D-DAY

Today we celebrate 63 years from the D-Day. To all the ones who died on that day we honor you. May it be that they are never forgotten and the lesson learned.

Semper Fidelis.

There were no marines on D-Day.

Hallo Gents,

It might seem like splitting hairs but. . . while no Marines may have actually landed on the beaches during the Normandy assault, I believe Marines were stationed on the larger U.S. Ships used to bombard the Coastal areas, before and during the landings.

Kevin in Deva

"Celebrate" is a poor choice of words.

Even so, we should always be fidel to the soldiers that eliberated europe.

They liberated only half of Europe.

Gen. Dénes

I`m not talking only about american soldiers,i`m talking about the Allied soldiers. Imagine a life in wich more than half of europe would be Germany.

Immagine a life in which more then half of Europe is under Soviet comunist rule... og wait... that happened.. and it was as bad as being under Nazzi ocupation. Dang...

BTW: british and american troops (fighting men not diplomats) did not consider the soviets as being "allied", when they used the term allied they excluded the comunists and when they wanted to talk about USSR soldiers they would call them russians, soviets, etc. but not allied soldiers.

This post has been edited by D13-th_Mytzu on June 07, 2007 12:34 pm

But why no Marines at D-Day in first line of landings? No free division with Pacific experience at that time?

Iama

True, and the "second front" was relatively long in the promising, late in coming.

(Thus, e.g., Russian soldiers, in bitter irony, called the SPAM "meat" rations they were provided by the U.S. "Second Front".)

Nonetheless, were it not for the Allied invasion(s) (and let us not forget the Italian campaigns), Russian would be the second language of France and Itraly today, imo, and Eastern Europe would have been under the Communist heel a lot longer, maybe even to this day.

i.e., in all probability the Soviets would have blown right through to, say, the Pyrenees, and then ruled Europe much more effectively/longer.


BTW, on topic, while [I]Semper Fidelis[/I] is indeed the U.S. Marine Corps motto, I don't see why it's not an appropriate attitude to take in remembrance of the day.

The Marines are part of the Navy, and were being trained for the fight among the islands of Pacific, against the Japanese, there was no need to use them in what was going to be essentially a land campaign once the Allies moved inshore of the Beaches.

I also think the logistics of sending such a force, with or without island and jungle experience from the Pacific staging areas was to prohibative when the US had most of the US Army and Airfirce in the UK at the time.

Kevin in Deva.

The Marines are part of the Navy, and were being trained for the fight among the islands of Pacific, against the Japanese, there was no need to use them in what was going to be essentially a land campaign once the Allies moved inshore of the Beaches.

I also think the logistics of sending such a force, with or without island and jungle experience from the Pacific staging areas was to prohibative when the US had most of the US Army and Airfirce in the UK at the time.

Kevin in Deva.

i think i remember that i read that there 1 or 2 compagnies but they died on their way to the beaches.

The Marines are part of the Navy, and were being trained for the fight among the islands of Pacific, against the Japanese, there was no need to use them in what was going to be essentially a land campaign once the Allies moved inshore of the Beaches.

I also think the logistics of sending such a force, with or without island and jungle experience from the Pacific staging areas was to prohibative when the US had most of the US Army and Airfirce in the UK at the time.

Kevin in Deva.

i think i remember that i read that there 1 or 2 compagnies but they died on their way to the beaches.

Source pls.

Al

Yeah, I guess they concentrated on the SPAM and forgot about the other material they received, like:

Aircraft 14,795
Tanks 7,056
Jeeps 51,503
Trucks 375,883
Motorcycles 35,170
Tractors 8,071
Guns 8,218
Machine guns 131,633
Explosives 345,735 tons
Building equipment valued $10,910,000
Railroad freight cars 11,155
Locomotives 1,981
Cargo ships 90
Submarine hunters 105
Torpedo boats 197
Ship engines 7,784
Food supplies 4,478,000 tons
Machines and equipment $1,078,965,000
Non-ferrous metals 802,000 tons
Petroleum products 2,670,000 tons
Chemicals 842,000 tons
Cotton 106,893,000 tons
Leather 49,860 tons
Tires 3,786,000
Army boots 15,417,001 pairs

Source: Wikipedia

For more detailed item descriptions, I highly recommend My Dear Mr. Stalin: The Complete Correspondence of Franklin Delanore Roosevelt and Joseph Stalin by Susan Butler (editor).

Hundreds or thousands of tons of each item (depending on the type) were shipped on a monthly basis, ranging from medication, through hot-rolled steel, cold-rolled steel, brass, aluminum, duraluminum, all the way to TNT and explosives.

As an example, in the month of October 1941 alone, when the Germans were closing in on Moscow, the Soviets received among other things, 233 fighter planes, 24 B-25 bombers, 255 ground-attack planes, and some 75 medium and light tanks, despite the fact that the Lend-Lease program had just commenced and US factories had not yet had the time to start full production on the orders being placed. Note: One should note the important role the UK played, along with the US, in providing the Soviet Union with military and industrial equipment and raw material.

But yes, I suppose they also received SPAM canned meat.