WASHINGTON, DC June 6 (DPI) – The Atlantic Monthly today re-published from a 1960 edition a brilliant re-telling of the June 6, 1944, Normandy landings at Omaha Beach, a lengthy article written by Samuel Lyman Atwood Marshall, the US Army’s chief combat historian in the 1940s and 1950s.
As today is the 75th anniversary of D-Day there has been a remarkable break – even a truce, if you will -from the daily political vitriol online. Even the US media and Trump himself have ceased fire. As a WSJ.com reader put it:
I hope younger generations can stop and think about the enormous sacrifice these men made for them. The freedom they enjoy today came at the cost of over 400,000 lives and the bravery and determination of millions of others who fought along side them. Also, remember those who currently serve and do so at great sacrifice. Thank and honor them for what they do for you…and all of us.
In a kind of quiet tribute, readers across the Internet have flocked to the link containing Marshall’s history, which in sharp detail describes the horrific carnage on Omaha Beach, where more than 3,000 American infantrymen died in a matter of hours. The article also provides an accessible narrative about how a handful of survivors on that beach punched through the German defenses, defying all odds, turning the tide and leading to an Allied victory in the Second World War.
Even Millennial and Gen-X readers on Reddit.com cited Marshall’s battle narrative, one of the best ever published of the D-Day landings.
And the New York Times published an essay – a Univ. of Chicago writing professor – about combat journalist Ernie Pyle entitled “The Man Who Told America The Truth About D-Day.”
Many of today’s remembrances focus on the fact that only a handful of veterans survive from that day 75 years ago, all are well in to their 90s, and that it’s becoming difficult for younger generations to understand the sacrifices made on the altar of freedom.
Below, Gen. Dwight Eisenhower’s message to the Allied troops, issued hours before the invasion.
