{"id":20417,"date":"2011-06-06T06:24:02","date_gmt":"2011-06-06T12:24:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=20417"},"modified":"2011-06-05T20:29:50","modified_gmt":"2011-06-06T02:29:50","slug":"this-great-and-noble-undertaking-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=20417","title":{"rendered":"&#8230;This Great And Noble Undertaking"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>I first wrote this piece three years ago. \u00a0 Ive updated it a bit; I&#8217;m reprising it today:<\/p>\n<p>&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;-<\/p>\n<p>It was sixty-seven years ago today that the Allies started taking Western Europe back from the Nazis.<br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.metmuseum.org\/TOAH\/images\/h2\/h2_1987.1100.501.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The first, inevitable step was to get past the\u00a0Westwall\u00a0&#8211; perhaps the most immense set of fortifications ever built, with the intention of making the beaches from Denmark to the Spanish border a bloodbath for any troops trying to cross the beaches.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone\" src=\"http:\/\/thepoehlers.com\/Part%20of%20France%20and%20other%20Countries\/Exploring%20the%20old%20Atlantic%20Wall.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"384\" height=\"288\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone\" src=\"http:\/\/www.masconomet.org\/teachers\/pmagner\/Secondsemesterreview\/Atlantic%20Wall.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"518\" height=\"345\" \/><\/p>\n<p>In places, it worked:<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/sionphoto.blogs.com\/photos\/uncategorized\/2008\/02\/09\/capa_beach.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"482\" height=\"318\" \/><\/p>\n<p>In some places, the troops had to overcome the near-impossible:<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/op-for.com\/Rangers-pointe-du-hoc.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"482\" height=\"593\" \/><\/p>\n<p>And yet by the end of the day, nine allied divisions were ashore, a toehold for a bridgehead that would eventually expand, ten months later, across Western Europe.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ww2incolor.com\/d\/216425-2\/dday_res\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"360\" \/><\/p>\n<p>There were troops from the US, of course, on the two western beaches&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/hyperwar\/AMH\/AMH\/img\/AMH-487.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"534\" height=\"379\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&#8230;and farther east, beaches with Brits&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/cache.eb.com\/eb\/image?id=47836&amp;rendTypeId=4\" alt=\"\" width=\"475\" height=\"283\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&#8230;and Scots&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.1canpara.com\/pictures\/wartime_photos\/1canparabn_race_to_the_baltic.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"513\" height=\"531\" \/><\/p>\n<p>And in the middle, linking the two and meeting the worst resistance other than Omaha, the Canadians:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/news\/background\/dday\/cdnunits.html\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/news\/background\/dday\/gfx\/titlemain6.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"471\" height=\"234\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&#8230;along with troops-in-exile from elsewhere in occupied Europe; French commandos &#8211; some of whom had spent four years in exile, and who spent the next year belying the notion that the French were cowards&#8230;:<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/bcoy1cpb.pacdat.net\/BSA_Commandos_D-Day.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"447\" height=\"335\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&#8230;and Norwegians, who&#8217;d been without a homeland for four years&#8230;<\/p>\n<div style=\"width: 510px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.wrecksite.eu\/img\/wrecks\/svenner_hnoms.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"324\" \/><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">HNoMS Svenner, sunk by German gunfire on DDay.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>&#8230;and Poles, who&#8217;d been in exile for five years and would, in some cases, remain there for forty-five more:<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.elknet.pl\/acestory\/foto\/cwynar1-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The world may see nothing like it again.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/peacecorpsonline.org\/messages\/imagefolder\/reagannormandy.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Anyway &#8211; thank a D-Day veteran.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/blog.lib.umn.edu\/hgroteva\/innergeek\/cat_travel.html\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.lib.umn.edu\/hgroteva\/innergeek\/photos2005\/Ely%20DDay%20Parade1-r.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I first wrote this piece three years ago. \u00a0 Ive updated it a bit; I&#8217;m reprising it today: &#8212;&#8212;&#8212;- It was sixty-seven years ago today that the Allies started taking Western Europe back from the Nazis. The first, inevitable step was to get past the\u00a0Westwall\u00a0&#8211; perhaps the most immense set of fortifications ever built, with [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20417","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-history-and-its-making"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20417","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20417"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20417\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44688,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20417\/revisions\/44688"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20417"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20417"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20417"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}