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Originally posted by JALLEN:

Some are critical of the French, on various issues, but I have never met any of a certain age who doesn't recognise the significance of the Debarquement, what it cost to pull it off, in lives and treasure, with profound gratitude.

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Originally posted by Balzé Halzé:

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Originally posted by JALLEN:

Some are critical of the French, on various issues, but I have never met any of a certain age who doesn't recognise the significance of the Debarquement, what it cost to pull it off, in lives and treasure, with profound gratitude.

My wife's grandparents still look upon Americans as the great savior. When I was first introduced to them, it was evident in how they looked at me and treated me that they still haven't forgotten. I was immediately in their good graces.

Considering that her grandparents were fairly young at the time, Americans were seen as these giant, handsome men who spoke like movie stars and swept in to save them like the proverbial white knight.

My wife recalled some stories to me about the war that her grandparents had told her. Stuff like when her grandmother as a teenager worked in a pub and vividly could still remember German soldiers spitting tobacco on the floor. And how her grandparents and everyone else in Brittany were forbidden by the Nazi's from speaking Breton.

The Americans saved them from all of that...and they haven't forgotten. Not that generation.

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My fellow Americans: Last night, when I spoke with you about the fall of Rome, I knew at that moment that troops of the United States and our allies were crossing the Channel in another and greater operation. It has come to pass with success thus far.

And so, in this poignant hour, I ask you to join with me in prayer:

Almighty God: Our sons, pride of our Nation, this day have set upon a mighty endeavor, a struggle to preserve our Republic, our religion, and our civilization, and to set free a suffering humanity.

Lead them straight and true; give strength to their arms, stoutness to their hearts, steadfastness in their faith.

They will need Thy blessings. Their road will be long and hard. For the enemy is strong. He may hurl back our forces. Success may not come with rushing speed, but we shall return again and again; and we know that by Thy grace, and by the righteousness of our cause, our sons will triumph.

They will be sore tried, by night and by day, without rest-until the victory is won. The darkness will be rent by noise and flame. Men's souls will be shaken with the violences of war.

For these men are lately drawn from the ways of peace. They fight not for the lust of conquest. They fight to end conquest. They fight to liberate. They fight to let justice arise, and tolerance and good will among all Thy people. They yearn but for the end of battle, for their return to the haven of home.

Some will never return. Embrace these, Father, and receive them, Thy heroic servants, into Thy kingdom.

And for us at home - fathers, mothers, children, wives, sisters, and brothers of brave men overseas - whose thoughts and prayers are ever with them - help us, Almighty God, to rededicate ourselves in renewed faith in Thee in this hour of great sacrifice.

Many people have urged that I call the Nation into a single day of special prayer. But because the road is long and the desire is great, I ask that our people devote themselves in a continuance of prayer. As we rise to each new day, and again when each day is spent, let words of prayer be on our lips, invoking Thy help to our efforts.

Give us strength, too - strength in our daily tasks, to redouble the contributions we make in the physical and the material support of our armed forces.

And let our hearts be stout, to wait out the long travail, to bear sorrows that may come, to impart our courage unto our sons wheresoever they may be.

And, O Lord, give us Faith. Give us Faith in Thee; Faith in our sons; Faith in each other; Faith in our united crusade. Let not the keenness of our spirit ever be dulled. Let not the impacts of temporary events, of temporal matters of but fleeting moment let not these deter us in our unconquerable purpose.

With Thy blessing, we shall prevail over the unholy forces of our enemy. Help us to conquer the apostles of greed and racial arrogancies. Lead us to the saving of our country, and with our sister Nations into a world unity that will spell a sure peace a peace invulnerable to the schemings of unworthy men. And a peace that will let all of men live in freedom, reaping the just rewards of their honest toil.

Thy will be done, Almighty God.

Amen.

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Originally posted by V-Tail:
Heroes. Each and every one. May God keep their souls.

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How weather forecast from Mayo lighthouse saved D-Day invasion
IrishCentral Staff June 06, 2017 09:55 AM

On June 3, 1944, Irish Coast Guardsman and Blacksod lighthouse keeper Ted Sweeney delivered a weather forecast by telephone from Co Mayo’s most westerly point. The report convinced General Dwight D Eisenhower to delay the D-Day invasion for 24 hours, potentially averting a military disaster and changing the course of World War II. Today, June 6, marks the 72nd anniversary of the Normandy invasion that signaled the beginning of the end of the war in Europe. On Tuesday, 70 years to the day Sweeney delivered his weather report, the D-Day Museum in Portsmouth will be presented with Sweeney’s original Blacksod observation sheets, collated by the Irish Met Service, and including the actual weather observations which proved so crucial to the invasion.

The Irish Independent reports that new evidence from Met Eireann forecasters reveals how the Blacksod day forecast changed the course of history.

Despite years of planning, in the days leading up to the attack, the Allied invasion would depend on one crucial and uncontrollable factor - the weather.

Although separate observations were taken at various locations by Royal Air Force, Royal Navy and the United States Army Air Force meteorologists, an accurate forecast from the Irish Meteorological Service, based on observations from Blacksod on Mullet peninsula would be the most important.

Despite the country’s neutrality during the war, Ireland continued to send meteorological reports to Britain under an arrangement which had been agreed since Independence. According to the Irish Independent, Blacksod was the first land-based observation station in Europe where weather readings could be professionally taken on the prevailing European Atlantic westerly weather systems.
The Normandy invasion was originally planned for June 5. Nearly 5,000 ships and over 11,000 aircraft would carry approximately 156,000 troops into battle on the day across a 60-mile beachfront and into the interior of the Cotentin peninsula. Because of the importance of the landings by sea and by air, the 6th and 7th, were also pinpointed as possible dates because moon and tide conditions were then deemed ideal.

However, British and American forecasters could not agree on the likely weather conditions for the planned date.
According to the memoirs of Scotsman James Stagg, the chief meteorologist for the Normandy Landings, by June 2, the Americans were optimistic for a 'go' on June 5, whilst the British were "unmitigatedly pessimistic.” An agreement could not be reached.

Then, in the early morning hours of June 3, Irish Coast Guardsman and lighthouse keeper Ted Sweeney sent his hourly weather observation report, containing a warning of "a Force 6 wind and a rapidly falling barometer" at Blacksod.
Group Captain Stagg, stationed at Southwick House outside Portsmouth, studied the Blacksod report and advised General Dwight D Eisenhower to postpone for 24 hours. Eisenhower postponed the invasion to Tuesday June 6.
Sweeney, who died in 2001, said in an interview from 1994:"I was sending an hourly report 24 hours a day and night. It had to be phoned into London, (Dunstable). We got a query back.
"They asked for a check. 'Please check and repeat the whole report.' I was wondering what was wrong. I thought I had made some error or something like that. They sent a second message to me about an hour later to please check and repeat again. I thought this was a bit strange so I checked and repeated again. It never dawned on me that this was the weather for invading or anything like that. When I checked the report, I said: 'Thanks be to God, I was not at fault anyway.' I had done my job and sent over a correct reading to London."

New Met Eireann analysis has confirmed that Ted Sweeney's June 3 reports from Blacksod indicated a cold front lying halfway across Ireland and moving rapidly south eastwards and that a deep depression lay between Iceland and Scotland. Gale-force winds, low clouds and heavy showers would still be affecting the English Channel in the early morning hours of June 5.

On June 4, Sweeney sent a report saying that heavy rain and drizzle cleared, cloud at 900ft and visibility on land and sea very clear. An hour later, Blacksod would receive full clearance of the weather. The following day, at Eisenhower's morning briefing, the latest report from Blacksod confirmed the passage of a cold front at Blacksod at noon on June 4 and confidence was restored, reports the Irish Independence. Eisenhower’s long awaited weather clearance had arrived and he gave the order for Operation Overlord, as the invasion was named, to proceed. D-Day would be on June 6.

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Today, June 6, marks the 72nd anniversary of the Normandy invasion that signaled the beginning of the end of the war in Europe. On Tuesday, 70 years to the day Sweeney delivered his weather report, the D-Day Museum in Portsmouth will be presented with Sweeney’s original Blacksod observation sheets, collated by the Irish Met Service, and including the actual weather observations which proved so crucial to the invasion.