Click HERE to see this thread with all of the graphics, features, and links.

Today, June 6, we commemorate those soldiers of the U.S. 1st Army and the British 2nd Army, French and Canadian soldiers, American and British paratroopers, that fought in the largest conflict of World War II.

The U.S. 1st Army attacked Omaha and Utah beaches while the British 2nd Army attacked Sword, Juno, and Gold beaches, each army with the help of the French and Canadians. American paratroopers were sent in to take out artillery at Brecourt and retake the town of Carentan. British soldiers in gliders landed behind enemy lines and held the bridges of Horsa and Pegasus to keep German armor, or tanks, from crossing over to the beaches to repel the U.S. 1st and British 2nd.

D-Day was a success and turned the tides of World War II.

60th Anniversary today!

Technically the Canadians attacked Juno beach
I think the Juno Awards in Canada are named after it

Also Canadians made it furthest into the inland then any other Allied forces that day

I thought it was the Austrailians who attacked at Juno?

watch Band of Brothers. It shows the 101st Airborn drop. It rocks.
Today is the 60th Aniversery of d-day. Technically, the day of any invasion is called d-day, but the invasion of normandy was the biggest of all the D-Days, so whenever someones says d-day, they usally mean the June 6th one.

That is Awesome!
Also play Call of Duty if you liek band of brothers, you play most of the missions they show.

tankriflehitlertank

yes..wanted to start a thread bout this. I love watching ww II stuff.
i'm currently watching something called :d-day in colour.....

We bailed France out, and what have they done for us?

Question: In Saving Private Ryan, is the the opening scene depicting the landing at Omaha?

They gave you the statue of Liberty... even though that was before

yes

yep, the bloody beach

if anyone hasn't seen it, do so.

We were forced to watch it in history class, I was firmly against it.

My grandfather passed away about a year ago, and recently while we were cleaning out his house to sell it, we came across alot of his old war photos from his tour w/ the Navy, including Normandy. I found a mini Hitler propaganda book, as well as his NAVY deck tobogan, and an artillery case from Omaha Beach. He also had 2 Nazi SS helmets, which were headed to an undisclosed museum.

http://www.corsicas.com/corys/war1.jpg
http://www.corsicas.com/corys/war2.jpg
http://www.corsicas.com/corys/war3.jpg

True story, my Uncle Robert and grandfather Jesse were both serving. My grandfather arrived at Normandy, sadly, because he was operating the ferries that returned the dead and wounded to base. Not knowing if they'd ever see each other again, Robert just so happened to be on duty, repairing toll bridges, and of course, my "Grampy" spotted him, and the rest is history.

While I doubt there are any D-Day survivors reading this board, I appreciate all they did for us, and in a movie sense, thank Spielberg for his contributions to film with "Saving Private Ryan", easily the most realistic WW2 movie ever.

Don't let the subject fool you.

D-Day was amazing, and how can you be "firmly" against watching Saving Private Ryan in school? Never the less, History class. That's EASILY one of the best World War II movies ever made.

And I to love watching World War II stuff, and at the moment am Watching "WWII Road To Victory." It's actually really entertaining, and better then the other package of DVD's I bought. It's in color, and all actualy footage from over 20 battles or something a long those lines. Very entertaining, and educational.

I also bought "The Chonicles of WW2" and that one isn't as good I think..black and white, but not all real footage.

I am not American firstly, I'm Canadian, naturally I prefer to watch movies about Canadians in war, and I'm sorry but unless you people have actually been there how can you comment on how good the movie is?
There may be exaggerations and lies in it for all we know. And it may be completely Hollywoodized and far from the truth.

That being said we have veterans of D-Day coming in to our class tomorrow, and I plan on asking them their take on Saving Private Ryan, and how closely it resembles the war.

Plus I don't like watching war movies that are from only one point of view. Like for example, I liked All Quiet on the Western Front, because it was told from the point of view of the Germans, and not just the Allied forces even though it is WWI, I still enjoyed it.

added a tribute to those who died on D-Day. The line's from LotR

Spielberg conducted a lot of interviews to get the jest of things in Normandy. I'm sure his research was pretty inclusive, some of which was documented on the SPR DVD extra features, including testimony of those who he interviewed, regarding the movie.

I doubt anyone has actually bothered contesting the plausibility of SPR, especially after Schindler's List, which being a Jewish man himself, I would think would be an very important piece of his own history.

Were the people who he interviewed from both sides of the battle or purely American?

ah come on cinemaddiction! they showed only Omaha beach and only the americans, not only that it was pure propaganda for how "brave" americans are since mankind was ever created

They only showed Omaha beach b/c they were follow Tom Hanks characture

yup, wouldn't hurt them to also show some germans getting caught in the mess

Most WW2 movies tend to focus on the US, though there are some featuring British troops

Precisely why I liked All Quiet on the Western Front, it didn't glorify war, it showed it for what it truly was. It was men, similar in all ways other then their background pitted against each other for pride and glory. Personally all those lives were lost, and where are we now. I feel pity and greif for all the lives that were lost, but I won't celebrate a day that just marks murder and death.

Each war has a different theme. WW1 is portrayed as a useless, bloody war where many people were killed for nothing. WW2 tends to be glorified as the Allies defeated Hitler. Vietnam War movies have negative feeling

History is unfortunatly always written by the victorious, AE...

what about the suffering the Germans had? what did they do wrong? they got born in the wrong country and did as the allied troops: followed orders of their superiors
and where does all this leads to? SIXTY years after date, NOW the germans can go to the memorial to join in the remembrance, cause they too lost many men. And what to the veterans say? they're disgusted that they were allowed in!

it was a terrible war as all are, but to give it one sided, is very bad no matter which government or which leader the others had

Why exactly is that since the U.S only joined the war after Pearl Harbour, not to just help, but to get revenge really. They were the last to join, and I'm not certain, but I think they lost the smallest number of men

Same as WWI.

It's called Isolationism. Most of the people did not want to get involved in 'Europe's Problems'

that's why the americans sold weapons to Brittain huh?

but of course we all know that the americans only join in for pure revange like always

That's not true, Canada joined because of ties to Britain from the past, and any intelligent person could have seen that the war would spread to all corners of the world had it not been stopped in Europe.

Not to mention that Europe was not the only continent involved at the time.

In fact, I'm pretty sure my history teacher mentioned that the president of the states at the time, was very willing to join in the war, but the public refused, they thought it wasn't their problem and they didn't want to send troops to their deaths if it didn't involve them.

Which brings us back to France and the war in Iraq, they are doing exactly what America did back then. You guys have no right to call them cowards if you did the same thing back then.

Congress, during WW2, were mainly isolationists. FDR, however, wanted to help Britain. We are attacked by the Japanese, and that brought us into ww2

the thing with the germans is that although many of the german army were men who had been forced to join up, many of the army also supported hitler's views and if a big thing is made of seeing how the german army had suffered and sympathising with them, it can be seen as sympathising with hitler's views

the restrictions placed on Germany after WWI were way to harsh in my opinion, the Depression was bad enough, but with all the extra limitations placed on Germany it was much much worse there. Hitler wanted to help his country. To them he was a patriot, to other's a murderer.

I in no way condone his actions, and am sad for all the blood spilled because of him. But I don't believe that the men who joined the army to help their country were supporting Hitler's actions, since many of them were unaware of what he was planning.

cerm, it's rather wrong to partray ALL of them as fanatics who would follow hitlers every single word... in the end it was just down to kill or be killed... or surrunder and have the chance of STILL being killed...

and AE... the US would have ended up fighting in WW2 sooner or later, it was the well done (as in: how they did it) attack of Pearl Harbor that got you in, but I mean, ... the only continent the war wasn't on was in America, it would get attacked sooner or later

A world war can change how a country operates. After ww2, there was a total reversal in world power. Engalnd no longer was the most powerful country and most of Europe shrunk back to isolationism. The US then became a major world power

Reason why it follows the US besides the fact that it was put out in the US:

If I recall right there were 23/26 DD tanks sent out, and for every other beach landing most of them landed, but on Omaha and Utah out of the 26 or 23 only 3 made it. On all the other beach landings they basically pushed through the German lines easily since they had the machinery backup. Omaha, and Utah beach was where the heavy battling was because of the machinery mess-ups.

And look at how they use their power
But crushing other countries and threatening those that don't help. (also mentioning France here)
Come on, Freedom Fries give me a break.

And I find the fact that Americans say they saved WWII to be outrageous, specially since the Americans couldn't even take Omaha beach on their own, they needed help from the British and Soviet forces if I'm not mistaken.

Very true, and this can be seen in the beginning of SPR when two Germans surrender and are shot in the back I think anyways.

Bagtatta, as far as I remember, they "forgot" a panzerdivision on Omaha beach, that costed them lives and precious time

and AE... remember the Sovjet Union? the commies? they became a worldpower too

true, but the USSR was all bark and no bite. It might of had a strong mil, not no economy

as far as I remember, the Panzar divisions were inland

That was mostly because the USSR was not as industrialized as the states. They were farmers. And yet look at how they drove back the Germans from Stalingrad. Power is in numbers, something the US definately proves.

ha, bark and no bite?? if it wasn't for the russians, WWII would have ended differently! THEY asked for a battle at the western front, THEY stopped Germany in Stalingrad and payed heavily for it.
Afterwards they were a very strong nation till around end 70s, with their communistic ideas, then it went down cause communism only works in theory, men isn't made to share

doesn't matter where exactly they were, the mainpoint is that they forgot they were near Omaha beach, that's why it took hours for the americans to get off there

The geogrpahy of Omaha made it difficult. It was steeper than the others and more heavily fortified

And why they needed help.
If they had researched properly they wouldn't have lost nearly as much men.

that's a rather weak excuse you fished up there AE... it is known they missed that panzer division, and it is known that that was the reason it costed them lots of lives and lots of time

they picked the beaches cause they were easy to get the boats on AND to get off to the mainland!

This is interesting.
Sil> Firstly the Soviets were not involved in anyway on D-day, they were to busy trying to stop the German invasion.

Anyone who says that the US only helps France and that they are weak and stuff are ignorant. If it wern't for the French there wouldn't BE a US to bail them out. IMO we are repaying the huge debt we owe them for their aid in founding the US.

AE>I do not believe that the Panzers were "forgotten" In the best of my knowlage they were stopped by the paratroopers that were in Germany preparing for the invasion, I think that was their main objective. Prevent the Panzers from getting to the beaches.
Also you are a war too late when you said that the US became a power after WW2 it was really WW1. This is because of the high losses the european states suffered.

And just one more thing. WW1 caused WW2. It was the "War Guilt Clause" that caused the whole thing. 100% of the blame for WW1 was put on germany just because they lost a war that was everyones fault. Germany was forced to pay some huge amount of money and lose all their colonies and such. This threw them into a deppression and Hitler Brought them out of it with facism and started WW2.

It was also the fact that Germany's failing economy, having to repay so many countries because of reparations caused huge inflation in their country, and Germany was sinking into poverty.

Excuse me you are right, it was the British and Canadian divisions who helped the Americans after they couldn't make it off the beach.

in the end, it really doesn't matter. The beach was won. It could have been worse. We could have landed at the port of calais, which was heavily defended. In a way, we took the Germans by surpise

Yes, but the other beaches were also won, and much quicker, without so much trouble. SPR is propaganda if you ask me.

^I think that was researched and avioded on purpose, not just luck.

yes and no, if hitler didn't gave the order not to awake him, and if (forgot his name) did convince him that it was THE attack, he could have easily crushed them

Also the British being the geniuses that they are, made Hitler believe the real attack would take place at a different location. Calais I believe, I may be wrong, but it starts with a C. They had a card board air force made to throw the Germans off, so they would not be aware of the invasion there.

Yes D-day was planned out very well By everyone.

When you said Omaha was worse, It wasn't the only beach the americans landed on , I think it was Utah they landed on too. The Brits landed on Gold and something else and The Canadians landed on Sword.
I'm just going off the top of my head but i think that is correct.

Actually you aren't

"When the seaborne units began to land about 6:30 AM on June 6, the British and Canadians on Gold, Juno, and Sword beaches overcame light opposition. So did the Americans at Utah. The American 1st Division at Omaha Beach, however, confronted the best of the German coast divisions, the 352nd, and was roughly handled."

http://search.eb.com/normandy/week2/invasion.html


In a way the Americans underestimated the Germans at Omaha.

It is spectacularly inappropriate to turn this thread into a political battle. I ask everyone have respect for the reason this thread was created and desist from that. Whatever the (highly academic) fatcts are, this is about commemorating a day when a lot of people died- yes, on btoh sides- and the seeds were created of what we recognise of modern day civilisation. This squabbling is rather disgraceful in face of that. If you want to make threads debating WWII political history, and who was right or wrong, feel free- please do not do it here.

As for movies... PLEASE tell me some of you have watched The Longest Day...

...but the only thing SPR got 'wrong' about the Omaha landings is that they were too short.

hey tpt, you disappoint me now man you gotta see Saving Private Ryan again sucky movie but they do say it

I've watched The Longest Day. It was ll right, but parts of it were fake.

Getting back on topic, it was the combined effort of all countries, US, England, and Canada that won the battle.

Ush is right, I do feel gratitude to those who died.
I commemorate the day, but don't celebrate it.

Many people died, but I think it could have been prevented.


Has anyone been watching the ceremonies in Normandy today?

you forgot the USSR

What the heck do you mean by 'fake'? Technically ALL of it is fake; if you mean wrong, more detail would be nice...

But it did show an 100% objective view of the events of D-Day, with all parts played by renowned actors of the correct countries.

it was an effort of the ENTIRE allied forces mind you! those three were the biggest actors (with Russia in the east of course)

"Many people died, but I think it could have been prevented."

Sure, it could have been prevented, had Hitlers mom had an abortion.

then probably some one else took over BF, it's not THAT easy

No, had the Allies not appeased Hitler at the start of his career, but that's completely off topic.

some of the scenes weren't 100% accurate, like the scene were they're charging up the beaches after the wall is breached. That never happened. Other than that, it was good, and infomitive

This is about D-Day, and has nothing to do with the Soviets. They have a fair few celebrations for their own victories, but this is very much a Western celebration, and for solid reasons. It is not very appropriate to include the USSR, really.

But all joking aside, I definately commermorate today, many brave men, from all countries died today. My hat's off to them all.

*curse chamberlain grrrrrr*

I've been watching the History Channel. All day, all d-day

that's nice for you *raises eyebrow*

I feel so smothered surrounded by all males


And Chamberlain wasn't the only one

I would very much hesitiate to pile into Chamberlain without an in-depth knowledge of the period.

In fact, it is too complex a period to be dealt with with brief lines and accusations at all. As we can see, the tendency now has been to blame the allied nations for being both too harsh and too soft.

guess who? France! lol
but they had their reasons. WW1 was the worse thing to happen to Europe other than WW2.

to Europe as a whole? wouldn't really say that... you could count Napoleon... and of course local history showed some other dark pages of the thick history book too

Oh and about the D-Day celebrations, I personally feel very good about the fact that for the first time in 60 years Germany was invited.

didn't know that. any idea why they weren't allowed? or why they were allowed this year?

Trying to overcome political barriers and bring the countries closer if I had to guess.

why they weren't?
as I said earlier: even now veterans (not all of them of course) absolutely hated the idea of them being there!

D-Day, yes, well...every year we've got the same old song...but obviously we don't have the heads of the 4 or 5 most powerful nations in the world over here every year...




What a terrific question. I had hoped some would be more intelligent than that, and not bring up the whole "We freed you during WWII. And now how dare you disagree with us on the 2nd Gulf War ?" Well, to start with I'd say that Louis XVI send some soldiers before 1780 in what is naow called the US while the "American" soldiers were a bit demoralized. Men like Lafayette were quite useful, as far as I remember. Plus the French fleet helped (Yorktown). And there was in 1783 a Versailles treaty. So you'd have probably never have existed...you really have a short memory...

And yes we gave you the Statue of Liberty, and what's more yours is bigger than ours

And that doen't mean we're not grateful for the US intervention in 1944. No offence, but to think the contrary or that because of this intervention, we have no right to disagree with you woul really be stupid.

I'm not going on with that, for that is close to political themes...

So, D-Day...well I've nothing more to say. The whole WW2 is a painful memory for the French, and a big effort have been made to erase it. People like Gen. de Gaulle started a campaign, according to which " most French had resisted the Nazis during the "Occupation", even if it was passive resistance...
The truth is that a major part of the French people have neither collaborated, nor resisted...but that's still a period they don't like to remember.

oooh, you upsetted the frenchie now

The French did more than enough

And what's more is the Canadians freed the Dutch

The French bloody quickly disowned the US, though...

Anyway, as I say- not appropriate to bring politics into it.

my statement was more of a sarcastic one. I wasn't trying to imply that France was being evil.
avoiding politics

you could have guessed that such bold comment (and I didn't thought it was sarcastic, and I doubt GP does either) would result in such a comment

I was think of what France did post ww2. Anyway, I recant my statement. Sorry if I offended anyone.

well, they exported cheese... lots of cheese

and wine...and foie gras...and meet and... yummy !
I'm not offended. The sarcasm was unclear...that's the pb of a forum...next time when you put such comments, be sure everyone get the spirit of it

Of course, avoiding politics.

I like cheese. Chedder cheese, though

so, ummm, has anyone visisted Normandy or know someone who fought at d-day?

I'm meeting veterans tomorrow

I could go for some cheese and wine now

visited Normandy, don't know people who fought there, but if you keep it local to your own country, then I know some

Tomorrow, some Veterans are going to visit 'my' school, and I think... that some of them are going to talk about their experiences, maybe one of them was in Omaha.

if they're American, some should have been there

I wanna visit the Netherlands

All of them are Americans

you're bound to find one then

Actually, Napoleon, asside from the 'conquer the world' type drive, was far from hitler. The one thing all the great names in history did have in common though is Charisma.. and lots of it..

I was more refering to the "conquer Europe"-part

They were all also great public speakers

Anyone watching History Channel, D-Day Lost Evidence..cause it just basically proved me right.

yea my bro watched a show on dat last night...wats it bout?? war??

prove what point?

Bout why Omaha Beach was one remembered out of most of them.

The dead don't crave commemoration - we honor the War dead best by opposing war and saving lives.

That's why threads like this should be a platform for debate: it's not strength in numbers that's power, it's knowledge.

Ya Napolean actually set a code of laws called later on The Napoleonic Code which was basically an exceptional democratic government , at least until he declared himself emperor. lol ... His Charisma was estatic .. but his greed overwhelmed him.

Tell that to the vets in the Korean War... 200+ thousand chinese...

First of all what were you talking about Sil when you said I was worng. I got most of the Beaches names correct. But If you were talking about my comment about planning. I really do think that it was exceptional planning that went into D-Day. Organizing all those forces to land at the same time with the Pre-invasion paratroopers and everything. IMO Omaha was just bad luck that the germans had fortified that area more. We are just lucky that it didn't happen at other beaches.

My Grandfather accually landed in Normandy during the second day of the invasion or something. He doesn't like to talk about it but when we can convice him to, he tell really good stories.

I agree with knowlage being more powerful than numbers. It is technology that usually wins wars not numbers. The obvious exception is the Soviets in WW2.

And the Chinese in Korea The soviets had really good plans though... pulled factories over the urals and struck at the Germans weakest points along with utilizing the terrian and thie numbers.

Technology sometimes is a weakness though... courage can overwhelm anything almost... and reliance on tech can crush an army.

Russia won because of 'General Winter' It defeated Napoleon, it defeated Hitler. Never underestimate the weather, which was semi-bad on d-day

and of course the germans never thought it would be clear that day, so they got lucky....

That is only an opinion. It is not the reason this thread was created. Like I say, you want to debate something like that- open your own thread. Like it or not, this thread IS a commemoration and if you dislike that, stay out of it.

I am unsure why this is now becoming a generic WWII history thread... I think things should be kept on-topic.

Finaly someone with a brain THANK YOU USH

The Longest Day is one of the movies to watch about D-day it kicks the hell out saving private ryan

in saving private ryan it seems that they get of omaha beach 15 minuts after their arrival and that AINT TRUE

D-day was one of the harshest days in history and will hopefuly never be forgotten, not much more can be said about it IMO

My religion teacher said that D-Day was the bloodiest day in history

probably one of the bloodiest days in history but I dont think it qualifies as THE bloodiest day in history

Hell yes!

My brother has Call of Duty

weell....a history teacher would probably help more.

about 2500 allies died that day, mostly americans.
but about 11 000 (don't know exactly) allies died in taking the first city..saint...something..
so it wasn't the bloodiest.

not to mention stalingrad (though i don't know the stats there)

Approximately 40 thousand people died and than 150,000 were wounded.

I think that includes soldiers and civilians for Stalingrad

**** it! I wrote a LONG reply on the battle of stalingrad and how many died and got wounded, then I got kicked for some reason and couldn't get back on for some time!

bottomline: 500 000 russians died around 120 000 germans (not sure about the last anymore)

Red Square was really bloody as well.

Have you read the book "The Longest day"? Its really good. Haven't seen the movie though, is it based on the book?

no idea about that I'm afraid

I would guess so?

Reason why was that wasn't the whole point of the movie. It wouldn't have been a good idea to show the enitre battle. It would take too long and be it's own movie. But, the 15 mins does give you a good idea what it was like. Longest Day gives you more backround to the invasion


As for the bloodiest day, maybe first day of the Somme? That was a real nasty battle.

as pointed above: the battle of stalingrad alone was more than 500 000 casualties, think less died there

by percentage, opening day of Somme might of been bloodier. Don't forget about Lenningrad. Wasn't that a 444 day siege?
As for Stalinggrad, was Enemy at the Gates a good reflection of it?

damnit, I was searching on the net which was the bloodiest, and got spiked

The movie The Longest Day is based on the book.
The screenplay is in fact written by Cornelius Ryan, the author of said book.

along with that are "A Bridge too Far", a book and movie based on Operation Market Garden and one more, can't remember it.

This is Somme:

Since the 1st July, the British has suffered 420,000 casualties. The French lost nearly 200,000 and it is estimated that German casualties were in the region of 500,000

D-Day:

The Germans were hit the hardest after the invasion. Over 30,000 men had to be buried, and almost 80,000 wounded soldiers were carried off. The United States was devastated nearly as hard as the Germans. A shocking 29,000 soldiers were picked up lifeless from the beach. One hundred six thousand men were in pain from their wounds. The United Kingdom did not suffer as bad as The United States and Germany. Around 11,000 soldiers were killed on D-Day. Fifty-four thousand British Men were injured. The Canadians had the fewest casualties. Only 5,000 men died during the invasion. This is very low compared to the other countries. Canada only had to care for about 13,000 wounded soldiers.

WWI was by far the bloodiest war I think
I wish I had my history notes, I have numbers for casualties for the first world war for all the majour powers Don't remember off the top of my head.

Sean Connery is in both

His third book is called The Last Battle but there is no movie

I own that movie, but have never seen it.
According to my brother he says it's pretty good, he likes war stuff and all

I think your stats for the d-day deaths are high. I think it's somewhere around 10000

I got it from a D-Day site: http://www.bgcs.k12.in.us/bgms/Publish/templinS/index.html

I wouldn't trust it. Some info is wrong. I have never seen any stats like those before.
Here's another stat
The U.S. 1st and 29th Infantry Divisions made the most difficult landing on Omaha Beach. Stiff German resistance here caused over 3,000 casualties before the Allied troops could establish their positions by the end of the first day. On D-Day itself, British and Canadian forces suffered more than 4,000 casualties; the Americans about 6,000.

Well if it is wrong, pardon moi,

I was watching a program last night and it said that Churchhill told his wife there might be 20000 people dead tommorrow. Then it was said only 10000 died

Stalingrad has a number of casualties of 647.000 (both sides, the russians had 500.000)

Saint Laurent was the first to get freed, if memory serves

From my stats you get 75 grand dead

Antietam is considered the bloodiest battle for U.S.

I found out that the Battle of the Bulge:
The single biggest and bloodiest battle American soldiers ever fought. It came as a total surprise, on December 16th, 1944, when 30 German divisions roared across the Allied front in Belgium and Luxembourg.

Again, I think we are getting rather distracted here...

You ask any vet and they wll give you their story of the day and the stats of what happened... in total.

Well, we aren't under the dictatorship of the Nazi War Machine!

If you watched Band of Brothers, you'd know about it already...

To watch Band of Brothers I need to rent the DVDs or buy it. I missed the two opportunities I had to watched - once in HBO and the other in the History Channel

History Channel plays it a lot, from 9 PM to whenever.

I want to buy Saving Private Ryan and Band of Brothers, Wind Talkers, and maybe We Were Soldiers. All good movies with (or without) popular actors.

We were soldiers rocks...
There are specials about every battle almost on the history channel

single day battle

Clever Jordan

I disagree. By learning about the war we honor those who died in it.
Remember, those who do not know history are bound to repeat it.

what about the Poles, the Dutch, the Norwegians, The Belgians that also participated in D-Day why is they always forgotten