France Honors U.S. Navy For D-Day Heroics

American Sailors, French Well-Wishers And Several Veterans Present For Monument Inauguration

(AP)  The U.S. Navy was honored Saturday for its key role in the massive amphibious wartime invasion that helped propel the Allies to victory in World War II.

Hundreds of uniformed American sailors and French well-wishers - as well as a few Navy veterans of the war - joined U.S. and French officials on Utah Beach for the inauguration of Normandy's first monument honoring the sacrifices of U.S. sailors in the conflict against Nazi Germany.

Utah was one of five landing beaches code-named for the invasion.

The U.S. Navy Monument at Normandy features a 12-foot bronze statue of a Navy captain and two sailors overlooking the beach - where a 5,000-vessel armada landed on June 4, 1944, and unleashed some 156,000 soldiers, mostly Americans, British and Canadians, in a massive assault known as D-Day.

The statue, with the figures crouching or standing around one another, is meant to portray three phases of the landings: the planning, the launch and the follow-up. One figure holds a mortar shell like those fired during the invasion.

The statue was a project of the Naval Order of the United States, and was designed by Stephen Spears of Fair Hope, Alabama, according to Eric Beaty, an official with the U.S. consulate in the western French city of Rennes.

Until the ceremony, the Navy had been the only U.S. military service not recognized by a memorial in Normandy, according to a Web site set up by the Naval Order about the monument.

Casualty estimates for the Allied forces on D-Day vary, but range from 2,500 to more than 5,000 dead.

A total of 1,068 U.S. sailors died in Normandy or off its shores between June 6 and 10, 1944, Beaty said. Among their main roles were to carry ashore or give cover to the Allied troops storming the beaches.

[caliengineer]

As in the months preceding World War I & WWII, all the nations are choosing sides. I believe France will side with us.
However, England and Germany will "stay out" while Russia, China, Japan, and Cuba (et al) attack and occupy America.

[irconcerned]

Apparently, the spirit of what was sacrificed is not even remotely appreciated or even conceivable here. I only wish you could understand the difference between what we have now and what we MAY have experienced had these patriots not giving everything they did. Keep your head in the game!!!!

[irconcerned]

I''m obviously not a military analyst and I could certainly be reading this wrong, but are you insinuating an agenda with our Navy''s actions? The reason I ask is because these comments don''t have much to do with the facts in the article.

[tapsettle]

Those were the days, when americans were the good guys ... you know, before they became famous for launching oil wars, slaughtering hundreds of thousands of innocents, renditions, torture etc etc. Those brave american souls from D-Day must be turning in their graves at what america has become today.

[farmerbb]

It is often forgotten that WW I ran from 1914 to 1918, yet the U.S. only entered in 1917, and that WW II ran from 1939 to 1945, yet the U.S. entered only in late 1941, over two years later. Sure, Dec/1941 was when the U.S. was attacked, but other countries joined even when they had not been attacked. Contrast that to the various military actions taken by the U.S. since 1945.

[excoachken]

To surinbaseball: Having been to Normandy, Caen, Oradour, Caretan, Graines, St. Lo, and many other battle sites as well as having studied the French Resistance heros like Jean Moulin, I can assure you and other foolish Americans that the French have always been thankful for our help in WW II. They always respect good and honorable leaders but are smart enough to recognize a cowardly fool like Bush and reject him. By the way, maybe it is time that we erect a statue to Lafayette, since without his help and thousands of "French" troops, we would have never attained our own independance!

[logicnothuff]

Hey tapsettle, too bad there are no facts to support your hysterical claims.

In Iraq, the Iraqi''s get to keep all the oil, therefore, it is NOT an oil war. The reason Iraq was invaded is because Saddam Hussein was trying to buy uranium from Nigeria (fact!) and wouldn''t allow inspections. Saddam Hussein would not heed the provisions of the 1991 Gulf War peace treaty. Oh, and by the way, the reason for the weak intelligence was Clinton administration budget cuts (DEMOCRAT) and Senator Frank Church''s legislation (DEMOCRAT) of the 1970''s which crippled American intelligence. Check the facts!

[mygramma]

Interesting. Now we have censorship on this site. I posted earlier that any junior high dropout knows it was June 6, 1944, not June 4. In any case, this monument is long, long overdue. There should be a monument to the thousands of British and American soldiers who died on those beaches that bloody day.

[andrew_693]

Hey tapsettle, too bad there are no facts to support your hysterical claims.

In Iraq, the Iraqi''''s get to keep all the oil, therefore, it is NOT an oil war. The reason Iraq was invaded is because Saddam Hussein was trying to buy uranium from Nigeria (fact!) and wouldn''''t allow inspections. Saddam Hussein would not heed the provisions of the 1991 Gulf War peace treaty. Oh, and by the way, the reason for the weak intelligence was Clinton administration budget cuts (DEMOCRAT) and Senator Frank Church''''s legislation (DEMOCRAT) of the 1970''''s which crippled American intelligence. Check the facts!

Posted by LogicNotHuff at 05:58 PM : Sep 28, 2008



Bush already told you to your face that those suspicions were not true and a mistake, why don''t you do some follow up on your "facts". He also already said there were no weapons of mass destruction, you must have been living in a cave too long with your friend Osama, you are a couple of years behind on your information.

[andrew_693]

I wonder when the US will thank France for doing a large part of the fighting against the British during the independence war, without france and spain there wouldn''t be a united states, don''t forget to thank them for the statue of liberty also.