80th anniversary coming up soon…6 June.
I’ve been watching some tv programmes about it (my week off this week).
Best one so far is on BBC I player.
‘D Day 80,.We were there’.
Kinda self explanatory, veterans discussing their experiences from all of the Services.
All very old men now, and it makes me mad when people patronise old people and address them like kids, so if you watch it try and think of them as they were then, young fit guys, of whom deserve the utmost respect imo.
Indeed, BBC Radio 4 is running a series called D-Day The Last Voices, with many personal reminiscenses.
On the question of the treatment of old people, yes I agree with you but you must remember that some, if not many, suffer from dementia and the effect of that is to make them childlike and often only understand similar speech. I am speaking from experience, my wife has been like that since her 3 strokes some years ago and is the reason why I am always at home these days instead of tramping the roads of Europe with the dogs, my retirement job.
Yes, just been listening to that this lunchtime, highly recommended and only 15 minutes long (therefore less likely to miss half of it when you’re out and about ). Today’s episode was all about the day from the POV of the paras, next one is all about the boats
And the Glider troops. Not sure which i would prefer, I’m sure one bloke said the glider landed at 100mph from a steep descent and pulled out at the last minute. Just glad I was too young, and am too old.
Yes I heard him say that too, he said he thought the wings were going to come off the glider and described the creaking of the wood, and how the crash blocked the door so they had to smash a hole in the side of the glider with their rifle bu-tts to get out of it
I think some of the gliders carried jeeps.
Put that together with light plywood construction and no headboard any hard landing (and there were lots) could be very bad for the pilots.
In 2002 ish, I took my Dad on one of those Leger WW2 trips, a 4 day guided bus tour around the sites at Normandy.
On the first day we visited Pegasus Bridge.
The operation involved up to 6 gliders I think it was.
We spent a bit of time there, visited the old bridge which had been replaced,.and they were building a museum around it, then a visit to the Cafe Gondrand.
The old woman owner Mme Gondrand, had been just a young kid when the fighting went on, when the Paras used it as an unofficial base.
Anyway, on this trip was an old guy sat quiet on his own on the bus, I noticed he was greeted by Mme Gondrand with a hug.
On the way back, the guide came on the mike, said…
‘Reg at the back did not want me to mention it, but I’ve persuaded him…
Reg was one of the troops who landed in a Horsa glider that night’.
He went from being left alone as an insignificant guy on his own, to be centre of attention,.apparentlly he had been back a frw times before, this was first time alone.
In the bar at night he showed us pics of his exploits, but still a very quiet modest old man…I personally got a lot of pleasure meeting him,.shaking his hand and buying him a drink.
