the French would have removed them as a point of pride.

I really like the ones with little kids in them. It seems...appropriate, like it honors the men who died there.

 Frazzled wrote:
Interesting to see so many of the concrete bunkers are still there. I'd have thought the French would have removed them as a point of pride.

I really like the ones with little kids in them. It seems...appropriate, like it honors the men who died there.

I visited there in 2001. They left a number of them as reminders and memorials. The American Cemetery in Normandy was something to behold.

Here's some of the lads, 70 years later:

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/d-day-anniversary-world-war-ii-veterans-meet-first-time-70-years-1451088

I have my Normandy Celebration jump coin

That's actually really nice. Real interesting post, d-usa.

I remember people like these as being young.(relatively)

Good as place as any for my annual D Day post. Good finds dusa!

0000 Universal Coordinated Time - 6 June 1944. Men of the American 82nd and 101st Airborne divisions, the British 6th Airborne division, Canadian 1st Parachute division, and other allied forces began their aerial drops across Europe spearheading one of the largest military operations in human history with other 17,000 paratroopers and glider troopers. They were badly scattered, hampered by mis drops in the dark and harsh weather, but their valiant efforts disrupted German command and control across Normandy, threw their forces into disarray and made possible the landings on the beaches that would come just a few short hours later.



Now. Play this on loud while reading the rest of this post.





On this day, 6 June, 1947, men of a host of Allied nations, united in Resistance to evil and tryanny in pre-dawn light and rough seas crossed the English channel towards the coast of France in what was to be the largest Amphibious invasion our world has ever seen. The British 1 Corps was assigned Juno and Sword beaches, with the 3rd Canadian Infantry, the loss of their brothers in the 2nd Canadian Infantry Division, were assigned the assault on Juno, and the British 3rd Infantry Division assigned Sword. 30 Corps was assigned Gold beach, lead in by 50th Infantry Division. The American beaches, Utah and Omaha were divided between VII Corps, spearheaded by the 4th Infantry Division, and V Corps, led by the famous Big Red One (1st Infantry Division) and the 29th Infantry Division. Over 160,000 Allied soldiers landed on the beaches of Normandy, 6 June, 1944. Many would not return, with over four thousand men KIA, and at least six thousand more wounded on D-Day alone. They died to machine gun fire and to shelling, in vicious hand to hand, many not even making it out of their landing crafts. Still others drowned in the cold waters of the English Channels when their boats came up short, dragged down into the darkness by the weights of the packs they wore and the rifles they carried. By the end of the Battle of Normandy the Allies would sustain over 200,000 casualties, including 37,000 men killed in action. By their deeds and their blood, sacrificed upon the alter of combat, so began the first steps of freeing Europe from the Nazi jackboot. The road to victory in Europe was long and bloody, but in the end we must look back and consider, that so much of what we have today as a free world came down to a single day of fighting over six miles of beach in France. On this day, in silent memory, it is only right that we be grateful to the sacrifices that have been made so that we can live as we do.

"They fight not for the lust of conquest. They fight to end conquest. They fight to liberate." — President Franklin D. Roosevelt, radio broadcast, June 6, 1944

Soldiers, Sailors and Airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Force! You are about to embark upon a 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. In company with our brave Allies and brothers in arms on other fronts, you will bring about the destruction of the German war machine, the elimination of Nazi tyranny over the oppressed peoples of Europe, and security for ourselves in a free world... I have full confidence in your courage, devotion to duty and skill in battle. We will accept nothing less than full victory!
-Gen Dwight D. Eisenhower











And I shall end, once again, with the Green Fields of France.

Good article here about Obscure facts about the Landings.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/the-filter/10874340/10-things-you-didnt-know-about-the-D-Day-landings.html

1. Lieutenant James Doohan of the Winnipeg Rifles was shot in the hand and chest on D-Day. A silver cigarette case stopped the bullet to the chest, but the shot to his hand caused him to lose a finger.
Doohan later became known to generations of TV viewers as the actor who played Scottie in Star Trek. While on camera, he always tried to hide his injured hand.


2. Celebrated war photographer Robert Capa was in the second wave of troops to land at Omaha Beach. His pictures of the event are known as The Magnificent Eleven – a title that reflects their number. Despite taking two reels of film, totalling 106 pictures, only 11 survived after 16-year-old darkroom assistant Dennis Banks dried them at too high a temperature.

3. Juan Pujol was a double agent working for MI5, who helped convince the Germans that D-Day wouldn’t be in June. Bizarrely, his first code name was BOVRIL – but that was soon changed to GARBO as he was such a good actor. GARBO fooled the Germans so completely, Hitler awarded him the Iron Cross. As he was living in Hendon at the time, Pujol asked if they could post it to him.

4. On the morning of D-Day, J.D. Salinger landed on Omaha Beach with six chapters of his unfinished novel Catcher in the Rye in his backpack. In the afternoon, Evelyn Waugh, recuperating in Devon after injuring his leg in paratrooper training, finished the final chapter of his novel Brideshead Revisited.

5. The giant wall map used by General Eisenhower and General Montgomery at their HQ Southwick House was made by toy maker Chad Valley.

6. Lord Lovat led the British 1st Special Service Brigade. An inspiring but eccentric figure, he landed on Sword Beach wearing hunting brogues and carrying a wading stick used for salmon fishing.
Working as an adviser on the film The Longest Day, Lovat woke up in a taxi surrounded by German troops and instinctively dived out of the car, but then realised they were just extras.

7. On the morning of D-Day, the House of Commons debated whether office cleaners should no longer be called ‘charladies.’
8. News of D-Day reached POW camp Colditz via an illegal radio hidden in an attic. To avoid detection, the POWs used shoes with no tread that left no mark in the attic’s dust.

On hearing the news, POW Cenek Chaloupka vowed that if the war wasn’t over by December he’d run round the courtyard naked. On Christmas Eve 1944, Chaloupka ran round it twice. It was -7 degrees Celsius.

9. Like many troops, Lieutenant Herbert Jalland of the Durham Light Infantry ran onto Gold Beach wearing pyjamas underneath his battledress, in order to prevent chafing from his backpack.

10. General Montgomery helped mastermind D-Day, the largest invasion the world had ever seen. His diary entry for the day read: ‘Invaded Normandy; left Portsmouth 10.30.’

That whole period of the war is still so fascinating after all these years. It was that perfect moment in history when countries could be united against one common cause. Admittedly it all went to pot afterwards with all the paranoia, but it did show us at our best. A simple desire to not let evil men win.

Interesting stuff, all those that have posted articles. Thanks!

D-Day really is a remarkable historical event. Not only the invasion itself, but just the scale of the whole thing, the meticulous planning and the huge courage involved in achieving so much. It truly is one of the greatest achievements in human history from a logistical, tactical and military standpoint.

The most important thing, as always, is that we do not forget the cost of so many freedoms. 'At the going down of the sun, and in the morning, we will remember them.'

One day, I must visit the Normandy cemeteries and pay my respects.

As usually I'll post Eisenhowers speech;

Some of those are bonechilling. It would be hard to enjoy the beach in the exact spot where we knew people were dying by the hundreds.

A lot of the battlefields in the US are maintained as 'battlefields' so it isn't like you are living on land easily identified as having '300 died right here, where your BBQ grill is'.

Let no man hold cheaply the gift of liberty, purchased with the blood of patriots.

nkelsch wrote:
Some of those are bonechilling. It would be hard to enjoy the beach in the exact spot where we knew people were dying by the hundreds.

A lot of the battlefields in the US are maintained as 'battlefields' so it isn't like you are living on land easily identified as having '300 died right here, where your BBQ grill is'.

This is something that is very noticeable along the Western Front of both Wars in Europe, but particularly the First World War, and in a way it is quite haunting. There are so many scars of the war in France and Belgium just lying around in woods and fields, shellholes left unfilled and the like, but at the same time, there are hills you can walk down without ever knowing that nearly 100 years ago, hundreds or thousands of men died trying to take the same path you are.

A lot of it is preserved, which is good from both a historical and cultural point of view, but on the occasions I've been, the areas where only a photograph shows you what it is really like in the wars are the most chilling. When you can look out across a clear and open field and a growing wood and a river and realise what hell it was, it's then that you really realise the importance of what happened and how vital it is that we as a species never repeat that.

nkelsch wrote:
Some of those are bonechilling. It would be hard to enjoy the beach in the exact spot where we knew people were dying by the hundreds.

On one hand it seems kind of weird to play in a battlefield where thousands died. But on the other hand it also seems kind of fitting.

The invasion was to free Europe, so is seems fitting to have that freedom now and enjoying it where some of the biggest sacrifices have been made seems somewhat right. It would seem weird to have a beach that nobody could use because the Nazis had used it as a fortress wall, liberate it, and then have nobody using it anyway because of the sacrifices made there.

It has a certain "celebration of the lives lost there" feel going for it.

I think this guy wins D-Day commemorations:

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-sussex-27735086

There is also this guy:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/world-war-two/10878857/D-Day-parachute-jump-89-year-old-perfects-Normandy-landing.html

 d-usa wrote:
There is also this guy:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/world-war-two/10878857/D-Day-parachute-jump-89-year-old-perfects-Normandy-landing.html

I did see a story earlier of an American who made the D-Day jump complaining that they forced him to jump tandem with someone I think he was quoted as saying something like, "at my age, what does it matter if I'm injured or die doing this jump? I've lived a long and full enough life as it is!"

I remember visiting Normandy with the school. Despite being pretty laid down with allergies at the time, I remember it being very surreal.

The image I remember most though, was sitting on a wall above the beach of where we were staying. It was a fairly cloudy, windy day and I'm sure I can remember looking out onto the beach and seeing the hulks of the ships that had been left there.

Unfortunately, I can't for the life of me remember where exactly I was, or what those wrecks were exactly. - I imagine we weren't exactly on a D-Day beach, perhaps it was just some sunken ships as coastal defences or the like?

However, it's still a powerful image for me that has stayed from when I was in my young teens.

I am a contractor and work in people's homes. Today, of all days, I worked in the home of an elderly couple. He was a part of D-day. I shook his hand profusely and thank him for his courage and service. God is good.

Strange to think that the Battle of the Bulge was about 6 months in the future from when those pictures were taken.

It's amazing to see how the buildings have changed!

Using paper, pencil, rulers, slide rulers, B&W photo's, and guess work. They pulled one amazing operation off that would more likely never be topped. Someone say Operation Barbarossa I would counter with "they cross a Channel"?

 Jihadin wrote:
Using paper, pencil, rulers, slide rulers, B&W photo's, and guess work. They pulled one amazing operation off that would more likely never be topped. Someone say Operation Barbarossa I would counter with "they cross a Channel"?

To be honest, Barbarossa isn't even in the same league, and when you actually look at it, was destined to fail.

The German logistics were all over the place. They underestimated the overall size of the red army, while overestimating the amount they would encounter immediately, and it was this that gave them the initial advantage; they took far more men and tanks in at the spearhead of the invasion than was actually needed, which seems fine until you consider the size of the Eastern Front. They suddenly found themselves with one army in one place that needed to capture a dozen different objectives across a several-hundred mile front.

Part of the army had to go north, and was stopped at the gates of Moscow and failed to breach Leningrad (although they did set up a 4-year long siege), prompting a second offensive towards Stalingrad while the third part of the army went south to the Caucus oilfields. So the initial advantage of force concentration they had was lost, and the huge manpower of the Red Army could take them apart piecemeal once it massed at Stalingrad. This then left the flank of the southern Army Group open, and from then on the Germans were in full retreat. By the battle of Kursk, there was no going back for them.

A lot of this is down to the simple matter of the geography of Russia; they had the land to spare and concede in a scorched earth policy until the Blitzkrieg ran out of steam at Stalingrad, and were able to hold the line there just long enough to defend the industrial heartland and to allow the troops that had not yet gathered enough to be effective, and from then on, it was a foregone conclusion- the sheer manpower Russia could bring to bear meant it was game over for the Nazis. The Russian winter also helped, as it had against Napoleon in remarkably similarly circumstances. Also, the fact that despite a dozen major victories, Hitler was not able to achieve the defeat of the Red Army in a single pitched battle like he had planned meant that his entire method of waging war on the Western Front in 39-40 simply would not work against Russia.

If anything, I'd say Operation Uranus (the Russian counter-attack after Stalingrad) is closer to D-day in scale, importance and effectiveness, although, as you point out, they didn't have a Channel to cross (that said, from what I've read the crossing of the Volga was pretty rough, all things told).

 Compel wrote:
I remember visiting Normandy with the school. Despite being pretty laid down with allergies at the time, I remember it being very surreal.

The image I remember most though, was sitting on a wall above the beach of where we were staying. It was a fairly cloudy, windy day and I'm sure I can remember looking out onto the beach and seeing the hulks of the ships that had been left there.

Unfortunately, I can't for the life of me remember where exactly I was, or what those wrecks were exactly. - I imagine we weren't exactly on a D-Day beach, perhaps it was just some sunken ships as coastal defences or the like?

Was it these things?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mulberry_harbour

You could very well be right! It might well have been Arromanches that I visited.