UK Trip Puts D-Day Into Perspective

Five Portsmouth, RI residents just returned from a trip to our namesake city, Portsmouth, England to thank the outgoing Lord Mayor, Lynne Stagg and Lady Mayoress, Anne Taulbut for joining us last year to celebrate our 375th birthday. We were all invited to attend the D-Day ceremonies there, marking the 70th anniversary of the D-Day landings at Normandy on 6 June, 1944. Many of the allied fleet and soldiers departed from Portsmouth and we were honored to meet several veterans, including some from the US, who took part in this massive operation.

As described on the Army.mil website: On June 6, 1944, more than 160,000 Allied troops landed along a 50-mile stretch of heavily-fortified French coastline, to fight Nazi Germany on the beaches of Normandy, France. Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower called the operation a crusade in which, “we will accept nothing less than full victory.” More than 5,000 Ships and 13,000 aircraft supported the D-Day invasion, and by day’s end, the Allies gained a foot-hold in Continental Europe. The cost in lives on D-Day was high. More than 9,000 Allied Soldiers were killed or wounded, but their sacrifice allowed more than 100,000 Soldiers to begin the slow, hard slog across Europe, to defeat Adolf Hitler’s crack troops.

We spoke to many British civilians who were involved in supporting the war at home, including one lovely women who was 18 years old when the invasion took place and had volunteered to work in a medical rehabilitation center near Portsmouth. She and others cared for over 3000 sailors, soldiers and airmen who had been wounded in battles on the continent. Many of these were Americans and she was delighted to talk to us "Yanks". Her story was repeated by many others that we met, describing nightly bombings, food rationing, and working under conditions of extreme danger at all times. As I talked with these people, dwindling in numbers now due to age, I realized that the war was very real and personal to them, in ways that those of us back in the United States have never experienced. 
All of us came back home with a new appreciation of how important D-Day and the defeat of Hitler's Nazi Germany were to all of us.
It was a great and humbling trip - I know now why England is called "Great" Britain - it is made so by the strength and patience of the English people.