The Longest Day

“Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possible dare to die…”

6:30 am on June 6th 1944 marked the key turning point in the Second World War (1939 – 1945) when the Allied forces landed on five beaches in Normandy, France. This was D-Day, when the Allies gained their first foothold in a Europe, from which they had been absent from, since the Dunkirk evacuations on 1940. In the following twelve months, Europe would be transformed from an almost entirely occupied region into a liberated continent; Nazi Germany would fall, and the War in Europe would come to a close.

But on that day,the Allied forces would see 10,000 losses, suffering more losses of life than the defending Axis forces (approximately 2:1 by some estimates), as the amphibious landing craft opened their doors and soldiers poured out onto five beaches who’s codenames are still remembered: Gold, Juno, Sword, Utah, and Omaha – otherwise known as Bloody Omaha due to the high losses suffered by the American forces that engaged on that strip of the French Coastline, portrayed graphically and with critical note in the opening 24 minutes of Steven Spielberg’s award winning 1998 film: Saving Private Ryan.

Had 6th June 1944 never happened, approximately 15,000 combatants who woke up on the morning of that day would have lived to have seen 7th June 1944, rather than shed their blood on the beaches of Northern France. But had D-Day never taken place, who knows whether VE-Day would ever have been witnessed? Would the Holocaust have been stopped? Would Hitler’s regime have continued in Europe into 1946, 1947 or even later? Would Europe ever have been liberated?

Therefore, for those who sacrificed there lives on D-Day, we respectfully recognise and remember.

Gold, Juno, Sword, Utah and Omaha.

Normandy.

6th June 1994.

D-Day.