June 6

On this day, 73 years ago, the Allies successfully landed a force of 160,000 soldiers on the coast of northwest France.  It took 7,000 ships and 12,000 aircraft to accomplish, and was the critical step to achieve the liberation of Western Europe from German control.  The film, Saving Private Ryan, very well portrays what it must have been like – brutal and bloody - the largest amphibious (seaborne) invasion in history.

Nazi Germany had occupied France for 4 years, and had constructed massive barriers and gun emplacements to repel any invasion from the sea.  Nevertheless, the American, British, Canadian, Free French and Free Polish forces overcame the resistance of the very tough Germans and soon began their liberation of France. 

Anyone who fought there who still lives is at least 90 years old.  Anyone alive at the time surely clearly recalls the drama and danger of that time.   

By August, the Allied armies had pushed back the German forces enough to free the city of Paris.  It took until May 1945 for American, British and Russian armies to achieve final victory over Germany.  But the beginning of the end of the war in Europe was on this day, June 6 1944. 

The war against Japan continued in the Far East until September, 1945 - hastened by the two nuclear bombs we dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan.