The Gamers Arms

So, my Internet shat the bed while trying to post this the first time and I lost the text and had to write it out again. However, the timing is now off so I may as well not bother but for the sake of atmosphere I present an amended rewrite:

75 years [and 6 minutes at time of posting] ago, American pathfinders begin landing in scattered groups on the Cotentin Peninsula to lay beacons to guide another 13,000 American paratroopers.
One minute later, around 50 miles west, Sgt. Jim Wallwork lands the first of six British gliders beside two bridges over the River Orne and the Caen Canal.

It begins.

At the old place, I attempted to run a near-as-dammit real-time log of events 60 years ago on the morning of 6th June 2004. I am now twice that sum in age, and also a reckless alcoholic with a full-time job and sleep meds, so I regret that I won't even try to replicate that for this anniversary. However, I felt it was the least i could do to start the ball rolling with a thread in the new place, for talk and commemoration and whatnot.

(PS: My original draft was better.)

A few years ago I visited several locations significant to D-Day, including Sainte-Mère-Église, Pegasus bridge, Omaha beach and the war graves. Pegasus bridge in particular was striking - the story of how they took and held the bridge against overwhelming circumstances, and how vital it was that they didn’t lose it, is mind-boggling. It’s one of the more famous D-Day tales of how success was on the knife edge, but presumably it’s far from the only one. When I consider all the ways it could have gone wrong, I still can’t fathom how it went as well as it did.

I’ve often thought about what it must have been like on the journey over the channel, wedged into a plane or a landing craft with all those other people about to be plunged straight into combat - many for the first time. I don’t know whether the people of that time were a tougher product of their environment than we get today, or braver, or whether it was sheer necessity that drove them, but I don’t believe I could do it. It really was a different time.

Do you think our generation has a slight empathy for what happened because we've played things like CoD? Harrowing scenes of trying to get off the beaches under a hail of machine gun fire. Or is that such a pale imitation as to be a mockery of what the men actually went through?

And was it a product of the environment that the young lads were ok to do this or lack of information/excess of propaganda? Was it one big adventure to them until they were literally on a beach under fire?

Still not something I could begin to think about taking on though.

I was there in the early 90's. I know I was on Omaha beach and I think Point du Hoc. The areas around the beaches were almost like theme parks, entire local economy was based on D Day. Cheapened it a bit for me.

The local countryside was really beautiful, but there was bunkers and pillboxes dotted around the fields with little plaques telling how many soldiers died taking them. Any buildings still standing from that era are riddled with bullet holes. It must have been horrific.

The graveyards, especially the Commonwealth ones are strangely beautiful. But I do remember being a bit depressed after visiting so many of them. Understandable I guess.

For anyone with Facebook (and I swear I didn't make this thread just to plug, I wasn't told these were going up til afterward), some friends of mine have put together some animated short films in collaboration with the Imperial War Museum in an initiative to portray stories from their Sound Archive. My minor part in this was listening to said archived stories for a weekend and putting together a longlist that the guys then chose from. I'd appreciate it if anyone felt like checking them out and helping the guys out - this is the second time they've worked directly with IWM and their third historical production. The three D-Day shorts linked below:

#1: www.facebook.com/squeakypedal/videos/546560909207170/

#2: www.facebook.com/squeakypedal/videos/1689757824501347/

#3: www.facebook.com/squeakypedal/videos/2269923889765480/

That’s really really well done!

Is there a non Facebook version by any chance?

Putin wasn't invited to the celebration yesterday, but he isn't bothered apparently. "D Day little bitch battle, not strong like Russian battle", is pretty much his response.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-48548200

Charming

To be fair, DDay wouldn’t have been possible without the Ruskis battles so I’m sure as a Russian it’s somewhat irritating to see the world speak of DDay like a sole game changer while not really acknowledging Russian losses. Of course you dont have quite as virtuous reasons for getting involved but some of that could be pointed at America too and they get to say they solely won the war!

Listening to some American DDay stuff yesterday you could be forgiven for thinking Normandy wasn’t all of America with a couple of their British mates. I don’t think Canada got mentioned once.

Isn't that the way for a lot things. Can't be positive about a Russian invovlement after all