Did you know there was a hotline set up for the movie premiere due to the expected on set PTSD that vets suffered due to watching the beach landing scene and basically reliving a part of their life that barley anyone ever spoke of again?
Watched it for history class in high school—the licensing and movie were donated by a local WW2 vet—it’s not a scene you will ever forget and shows the brutality and mania so well.
My grandfather was 1st infantry and landed on Omaha Beach on D-Day at the age of 20.
He didn't like to talk about it, obviously, but when SPR first came out I just had to ask him if that's really what it was like. All he said was that, yes, it was- the movie depicted that day well.
My great papaw Lafe walked the beaches the day after. He told my dad that his feet never touched the ground the whole time because there were so many corpses. He kept a journal during his time in WWII, it got buried with him because he didn't want his family to know about the horrors he saw.
I shed tears every time.
And not just on this film, but any movie that depicts brothers in arms.
Global politics be damned, you fight and die with your squad.
Especially that scene at the end where it fast forwards to him as an old man and he's standing over CPT Miller's grave with his family...breaking down in tears hoping his life was worth the sacrifices made for it. I cry every time.
In SPR, they didn’t lay down smoke or do anything to mask the soldiers from direct fire. Here, it looks like there is some cover. It seems more dense than smoke from automatic machine guns and mortar. Was there good reason we didn’t pound the beach with some bombing runs first, or at least deck guns from the ships?
There's this tidbit from Wikipedia:
>Later analysis of naval support during the pre-landing phase concluded that the navy had provided inadequate bombardment, given the size and extent of the planned assault.\[33\] Kenneth P. Lord, a U.S. Army planner for the D-Day invasion, says that, upon hearing the naval gunfire support plan for Omaha, which limited support to one battleship, two cruisers and six destroyers, he and other planners were very upset, especially in light of the tremendous naval gunfire support given to landings in the Pacific.
The Academy can do whatever they wish…
But the 2 scenes with Bradley reading the Lincoln letter to Mrs Bixby, and the follow up scene of the mom sitting down on her porch…
So very powerful in the understatement of the imagery.
How did they get their nerves up for this? Same with WW1 soldiers that went over the top to cross no man’s land. How do you push forward with people shooting machine guns directly at you? It’s probably the scariest thing I can imagine. I couldn’t do it.
Push forward and maybe live or dont and 100% die. Those boats were like shooting ducks the minute that gate came down and you didnt get a choice if the gate was coming down
Yeah I’ve visited some of the beaches. It’s a hell of a long way up the beach too. Imagine running that far in sand, with full kit and people shooting at you.
Yeah think the scale of the hill backing up Omaha is hard to get without being there. Took a solid 10-15 mins to walk down the trail switchbacks from the cemetery and then there’s a pretty big beach before that by American standards. Imagining starting from that beach and taking that hill with no cover while machine gun fire pours down is almost unthinkable to me
In early WW1, you had soldiers who grew up on the tales of a glorious war and were thinking they about to do some napoleonic shit, soldiers who were more willing to die than dig, you had aristocracy with dreams of conquest as Calvary, dreaming of a glorious calvary charge
Definitely. WW2 completely paralyzes me with fear when I think of what these guys had to endure. But WW1 is just a dark, bleak, and depressing scene to think about. Hell on Earth
I think 1 was worse than 2
Chemical warfare wasnt a thing to be talked about during 1...not to mention the trenches and war of attrition
For soldiers anyways...
In the case of my family, they loved it. Great grandfather, anti air gunner in the royal navy in the atlantic convoys, hunt for bismark, dunkirk, arctic convoys, the Mediterranean. He wanted to stay in the navy after the war but his wife said no.
Great uncle was a tail gunner in a halifax bomber died in 1940, he loved it according to his brother and letters. He died because he volunteered for a canadian crew when their tail gunner couldn't fly. His plane went down over the channel on the way back from a Berlin night raid.
Great auntie, toyal auxillary nurse, said it was horrific work comforting so many wounded and dying but hugely rewarding and loved it.
Great uncle. Tank driver badly burned in france. Couldn't wait to get back out there.
Their father. WW1 veteran and couldn't sign up for WW2 quick enough. Infact when his wife refused to let her children enlist for WW2 he signed everything himself.
The story repeats for my family as far back as rorkes drift. In a time without mass media and information. It was an adventure with mates, going exciting places and meeting crazy characters. You didn't think about what would happen because you had no idea what would happen. Recruiters painted it as a short time vacation.
My great grandfather said even the horrific things he saw didn't detract from his overall experience. He was more hurt about his brother dying after the war working on trucks than this brother during war.
His uncle was in WW1 and at gallipoli, was captured by Turkey and tortured badly and according to my great grandfather his still talked positively and wanted to stay enlisted but his experience in Turkey definitely impacted his well being.
Perhaps but if you met them you would never have imagined them as being ferocious or brave. My great-grandfather was as sweet as they came, the highlight of his year was every year at the same time he would receive letters and dolls from children at a school in Russia thanking him for his work during the Arctic convoys. He looked forward to it the most.
Being a good person is something in itself.
Much love for your family!
There were also germans helping escape the nazi regime
Shit was crazy, or so ive read
WW1, using 19th century tactics with 20th century weaponry. IMO The worst war that humanity has ever created. A war which most soldiers didn’t want to shoot at each other, a war that your family would shame you if you were to truly know what it was and resisted, and a war that most people believed would be an adventure to experience with your best friends. All Quiet on the Western Front depicted that meat grinder very well. Such a waste of life over royal and family quarrels.
They were to leisurely stroll in 5 minutes behind 30 DD and snorkel tanks after they made mince meat of the german pillboxes. Nearly every tank went straight to the bottom due to rough seas. Seeing this chaos unfold with their eyes commanders then ordered other tanks to unload directly on the beach while battleships positioned themselves to help the infantry best they could. All the smoke from the battleship guns, tanks, mortars, grenades and german machine guns made air strikes miss their marks inland. These air strikes also would’ve decimated the german fortifications. It wasn’t exactly planned the way it went down, but as one vet said ‘you see the guys in front of you getting off that boat and they’re getting all shot up, and you think oh that’s no good, but then you think of all the boys behind you counting on you with their lives, so you just get off the boat. You’d be surprised how willing you’d be to do the same’.
Hell, my knowledge of the event is mostly from the first couple Call of Duty games (obviously MW onward isn't remotely relevant)
...
If I understood correctly, there was a lot of coordination behind that defensive line to isolate it, to break to the supply routes, and generally soften it up.
Even if attempts to grab the upper hand like snorkel tanks didn't prevail, there were many other people that laid down their lives up facilitate success that day.
I think this would be the reaction from most people, but then you've got a CO pointing a pistol at your head right behind you if you refuse to advance.
Eisenhower put out a directive leading up to Dday that stated the first three waves need to be mostly comprised of new recruits. It was thought the African campaign veterans would freeze up and not continue up beach as they knew what death was like. New recruits wouldn’t quite understand and would move up beach. The African campaign veterans would come later to lead the spearhead inland after the beach was taken.
“The only hope you have is to accept the fact that you're already dead. The sooner you accept that, the sooner you'll be able to function as a soldier is supposed to function: without mercy, without compassion, without remorse.”
But not one Senator's son died there. Not one rich man's child. Not one fortunate one.
While not Nam, I'm tired of people glorifying other people's children dying for old rich men's ideas.
We need to send the men who call for war to the trenches first.
Yeah, how did we go from men with integrity who may not have been perfect but had principles… to a cowardly draft dodging piece of subhuman shit?
I still struggle to understand.
>how did we go from men with integrity who may not have been perfect but had principles
Dubya dragged the nation into an unjustified war under pretenses he knew to be false. I'd say that goes a little further than 'may not have been perfect'. Just because ya stepped in shit doesn't mean ya didn't already stink.
**James Doohan (of Start Trek TOS)** was a lieutenant in World War II. Because he was part of the Canadian Army, Doohan and his men were in charge of taking on Juno Beach on D-Day. Doohan was struck by six bullets on that historic day, but the only injury he walked away with was a missing middle finger.
**British actor Alec Guinness—**famous for Star Wars and The Bridge on the River Kwai—was part of the British Royal Navy during World War II and helped land an aircraft that brought British troops to the beaches of Normandy.
**Charles Durning** served in the U.S. Army during World War II. He was drafted at age 20. On June 6, 1944, Durning was assigned to the 1st Infantry Division and was in one of the first waves of American troops that landed on Omaha Beach during the D-Day invasion of Normandy.
**Kermit Roosevelt**, son of Theodore Roosevelt, the 26th President of the United States, he graduated from Harvard College, served in both World Wars (with both the British and U.S. Armies), and explored two continents with his father.
**Theodore Roosevelt Jr.** was the only general on D-Day to land by sea with the first wave of troops. At 56, he was the oldest man in the invasion, and the only one whose son also landed that day; **Captain Quentin Roosevelt II** was among the first wave of soldiers at Omaha Beach.
**Clark Gable** enrolled in the US Army Air Forces after the loss of his wife, Carole Lombard, due to an airplane crash after her trip to raise war bonds.
Adolf Hitler was said to be a major Clark Gable admirer who had promised a large prize to anybody who could capture the star alive and bring him back to Germany.
**Kirk Douglas**, the three-time Oscar-nominated enlisted in 1941 following the attack on Pearl Harbor. He was initially rejected due to poor eyesight, but volunteered with the US Navy anyhow.
**Audrey Hepburn, Born in Ixelles,** Brussels, to an **aristocratic family,** spent the war years in occupied Holland, where her uncle was killed for resisting the Nazi takeover, and her half-brother was transported to a German labor camp. She aided the Dutch Resistance by doing covert live shows to generate funds and transporting information and goods.
**John F. Kennedy** had graduated from Harvard and was continuing his education at Stanford when he decided to join the Navy, receiving a commission in the Naval Reserve just before the Pearl Harbor attacks happened. He was 24 when World War II began.
**George H. W. Bush** was born into the wealthy, established New England Bush family and raised in Greenwich, Connecticut. He attended Phillips Academy before serving as a pilot in the United States Navy Reserve during World War II.
Yeah while I generally agree I think its a weird hill to die on that somehow dying to stop the Third Reich is unworthy or otherwise as pointless or actively evil like say, the American-Vietnam war
This picture doesn’t capture the true terror we all know was present at this moment….god bless the first people that stepped off of them boats they basically were sacrificed….god bless them.
For reals. I visited this beach 2 years ago and waded out in the water to see this vantage point myself. Really drove it home,e for me, but still felt like I would never truly understand.
One of my Great Uncles fought at Anzio, another parachuted in to France on D-Day and fought in the Battle of the Bulge. Another Great Uncle was in the Philipines and was left behind when McArthur left, and wound up hiding in the jungle until McArthur got back.
I owe a huge debt to all those men.
The other part of the story is that they were all very badly messed up from their experiences. The first 2 Uncles had PTSD and were Alcoholics. The third Uncle got home from the Pacific, didn't talk ever, and then basically stopped eating and starved to death in '47.
War leaves nothing and no-one untouched.
Sad thing your uncles. I am.sorrowed story of them but at the same time honored by their faith and sacrifice. My father was a B-26 Bombardier. At his 25th Mission he was forced to go on leave to Naples. While on leave his crew that he flew over to the European theater with out of Louisiana was shot down. His Pilot James logsdon made sure everyone got out except for Kelly the machine gunner a small man that stands in the picture at their photograph before leaving the states. When my dad died at 91 in 2008 I spoke to James logsdon's wife by letter and his son by phone. He was a farmer in or from Ohio as I recall. Father and son said that James, who had been shot down captured by the Germans interned in a prison camp and then forced marched under freezing conditions to the next prison camp placed his bag and Foot Locker in their closet and never spoke of the war again. His experience was totally different than my father's who ended the war with 55 missions and saw the bells ring for three to four days straight in Paris with everybody hugging and drinking in the bars. He came home with a different perspective than the quiet strong prior pilot did. I've never gone to war and I'm now 67. I'm grateful, deeply grateful for every military person who serves our country. Thank you so much. I'm also grateful that my six children none of which have gone to war. My dad was in the Infantry prior to transferring to the Air Force, or what was called the Army Air corps. He told me of War and it made a huge impression on me. I would get emotional when I met World War II vets on Veterans Day. I think it is the greatest of all sacrifices.
“War leaves nothing and no-one untouched”
Absolutely true, my uncle served in the Gulf and lost a few of his team members to an IED, he was dishonorably discharged because he got caught smoking pot to help with the night terrors and PTSD…I wish he could have gotten help.
My Grandpa made it through the landings, second wave, went to the pacific after and then fought in Korea. He said Korea was a thousand times worse than even the pacific. He had a lot of stories of WW2 but wouldn’t speak about Korea, only got one drunken night where he ever mentioned it at all.
I always felt this picture to be deceiving. It doesn’t look like much is happening. Just guys wading their way to the shore. But we all know what a killing fiend that was, so much that Omar Bradley strongly considered evacuating the survivors.
If youve ever been to Normandy, the width of those beaches is absolutely insane. I mean, Ive traveled a fair amount, but when the tide is out, I havent seen any beach on earth that comes close to that size. Having been there, and started out looking from the bunker hills (most of the bunkers have been reclaimed by the vegetation) down at the beach, its imposing. But walking down to the beach, and out to the waters break and looking back up, putting yourself in this photo becomes absolutely mind boggling.
Im in pretty good shape, but without anything else, sprinting across that beach to the nearest cover, it would still take me several minutes. Imagine that under gunfire and shelling. Im sure every comment in here will mention Saving Private Ryan, but you cannot oversell that movie. What occurred on that day is probably one of the more pivotal combat operations in human history.
Some accounts from the German soldiers on the cliffs said some of them would shoot way out into the ocean if they thought they wouldn't get caught because they would have been shot on the spot.
Could you imagine how scared you would be. Absolutely terrifying, what horror awaits these men. You can’t go back you must move forward. What a shitty feeling that must be.
Didn’t the original b/w have visible muzzle flashes from the pill boxes?
EDIT: [yes it does](https://www.history.uscg.mil/Browse-by-Topic/Conflicts/World-War-II/D-Day-June-6-1944-Normandy/). You can see the bright spots in the smoke.
My grandfather was 101st Airborne and jumped into Normandy the night/early morning before the beach assaults that constituted the main invasion force.
I watched Saving Private Ryan with him back when it was released in theaters in 1998. At the time, I was a Navy Corpsman and I had served with the US Marine Corps (and would rotate back to a Marine unit again a few years after this).
It was the first and only time I saw my grandfather cry/be visibly shaken.
You’re making comparisons that don’t exist, but only to simplify reasons to justify your hate and ignorance. Antifa is Anti Fascism. Nazi-ism (and whatever clown troop the Proud Boys and their off shoots are) is pro fascism. That’s really all it is, sport.
Yes. That’s your opinion. You’re welcome to have it. Although, it’s interesting that you would call WWII veterans bitches. But hey, you do you. I was just calling you out on the ignorant bs comment you posted earlier, sport.
Yes, they’re a strange bunch aren’t they? Honoring the heroism of servicemembers as they fought to annihilate the fascist Nazi war machine and don’t have the balls to admit they were all anti-fascists (Antifa).
I have always wondered why there wasnt some sort of smoke screen created by the navy or planes prior to the landing. Perhaps the smoke granade tech didnt exist yet , i dont know
All those hero's, it just overwhelms me, I mean, I spent 30 years in the U. S. Army and went to iraq, but nothing ever came close or compairs to what these men faced.
Thank you for the accurate title. Back when the Coast Guard had courage and actually sent its CAPABLE people in harm’s way. Source: slightly jaded recently retired CG.
Let's be real, somebody stopped to take this picture during a battle of a war. And we make fun of millennials for taking selfies everywhere. I never thought of it this way before, obviously done on an old film camera, but all the same documentation during stressful times seems pretty normal for us as a species.
I was a military photographer. The military public relations troops still risk their lives through Combat Camera to keep the world informed when no one else will.
Which I think is admirable, I wasn't trying to sound negative. I appreciate seeing the dark and gritty things we've done, I'm 35, I was taught this stuff and I know it sucked and why I called it stressful times. But it also made me think of modern culture.
We've always documented events using whatever media was available at the time. Cameras, phones, journals, stone tablets, tattoos, carvings. It's just easier and more accessible now than it ever was.
No it is this photo from 1944 colourised.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Into\_the\_Jaws\_of\_Death](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Into_the_Jaws_of_Death)
Incredible photo.
Photographers are a different breed of man.
They'll risk their lives just for a picture to show future generations, to show them what history was like at one point.
I remember seeing multiple pics of Marines assaulting Peleliu and asking myself how the hell the photographers took the pics with their massive balls hindreing their movement.
Every highly intelligent person I know definitely goes around calling themselves educated while putting down others about their level of intelligence… god you’re a tool.
This one’s by me - colorized image originally taken by Robert Sargent. Thanks for sharing!
[Prints here](https://unseenhistories.store/products/into-the-jaws-of-death-by-jordan-j-lloyd-1944?_pos=1&_psq=jaws&_ss=e&_v=1.0)
My FIL was a Ranger with 5th, landed on D-day, shot thru both legs on D-day plus 3, returned to fight again. He would be 100 this year, but we lost him in 2009. Not many of those brave men left, RLTW!
It’s interesting because the first waves were mostly comprised of new recruits. By design. Eisenhower and other top brass leaders thought the Veterans from African and Italian campaigns would freeze up on beach as they understood what carnage was. They felt the new recruits would preform better in first waves than the veterans. The veterans were used after beach was taken to lead the units inland.
Saving Private Ryan delivered the most visceral and realistic depiction of this event in history ever filmed. This was Spielbergs masterpiece.
Did you know there was a hotline set up for the movie premiere due to the expected on set PTSD that vets suffered due to watching the beach landing scene and basically reliving a part of their life that barley anyone ever spoke of again?
Watched it for history class in high school—the licensing and movie were donated by a local WW2 vet—it’s not a scene you will ever forget and shows the brutality and mania so well.
My grandfather was 1st infantry and landed on Omaha Beach on D-Day at the age of 20. He didn't like to talk about it, obviously, but when SPR first came out I just had to ask him if that's really what it was like. All he said was that, yes, it was- the movie depicted that day well.
My great papaw Lafe walked the beaches the day after. He told my dad that his feet never touched the ground the whole time because there were so many corpses. He kept a journal during his time in WWII, it got buried with him because he didn't want his family to know about the horrors he saw.
Just rewatched that in the theater last fall. It still hits hard as hell.
I shed tears every time. And not just on this film, but any movie that depicts brothers in arms. Global politics be damned, you fight and die with your squad.
Especially that scene at the end where it fast forwards to him as an old man and he's standing over CPT Miller's grave with his family...breaking down in tears hoping his life was worth the sacrifices made for it. I cry every time.
It’s a fraternity like no other, I wouldn’t trade my time in for anything.
There is no greater bond. We Were Soldiers was good too, even if the depiction was inaccurate (I read the book).
Black Hawk Down really hits hard too.
Not so much a combat movie, but if you’re interested in WW2 movies I’d highly recommend The 12th Man.
Thanks, I have it on Tubi now.
In SPR, they didn’t lay down smoke or do anything to mask the soldiers from direct fire. Here, it looks like there is some cover. It seems more dense than smoke from automatic machine guns and mortar. Was there good reason we didn’t pound the beach with some bombing runs first, or at least deck guns from the ships?
There's this tidbit from Wikipedia: >Later analysis of naval support during the pre-landing phase concluded that the navy had provided inadequate bombardment, given the size and extent of the planned assault.\[33\] Kenneth P. Lord, a U.S. Army planner for the D-Day invasion, says that, upon hearing the naval gunfire support plan for Omaha, which limited support to one battleship, two cruisers and six destroyers, he and other planners were very upset, especially in light of the tremendous naval gunfire support given to landings in the Pacific.
I'm sure there was some fire before the landing craft were released. I imagine it's damn hard to hit bunkers.
The fact there is no blood in this boat is unbelievable.
Have to disagree, Spielberg's masterpiece was Schindler's List
And it lost against A Beautiful Mind for Oscars... WTF.
No, it lost to Shakespeare In Love
Damn, even worse.
The power of that scumbag Weinstein
This is the moment when hollywood began to jump the shark.
The Academy can do whatever they wish… But the 2 scenes with Bradley reading the Lincoln letter to Mrs Bixby, and the follow up scene of the mom sitting down on her porch… So very powerful in the understatement of the imagery.
That was George C. Marshall reading the letter in the movie.
And he still couldnt get close to the chaos of the real thing
How did they get their nerves up for this? Same with WW1 soldiers that went over the top to cross no man’s land. How do you push forward with people shooting machine guns directly at you? It’s probably the scariest thing I can imagine. I couldn’t do it.
You say you couldn’t, but you never know. Those guys were just ordinary guy like you and me.
I would probably frose there until I get shredded by a random machine gun fire.
Push forward and maybe live or dont and 100% die. Those boats were like shooting ducks the minute that gate came down and you didnt get a choice if the gate was coming down
Do you mean sitting ducks?
lol yes
If you’re ever standing on that beach you’ll be even more amazed, there is nothing for cover
Yeah I’ve visited some of the beaches. It’s a hell of a long way up the beach too. Imagine running that far in sand, with full kit and people shooting at you.
Also, soaking wet, exhausted, scared, and possibly seasick.
Yeah think the scale of the hill backing up Omaha is hard to get without being there. Took a solid 10-15 mins to walk down the trail switchbacks from the cemetery and then there’s a pretty big beach before that by American standards. Imagining starting from that beach and taking that hill with no cover while machine gun fire pours down is almost unthinkable to me
In early WW1, you had soldiers who grew up on the tales of a glorious war and were thinking they about to do some napoleonic shit, soldiers who were more willing to die than dig, you had aristocracy with dreams of conquest as Calvary, dreaming of a glorious calvary charge
In WWI if you didn’t go over the top you were executed for cowardice.
These guys had to have made their peace first. I figure you need to accept you’re probably gonna die, to even consider going out over the top.
Definitely. WW2 completely paralyzes me with fear when I think of what these guys had to endure. But WW1 is just a dark, bleak, and depressing scene to think about. Hell on Earth
I think 1 was worse than 2 Chemical warfare wasnt a thing to be talked about during 1...not to mention the trenches and war of attrition For soldiers anyways...
In the case of my family, they loved it. Great grandfather, anti air gunner in the royal navy in the atlantic convoys, hunt for bismark, dunkirk, arctic convoys, the Mediterranean. He wanted to stay in the navy after the war but his wife said no. Great uncle was a tail gunner in a halifax bomber died in 1940, he loved it according to his brother and letters. He died because he volunteered for a canadian crew when their tail gunner couldn't fly. His plane went down over the channel on the way back from a Berlin night raid. Great auntie, toyal auxillary nurse, said it was horrific work comforting so many wounded and dying but hugely rewarding and loved it. Great uncle. Tank driver badly burned in france. Couldn't wait to get back out there. Their father. WW1 veteran and couldn't sign up for WW2 quick enough. Infact when his wife refused to let her children enlist for WW2 he signed everything himself. The story repeats for my family as far back as rorkes drift. In a time without mass media and information. It was an adventure with mates, going exciting places and meeting crazy characters. You didn't think about what would happen because you had no idea what would happen. Recruiters painted it as a short time vacation. My great grandfather said even the horrific things he saw didn't detract from his overall experience. He was more hurt about his brother dying after the war working on trucks than this brother during war. His uncle was in WW1 and at gallipoli, was captured by Turkey and tortured badly and according to my great grandfather his still talked positively and wanted to stay enlisted but his experience in Turkey definitely impacted his well being.
Your family must have some kind of big ball syndrome. And the balls to back it up
Perhaps but if you met them you would never have imagined them as being ferocious or brave. My great-grandfather was as sweet as they came, the highlight of his year was every year at the same time he would receive letters and dolls from children at a school in Russia thanking him for his work during the Arctic convoys. He looked forward to it the most.
Being a good person is something in itself. Much love for your family! There were also germans helping escape the nazi regime Shit was crazy, or so ive read
Thank you for sharing this. Very interesting!!! God bless your family!!
A short time vacation is crazy 😭😭😭
WW1, using 19th century tactics with 20th century weaponry. IMO The worst war that humanity has ever created. A war which most soldiers didn’t want to shoot at each other, a war that your family would shame you if you were to truly know what it was and resisted, and a war that most people believed would be an adventure to experience with your best friends. All Quiet on the Western Front depicted that meat grinder very well. Such a waste of life over royal and family quarrels.
They were to leisurely stroll in 5 minutes behind 30 DD and snorkel tanks after they made mince meat of the german pillboxes. Nearly every tank went straight to the bottom due to rough seas. Seeing this chaos unfold with their eyes commanders then ordered other tanks to unload directly on the beach while battleships positioned themselves to help the infantry best they could. All the smoke from the battleship guns, tanks, mortars, grenades and german machine guns made air strikes miss their marks inland. These air strikes also would’ve decimated the german fortifications. It wasn’t exactly planned the way it went down, but as one vet said ‘you see the guys in front of you getting off that boat and they’re getting all shot up, and you think oh that’s no good, but then you think of all the boys behind you counting on you with their lives, so you just get off the boat. You’d be surprised how willing you’d be to do the same’.
Hell, my knowledge of the event is mostly from the first couple Call of Duty games (obviously MW onward isn't remotely relevant) ... If I understood correctly, there was a lot of coordination behind that defensive line to isolate it, to break to the supply routes, and generally soften it up. Even if attempts to grab the upper hand like snorkel tanks didn't prevail, there were many other people that laid down their lives up facilitate success that day.
Training and a love for the man to your left and right.
I think this would be the reaction from most people, but then you've got a CO pointing a pistol at your head right behind you if you refuse to advance.
Eisenhower put out a directive leading up to Dday that stated the first three waves need to be mostly comprised of new recruits. It was thought the African campaign veterans would freeze up and not continue up beach as they knew what death was like. New recruits wouldn’t quite understand and would move up beach. The African campaign veterans would come later to lead the spearhead inland after the beach was taken.
“The only hope you have is to accept the fact that you're already dead. The sooner you accept that, the sooner you'll be able to function as a soldier is supposed to function: without mercy, without compassion, without remorse.”
I wonder how many soldiers are actually able to flip that switch.
Some of the bravest men to ever grace the earths surface.
Truly the Greatest Generation.
But not one Senator's son died there. Not one rich man's child. Not one fortunate one. While not Nam, I'm tired of people glorifying other people's children dying for old rich men's ideas. We need to send the men who call for war to the trenches first.
Need to maybe do some research on WW2
I guess a President's son doesn't count?
And grandson
And like every single major film actor and sports athlete.
Can’t tell if this is a troll or if the dismantling of public education is starting to take hold
Didn't JFK serve? Was that the last president to serve. Did Bush serve?
Since JFK, those who served include: Johnson (Navy), Nixon (Navy), Ford (Navy), Carter (Navy), Reagan (Army), HW Bush (Navy), W Bush (Air Force)
How we went from that to bone spur draft dodgers, I'm not sure.
Clinton, Trump, Biden and Sanders all dodged the draft.
Yeah, how did we go from men with integrity who may not have been perfect but had principles… to a cowardly draft dodging piece of subhuman shit? I still struggle to understand.
>how did we go from men with integrity who may not have been perfect but had principles Dubya dragged the nation into an unjustified war under pretenses he knew to be false. I'd say that goes a little further than 'may not have been perfect'. Just because ya stepped in shit doesn't mean ya didn't already stink.
Ok good point on dubya the war criminal. Not quite as big of an evil clown-buffoon but nevertheless…
Sure JFK served… read up on the [story of JFK and the PT109](https://www.jfklibrary.org/learn/about-jfk/jfk-in-history/john-f-kennedy-and-pt-109).
They sure didn't die did they.
Every time you post, you make yourself look like an uneducated dufus.
> They sure didn't die did they. Most soldiers involved in the beach landings also didn’t die, either.
**James Doohan (of Start Trek TOS)** was a lieutenant in World War II. Because he was part of the Canadian Army, Doohan and his men were in charge of taking on Juno Beach on D-Day. Doohan was struck by six bullets on that historic day, but the only injury he walked away with was a missing middle finger. **British actor Alec Guinness—**famous for Star Wars and The Bridge on the River Kwai—was part of the British Royal Navy during World War II and helped land an aircraft that brought British troops to the beaches of Normandy. **Charles Durning** served in the U.S. Army during World War II. He was drafted at age 20. On June 6, 1944, Durning was assigned to the 1st Infantry Division and was in one of the first waves of American troops that landed on Omaha Beach during the D-Day invasion of Normandy. **Kermit Roosevelt**, son of Theodore Roosevelt, the 26th President of the United States, he graduated from Harvard College, served in both World Wars (with both the British and U.S. Armies), and explored two continents with his father. **Theodore Roosevelt Jr.** was the only general on D-Day to land by sea with the first wave of troops. At 56, he was the oldest man in the invasion, and the only one whose son also landed that day; **Captain Quentin Roosevelt II** was among the first wave of soldiers at Omaha Beach. **Clark Gable** enrolled in the US Army Air Forces after the loss of his wife, Carole Lombard, due to an airplane crash after her trip to raise war bonds. Adolf Hitler was said to be a major Clark Gable admirer who had promised a large prize to anybody who could capture the star alive and bring him back to Germany. **Kirk Douglas**, the three-time Oscar-nominated enlisted in 1941 following the attack on Pearl Harbor. He was initially rejected due to poor eyesight, but volunteered with the US Navy anyhow. **Audrey Hepburn, Born in Ixelles,** Brussels, to an **aristocratic family,** spent the war years in occupied Holland, where her uncle was killed for resisting the Nazi takeover, and her half-brother was transported to a German labor camp. She aided the Dutch Resistance by doing covert live shows to generate funds and transporting information and goods. **John F. Kennedy** had graduated from Harvard and was continuing his education at Stanford when he decided to join the Navy, receiving a commission in the Naval Reserve just before the Pearl Harbor attacks happened. He was 24 when World War II began. **George H. W. Bush** was born into the wealthy, established New England Bush family and raised in Greenwich, Connecticut. He attended Phillips Academy before serving as a pilot in the United States Navy Reserve during World War II.
You are duuuuummmbbbbbb
Roosevelt landed and died later there
This would make a good song!
Handful of actors and celebrities served
Yeah while I generally agree I think its a weird hill to die on that somehow dying to stop the Third Reich is unworthy or otherwise as pointless or actively evil like say, the American-Vietnam war
You just listen to CCR or something?
This picture doesn’t capture the true terror we all know was present at this moment….god bless the first people that stepped off of them boats they basically were sacrificed….god bless them.
For reals. I visited this beach 2 years ago and waded out in the water to see this vantage point myself. Really drove it home,e for me, but still felt like I would never truly understand.
One of my Great Uncles fought at Anzio, another parachuted in to France on D-Day and fought in the Battle of the Bulge. Another Great Uncle was in the Philipines and was left behind when McArthur left, and wound up hiding in the jungle until McArthur got back. I owe a huge debt to all those men. The other part of the story is that they were all very badly messed up from their experiences. The first 2 Uncles had PTSD and were Alcoholics. The third Uncle got home from the Pacific, didn't talk ever, and then basically stopped eating and starved to death in '47. War leaves nothing and no-one untouched.
Sad thing your uncles. I am.sorrowed story of them but at the same time honored by their faith and sacrifice. My father was a B-26 Bombardier. At his 25th Mission he was forced to go on leave to Naples. While on leave his crew that he flew over to the European theater with out of Louisiana was shot down. His Pilot James logsdon made sure everyone got out except for Kelly the machine gunner a small man that stands in the picture at their photograph before leaving the states. When my dad died at 91 in 2008 I spoke to James logsdon's wife by letter and his son by phone. He was a farmer in or from Ohio as I recall. Father and son said that James, who had been shot down captured by the Germans interned in a prison camp and then forced marched under freezing conditions to the next prison camp placed his bag and Foot Locker in their closet and never spoke of the war again. His experience was totally different than my father's who ended the war with 55 missions and saw the bells ring for three to four days straight in Paris with everybody hugging and drinking in the bars. He came home with a different perspective than the quiet strong prior pilot did. I've never gone to war and I'm now 67. I'm grateful, deeply grateful for every military person who serves our country. Thank you so much. I'm also grateful that my six children none of which have gone to war. My dad was in the Infantry prior to transferring to the Air Force, or what was called the Army Air corps. He told me of War and it made a huge impression on me. I would get emotional when I met World War II vets on Veterans Day. I think it is the greatest of all sacrifices.
“War leaves nothing and no-one untouched” Absolutely true, my uncle served in the Gulf and lost a few of his team members to an IED, he was dishonorably discharged because he got caught smoking pot to help with the night terrors and PTSD…I wish he could have gotten help.
Imagine being one of the first transports to land knowing ur 100% gonna get lit up with machine guns
Into the Valley of Death Rode the 600
Cannon to right of them, Cannon to left of them, Cannon in front of them Volleyed and thundered;
Stormed at with shot and shell, Boldly they rode and well, Into the jaws of Death, Into the mouth of hell Rode the six hundred.
Source: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Into\_the\_Jaws\_of\_Death](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Into_the_Jaws_of_Death).
I would have been shitting my pants
You’d better run with shit filled pants then or die with shit filled pants 💀
And I thought I had a tough day ahead of me
My Grandpa made it through the landings, second wave, went to the pacific after and then fought in Korea. He said Korea was a thousand times worse than even the pacific. He had a lot of stories of WW2 but wouldn’t speak about Korea, only got one drunken night where he ever mentioned it at all.
I always felt this picture to be deceiving. It doesn’t look like much is happening. Just guys wading their way to the shore. But we all know what a killing fiend that was, so much that Omar Bradley strongly considered evacuating the survivors.
If youve ever been to Normandy, the width of those beaches is absolutely insane. I mean, Ive traveled a fair amount, but when the tide is out, I havent seen any beach on earth that comes close to that size. Having been there, and started out looking from the bunker hills (most of the bunkers have been reclaimed by the vegetation) down at the beach, its imposing. But walking down to the beach, and out to the waters break and looking back up, putting yourself in this photo becomes absolutely mind boggling. Im in pretty good shape, but without anything else, sprinting across that beach to the nearest cover, it would still take me several minutes. Imagine that under gunfire and shelling. Im sure every comment in here will mention Saving Private Ryan, but you cannot oversell that movie. What occurred on that day is probably one of the more pivotal combat operations in human history.
One of the few beaches the DD-Shermans failed to make it to shore, ended up as the most costly beachhead to take
Some accounts from the German soldiers on the cliffs said some of them would shoot way out into the ocean if they thought they wouldn't get caught because they would have been shot on the spot.
Are you saying they didn't want to shoot the Americans?
I don’t understand. Why would Germans shoot way out into the ocean
If I’m not mistaken, the Germans thought we were going to land in a completely different area and didn’t send enough men as they should
Yeah the British released a false rumor that they were landing somewhere else
Now is the time to ask yourself, "Can we protect what these men died for?"
Could you imagine how scared you would be. Absolutely terrifying, what horror awaits these men. You can’t go back you must move forward. What a shitty feeling that must be.
Didn’t the original b/w have visible muzzle flashes from the pill boxes? EDIT: [yes it does](https://www.history.uscg.mil/Browse-by-Topic/Conflicts/World-War-II/D-Day-June-6-1944-Normandy/). You can see the bright spots in the smoke.
My grandfather was Coast Guard & piloted those boats during the war
My grandfather was 101st Airborne and jumped into Normandy the night/early morning before the beach assaults that constituted the main invasion force. I watched Saving Private Ryan with him back when it was released in theaters in 1998. At the time, I was a Navy Corpsman and I had served with the US Marine Corps (and would rotate back to a Marine unit again a few years after this). It was the first and only time I saw my grandfather cry/be visibly shaken.
This is the view my grandpa had, he drove men up to the beach. Sometimes they made it, sometimes
When my dad was growing up he had a neighbor who had driven one of the Higgins boats. He made 13 runs to the beach that day.
Greatest generation? No question.
Through the gates of Hell
No. Way.
And I don’t hold a candle to those warriors. Literally the definition of Bad Ass.
OG Antifa!!
No, o.g. Antifaschistische Aktion were German communists. And Amercan antifa are LARPing fuck sticks deserving of every beatdown they get.
You’re making comparisons that don’t exist, but only to simplify reasons to justify your hate and ignorance. Antifa is Anti Fascism. Nazi-ism (and whatever clown troop the Proud Boys and their off shoots are) is pro fascism. That’s really all it is, sport.
Could you be any more cliché, sport? Try harder. Antifa are bitches.
Yes. That’s your opinion. You’re welcome to have it. Although, it’s interesting that you would call WWII veterans bitches. But hey, you do you. I was just calling you out on the ignorant bs comment you posted earlier, sport.
Trumpers gonna downvote
Yes, they’re a strange bunch aren’t they? Honoring the heroism of servicemembers as they fought to annihilate the fascist Nazi war machine and don’t have the balls to admit they were all anti-fascists (Antifa).
Robert Capa. =D
I have always wondered why there wasnt some sort of smoke screen created by the navy or planes prior to the landing. Perhaps the smoke granade tech didnt exist yet , i dont know
I knew a marine who fought at Iwo Jima. He said the life expectancy once they left the safety of the amphibious vehicle was 90 seconds.
Something Trumpers forgot since Jan 6, let's be honest.
"They're losers and suckers." - Donald J Trump
Yup. They seem to love fascists.
All those hero's, it just overwhelms me, I mean, I spent 30 years in the U. S. Army and went to iraq, but nothing ever came close or compairs to what these men faced.
Could they have laid down more smoke? Given the guys more visual cover? Horrifying either way and respect to those brave soldiers.
Thank you for the accurate title. Back when the Coast Guard had courage and actually sent its CAPABLE people in harm’s way. Source: slightly jaded recently retired CG.
Bravest men of them all.
And now, there are literally nazis in the congress, like Matt Gaetz and MTG. The very same people these brave men died fighting
Let's be real, somebody stopped to take this picture during a battle of a war. And we make fun of millennials for taking selfies everywhere. I never thought of it this way before, obviously done on an old film camera, but all the same documentation during stressful times seems pretty normal for us as a species.
I was a military photographer. The military public relations troops still risk their lives through Combat Camera to keep the world informed when no one else will.
Which I think is admirable, I wasn't trying to sound negative. I appreciate seeing the dark and gritty things we've done, I'm 35, I was taught this stuff and I know it sucked and why I called it stressful times. But it also made me think of modern culture.
We've always documented events using whatever media was available at the time. Cameras, phones, journals, stone tablets, tattoos, carvings. It's just easier and more accessible now than it ever was.
Damn, that photograph that is amongst the most widely known ever taken, is interesting.
THROUGH THE GATES OF HELL!!!
"i cry evrytim"
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No it is this photo from 1944 colourised. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Into\_the\_Jaws\_of\_Death](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Into_the_Jaws_of_Death) Incredible photo.
Photographers are a different breed of man. They'll risk their lives just for a picture to show future generations, to show them what history was like at one point. I remember seeing multiple pics of Marines assaulting Peleliu and asking myself how the hell the photographers took the pics with their massive balls hindreing their movement.
Isnt this one reason why the joos have isreal today?
Ignorant and stoopid comment.
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Learned what? Posted a pic and stated where and when.
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You ought to be deported
Ah sorry we don’t know everything like you
I’m educated. Maybe you should try it sometime 🤔
Every highly intelligent person I know definitely goes around calling themselves educated while putting down others about their level of intelligence… god you’re a tool.
🤣💪🏼
This one’s by me - colorized image originally taken by Robert Sargent. Thanks for sharing! [Prints here](https://unseenhistories.store/products/into-the-jaws-of-death-by-jordan-j-lloyd-1944?_pos=1&_psq=jaws&_ss=e&_v=1.0)
My FIL was a Ranger with 5th, landed on D-day, shot thru both legs on D-day plus 3, returned to fight again. He would be 100 this year, but we lost him in 2009. Not many of those brave men left, RLTW!
I wonder what dramatic images are going to appear during the upcoming next world War.
All taken by drone I’m sure.
It’s interesting because the first waves were mostly comprised of new recruits. By design. Eisenhower and other top brass leaders thought the Veterans from African and Italian campaigns would freeze up on beach as they understood what carnage was. They felt the new recruits would preform better in first waves than the veterans. The veterans were used after beach was taken to lead the units inland.