Allied air forces begin bombing

Allied air forces begin bombing the coastal batteries between Le Havre
and Cherbourg. Over a thousand RAF planes---Avro Lancasters and
Halfiaxes--- targeted the coastal batteries along the peninsula to
prevent the Germans from firing on the gathering invasion fleet.

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RAF Lancaster

RAF Lancaster

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Halifax RAF Bomber

Halifax RAF Bomber

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And so ends my D-Day

And so ends my D-Day coverage. I need to go and fix dinner now, but
before I do, I need to give credit where credit is due. This timeline
is a compilation drawn from many different sources of information about
the landings. Other people did all the real work here: I just culled
what I needed. There are some fabulous sources of information about
D-Day on the web. If you're at all interested in learning more, I would
recommend checking these sources out.
dday.co.uk
Military History Online
National D-Day Museum
Royal Air Force
The World At War
BBC
WWII British War Reenactor
US Army Center of Military
History
British D-Day Museum
Imperial War Museum
Normandie44
Encyclopedia BritannicaIf
I've forgotten to list anyone here, and you stumble across this site
and are livid that you're not credited, please email me and I'll add
your site. I culled a lot of information from a great many
sources---and, of course, some pages I moved away from and forgot to
bookmark in my enthusiasm. The blogosphere has been busy for the past
week on this subject. Go here and enjoy the rich, bloggy goodness.

UPDATE: Fausta has a link to President Reagan's speech given twenty years ago today at Pointe du Hoc.

It is better to be here ready to protect the peace, than to take blind shelter across the sea

Go and check it out. She called me "brilliant." Which, I must admit, is quite nice after all that work.

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Nine Allied Divisions are ashore---a

Nine Allied Divisions are ashore---a total of 133,000 troops have landed in Normandy.

By the numbers:
7000 ships and landing crafts brought the majority of the invasion force to France
195,000 naval personnel attended those ships and landing crafts
eight Allied countries provided the naval personnel
1200 airplanes were used to drop airborne troops
700 gliders
over 1000 bombers completed raids on the beachhead and other strategic locations in Normandy and along the French coastline.
nearly 30,000 vehicles of all sorts---and yes that includes tanks and other armored cavalry---were transported to France on this day.

But the most important number of all is that over 10,000soldiers
had been killed or were wounded---almost eight percent of the soldiers
who had landed---at Normandy. Success, it seems, always has a cost
attached to it. By the end of June:
- Over 850,000 men
- 148,000 vehicles
- 586,000
tons of supplies had landed at Normandy.
Operation Overlord was an astoundingly simple plan. An enormous
undertaking yes, but the overall plan was simple. Drop the Airborne and
have the gliders come in first to secure vital bridges, take out German
defenses and to cover the flanks. Assemble the ships in the Channel.
Send the ships out to their respective beaches. Load the landing
crafts. Land the tanks. Land the men. Move everything inland. Push the
Germans back. It's often said that the only difference between genius
and insanity is if the idea is successful: it's genius if it works;
insanity if it doesn't. The details involved with all that simplicity
are mindboggling. So much so that the genius/insanity rule kicks in. By
all rights Operation Overlord should have fallen apart. Its success
hinged on so many factors coming together correctly, that it should have fallen apart as the laws of probability seemed to demand that it would.

Yet it didn̢۪t.

It worked.

Hence it was genius, and not madness.

By the end of D-Day, while the hold on the Cotenin peninsula and the Beaches was tenuous, it was still a hold.
The Allies were there. A third front had been established in Fortress
Europa. Within a year, Hitler and his Third Reich would be brought to
their knees, courtesy of this three pronged attack, of which the
landings in Normandy were the final nail into the war in Europe's
coffin. On paper or a sand table it seems an overwhelmingly simple
plan, but it wasn̢۪t. And it couldn̢۪t have been simple for the men
on the ground, either. The absolute humilty of D-Day vets has always
struck me. They knew they were taking part in something so much greater
than they were, but they never got illusions of grandeur, which is odd,
given what they achieved. They knew they were just one small part in
the big war, to steal a line from Bill Guarnere. They were there to do
their job. Thousands and thousands of men who had had tasks assigned to
them. Some failed; some were successful; some lived while many died,
but they did their jobs nonetheless and the combined result meant that
the war would end---sometime soon. They didn't know when it would end;
all they knew at that point in time was that they'd made progress
toward that goal. One small part in the great big war. Amazing, isn̢۪t it, what
all those small parts on June 6, 1944 achieved?
Thank you.

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Planes carrying the 101st and

Planes carrying the 101st and 82nd Airborne Divisions encounter heavy
anti-aircraft fire, further scattering the group. Pilots take evasive
maneuvers, increasing their speed and altitude. These manuevers, while
necessary, will also create hazardous conditions for the paratroopers
who would subsequently overshoot or undershoot their drop zones, some
by as much as twenty miles, if they survived the jump at all. The 82nd
and the 101st will be dropped over the Cotenin peninsula to cover the
right flank on Utah and Omaha Beaches. The British 6th will be dropped
near Caen to cover the left flank of Sword Beach.

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I will not be watching

I will not be watching and/or blogging about Bubba's 60 Minutes
interview. It's supposed to start in about three minutes and I
positively refuse to have anything to do with that delusegomaniac.
It's been a perfectly good Sunday on the whole. Coffee with friends, a
newspaper, a nap...and now dinner. I'm not going to let that
philandering-can't-keep-it-in-his-pants-lying-sack-of-shit idiot ruin
that. It's all about self-preservation, baby. And I'm self-preserving.

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No.

No.

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So, Robert's dissing my posse

So, Robert's dissing my posse and then further compounds this mistake by calling Elizabeth "little miss goody two shoes" which the Pious Agnostic vehemently (in a 19th Century sort of way) disagrees with.

Shall we count all the mistakes Robert has made in the midst of trash talking? Yes lets. {insert Mr. Burns-ish rubbing of hands here}

1. He says Seldom Sober is cheaply bought. HA. I think not.
Seldom Sober is probably going to cost me more to host than when my
sister, her husband and three kids show up in a few weeks. The bar has
been set high and I plan to set it even higher. 2. Elizabeth's a
"little miss goody two shoes"? I think not. After all, if you were a
poor, but gentrified girl in the early 19th Century and your mother
told you to marry that bore of a preacher, Mr. Collins, and
you were a goody two shoes, you would have married him. You wouldn't
have refused him and you would have spent the rest of your life praying
for Mr. Collins to drop the hell dead. Lizzie was a rebel in an empire
style dress and ballet slippers, Robbo, and don't you forget it. And
she has "fine eyes" so that's gotta count for something. 3. Then he says that Emma was a "player." That she's out
there, making moves, stirring the pot, adding spice to everyone's bland
lives. That's a laugh. I have yet to see a character more lacking in
self-awareness than Emma. She's clueless.(That's why the movie based on Emma is called that. Like, duh.)
So bound and determined to have things her way, to puff up her already
dubious character, she effectively blinds herself to the truth of the
situation: that no one cares what she thinks. Well, except for
Knightly, but he's a wuss, so who cares what he thinks. And I'm pretty
sure there was a land grab in that deal so all of his
motivations are suspect from the beginning.
You're going to have to do better than this, Robert, if you want to
weaken my resolve. Because that's what trash talk is supposed to do,
right? It's supposed to weaken your opponent's resolve to fight the
good fight? Robert hasn't even made a door ding in my resolve.

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Planes carrying the American paratroopers

Planes carrying the American paratroopers encounter a large cloudbank
off the coast of France, dispersing their number.

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Following the tradition established by

Following the tradition established by all the haus fraus who came
before me, I pretty much pick out all of the husband's dress clothes.
This is not to say the husband doesn't have good taste. He does. It's
just that most of the time he has better things to do than shop for
shirts and the like. Now, this is no easy task. The husband is an
entrepreneur: I can't go to Saks and slam down a charge card and buy
five grand worth of suits, ties, shirts and shoes on a whim---the
budget just doesn't allow for it. I must bargain hunt. To further
complicate the matter, given the clientele the husband hangs out
with/tries to attract, this means he must not only be dressed well,
he must be dressed better than ninety-percent of the men out there,
hence I must be choosy about the bargains I find. Thankfully this is a
task for which my mother trained me well. I resort to consignment
stores (best consignment store buy: one Canali suit, one Armani suit,
and one suit from a local chi-chi tailor---all in great condition, all
originally purchased for a man who, it seems, is the husband's body
double, and all for a piddly $267!). I go to "Off-Fifth" regularly to
see if they have anything good there. I shop online ($225 for black
100% cashmere topcoat at Jos. A. Banks.). I will go to the clearance
rack at Fields---or any other store---before I check out the regularly
priced stuff. I check out outlets when we're on the road, even though
they've gotten pricier over the years, occasionally you can find a good
buy. It was at this last option that I found the FIND OF THE CENTURY!
(Ahem. So far.)
The husband likes shirts with French Cuffs because he thinks they look
good. I like them as well, but for an entirely different reason: they
fit his arms. My mother, the professional seamstress, described him
this way: "he's built like a brick shithouse." This is not the most
charitable description but, unfortunately, it's also the one that works
the best. He's got shoulders like a tank, but his arms don't match:
they're short. For a while there, he had a 17" neck, which is im-freaking-possible
to find on a shirt that would also fit his 30" arms. He's whittled down
his neck over the years and now can fit into a 16", but it's still a
bitch trying to find sleeves that fit---they seem to think that all men
who have a 16" neck need 32" sleeves. Tailoring was never an option,
because it would have added $10 a shirt to the total cost. The
discovery of French Cuff shirts solved all of my problems. I can get
him a 16/32 with French Cuffs and it fits his arms perfectly. It's
wonderful...but you want to know what's even better?
These shirts.
Last year, I bought one of the French Cuff Non-Iron shirts (blue)at the
Brooks Brother's outlet in Destin. THEY'RE BRILLIANT! It comes out of
the dryer and it looks like it's been dry-cleaned. Honestly, it's the
first non-iron shirt that he's owned that didn't require even a little
bit of ironing! Muy fabulouso! They're reasonably priced---while
they're not the cheapest thing I've ever bought him, they're totally
worth it. I can pop that bad-boy right on the hanger and not have to
iron it! WOOHOO!
I love these shirts. If you're looking for a nice dress shirt that you
don't have to iron or dry clean, this is the shirt for you!

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More than one thousand planes

More than one thousand planes begin taking off from bases all over
southern England carrying paratroopers from the US 101st and 82nd
Airborne Divisions and the British 6th Airborne Division. Seventeen
thousand men all told. The flight to France will take a little over an
hour. The planes carrying the 101st and the 82nd Airborne Divisions
will take a southwesterly route over the English Channel. From there,
the planes will take a sharp turn to the southeast, bringing them into
their drop zones on the Cotenin Peninsula behind Omaha and Utah
beaches, where the amphibious landings will take place in six hours.
The British 6th Airborne division will follow a different flight plan.
Taking a southeasterly route over the Channel from their base, they
will be dropped near Caen, far away from the American paratroopers.

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Assault Routes for Operation Overlord

Assault Routes for Operation Overlord

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Paratrooper Climbing Into Plane

Paratrooper Climbing Into Plane

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I'm going to go all

I'm going to go all haus frau-ey for a minute and give you my Peanut
Butter Cookie recipie. Try not to drool all over the place, eh, Homer?
(Makes 4-5 dozen cookies)
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup packed brown sugar
1 cup peanut butter
1/2 cup shortening
1/2 cup margarine or butter
2 eggs
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder.
Mix sugars, peanut butter, shortening, margarine and eggs, until
blended. Then add flour, soda and powder. When it's all mixed, crack
open a beer, take the bowl off the mixer, cover it with saran wrap,
then rearrange the contents of the refridgerator so that you can find
space for the bowl. Place bowl in refridgerator.
Walk away.
Drink a few more beers, then when you're good and drunk (after about
three hours or so), preheat your oven to 375 degrees, and pull the bowl
o' dough out of the fridge. Take off the saran wrap and get a few
cookie sheets out of the cupboard. You don't need to grease them. Shape
the dough into 1 1/4 inch balls and place them about three inches apart
on the cookie sheet. Get a fork out of the silverware drawer and try
not to poke out your eye in the process. Squish each and every ball
twice---once one way, once another---to form a crisscross pattern. When
all the balls have been flattened, slam that bad-boy into your oven for
about nine to ten minutes. I shouldn't have to tell you what to do
next, but I will because I got you drunk and I generally feel pity for
drunk people so here's what you do: put about five paper towels on the
counter. Get a metal spatula and a hot pad. Take the cookies out of the
oven, MAKING SURE NOT TO BURN YOURSELF and, using the spatula, transfer
the cookies from the cookie sheet onto the paper towel for cooling.
As far as tips, well, I can't emphasize enough how important it is for
you to let the dough rest. The beer helps with this. Trust me. I know
you're impatient for the cookies, but you've got to let the dough take
a nap before you can bake it. Think of it this way: after your second
or third beer, you'll forget you have cookie dough in the fridge and
you'll be able to pleasantly surprise yourself. And honestly, who
doesn't like to surprise themselves with chilled cookie dough? No one
that I know. It's one of life's great pleasures. So, enjoy your cookies
and don't blame the hangover on me!

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Yeah, like this is going

Yeah, like this is going to work.

JIDDAH, Saudi Arabia - Saudi Arabia offered Islamic
militants a limited amnesty Wednesday, saying their lives would be
spared if they surrendered but they would face the "full might" of
state wrath if they did not. The ultimatum, issued in the name of King
Fahd, called on militants to turn themselves in within a month —
suggesting the kingdom was paving the way for a stepped up campaign
against al-Qaida-linked fighters who have shaken the country with a
series of deadly attacks. At the same time, the Saudi foreign minister
denounced calls by militant clergy for Saudis to travel to Iraq to join
insurgents battling the U.S. military and its Iraqi allies. Some have
said that at least one of the guerrillas who killed and beheaded a
South Korean hostage in Iraq this week may be Saudi, since the
guerrilla spoke Arabic in what seemed to be a Saudi dialect. The
ultimatum was read by Crown Prince Abdullah, the king's half brother
and the country's de facto ruler, using some of the fiercest language
yet against militants. Abdullah said the offer was open to anyone who
has not yet been "arrested for carrying out terrorist acts." "We are
opening the door of amnesty ... to everyone who deviated from the path
of right and committed a crime in the name of religion," the crown
prince said. "We swear by God that nothing will prevent us from striking with
our full might, which we derive from relying on God," Abdullah said.

{emphasis mine}
Let me see if I've got this straight. What we have here are two
separate groups of Muslims, each claiming that God supports their
cause. One doesn't like the other because they're a wee bit repressive
in what God allows their people to have, namely democracy. One says stop in the name of God
but the other doesn't believe they're a legitimate source for God's
works and deeds. They're not going to stop and they will probably have
a good laugh over this amnesty offer.
And all of this---on both sides---is all done in the name of Allah.
Got irony?

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Sunset.

Sunset.

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Go and read this. {Hat

Go and read this.

{Hat Tip: Vodkapundit)

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I just happened to check

I just happened to check the referral logs on this site and guess what?
As with Nick Berg's beheading, there seem to be an awful lot of people
who are looking for information on Paul Johnson's beheading. Why does
this happen? Why is it happening again?
I would have to say it's because the mainstream media isn't giving the
public the information they would like to have. So, they Google and
find other sources. I, for some unknown reason, seem to be a "source."
All of this, of course, is making the massive assumption that the
media, in its newscasts tonight, won't show the pictures of this
horrible act, choosing to err on the side of caution, but I don't know
if they will or won't. We'll have to see. One can make the argument
that they're biased as hell because they've been running 24/7 coverage
of Abu Ghraib abuse scandal, but they won't show beheading photos. I
tend toward this argument, but I don't run a national network, either,
and I don't know that I'd want to have to answer the phones after
airing beheading photos. I will say this much: they need to pick which
side of the fence they're going to stand on and show some consistency.
Either they show all
the visuals, no matter how gory, or they don't show any of them at all.
It's up to them and I would sincerely hope, if they truly realize that
if a picture is worth a thousand words, they will allot the same
word-length to each and every subject they cover when it comes to the
war. I know. I'm not holding my breath, either, and my sincerest
condolences go out to the Johnson family. I'm so sorry for your loss.
But as a source of information I will provide access to the pictures.
The information wants to be free; I'm just allowing for it. If you've
found your way here please read the following before hitting the links.
I'm assuming you have the best of intentions about wanting to see these
photos, meaning you're not searching them out because you're a sick
fuck who gets their jollies by watching innocent people be beheaded for
no good reason whatsoever. If you are a sick fuck, SEEK HELP NOW. I'll
also give you the warning that, of course, these photos ARE GRAPHIC. Be prepared. They made me want to throw up. I'm assuming you'll have the same reaction.

UPDATE The husband has taken care of matters. Go here, here, here and here.

You can also find them at Drudge if you so choose.

UPDATE II: Michele thinks any blogger who's linking/hosting these photos is traffic seeking whore and a "snuff vendor." She says:

There is no reason to post these pictures or host them.
Wasn't Nick Berg enough? I almost understood then, that people needed
to see the capability of evil. Great, we saw it then. It's no different
now. I cannot fathom any reason for hosting these pictures except for
the rise in stats. It is ghoulish. What difference will a picture of
another dead American do? What purpose does it serve? None that I can
see.
From Drudge on down, you all are all snuff vendors. Enough already

I respectfully disagree. And I'm having a hard time keeping it
respectful, but I will do so because I do respect Michele's opinion. I
just happen to think she's wrong. I'm not looking for extra
traffic---these people are finding me.
Not the other way around. Anyone who knows me knows I want this blog to
be read for its content, not because I sent out a pack of
self-promoting emails to big dog bloggers and produced an avalanche of
links. Those readers will pretty much all disappear the minute the big
dog stopped paying attention. That's no way to get your message across.
I've been blogging for almost a year now, and I've built my readership
up to almost fifty people a day. Fifty. That ain't much
compared to Michele's ten thousand hits per day. She's been at this
longer. I love A Small Victory. I think it's a great blog and Michele
is truly a talented writer, but ten thousand hits per day doesn't
automatically make her right, either. People find their way here via
the search engines and my referral logs tell me they're looking to the
blogosphere for what the mainstream media isn't giving them. Who,
exactly, are we as bloggers if we pull the same shit the media does,
and back away because we find it distasteful or that we think it's
overkill and might turn people against the war? That makes us just as
bad as the mainstream media as far as wanting to manipulate people's
views by selectively editing what content we think they should have.
The information wants to be free. I'm simply allowing for access to it.
That's it. I'm not forcing anyone to go and look at them. If they
choose to, however, they should be able to find them. And if that makes
me a "whore" and a "snuff vendor" so be it.

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Rommel returns to his headquarters

Rommel returns to his headquarters from his visit to Germany.

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