I commented at length last year in my post Day of Days. Looking back, the sheer guts of the men who waded ashore, parachuted, or rode gliders into France amazes me more every year. Without those men, mostly American, but with goodly numbers of British, Canadian, Poles, French, others Europe would have continued to be ruled by tyrants for years to come. If the landings had failed, if those brave men had faltered, history would be far different. But the landings didn’t fail, the men didn’t falter, the Nazis didn’t prevail. In that we were most fortunate.

Starting at 5:00PM on Saturday, The Military Channel will feature a series of shows about the Normandy landings, including one with color footage. My DVR is already set.

A lot of people don’t realize that most of the film shot on June 6, 1944 was lost when the case holding it was dropped by the courier while he was climbing back on to a ship. It fell into the sea and was lost for all eternity. Still, there is a lot of archival footage that probably is sitting in warehouses somewhere waiting to be rediscovered. We can only hope that it is soon found and released to the public.

If you haven’t already, go to Borepatch and watch the video about the Memphis Belle and her crew. Consider how dangerous those missions were and how the crews faced them.

We were no less fortunate two years earlier in 1942 when brave Naval, Marine, and Army Air Corps aviators flew, fought, and died to defeat the Imperial Japanese Navy on the Pacific Ocean off a little known island named Midway. This battle too saved countless lives and shortened, maybe even made victory possible in, the War in the Pacific. Had the Japanese prevailed and sunk the US carriers, Hawaii and the entire Pacific coast of the United States and Canada would have been vulnerable. What would have stopped the Japanese from landing on the Isthmus of Panama and taking the canal? Very little is my guess. The war would have gone on longer, maybe years longer, and the outcome might well have been different. Imagine, if you will, a world where Nazi Germany controls most of Europe and Japan controls most of the Pacific, including Hawaii. Those are the possible fates that were avoided on June days two years apart a long time ago.

Last night I was sitting with some friends, smoking fine cigars, watching the Red Sox lose to the Texas Rangers, and generally solving the problems of the world. One of my companions, a gentleman in his 80s mentioned that tomorrow (today) is the 65 anniversary of the Normandy landings. I quizzed him and another friend as to what else happened on this date and after a bit of thinking they realized that the Battle of Midway had also occurred during the same week two years earlier. We discussed the battle and the ramifications of winning or losing. Why did the United States win against incredible odds? The Japanese had better aircraft, more ships, combat hardened pilots and air crews. Most of the American pilots had never seen combat, one ship (The Yorktown) was damaged at the Battle of the Coral Sea and was hastily patched. The Navy torpedo bombers were mostly obsolete. Anyone looking at the opposing forces would have inevitably decided that the Japanese were going to win handily. And yet, they didn’t. They were out thought and out fought by the Americans and at the end of four days the Japanese were defeated. How did that happen. One of my friends said that it was because God was on the side of the good guys. Since he was the recipient of a fine Jesuit education, being a so called Double Eagle*, he threw out some Latin “Deus Ex Machina”. I’m sure my non theist friends will disagree, but I think he might be right. Maybe you prefer to call it luck or fate or something else. Whatever it was, it was there over the deep blue waters of the Pacific on that June day Sixty-Seven years ago.

Despite our current travails, as long as we have men and women like those that fought so long ago, our nation will prevail. If we lose that fighting spirit we, like the Japanese aircraft carriers, are sunk.

As you go about your weekend activities take a few minutes and think about our forebears and the sacrifices they made for freedom.