Stardate 20020630.1826

(On Screen): It would be going too far to say that the Normandy landing in June of 1944 won the war against Germany. No single operation can ever be said to have done that, and even after the landing and breakout, the majority of German forces faced the USSR, as they had ever since hostilities on the Eastern Front began in 1941. But there is no question that it helped immensely, in as much as it presented the Germans with a profound problem: they didn't have enough troops to be adequately strong everywhere. With major fronts in Italy, France and in the east, Germany had to be weak somewhere and no matter where it was it would lead to disaster. As it turned out, they ended up being weak everywhere, and the war in Europe ended in less than a year after the landing.

On the other hand, it is unquestionably true that the Normandy landing by Canadian, British, French and American troops began the process by which France was liberated in less than six months. And it takes nothing from the bravery of the men who fought there to say that they did not win the war single handed.

It was a magnificent undertaking; the largest and most difficult amphibious landing in history. The amount of planning and preparation for it staggers belief.

Five names, ones which seem to have nothing to do with one another, nothing to do with anything, really. Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno, Sword. Just words, just names. Ones which are seared in our memories now, for they represent places where thousands of men gave their all. Just names for five beaches. Juno for the Canadians, Gold and Sword for the British and Utah and Omaha for the Americans.

Omaha is where it almost fell in. More of the attackers died there than at all the other beaches combined. Resistance was mild in some places; tough in others. But at Omaha beach, there was serious danger that the attack would fail, and that would have left the American Utah beach isolated from the British and Canadian beaches and the whole landing susceptible to defeat in detail.

Hundreds of Higgins boats moved toward the shore. The defenders waited for them. The defenders were supposed to have been bombed from the air, and shelled by heavy ships. But the bombs and shells had nearly all missed, and the defenders were ready and waiting. And there were more of them than had been expected, and they were better trained.

The Higgins boats moved toward the shore. Some of them struck underwater mines and blew up. Others reached the beach, opened their hatches and were greeted by brutally effective machine gun fire which slaughtered most of the men inside. Mortar and artillery rounds rained down on them. The men waded towards dry land. Many never made it. Most of those who did took shelter behind a low ridge at the edge of the sand.

General Bradley seriously considered giving up, and pulling the survivors back out. And then the men on the beach finally started moving forward, started to find ways off the beach, started to clear the resistance. American destroyers moved dangerously close to shore and risked grounding to use their five inch guns to strike major Germany positions on the hills; it was the only support gunfire of the day that was truly effective, and it gave heart to the soldiers. In some cases German resistance ended only because they'd run completely out of ammunition. But they eventually moved in, and the German guns, one by one, were silenced. The beach became quiet, except for the screams and moans of the wounded.

By nightfall it was clear the attackers had won a foothold ashore, but they paid a terrible price. The shoreline was littered with dead bodies, and there were many more littering the sand. The sea was red with American blood.

There's a cemetery there, where many of those American men are buried. It's in French territory, but in a very real sense it's owned by America. A terribly high price was paid for it, six feet at a time.

Hitler always understood that any attack on France would require a port through which the immense quantities of supplies needed for modern mechanized war could flow, and he intended to have his troops in France hole up in every port town and fight to the last there, in hopes that the landing could be starved of supplies. What he didn't expect was that the British boffins would foresee this strategy, and that the allies would actually bring their own harbors with them. These were the famous Mulberries. One was set up off of Omaha beach and it was critical in getting supplies and reinforcements in to support the buildup of forces, until it was destroyed in a storm two weeks after the landing. The remnants of it are still there, much of it under water off the shoreline.

Many French remember this sacrifice. I am told that the cemetery there is extremely well cared for by the locals, and thus should it be. Thousands of Americans died there to liberate France, and the French should remember that, and be grateful.

It's not universal, of course. Pascal Guilbert's attitude about Americans is, "What have they done for me lately?" He cares not for the thousands who died there; all he sees is the possibility of making money from the waters where they sacrificed themselves. He wants to use the area around the Mulberries to grow oysters.

Pascal Guilbert is a royal asshole. If this is French sophistication, I want no part of it. How would Guilbert feel ab