Seventy years ago today on June 6, 1944 the largest amphibious operation in the history of the world began. The Allied landings on the European continent, we know it as D-Day. It was the final nail in the coffin of Hitler's Germany and the beginning of the end of the War in Europe. The beginning of the liberation of millions of people who had lived under Nazi tyranny for years and the eventual discovery of the most heinous crime the world has ever known, the Holocaust.

The thousands of brave American, British, Canadian and soldiers of other Allied nations that took part had to face murderous gunfire from the dug-in Germans, thousands died and thousands more were wounded. On this day we render honors to all those men and women who took part, and we remember all those who gave their lives for the freedom of others. They paid the price for freedom with their blood and their lives, this is a debt that we can never repay.

© 2014 Michael W. Pocock
MaritimeQuest.com