[HN Gopher] D-Day, as told by paratroopers
___________________________________________________________________
D-Day, as told by paratroopers
Author : dance-me
Score : 65 points
Date : 2024-06-07 20:08 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.politico.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.politico.com)
| johnmorrow wrote:
| "The longest day" is a great book on the subject were they
| interviewed thousands of people who were personally involved in
| D-Day and wove their stories together as well
| freedomben wrote:
| Thanks, just bought it. "The Longest Day: June 6, 1944" by
| Cornelius Ryan (for others looking for it, there are multiple
| titles called "The Longest Day")
| el_benhameen wrote:
| Not from D-Day or the European theater, but "With the Old
| Breed" is a really well done personal account of combat in the
| Pacific. It was part of the source material for Ken Burns' "The
| War" and for the "The Pacific" miniseries on HBO.
| koolala wrote:
| My was inspired to be inspired about joining the military because
| of how amazing Band of Brothers was and paratrooping is akin to
| flying. Thank you for sharing this so I can read it and see
| another perspective.
| koolala wrote:
| It was a lot, all at once, heart breaking and heart affirming
| because no one would ever want that to happen again for anyone
| or anything.
| davidw wrote:
| I got unexpectedly shook up and a bit weepy reading about some of
| the goings on yesterday. I'm not much of a 'rah rah' guy, but
| those people stood up in the face of tyranny and many didn't come
| home. I thought what it'd be like for my own boy to go off to
| war. Democracy and freedom are worth defending.
| SkipperCat wrote:
| A lot of people, including myself, feel similar when looking
| back at WWII. The roles of good and evil were very clearly
| defined and that has forged the US foreign policy up to today.
|
| Of course, there's a lot of things we know now which show the
| conflict was a lot more complex, but at its core, the Axis
| needed to be defeated for our western style of freedom to
| exist.
|
| I don't think we'll ever have something as clear cut as WWII
| again. News was highly controlled by a few media institutions
| and our country (US) was much less fractured than it is today.
| multjoy wrote:
| Ukraine is about as black and white as it gets.
| yobert wrote:
| Amen. I used to be a pacifist before the Ukraine war. Now I
| feel like a completely different person.
| rightbyte wrote:
| Really? My journey was the opposite. That war in combo
| with another war made me realize the indignation is more
| or less manufactured and that the elite rather have my
| face blown into pieces than not lose their face in a
| figurative way.
|
| It is like watching a self-playing piano pitting me
| against another self-playing piano and I am supposed to
| cheer the whole parade.
| lukan wrote:
| You may want to read up about some people that are
| officially glorified in Ulraine today:
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stepan_Bandera
|
| (Ukraines former embassador in germany is a strong fan of
| him for example)
|
| Also the russian language get supressed and in general
| russians are seen as enemies. Not just russian soldiers,
| but people with a russian cultural background. Nationalism
| in all its glory.
|
| Doesn't make Putins war anymore justified, but I think it
| is dangerous, to oversimplify.
| racional wrote:
| _Bandera_
|
| Ooh, scary.
|
| Here's the deal, though -- the guy is glorified by some
| people in Ukraine, but not in any official capacity at
| the national level. When an attempt was made to grant him
| official "Hero" status at the national level, it was
| rejected. The monument in particular is a local endeavor.
|
| _Doesn 't make Putin's war anymore justified_
|
| Right, but the idea here seems to be to throw cold water
| on idea that Ukraine is unambiguously the victim of
| aggression here, or to at least sow some general
| confusion around it.
|
| It's all very straightforward as to why Putin invaded --
| and (despite what he says) none of the Nazi stuff had
| anything to do with it. It's just noise that he puts out
| there to push people's buttons; to sow doubts about
| Ukraine's legitimacy as independent state or its right to
| defend itself; and internally, to get people to sign up
| for his lemming march.
| lukan wrote:
| "Right, but the idea here seems to be to throw cold water
| on idea that Ukraine is unambiguously the victim of
| aggression here"
|
| Yes, that is Putins plan. That doesn't mean there isn't
| any truth in its propaganda.
|
| The point we are discussing is, if the war Ukraine vs
| Russia is "as black and white as it gets". To which I
| disagree, you can find quite some black elements in
| Ukraine, too. Not at all on the same level and I support
| weapon delivery etc. But I do not support closing my eyes
| to only see everything in simple shapes and colors.
| afavour wrote:
| How are you defining "officially glorified"?
| lukan wrote:
| Like I said, the official former embassador of Ukraine in
| germany is a big fan of him. (and there was a scandal
| about some of his statements, so he was pulled back, but
| rewarded).
|
| A ambassador is not a private person, but pretty
| official.
|
| And no, I did not say all of Ukraine glorifies him.
| armada651 wrote:
| > Also the russian language get supressed and in general
| russians are seen as enemies. Not just russian soldiers,
| but people with a russian cultural background.
| Nationalism in all its glory.
|
| That's not anywhere near as bad as the U.S. during WWII
| when Japanese Americans were sent to actual internment
| camps.
| lukan wrote:
| Sure. Or german jews fleeing from Hitler also being put
| in such camps. Or the use of weapons of mass distruction.
| WW2 was not a clean war by our standards.
| davidw wrote:
| I have spent most of my life with the US involved in a
| variety of ... "not very clear cut things" and we'll leave it
| at that.
|
| It also feels like some things have shifted and there
| actually is a lot more clarity lately.
| llamaimperative wrote:
| You should read up a bit more on how people perceived it
| contemporaneously. It's too easy to absolve oneself of having
| to think hard about the current goings on when we can look at
| WWII and act like the right answer was obvious to everyone.
| montagg wrote:
| This is an important point. There was a US isolationist
| strain as strong as it is today. _The Man in the High
| Castle_ alt history, or _The Plot Against America,_ both
| involve FDR not being involved for WW2, and that 's where
| the US stands today: at a similar decision point about how
| it decides to act.
|
| The right path is never clear when you're in the valley of
| the moment.
| lukan wrote:
| "The right path is never clear when you're in the valley
| of the moment."
|
| Also in hindsight it is not always clear, if the choosen
| path was really the best.
| TheAlchemist wrote:
| That's true towards the end of the war, but in the beginning
| ?
|
| The US didn't join the war until they were attacked. Same
| goes for UK and France - they technically did declare the war
| when Poland was invaded - as there was a defensive agreement
| between the 3 countries - but in reality they didn't send any
| help.
| brcmthrowaway wrote:
| I can scarcely believe this event even happened
| inglor_cz wrote:
| If you read German, there are some interesting collections of
| memories of the other side.
|
| Pretty much everyone mentions how terrified they were of Allied
| white phosphorus.
| SkipperCat wrote:
| With good reason. It burns super hot and cant be put out with
| water.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| Oh, yes, absolutely.
|
| It just struck me how dominant that memory was among people
| who served in all sorts of roles.
| jhallenworld wrote:
| What a shit job, I'm amazed we (well they) were unified enough to
| do it, even with Pearl Harbor.
|
| https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/american-nazi...
|
| https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/great-debate
| booleandilemma wrote:
| _Pearl_ Harbor. Larry Wall wasn 't involved.
| jhallenworld wrote:
| Hah yes, fixed.
| xkcd-sucks wrote:
| Now the popular portrayal of WWII seems kind of idealistic, but
| there's plenty of historical evidence to suggest many Allied
| troops really did not want to be there, and the scale of
| desertion [1] was quite high - In addition to corruption,
| mismanagement, and racketeering [2].
|
| I only really considered this after encountering "Deserter: The
| Last Untold Story of the Second World War" by Charles Glass in a
| used bookstore, which is appropriately referenced etc.
|
| [1] But what is desertion, really? A legal matter the facts of
| which are decided through process...
|
| [1] like, Catch-22 was actually _toned down_ from reality so to
| speak, yes it 's technically written by a _Korean_ war vet but
| 1123581321 wrote:
| What did Charles Glass estimate the WW2 desertion rate to be?
|
| Here's one that estimates 0.22%, which is low historically.
| https://www.armyheritage.org/wp-content/uploads/ref-bibs/sub...
|
| I'll certainly check out the book; thanks for the
| recommendation.
| willyt wrote:
| The tank commander, (edit2) David Render, in this podcast has a
| pretty amazing description of joining at age 18, landing on the
| beaches and not long afterwards finding himself commanding a
| squadron of tanks in Normandy. Absolute humility and incredibly
| sanguine about what happened to him. No bullshit about glory and
| bravery. Just a straightforward but very engaging description.
| https://www.historyhit.com/what-it-was-like-to-be-a-young-ta...
|
| Edit: think I found a link to the podcast that doesn't require
| you to login
| https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/warfare/id1526490428?i...
| punk-coder wrote:
| My grandfather was a medic and was part of the storm of Normandy
| beach on D-Day. He never really spoke of it and had a stroke and
| passed away before Saving Private Ryan came out. We wondered what
| he would have thought of the beginning of that movie, as someone
| who was there and was running around helping people the whole
| time.
| rightbyte wrote:
| My take is that Saving Private Ryan is "pro-war" movie like
| most Hollywood productions on the topic and not about 2WW
| really.
|
| The give away is how the save Ryan squad seem to have agency
| and do like cool self-govern manouvers, like the storming of
| the 80mm AA gun hill, etc. More like a teenage boy fantasy.
| Band of Brothers is another good example of cool agency.
|
| The opening assualt on the beach is some sort of low point for
| things to get better and under the protagonists' control.
|
| A true to history version would be soldiers getting shrapnel
| wounds from indirect fire and being shot at by soldiers they
| can't see. Then they redo it somewhere else becouse someone
| said so.
| hermitcrab wrote:
| I watched 'Band of brothers' again recently. It was well worth a
| second watch.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2024-06-07 23:00 UTC)