A costly day
June 6, 2008 (Friday)
Today is the sixty-fourth anniversary of the invasion of Normandy, known in history as D-Day.
The world knew the day was coming, but no one except the highest-ranked officers knew the exact date. It was scheduled for June 5, but postponed one day because of bad weather. Several movies have been made about it, and perhaps the most realistic has been “Saving Private Ryan.” No movie can capture the horrors of war, but the long D-Day sequence in that one tries very hard to retell the story as it happened.
The Supreme Allied Commander was Dwight Eisenhower, who later became President of the United States from 1952 to 1960.
The number of allied troops landing on D-Day were around 156,000. Within a month, one million men had landed. Total allied casualties on D-Day numbered 10,000, but in April and May the allied air force had already lost 12,000 men and 2,000 aircraft in operations that paved the way for the actual invasion. As the battle for Normandy went on, this number grew to 209,000 allied troops killed, wounded or missing in action.
What does war cost? World War 2 cost 72 million lives, military and civilian, on all sides, and in all nations, from all causes, including famine and disease. The number of people who were disabled for life is not known.
Let us not take our freedoms for granted. Let us be ever thankful for those who have purchased these freedoms at awful cost.