Paul and others,

This past week, the History Channel (public broadcasting channel) had a
segment on the Normandy invasion with oral interviews of British veterans. Since my
father survived a subsequent wave in that invasion, it interested me greatly
to listen to those men explain how American generals refused to use British
machines designed to rip up barbed wire and detonate land mines because the
machines "looked silly." At least 2,000 men died on the shores invaded by
Americans for that decision, according to the British soldiers. The British simply
followed their wire-ripping machines up the beach. A second point that struck
home was the demand by American generals not to allow the landing craft to come
close to shore, thus requiring the American tanks to offload and snorkle in
rough seas and most sank. Only a handful of American tanks made it ashore for the
invasion. The British ignored the orders and the landing craft hit the sand,
allowing their tanks to roll onto land. The third point that struck home was
the American generals belief that ship-fired rockets would create craters for
infantry to hide from German machine gun fire. For some reason, most of the
rockets landed in the water or over the German lines and infantry had no where to
hide because instead of sand they were digging into cobblestone shale. With
these facts as seen by the British veterans, Hollywood movies like The Longest
Day and Saving Private Ryan would have been substantially different. I also
recall finding a reenactor's website that heavily criticized the latter movie
for inaccurate uniforms for that particular battle. Of course, this was a war
that is within living memory and movies like Arthur are like smoke when it comes
to available facts.

Ron May
Legacy 106, Inc.