75th Anniversary of D-Day
Deepest Respects to All Who Contributed to the Defeat of the Nazis in World War II
D-Day landing in Normandy, June 6, 1944.
This year marks the 75th anniversary of the World War
II
allied landing on the coast of Normandy, France, on June 6, 1944. On
this anniversary,
Canadians pay deepest respects to all the men and women who
contributed to the defeat of the Nazis in Europe. Nearly 150,000
Allied troops landed or parachuted into the invasion area on
D-Day, including 14,000 Canadians at Juno Beach. The Royal
Canadian Navy contributed 110 ships and 10,000 sailors and the
Royal Canadian Air Force contributed 15 fighter and
fighter-bomber squadrons to the assault. Total Allied casualties that
day reached more than 10,000, including 1,074 Canadians, of
whom 359 were killed.
The invasion force that landed in Normandy on June 6,
1944 was comprised of Americans, British and Canadians. This date known
to history as D-Day, refers to the long-awaited
invasion of northwest Europe to open a Second Front against the
Nazi forces of Adolf Hitler who had occupied France and most of
Europe and had been waging a savage war against the Soviet Union.
To that time, the Soviet Union had borne the brunt of the fight
against Hitler. From 1941 to 1945, the Soviet peoples fought more
than 75 per cent of the German and Axis forces and suffered the
loss during the war, all-told, of more than 20 million
people.
The landing at Normandy is said to be the largest
amphibious
invasion in history. The allies were able to establish a
beachhead as part of Operation Overlord. The First United States
Army attacked on the beaches, code-named "Utah" and "Omaha." The
Second British Army assaulted the beaches, code-named "Gold,"
"Juno" and "Sword" with the Canadians responsible for Juno in the
centre of the British front. The venture was formidable because
the Germans had turned the coastline into a continuous fortress
with guns, pillboxes, wire, mines and other obstacles.
Soldiers of the 9th Canadian Infantry Brigade deploying in the Nan
White
Sector at Juno Beach.
Eleven more months of fighting followed the Normandy
landing
until in May 1945, the Red Army marched into Berlin and the
Germans capitulated. Today May 9 is celebrated as Victory in
Europe Day to honour all those who gave their lives to defeat the
Nazi-fascists.
Historica Canada
points out:
"For years, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin had pressured
the
British and Americans to open another front in the war, by
invading occupied France in the west. In the summer of 1943, the
Allies agreed they were ready to launch the invasion the
following year. American General Dwight Eisenhower was appointed
supreme commander of an amphibious invasion of unprecedented size
and scope, code-named Operation Overlord.
"The Allies needed a French harbour from which to supply
and
sustain a successful invasion force. However, the disastrous 1942
raid on the French port of Dieppe, in which 3,369 Canadians were
killed, wounded or captured, had convinced military planners that
a seaborne assault against a well-defended port was folly.
"In fact, much of the French side of the English Channel
had
been turned into what was called the 'Atlantic Wall' -- mile
after mile of concrete bunkers, machine gun nests, and other
fortifications built by the Germans, overlooking beaches and
tidal estuaries strewn with layers of barbed wire, anti-tank
ditches, mines and other obstacles designed to obstruct an
invading army. [...]"
The Normandy campaign finally ended on August 21, 1944,
with
Canadians playing an important role in closing the Falaise Gap
and assisting in the capture of approximately 150,000 German
soldiers. Now the pursuit of the enemy into the Netherlands,
Belgium and Germany could begin.
Today it is commonplace to hear the Anglo-American and
European imperialists dismiss the feats of the Soviet peoples in
defeating Hitler, while claiming that it was the historic landing
in Normandy on June 6, 1944, which broke Hitler's back. This
makes it possible to claim that the United States played the
decisive role in saving the world from Hitlerism and describing
current U.S. wars of aggression and occupation as wars of
liberation. All U.S. military interventions since the landing at
Normandy are said to oppose dictatorships and tyrannies similar
to Hitler's, thus faithfully following in the tradition of the
landing at Normandy.
This is not the case. The Red Army broke Hitler's back
in
Stalingrad and then chased his Nazi forces all the way back to
Berlin where they were finally forced to surrender. This does not
take away from the fact that the Second Front kept many Nazi
troops engaged and away from the eastern front. German casualties
(killed and wounded) in the Normandy campaign were estimated at
more than 200,000, while the Allies suffered 209,000 casualties
among the more than two million soldiers who landed in France
following the D-Day landing. Among the Allied casualties were
more than 18,700 Canadians, including more than 5,000 soldiers
killed. Had the Anglo-American powers joined the anti-fascist
front called for and established by the Soviet Union under
Stalin, losses caused by the Hitlerite occupation of Europe and
invasion of the Soviet Union would not have been so grave.
Instead they were driven by an aim to make sure they, not the
Soviets, would control the outcome of the war.
On this anniversary, Canadians pay deepest respects to
all the
men and women who contributed to the defeat of the Nazi-fascists
and Japanese militarists in World War II. Their cause for peace,
democracy and freedom is not the same as the cause for which the
U.S. imperialists and big powers wage wars today. Today the fight
to secure peace, freedom and justice requires establishing
anti-war governments and making sure countries are zones for
peace, not war.
This article was published in
Volume 49 Number 20 - June 1, 2019
Article Link:
75th Anniversary of D-Day: Deepest Respects to All Who Contributed to the Defeat of the Nazis in World War II
Website: www.cpcml.ca
Email: editor@cpcml.ca
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