D Day

JimmyMac

Lifetime Supporter
My wee Da was in the Gordon Highlanders for D-Day.
He never spoke a thing about his war to me. It was only when my Mother died his oldest friend got him to join the Normandy Veterans Association for companionship in his seventies.
When he died I found his army papers and he was 17 years old early on the 6th June when he boarded his transport in the Channel.

On the home front, my Ma worked in the munitions factory during her war and she was a steam hammer operator making heavy naval gun barrels in a large steel forge. Her job interview included a practical test to inch a drop hammer down and close a matchbox without crushing it. She was also 17 years old at the time.
 

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Bill Kearley

Supporter
A very touching story read by fire side Al on CBC radio called ( The Shepherd ). It will be on U tube I think. It's played every Christmas Eve. Please listen and realize how lucky we are.
 
Hein Sevenloh und Franz Gockel (beide sind schon gestorben) die beiden haben am meisten amerikanische Soldaten auf Omaha Beach getötet
ihr maschinengewehr war genau dort am strand hier ihre aufzeichnungen bücher darüber was sie geschrieben haben ist erschreckend
 

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Neil

Supporter
I suppose this interesting story is one very small example of a war fought with some 'honour' i.e. The treatment of POWs. I wonder if the Bon Homie continued for very long following the discovery of Bergen Belsen however.

BBC News - The German soldier liberated by D-Day
Bergen-Belson was a unique situation among concentration camps. Close to the end of the war, an epidemic of typhus broke out in the camp among the prisoners and they were dying by the hundreds every day. The Germans tried to deal with the epidemic but by that time close to the end of WW II there was little food and virtually no medicine left. The situation was so desperate that the Germans sent a delegation to meet with the advancing British troops and offered to turn over a bridge to them in return if the British would take over the concentration camp. Agreement was reached and Bergen-Belsen fell under British control. Food and medical supplies were brought in but the emaciated prisoners still died of typhus. Things were bad- the prisoners could not eat the rich food that suddenly became available since their emaciated bodies rejected it by vomiting up all the nourishment. At wit's end, a British doctor remembered a similar circumstance long ago in India when there had been a serious famine. Research into what had been successful to feed the starving people provided the key to solving the problems in Bergen-Belsen.
 

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Neil

Supporter
D-Day 2024 has passed but this is a tribute that I created and posted on YouTube earlier this month. -Neil
 

Neil

Supporter
When I was a young lad growing up in Parkhead, Glasgow my dentist was a quiet man named Julius Green.
Here is his story.

Julius_Green
Green must have been a very intelligent fellow to have gotten away with his activities there. I remember seeing the movie "The Colditz Story" many years ago. If I remember correctly, the POWs built a glider in the attic and Douglas Bader was a famous prisoner there.
 
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