The Last Longest Day - Fernandez

This coming week will mark the 75^th anniversary of the landings on the Normandy beaches. I’ll be posting a few blogs on the landmark remembrance of D-Day. Today, Richard Fernandez at PJ Media) contemplates the historical consequences of the Allied victories:

it is likely to be the last major D-Day anniversary while veterans are still alive.

. . .

Seventy-five years ago, the human impact of the invasion could scarcely be understated. Over 4,400 soldiers died in a single day, the Longest Day, so named in popular culture after Erwin Rommel's prescient observation: "The first twenty-four hours of the invasion will be decisive. . . . For the Allies as well as Germany, it will be the longest day."

It was an all-out throw of the dice. A maximum effort. There was no plan B if it didn't work.

. . .

And what of D-Day? Like the fading black and white chemical film on which its images were captured, modern culture has lost the detail, emotional tone and context once provided by living memory. What still remains is posterized, compressed and pixellated to the point where, to paraphrase Tennyson, "they are become a name." The Longest Day grows less distinct with each passing year.

Less distinct but no less real. . . .

Mr. Fernandez's full article, "The Last Longest Day," is here.

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