80 Years Ago Today
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…they stormed the beaches at Normandy.

THE LONGEST DAY

So many were so young. And there were so many.

They’ve come back to remember. We are blessed to have some of those giants still with us.

Leaders, veterans and visitors from around the world paid tribute Thursday to the D-Day generation in moving ceremonies on and around the Normandy beaches where the Allies landed exactly 80 years ago, with the war in Ukraine on the minds of many and a common message that tyranny cannot be permitted to prevail.

Ever-dwindling numbers of World War II veterans who have pilgrimaged back to France, and Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine that has dashed hopes that lives and cities wouldn’t again be laid to waste in Europe, are making the poignant anniversary of the June 6, 1944, Allied landings even more so.

THERE’S NO BLOOD IN THAT THE WAY IT WAS WHEN I GOT HERE

So many stories on those storied beaches.

THESE ARE THE BOYS OF POINTE du HOC

The only general on the beach during the first wave had to beg three times to be allowed to be there at all, and then his landing wound up being off by several kilometers thanks to the unrelenting tides.

No worries, said Brig Gen Theodore Roosevelt, Jr.

 “We’ll start the war from right here!“

And so he and his men did.

Brigadier General Theodore Roosevelt Jr. requested three times to lead the first wave of the assault on Utah Beach before permission was granted. Under a barrage of artillery fire, he proceeded to lead the men across the beach, returning for the ensuing units. He greeted each newly arriving regiment, pointing them towards their changed objective. His humor and confidence encouraged and inspired all, calming the nerves of the young troops.

…His persistence led to his leading the assault on Utah Beach, the most southern of the landing sites at Normandy. These landings were far from perfect. At Utah Beach the tidal currents were so strong that the first twenty landing craft strayed two kilometers to the south of the expected objective. Roosevelt, as one of the first men off the boat, immediately assessed the revised situation and is said to have declared, “We’ll start the war from right here!” When General Barton, the commanding general of the 4th Division, came ashore, Roosevelt was there to greet him with reports of the situation. Barton later wrote,

while I was mentally framing [orders], Ted Roosevelt came up. He had landed with the first wave, had put my troops across the beach, and had a perfect picture (just as Roosevelt had earlier promised if allowed to go ashore with the first wave) of the entire situation. I loved Ted. When I finally agreed to his landing with the first wave, I felt sure he would be killed. When I had bade him goodbye, I never expected to see him alive. You can imagine then the emotion with which I greeted him when he came out to meet me [near La Grande Dune]. He was bursting with information. (Mil. Hall of Honor)

Gen. Roosevelt would die in his sleep of a heart attack thirty-six days later. He is buried in the American Cemetary at Normandy, alongside the remains of his little brother. Quentin had been a WWI pilot who died after being shot down in a dogfight outside of Chamery, France. The Germans buried him there with full military honors. After Teddy Jr.’s death, the family requested that their youngest brother be moved from there to alongside their oldest in Normandy.

There are 45 sets of brothers in that sacred place.

So many brothers, husbands, sons.

We will remember them all.

Ever grateful the French remember…

…and are still throwing a hero’s welcome for their American, British, and Canadian liberators…and it makes me cry.

The daring nighttime 82d Airborne parachute leap into France that preceded the beach landings was one of a number of preemptive American and British drops.

For this 80th celebration, an amazing group of hundreds of U.S. veterans recreated it and CBS’s Charlie D’Agata was lucky enough to go along.

It was the jump of a lifetime for these guys as it was for the soldiers who came out of those Goonies 80 years ago and then helped save the world.

The stalwart heroes who charged out of Higgins boats – out of all manner of landing craft – into the mouth of Hell itself, and somehow, some way, they kept going.

And they helped save the world.

Oh, yes.

God bless them, every one.

We will remember them.

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