Quotes June 06, 2024

“’Hitler made only one big mistake when he built his Atlantic Wall,’ the paratroopers liked to say. ‘He forgot to put a roof on it.’”
 
 
“Lieutenant Welsh remembered walking around among the sleeping men and thinking to himself that ‘they had looked at and smelled death all around them all day but never even dreamed of applying the term to themselves. They hadn’t come here to fear. They hadn’t come to die. They had come to win.’”
Stephen Ambrose, Band of Brothers: E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne from Normandy to Hitler’s Eagle’s Nest
 
 
“At the core, the American citizen soldiers knew the difference between right and wrong, and they didn’t want to live in a world in which wrong prevailed. So, they fought and won, and we, all of us, living and yet to be born, must be forever profoundly grateful.”
Stephen Ambrose, Citizen Soldiers
 
 
 
 
“Everyone was violently busy on that crowded, dangerous shore. The pebbles were the size of apples and feet deep, and we stumbled up a road that a huge road shovel was scooping out. We walked with the utmost care between the narrowly placed white tape lines that marked the mine-cleared path, and headed for a tent marked with a red cross … Everyone agreed that the beach was a stinker, and that it would be a great pleasure to get the hell out of here sometime.”
Martha Gellhorn, Collier’s war correspondent
 
 
 
 
“I don’t feel that I’m any kind of hero. To me, the work had to be done. I was asked to do it. So, I did. When I lecture kids, I tell them the same thing.”
Private First Class Joseph Lesniewski​, Easy Company, 2nd Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division
 
 
 
 
“You get your ass on the beach. I’ll be there waiting for you and I’ll tell you what to do. There ain’t anything in this plan that is going to go right.”
Colonel Paul R. Goode, in a pre-attack briefing to the 175th Infantry Regiment, 29th Infantry Division
 
 
 
 
“Four years ago, our nation and empire stood alone against an overwhelming enemy, with our backs to the wall. Now once more a supreme test has to be faced. This time the challenge is not to fight to survive but to fight to win the final victory for the good cause. At this historic moment, surely not one of us is too busy, too young, or too old to play a part in a nation-wide, perchance a worldwide vigil of prayer as the great Crusade sets forth.”
King George VI in a radio address on June 6, 1944
 
 
 
 
“I took chances on D-Day that I never would have taken later in the war.”
First Sergeant C. Carwood Lipton, 506th Parachute Regiment, 101st Airborne Division
 
 
 
 
“God almighty, in a few short hours, we will be in battle with the enemy. We do not join battle afraid. We do not ask favors or indulgence but ask that, if you will, use us as your instrument for the right and an aid in returning peace to the world.”
Lieutenant Colonel Robert L. Wolverton, commanding officer of 3rd Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment
 
 
 
 
“Today, when people thank me for my service, I figure three years of my time is a cheap price to pay for this country. Nobody owes me a thing.”
First Lieutenant Lynn “Buck” Compton, Easy Company, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division
 
 
 
 
“Nobody dashed ashore. We staggered. With one hand I carried my gun, finger on the trigger; with the other, I held onto the rope-rail down the ramp, and with the third hand I carried my bicycle.”
Corporal Peter Masters, Troop 3, No. 10 Commando, British Army “Jewish” Troop
 
 
 
 
“Thank you to those men and women who put self aside because they held the thought of us on the inside. So, whether that be the bloodied beaches on D-Day or any number of other battles remembered or forgotten, we now hold you on the inside and we say, ‘Thank you.’”
Craig D. Lounsbrough
 
 
 
 
“It was a different world then. It was a world that required young men like myself to be prepared to die for a civilization that was worth living in.”
Harry Read, 6th Airborne Division, Britain’s Parachute Regiment
 
 
 
 
“I cherish the memories of a question my grandson asked me the other day when he said, ‘Grandpa, were you a hero in the war?’ Grandpa said, ‘No, but I served in a company of heroes.’”
Major Richard Winters, Commander, Easy Company of the 2nd Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division
 
 
 
 
“Suddenly, all hell let loose. The beach was under fire from shells, mortars and machine guns, we dived for cover. The sea was covered in blood and vomit and flies began to arrive by the thousands, which created another nightmare. We continued all night and the following day without a break. Slowly, slowly we overcame all the nightmares. There was no lack of humor. A soldier coming ashore asked, ‘Is this a private beach? I was promised a private beach. If not, I am not staying.’ And we heard, ‘My mother told me not to travel by air, she thought it was much safer by sea.’”
David Teacher, No. 71 Royal Air Force Beach Unit
 
 
 
 
“At that time, we didn’t know it was D-Day. We just knew we had a job to do.”
Sergeant Tom Jensen, 626th Engineer Light Equipment Company
 
 
 
 
“There has never been a military operation remotely approaching the scale and the complexity of D-Day. It involved 176,000 troops, more than 12,000 airplanes, almost 10,000 ships, boats, landing craft, frigates, sloops, and other special combat vessels—all involved in a surprise attack on the heavily fortified north coast of France, to secure a beachhead in the heart of enemy-held territory so that the march to Germany and victory could begin. It was daring, risky, confusing, bloody, and ultimately glorious.”
Tom Brokaw, The Greatest Generation
 
 
 
 
“Men, I am not a religious man and I don’t know your feelings in this matter, but I am going to ask you to pray with me for the success of the mission before us. And while we pray, let us get on our knees and not look down but up with faces raised to the sky so that we can see God and ask His blessing in what we are about to do.”
Lieutenant Colonel Robert L. Wolverton, commanding officer of 3rd battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment
 
 
 
 
“At the edge of the cliffs, the wind is a smack, and D-day becomes wildly clear: climbing that cutting edge into the bullets.”
John Vinocur, former Paris bureau chief, The New York Times
 
 
 
 
“Here in Normandy the rescue began. Here the Allies stood and fought against tyranny in a giant undertaking unparalleled in human history.”
President Ronald Reagan, on the 40th Anniversary of D-Day
 
 
 
 
“I thought we were going to win because I’d never seen so many planes in my life that came over for the invasion of Normandy.”
Lawrence “Yogi” Berra, Seaman Second Class Lawrence
 
 
 
 
“May we all, as a nation of believers, fight for the achievement of America, may we make sacrifices worthy of those proud men and women who fought for us, labored for us, bled soil from the beaches of Normandy to the fields of Gettysburg for us.”
Senator Cory Booker
 
 
 
 
“Let’s remember the brave men, British, Commonwealth, Canadian, American, and European who left these shores and never left back, for their sacrifice, we will be forever in debt.”
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