my uncle, Pte Geoffrey Hubert Lord of the Royal Regiment of Canada, was getting ready to wade ashore onto the European mainland.

He survived all else that came after it, the fight through France and Belgium and into Germany itself.

He went home after the end of it, and raised a family with the help of my Aunt Jean, another heroine in her own way, who had left a life of privilege in London to live in a small wooden house in rural Ontario

After surviving all that the Germans could throw at him, Uncle Geoff died in a farm accident in 1974.

His was one of over a hundred thousand small stories on this day in June, 1944. and every single one of those stories was a life full of other lives.

We are here today because they were there yesterday.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: tacfoley,

^^^
Thanks for sharing the story of your own Greatest Generation hero.

My dad served in the Pacific fleet and my uncle served in Germany.

God bless them all.

Cheers to the greatest generation!

I shall have two names to toast this evening.

Thank you for sharing this story.

Lest we forget. Thank you for your post.

My father came to this country from Germany with his family in 1925. As a native speaker, he worked during WWII interrogating German POWs and broadcasting (via what would become the Voice of America) rebuttals to Goering's speeches to the German homeland.

They also served who didn't storm the beaches.

Tac,

Thanks for sharing this story.

We owe so much to those brave men.

“The whole world is the tomb of heroes.
Their story is more than lines on a rock on a plot of earth.
Their story lives on, without visible symbol, woven into the fabric of other men’s lives.”

What Pericles said in Athens and what Lincoln said at Gettysburg apply to every man at Normandy. They changed our world.

75 years ago tomorrow my Dad waded into the war at Omaha beach in France; he was 18 years old. Dad never spoke much about the war, other than he griped about being kept out of the Air Corps due to color blindness - but apparently the infantry loved color blind soldiers as they could easily distinguish camo from foliage. I do remember he qualified as Expert with his rifle; he was very proud of that, and put a lot of food on our table with his iron site Winchester 30-30.

Dad went to Univ of Wash after the war, met my mom, had a career in Aerospace, eventually becoming a VP of North American Aviation, later Rockwell. I came along in 1951.

Thanks Dad

aileron, my father-in-law hit Omaha Beach too. He tells a story about how all the men in his unit that qualified expert in basic were made machine gunners. He went through the war as one. I guess maybe they made the experts machine gunners so they wouldn't waste ammo? *s*

See if this doesn’t stir some emotions. This morning in Normandy

My FIL Dave Conger was Pilot in Command of this very B-24, "The Shack" , part of the 393rd BG. They bombed artillery positions inland early that morning.

He did 34 more missions and survived the war as did ALL of his crew. They received flak damage as well as MG damage from German ME 109's several times, but amazingly never any serious injuries.

He passed several years back at 93.

My father John Jr. went ashore at Utah Beach, an Infantryman in the 90th (Texas Oklahoma) Division. He made it through all of it until they got to Luxembourg, where his left leg took a hit from a German hand grenade. He was then evacuated to England. His father John Sr died of a heart attack immediately upon being notified of the casualty. Dad never talked much about it, but enjoyed telling me how he jumped the fence at Fort Dix with friends after the war.

When I returned from my first tour to Vietnam, he sat down with me and asked "Do you want to talk about it?" I simply asked him if he wanted to talk about Europe. That was the end of that conversation and we never talked about it again. He passed away in 1994. I miss him.

my grandfather was working as a longshoreman in Halifax helping with the convoys that were being staged in Bedford Basin going to Europe

he told me that he earned 50 cents a day humping crates of dynamite onto ships and putting them in the hold

his regular salary would have been 35 cents a day but he got a 15 cent a day bonus for doing dynamite

Shores of Normandy by D-Day veteran Jim Radford...
https://youtu.be/9X6WxLbTmok

This is a picture of my fathers crew. 43rd Bomb Wing, 64th Squadron.



My father cutting Tony's hair.

My dad was 3rd Armored and went ashore about 2 weeks after D-Day. He went on through France, Belgium and on into Germany. He was at the Battle of The Bulge.

I will be forever thankful for all who served as is my 95 year old father who was taken from his dads farm in Poland and placed in a labor camp in Leipzig Germany. He remembers seeing more and more flights of bombers over head as the war was coming to an end. One day they just let him go and he walked west until he met allied troops and they sent him to France to a Polish organization. eventually in 1961 we made it here...

quote:

Originally posted by Yanert98:
Tac,
Thanks for sharing this story.
We owe so much to those brave men.

+1 Thanks for sharing!

My Father in Law, was a B24 pilot, shot down over Germany, spent the remainder of the war in Stalag Luft One as a POW.

He didn't talk much about his time in the war to family until I married into the family. I was in the USAF at the time. We were sitting in the living room, he and I started talking and he spent several hours telling me about his experiences. My wife and her brothers and sisters were in the room at the time. At first, there was some animosity about him talking with me about it, later they came to the conclusion that it was more of a deal about sharing the experience with another Airman.

I miss that man and will always remember him and the Greatest Generation and what they sacrificed for us.