D-Day, June 6, 1944 ... the battles for the beachhead cost 340 Canadian lives and another 574 wounded. ... “At the end of the day, its forward elements stood deeper into France than those of any other division. The opposition the Canadians faced was stronger than that of any other beach save Omaha...."
June, 1994, asked my mother and aunt where the menfolk were on 6th June, 1944. They didn't know. We don't think any of them actually landed on D-Day, but they were certainly in the fighting later on. This day, I remember and am grateful.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comment, Frances. I don't know where most of my relatives were on that date, either. My father attempted to enlist but was rejected on medical grounds (and I wouldn't be here if he'd been accepted). I had an uncle in the RCN whose destroyer, HMCS Athabaskan, was sunk by a German torpedo in Apr 1944 and he spent the rest of the war as a POW. He was lucky to survive and return home with some interesting stories to tell.
ReplyDeleteWe owe all who fought the tyrants a great debt.