D Day: The Price of Freedom

[Valin]

http://youtu.be/kjct0HD2Lo8

[Draggingtree]

D-Day: The First Wave

 

By: Rick AtkinsonDate:June6 , 2013

 

Nautical twilight arrived in Normandy on June 6 at 5:16 a.m., when the ascending sun was twelve degrees below the eastern horizon. For the next forty-two minutes, until sunrise at 5:58, the dawning day revealed what enemy radar had not. To a German soldier near Vierville, the fleet materialized “like a gigantic town” afloat, while a French boy peering from his window in Grandcamp saw “more ships than sea.”

 

Minesweepers nosed close to shore, clearing bombardment lanes for 140 warships preparing to drench the coast with gunfire. Blinkered messages from sweeps just two miles off the British beaches reported no hint of enemy stirrings, and Omaha too appeared placid. But at 5:30 a.m., on the approaches to Utah, black splashes abruptly leaped mast-high fore and aft of the cruisers H.M.S. Black Prince and U.S.S. Quincy, followed by the distant bark of shore guns. Two destroyers also took fire three miles from the shingle, and a minesweeper fled seaward, chased by large shells thrown from St.-Vaast. At 5:36 a.m., after allowing Mustang and Spitfire spotter planes time to pinpoint German muzzle flashes, Admiral Deyo ordered, “Commence counterbattery bombardment.”

 

Soon enough eight hundred naval guns thundered along a fifty-mile firing line. Sailors packed cotton in their ears; concussion ghosts rippled their dungarees. “The air vibrated,” wrote the reporter Don Whitehead. Ammunition cars sped upward from magazines with an ascending hum, followed by the heavy thump of shells dropped into loading trays before being rammed into the breech. Turrets slewed landward with theatrical menace. Two sharp buzzes signaled Stand by, then a single buzz for Fire! “Clouds of yellow cordite smoke billowed up,” wrote A. J. Liebling as he watched the battleship Arkansas from LCI-88. “There was something leonine in their tint as well as in the roar that followed.” The 12- and 14-inch shells from the murderous queens Arkansas and Texas sounded “like http://www.commandposts.com/2013/06/d-day-the-first-wave/

[Draggingtree]

D-Day in Images: 1944 to Today

 

By: Callie OettingerDate:June6 , 2011

 

CP Note: Though this feature was first posted in 2011, it continues to be updated, adding images of D-Day as they become available, as well as images of ceremonies remembering D-Day that continue to occur every year. http://www.commandposts.com/2011/06/d-day-in-pictures-1944-to-today/

[Valin]

D-Day in Images: 1944 to Today

 

By: Callie OettingerDate:June6 , 2011

 

CP Note: Though this feature was first posted in 2011, it continues to be updated, adding images of D-Day as they become available, as well as images of ceremonies remembering D-Day that continue to occur every year. http://www.commandposts.com/2011/06/d-day-in-pictures-1944-to-today/

 

OMG! A Gun!!!

[Valin]

[Draggingtree]

The ghost fleet of Chuuk Lagoon: World's biggest ship graveyard lies at site of WW2 battle where US crushed Japanese fleet

• Over three days in 1944, more than 60 Japanese warships and 200 aircraft sank after an attack by Allied forces
• During the Second World War Chuuk Lagoon was Japan's main base in the South Pacific
• American bombardment of the base wiped out their supplies and reduced Japanese threat
• The lagoon is now considered one of the top wreck diving destinations in the world
• The site, formally known as Truk Lagoon due to a mispronunciation, offers scuba divers a chance to explore

By Daily Mail Reporter

PUBLISHED:06:38 EST, 4 June 2013| UPDATED:22:26 EST, 4 June 2013

It may look like a tropical paradise, but this stunning lagoon masks a dark secret... under the clear blue waters lies the biggest graveyard of ships in the world.

In the Second World War Chuuk Lagoon was Japan's main base in the South Pacific, but in 1944, American forces launched an attack and over a two day bombardment more than 60 warships ended up on the floor of the lagoon.

Years later the Japanese still pay their respects at the watery graves each year, but now the site, formally known as Truk Lagoon due to a mispronunciation, offers scuba divers a chance to explore a piece of living history.

Go to link for pictures & video

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2335607/Worlds-biggest-ship-graveyard-Tropical-waters-South-Pacific-hide-haunting-wreckage-World-War-II-battle-left-60-Japanese-warships-rusting-lagoon-floor.html