70 Years Ago Tonight

[ChillDoubt]

My stepfather and his mates finished school, met up and began their usual evening journey to the nearby country park.
The reason? They were visiting the locally based US and Polish soldiers, camped within the grounds. The US soldiers in particular were renowned for giving out chocolate and gum to passing kids.
Upon arrival, they were totally bewildered. Where previously there had been hundreds of servicemen in tents, vehicles and weaponry there was not a trace, other than the flat areas of grass where the tents had been pitched.
They'd simply vanished overnight. In reality, they had moved to southern England holding areas in preparation for the last great crusade that would hopefully see the end of Nazi tyranny in Europe.

To all Service personnel of the nations who undertook Operation Neptune/Operation Overlord I offer my sincerest thanks and gratitude for the sacrifice and endeavours you made.

[ChillDoubt]

There are precious few D-Day Veterans left, which is why we must not and shall not ever forget.
It was summed up a day or so ago by one reporter who said that on the 50th anniversary there were some 20,000 veterans in attendance.
In 2014, some 20 years on there will be roughly 650.

Lest We Forget

[emmie]

time marches on, too rapidly, however i don't forget their sacrifice, let us hope that others do not - in our rapidly changing country, and world

[rsvp]

Good thread Chilldate - well said - respect to servicemen and woman is due from all of us.

[retrocop]

Very few of "The Few" left as well.

[sandyRoe]

Some of the men who went to war paid a terrible price. There was a man who lived round the corner from us when we were children had his face and hands very badly burnt. He lived alone with his dogs.
And another man, who we were told was 'shell shocked', marched everywhere, not on the footpath, but along the edge of the road.
Both survived the war but carried it with them the rest of their days.

[Barmaid]

It was humbling to be in Anzio with three 90 something veterans. One of them described to me how the german stukers flew over the square, where he was, how his mates scattered, where he ran to and how the rest of his mates were killed.

[Elina]

Thankyou ChillD, my uncle is buried in Ranville war cemetary in France.

[humbersloop]

no, my father never really spoke of it either and was quite impatient of those who did. His two lifelong mates were the same.

I think it was about a mixture of protecting others from knowing the price of what had to be done, probably not being proud of some of what that had meant and feeling plain lucky to slog through from start to finish unscathed where others hadn't. Mainly though, genuinely wanting to look forward.

[WELSHYORKIE]

Couldn't agree with you more, Chill - Respect

[paddywak]

God bless them all,they did good job for all of us.When I was a kid there were a lot of men and women who served and came back to just carry on as normal and none of them talked about it. It was years later after he died that learnt the old boy who lived next door when I was kid was highly decorated member of the Paras and also after his death my cousin discovered that her dad,who only ever said he was in the RAF had flown some 40 missions,been wounded several times the last of which was bad enough to restrict him to ground duties.As I said God bless them all and I too shall raise a glass or two in there memory, we won't see there like again.

[marval]

I agree, we should all be very thankful for what they did. Thanks for all their courage, very brave people.

[derekpara]

Thanks for the great post, Chill. and for all the responses.

A great member of our Para Reg branch died today; Len Hoare (2 para) who was on the bridge at Arnhem. RiP, Len.

Derek. (Branch Secretary PRA)