The Beginning of the Allied Invasion of Normandy

Today, June 6, 2009, we have been graced with the beautiful words and scenes of the speakers in Normandy, all delightful to eyes and ears, as they commerated this special day. Nice though this was, it seemed somewhat sanitized at times, as ceremonies like this often do. Sanitized compared to June 6, 1944.

Did you know that some 215,000 Allied soldiers, and roughly as many Germans, were killed or wounded during D-Day and the ensuing nearly three months it took to secure the Allied capture of Normandy?

The purpose of the D-Day landings in northern France by the Western Allies was to open the Second Front against Adolph Hitler's Germany. The Allies had been fighting in mainland Italy for some nine months, but the Normandy invasion was to set the stage to drive the Germans from France and ultimately to destroy the National Socialist regime.

On D-Day, the allies landed on five beaches, code named:

Sword Beach (British)
Juno Beach (Canadian)
Gold Beach (British)
Omaha Beach (American)
Utah Beach (American)

At Omaha Beach, American casualties numbered around 5,000 out of 50,000 men, most in the first few hours, while the Germans suffered 1,200 killed, wounded or missing.

What were the first few hours like at Omaha Beach? Better than the written word, the opening scene from the movie, "Saving Private Ryan," might help us understand. It focuses on the massacre on Omaha Beach. Certainly there are images here which one can never forget. So let's watch and remember and pray. This is D-Day, June 6, 1944, the beginning of the Allied invasion of Normandy.