Plenty of headlines this week have been devoted to the mystical – or hysterical – meanings of the date 6-6-6, which at any other time would be written 06-06-06 and not look so sinister. Regardless, for many Americans and particularly older generations, June 6 will always carry other heartbreaking or joyful connotations, or both; it will always be D-Day.
On that one day 62 years ago, the Allies suffered about as many deaths as U.S. forces have reported in more than three years in Iraq in the current conflict. On June 6, 1944, their forces assaulted French beaches in the beginning of a major push to unseat Nazi Germany from mastery of the European continent. Total Allied casualties on that day are thought to have been around 10,000, including 2,500 dead, according to the U.K.’s D-Day Museum.
Here are several links of interest:
“D-Day: A Radio History”: Compiled by Radio Days
“D-Day: American Experience,” from PBS. Participants describe the planning and execution of the Normandy invasion and the battle for the French beaches.
The National D-Day Memorial Foundation: The Web site of a memorial in Bedford, Va., a town that lost 19 soldiers just on that one day in France, proportionally the worst losses for one U.S. community on D-Day.