This coming week will
mark the 75th 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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