D-Day Repost: Our Trip To The American Cemetery At Normandy
The original post with all the comments (but otherwise the same as this one) is here.
Gregg's uncle was killed at 21 in World War II, near Martinville (which is less a town than a rural street), in the invasion on Normandy by Allied forces. We rented a car and went to Normandy with our friends Mark and Chantal to see the American Cemetery and find the ridge where he died.
9,387 servicemen and women are buried at The American Cemetery; 307 of whom are Unknowns, as in this photo.
Most of the gravestones are crosses, but there are some Jewish stars as well.
The cemetery is on a palisade overlooking Omaha Beach, the American army name for the place, which has since stuck. (That's me, with Mark turning around to go back up to the cemetery behind me.)
Dogs were forbidden in the cemetery, so Lucy got stuffed into her ferret case (bought at the now-closed department store, Samaritaine), and carried in a giant orange bag I'd brought for the purpose of dog-hiding. She was decidedly unthrilled, but I hope, understood that the opportunity to eventually sniff other dogs' pee in Normandy after we toured solemn areas of human interest beat staying home with the neighbors in the USA.
It's sad. Monstrous evil could have been prevented earlier, at a much lower cost, had the warnings been heeded. I don't think we've learned much.
MarkD at June 6, 2014 9:48 AM
Yes Hitler told everyone, in no uncertain terms what he was going to do before he did it.
A lot of the German military wasted a lot of breath screaming at the allies to do something to oppose Hitler, because they believed that would have ended it (and internally they could do nothing, except attempted assassination attempts which unluckily failed every time)
And yet, if we had of stopped Hitler, the ancestors of today's nitwits, would have been screaming how America, Britain, Canada, are not the world's policemen, and how 10,000 casualties were too many to stop Hitler, who wasn't going to do what he said he was going to do anyway.
Because that is just how fucking ignorant and stupid most people are.
My husband lost an uncle at the Battle of the Bulge. Good man. Rest in Peace ILT George Heafy.
http://www.wwiimemorial.com/registry/cemetery/search/pframe.asp?HonoreeID=658270
Isab at June 6, 2014 12:34 PM
Monstrous evil could have been stopped only if you look at the world as having only two options, Hitler unleashed or Hitler bound.
Stopping Hitler's territorial ambitions in the '30s could have led to many other outcomes, some of which could have been worse.
And Hitler was not the only "monstrous evil" loose in the world in 1939.
Since "stopping Hitler" would most likely not have consisted of removing him from power, the world would have had Hitler, Mussolini, Tojo, Franco, and Stalin in brutal dictatorships around the world (Note: Tojo was mostly a figurehead for the Imperial military's brutal rule over Japan).
Japan would still have been waging the brutal war of conquest in East Asia and the Pacific that she began in 1932. And since that war involved invading French Indochina, British Singapore, and the Dutch East Indies, Europe would have gone to war in the Pacific along with the US.
The Soviets and the Japanese fought a series of brutal battles over Manchuria in 1939. Without Hitler to worry about, the Soviets may have been willing to push their claims there.
And once the major European powers committed a large part of their forces to a war in Asia and the Pacific, I doubt Hitler would have remained docile in Europe. And with major military commitments in Asia, I doubt the Europeans would have had enough military on hand to have stopped Hitler at the gates of Stalingrad and in the Battle of Britain.
Mussolini's quest to prove Italy's military prowess would not have been abated, so war between England and Italy would have been likely along the Libya-Egypt border. And Italy would probably still have invaded Greece (done in 1940).
Stalin's lust for the Baltic states, Finland, and Poland would not have had the cover of Hitler's invasion of Poland (which Stalin helped carve up in 1940), but it's not likely it would have been abated by Hitler's enforced docility. And any Soviet invasion of Poland would have tipped the West into an alliance with Hitler to oppose Stalin's aggression and international communism (despite the large contingent of Soviet/communist sympathizers in Britain's Foreign Ministry and the US's Department of State).
Conan the Grammarian at June 6, 2014 2:59 PM
The US was still struggling with the bad decisions made to mobilize industry for WW-1. There was a lot of isolationist sentiment: let the Europeans bury their sons, not ours.
The beaches at Normandy are hallowed ground.
jefe at June 6, 2014 4:26 PM
@Conan
Most of what you say is true, but we will never know will we?
Historians know that the outcome could have been worse, but it also could have been much better particularly for the US.
When we go down the road into speculation as to what might of happened, it pretty quickly veers off Into a million different possibilities.
If you don't think the chaos in the Middle East, is a result of the current US administration sending arbitrary mixed signals to our allies, and foes, about our willingness to pick a side, and back them, you haven't been paying attention.
I was looking at World War II strictly from the standpoint of the US. We lost far fewer men in the Pacific than we did againt the Germans, and chances are good, if we hadn't been fighting World War II on two fronts across two different oceans, it would have been fewer still.
The draw down of the US forces after World War I had been severe, and the US was little better equipped than the minor European powers up until World War II.
See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louisiana_Maneuvers
My grandfather was a senior army officer on the Louisiana maneuvers, and our family lost many close friends when Corregidor fell.
My father fought in the Pacific, occasionally hand to hand, barely surviving multiple brushes with death.
I owe my existence, in a way to the Manhattan project, and I am grateful for it.
You have to ask yourself, if Stalin, Hitler, Tojo et all, would have been nearly so froggy if the US had had three or four more years to advance the Manhatten project, and build their army which would have changed the risk calculations of most of the World's brutal dictators, as it did for the last fifty years, until our idiot politicians sent clear signals, that the US, did not have the will to fight a total war.
It has not been an accident that World War II wasn't followed by World War III in the 1980's . It was a result of well executed US policy to keep a lid on ambitious dictators, through a show of strength, and superior military forces. And yes, "being the world's policeman".
Appeasing dictators, and ignoring the rest of the world has never led to anything good for the United States, or anyone else.
Isab at June 6, 2014 4:52 PM
Because that is just how fucking ignorant and stupid most people are.
Sadly they are far more ignorant and stupid than that
lujlp at June 6, 2014 5:03 PM
I'm betting 150yrs form now if any western style democracy/republic stands or is reborn they will view us today with the same disbelief at our stupidity as we do 1930s Germanys populas
lujlp at June 6, 2014 5:05 PM
I'm betting 150yrs form now if any western style democracy/republic stands or is reborn they will view us today with the same disbelief at our stupidity as we do 1930s Germanys populas
Posted by: lujlp at June 6, 2014 5:05 PM
The Weimar Republic was extremely fragile.
I thought the US version was much stronger than it is proving to be.
And Yes, unfortunately, the people with the historical background to see what is coming, are not the ones making the political decisions.
Isab at June 6, 2014 5:14 PM
Many years ago I visited the island from whence these brave men embarked. I visited a few of the American cemeteries there. These is a deep and profound sadness and amazement felt when standing amongst those many ,many white markers. Crosses, stars of david, many with names, but so many that read " a comrade " or, too often, "3 comrades " or more. How one could not be in awe and eternal gratitude for the risk and sacrifice made by so many of those brave men for so many people that they didn't know, nor would ever meet. It beggars the imagination.
Edward Lunny at June 9, 2014 8:56 AM
It turns out that the generals were going to can Hitler if the Allies had resisted the occupation of the Rhineland in 1936. They'd probably have executed or jailed a good many Nazi leaders as well.
Presuming there was no WW II analog in Europe, an earlier comment is correct; the Allies would be slagged by left-wingers as bullies and imperialists and meanies. Nobody would know what we missed, so there'd be no way to argue.
Which brings up the question of how many Rhinelands are you willing to fight if you're pretty sure one of them--you don't know which--will prevent WW III.
Richard Aubrey at May 25, 2015 5:23 PM
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