70 years ago today.

It was only 14 years before I was born and the stories and broadcasts I've been listening to all day are upsetting - how must it have been for those that lived through it?

Normandy 44 by Phil Pead

Their bodies and parachutes hung from the trees
Near a church tower in Normandy at St Mere Eglise
Eighty Second Airborne from a tracer filled sky
The dice roll of fate choosing those who would die

There are hundreds and hundreds on Omaha Beach
The cliff tops above them now forever out of reach
With mortars and machines guns and 88s as well
It’s a wonder that any could’ve lived through that hell

Gliders troops from the Sixth took the bridges at Orne
But some never saw that first breaking of dawn
They held out through daylight as the Panzers attacked
But they never retreated, they never fell back

The Eagles were screaming as they took Carentan
They didn’t all make it, but the Germans, they ran
Clearing the streets as the mortar shells burst
Dying in scores were the Hundred and First

Canadians that fought near the town of Courseulles
Torn up and mangled by huge jerry shells
They all knew the danger, some knew that they’d fall
As they ran through the bullets to breach the sea wall

British Commandos at Ouistreham, Queen Red
The bridgehead they took there was paid for in dead
Advancing inland as the day carried on
Fewer and fewer with a lot of mates gone

If you visit years later and hear the sea roar
Don’t forget those who went there in June 44
For all those that fought there and the many that died

Appreciate your Freedom and Remember them with Pride.