Steeler

"Clearly, my grandpa had bigger balls than your grandpa."

"Nuh-uh!"

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sculls

What a silly thing to say.
If it wasn't for the Europeans there would be no America and the native Americans/Indians would own their own country. Controversial i know.
Same goes for Australia, that is why i felt guilty when i was there for a year and saw the state of some of the Aborigines.

I hope someone pointed this out already.

Razcsak

I am thinking that D-Day was not a major turning point for the allies. Why would the morale of a country successfully counter-attacking deep into enemy territory be "pretty crazy"? Unless, of course, pretty crazy means "absurdly high because they had surrounded and wiped out the Sixth army and then broke the back of the entire armored corps of the eastern army in quick succession." Then we're in agreement.

Of course D-Day was a significant turning point for the Western Allies. It was just a meaningless turning point for the overall course of the war.

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xTYBALTx

If it wasn't for the French, we'd have Queen Elizabeth on our currency.

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Current good song: Justice - Stress

dave m

Meaningless for who? How long did it take the Russians to reach Berlin? How long do you think the war would have dragged on had the Allies not envaded? How many more people would have died? How many more people would have died in concentration camps? With the war extended would Germany have gotten the atomic bomb?

Thank God these are questions we don't know the answer to because we did invade and were victorious. Meaningless, not to the people who fought and died to liberate Western Europe.

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|TG-6th|Drifterdave

Razcsak

Accelerating an ongoing process is not what I call a "turning point." As for Germany's nuclear weapons project, no, they wouldn't have. Their research in that field was halted and subsequently abandoned after the destruction of their heavy water stocks and facilities.

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Fenian420

Yea, they did get somewhat close to being able to grasp the concept of the atom bomb though didn't they? Thought it was something they got that we brought over here and adopted into our own knowledge that led us to the fatboy.

FrankManik

Happy VE day. Late.

PS - All the western powers stand to blame for WWII, and are also responsible for ending it. We, collectively, were unwilling or unable to contain Germany, and once we realized our mistake we paid dearly to rectify it. And France fought too, both the Free French and the French Resistance.

PPS - If you go to some parts of Alaska and Yukon, you can can have QEII on your currency.

ScratchMonkey

The western powers also stuck them with the bill for WWI, which crippled their economy and laid the foundations for the emotions that allowed Hitler to come to power, to "save" the country.

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Sig

ScratchMonkey

One could also look at the infusion of African, Asian, Middle Eastern, and southern European tribes into northern Europe's barbaric regions. Think of all the "British Aborigines" forced into the Roman Empire.

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Sig

Axis of Eeevil

Mon Grandpere fought in the Le Resistance, and helped blow up a railroad supply line, among other adventures. He was just a 17 year-old snot. The Nazis found his best friend writing anti-Nazi graffiti and shot him on the spot.

Gradpere is old and fat now, but he remembers all the very naughty little songs they made up about the Germans. No-one does naughty little songs like the French. His wife is Alsatian, so he gets a kick out of teasing the poor dear.

He also says that the more a cheese rind smells like an outhouse, the better the cheese is! Good ol' Papi. They don't make them like that anymore. France is full of neat funny cool people. It's just when Americans come in speaking English and expecting everything to fall into place around them, that the French get "snotty". Make an effort to align yourself to the culture you are a guest of, and you tend to have a much better time, and get to know it on a much more interesting level.

Hehe. When I first visited, Papi helped me see the error of my ways pretty quick. By the end of three weeks, I felt shocked and embarrassed at how rude and assuming the Americans I met were...we have very little international manners taught to us here, if any. To Europeans, who are constantly in contact with people of different neighbor countries, we're total boors, acting superior and yet utterly lacking in foundation of cultural or historical awareness other than our own.

We have a very one-dimensional, skewed view of the world here. America is like The Matrix of the world's countries...or maybe we're the Machines.

Anyway, if you ever get a chance to go anywhere else in the world, take it, and take the Blue Pill! Don't be an American tourist, be a cultural chameleon. Walk a mile in some different shoes. It's a great experience!

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Fenian420

Well thats why Hitler was so good at what he did.. He knew exactly how far he could go before the world would intervene, he disobeyed the treaty that stated that Germany couldn't be able to create a large army, he pushed Germany's boarders outwards but just so enough that other countries besides the one he was invading wouldn't intervene then when he finally thought he was ready for it he went all out.

And its not really the Western powers that are to blame for the outbreak of WWII.. It was the Allies in the first World Wars turnout decision to f*** Germany in the you know where when the treaty was signed in France,

It was mostly UKs and Frances fault for trying to take all of Germany's money/factories/economy basiclly if I remember correctly. Then at the End of WW2 it was either Eisenhowers or Churchills main influence that told the people making the new treaty that raping Germany a second time is just going to create another war, so instead they helped and put in funds to help the axis powers rebuild..

brain21

The Yukon is a Canadian territory, and we're still *technically* ruled by the Queen.

And I remember seeing someone say that it was the technology that the Western Allies brought back that led to Fat Man and Little Boy. We did, and also brought back various scientists. But there was already a nuclear program running before Germany surrendured led by Oppenheimer.

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Delta*RandyShugart*

I hope that everyone pays respect today to the men who stormed the beaches at Normandy and who parachuted from the air, remember the soldiers of America, England and Canadia. Today marks the day known at D-Day when the Assault to rout Germany out of France began and the tide of the War turned......
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/dday/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Normandy
from wiki:
D-Day is a term often used in military parlance to denote the day on which a combat attack or operation is to be initiated. "D-Day" often represents a variable, designating the day upon which some significant event will occur or has occurred; see Military designation of days and hours for similar terms. The initial D in D-Day has had various meanings in the past, while more recently it has obtained the connotation of "Day" itself, thereby creating the phrase "Day-Day", or "Day of Days".[1]

By far, the best known D-Day is June 6, 1944 — the day on which the Invasion of Normandy began — commencing the Western Allied effort to liberate mainland Europe from Nazi occupation during World War II. However, many other invasions and operations had a designated D-Day, both before and after that operation.[2]

The terms D-Day and H-Hour are used for the day and hour on which a combat attack or operation is to be initiated. They designate the day and hour of the operation when the day and hour have not yet been determined, or where secrecy is essential. There is but one D-Day and one H-Hour for all units participating in a given operation.

When used in combination with figures, and plus or minus signs, these terms indicate the point of time preceding or following a specific action. Thus, H−3 means 3 hours before H-Hour, and D+3 means 3 days after D-Day. H+75 minutes means H-Hour plus 1 hour and 15 minutes.

Planning papers for large-scale operations are made up in detail long before specific dates are set. Thus, orders are issued for the various steps to be carried out on the D-Day or H-Hour minus or plus a certain number of days, hours, or minutes. At the appropriate time, a subsequent order is issued that states the actual day and times.

History

The earliest use of these terms by the U.S. Army that the Center of Military History has been able to find was during World War I. In Field Order Number 9, First Army, American Expeditionary Forces, dated 7 September 1918: "The First Army will attack at H hour on D day with the object of forcing the evacuation of the St. Mihiel Salient."

D-Day for the invasion of Normandy by the Allies was originally set for June 5, 1944, but bad weather and heavy seas caused Gen. Dwight D Eisenhower to delay until June 6 and that date has been popularly referred to ever since by the short title "D-Day". (In French, it is called Le Jour J or, occasionally, Le Choc.) Because of this, planners of later military operations sometimes avoided the term. For example, Douglas MacArthur's invasion of Leyte began on "A-Day", and the invasion of Okinawa began on "L-Day". The Allies proposed invasions of Japan that would have begun on "X-Day" (Kyūshū, scheduled for November 1945) and "Y-Day" (Honshū, scheduled for March 1946).

Band of Brothers Days of Days: Dropping into Normandy

Saving Private Ryan: Normandy Beach Parts 1 & 2 & 3

Actual Footage:

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|TG-6th|RandyShugart


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