(Above) Some sources list this as Omaha Beach, but this is most certainly Utah Beach. The small dots on the beach are men standing and the longer ones are bodies laying down. Since troops moved quickly off Utah Beach and there was not quite as much debris buildup as on Omaha Beach where the beaches were covered with destroyed vehicles, it is probably Utah Beach. Omaha was covered with wreckage by the third wave. TD
(Above) Taken a few days after June 6th, this view is over the hedgerows of the Normandy bocage where so many thousands of lives were lost. Look back toward the beaches at the massive amount of ships involved in the landings. The area in the foreground was the graveyard of much of the 29th Infantry Division in the drive toward St. Lo. TD
The National Collection of Aerial Photography (UK) Labelled elsewhere as the Vierville draw at Omaha Beach, it is actually the neighboring landing site, the Les Moulins draw, where Gen. Cota went ashore, worked his way to the top of the bluffs, then moved west to the Vierville exit, where the worst slaughter took place. This beach is distinguished by the immense, 18-foot-wide anti-tank ditch inland. (Gen. Cota was portrayed by Robert Mitchum in the movie, "The Longest Day".) TD
Robert Capa photo of French fishermen gazing at the aftermath of the Normandy landings.
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Updated Aug 20th: My educated guess about the above photo is this: At the top, just right of center is the bulge in the shoreline known as the Point et Raz de la Percee. About an inch or so to the left of that is the Vierville Draw where the Bedford boys and Co. A, 116 RCT, 29th Division were annihilated. The next draw to the left of that and close to the left margin is the Les Moulins Draw where General Norman Cota (or was it Robert Mitchum?) personally led his men off the beaches. This is either very early on D-Day as there do not seem to be many vehicles and boats jamming the beaches. (Or it is several days after as the line of sunken ships off the beach at Les Moulin would indicate? They were placed there for a breakwater.) More here. And here. TD
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Link replaced with this from History News Network: What We Might Remember This Memorial Day by Victor Davis Hanson
(Link fixed) "The list of American wars, interventions, and campaigns, past and present, is endless — a source of serial political acrimony here at home over the human and financial cost and wisdom of spending American lives to better others. Sometimes we feel we are not good when we are not perfect, whether trying to stop a Stalinist North Vietnamese takeover of the south, or failing to secure Iraq before 2008. But the common story remains the same: For nearly a century, the American soldier has often been the last, indeed the only, impediment to butchery, enslavement, and autocracy." . . . (National Review article no longer good
STRATFOR "In the end, this is not about the Israelis or the Palestinians. It is about the Palestinian relationship with the Arabs and Israel’s relationship with Europe and the United States. The Israelis want to isolate the Palestinians, and the Palestinians are trying to isolate the Israelis. At the moment, the Palestinians are doing better at this than the Israelis. The argument going on in Israel (and not with the peace movement) is how to respond. Benjamin Netanyahu wants to wait it out. Dagan is saying the risks are too high."
