Picture taken by Chief Photographer's Mate Robert F. Sargent onboard a landing craft from the USS Samuel Chase (USCG); troops of Company E, 16th Infantry Regiment, 1st Infantry Division landing at Omaha Beach.

Description page from the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library of the National Archives & Records Administration

Wiki Commons Page

Let us never forget the sacrifices so many before us made as we enjoy our freedom here in the USA. -- Ray

Amen...

Dad was there with the 29th at Omaha in the 5th or 8th wave. A combat engineer, he went from St. Laurent sur Mer to Isigny to St Lo by July 23rd.

Glad to see the memory kept alive.

JK

To make this railway-related:

Many of them, just kids, storming into Hell, only to be cut up, blown apart, and maybe making it to a secured shore. I bow my head and stand in awe of these men.
May God bless each one for saving us from life under the Nazis.

My Dad went in on D+4, Battle of St. Lowe. Almost NEVER talked about it. Did tell me once that that night in the hedgerows he saw the biggest "fireworks" ever. Just before he died, we talked about it a little, and all he can remember is that he didn't have to wade through the water to get ashore. After he died, we looked in his crate he sent back from France. Some strange, amazing photographs in there (he was a bit of a photography fan, even back then). Wish we had looked in there when he was still with us and was still clear-headed--so many questions! He spent the rest of the war south of Paris in a resupply depot.

I visited Omaha Beach in 2005. An elderly friend at church landed on D-day and shared a few stories before my wife and I went over. The beach is faced with sheer cliffs and was a veritable shooting gallery for the Nazis as the troops landed. Even on a peaceful April day when we visited the thought of the sacrifice and bloodshed on D-day was moving to say the least.

Wesley

None of our folks landed on the beaches of Normandy. My maternal great uncle was a mechanic attached to the United States Army Air Corp though, and was stationed in the UK. He never spoke much of the war. My maternal grandfather was a sergeant in the United States Army, but died of pneumonia before his unit shipped out.

My paternal grandfather was a Lieutenant in the United States Navy Reserves and served both stateside and in the South Pacific as a pilot in Special Tactical Air Group One. STAG One was one of two units flying radio controlled drones. We have his log books and personal effects, including his issued sidearm. He always attended unit reunions and started taking my Dad to reunions, as many of the men remembered him as an infant (he and my grandmother lived on base for a short time after his birth). He would talk about his experiences as much as grandmother would permit. One of the few effects that showed in his personality was that he did not like cruising-especially on large ships. The ship part of the equation was totally unattractive to him-probably reminded him of the transport ships during the war.

Railroad related: When I worked at the Tennessee Valley Railroad, we had amongst our stored diesel locomotives USATC RSD-1 No. 8014. The 8014 was one of the locomotives that served in Iran during the war and there are surviving photographs of her running there. If you looked at the locomotive frame carefully, you could see where the buffers had been attached to the frame.

Thanks a lot for that sacrifice!

If you care to look here:
http://forum.locaalspoor.nl/new/viewtop ... 8&start=40
It is about the restoration in the Netherlands of WD 70033, a sister of the one shown and still on the landing craft in the background at Juno beach.
More details: http://www.stichting162.nl/
A thankful
Jos Koopmans

My maternal great uncle was a mechanic attached to the United States Army Air Corp though, and was stationed in the UK. He never spoke much of the war.

My great Uncle was a Marine in the South Pacific, and was much the same, by the time I came along. Something makes me think that storming a beach is a little like standing at the gates of Hell and peering in and not something to be remembered.

Also to make this (somewhat) railway related - from the web site
http://www.rtn2014.org/index.html
"Whiskey 7 continued to fly throughout the war, including towing gliders in operation Market Garden. She was decommissioned in July of 1945 and sold to Penn Central Airlines and converted back to a passenger airliner. "
Of note, she also participated in Operation Varsity (24 March 1945) with the 17th Airborne Division - as did my father, Harry Sembrat, who lived to be 91 after a 46 year career with the railroad (NYC-WWII-PC-CR).
May we remember our veterans, on this day and always.
Melanie

My primary hobby was always military history (I'm also a former US Army Captain, yeah, I never got enough of it, I guess). This shot gives you an idea what I do on many weekends in the summer time:

I’m for sure not where I thought I’d be on this day. Last year, my plan was to have been standing at Omaha Beach this very morning. There was a WW2 vehicle convoy going from there to Germany in a 2-week event where everyone lives as a WW2 GI. Their original plan when announced in 2013 was to be to be leaving Normandy tomorrow to head East, following the 2nd Armored Division's route in 1944. I was invited to be one of the few Americans to go along, portraying a War Correspondent (see the photo below, from a display I put on at a large event in Portland last summer). But they changed their plans (they’re now doing that in August and won’t be going anywhere near Normandy) and that and my nehpew getitng married this past month threw off the whole reason I was going to go and the wedidng killed the vacation time I had for this. I know several people who went to France for this week. So now, my plan is to be there in 5 years for the 75th anniversary. My ‘bucket list’ of places I must see sometime in my life is very short, and Normandy is right at the top of that list (Been to most of the other WW2 battlefields in Europe and some in the Pacific).

As part of my curriculum today I put together a lecture and power point on the engineering and technology of D-Day.

As an intro I used the landing scene from "Saving Private Ryan." by the time I got to the sixth period I was having a very hard time keeping my emotions under control. The thought of those young men - not much older than my students, their sacrifice, exceptionalism, and the cause they fought for simply overwhelmed me.

My students were reverent and seemed to grasp a deeper respect for the sacrifices and valor of those of the greatest generation.

Thank you.

And now, as 75 years have passed, and as some of the last of the Greatest Generation return to Normandy to pay their respects, we shall as well.

Doesn't get any more significant than this. Here's to always being mindful that freedom isn't free. Use any chance you get to thank a veteran for their service.

Ross Rowland