HomeMy WebLinkAboutD-Day 2007
The Earle.
g
Jim Wilson Donnis Baggett Robert C. Borden
Publisher Editor-in-Chief
Opinions Editor i
editboard@theeagle.com
Thank
you to
D-
Da s hero
es
heir -ranks are thinning now, but the courage they
showed on .the beaches and in the skies over France
63 years ago will live forever. It was on D-Day -June
6, 1944 -that some 156,000 Allied soldiers - 73,000 of them i
American -stormed the beaches of Normandy in the ,'
~` largest seaborne invasion in history.
' So much went wrong that day, but somehow the Allies
were victorious, securing all five beaches along the 60-mile
invasion front by the end of the first day. There were
heroes that day, so many heroes. Among them was James
~, Earl Rudder, who led his Rangers as they scaled the steep
cliffs of Pointe du Hoc under withering German fire. ::
Wounded twice, Rudder refused to leave his command
until his assigned task to silence giant German guns was
accomplished.
What the Allies accomplished that day and in the days
and months to follow wasn't easy. The opening 30 minutes
of Steven Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan can only hint at
.the horror and confusion. At Omaha Beach alone, 6,000 of
the 35,000 Americans first to land were killed or wounded
in the opening hour. Another 8,000 would die or be wound-
ed before the day was done.
While most of the soldiers who went ashore were from
the United States, Great Britain or Canada, there were also
troops from Australia, Belgium, Czechoslovakia, France,
Greece, Holland, New Zealand, Norway and Poland. Brav-
ery abounded.
The war would continue for another year and thousands
more people died, but in
the end, freedom endured.
The young men of D-Day are old and gray now, their steps
slowed. But at a time when the world desperately needed
courage and determination, they stepped forward and
answered freedom's call.
Today, we can only thank them for their service and be
humbled by their sacrifice. God bless them all.