****Your EXCLUSIVE Miss Universe wrap-up below****
Sports Quiz: What family is the only one to have 4 generations
in American professional sports? Answer below.
D-Day
General Dwight D. Eisenhower’s Order of the Day, June 6, 1944
Soldiers, Sailors, and Airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Force!
You are about to embark upon the Great Crusade, toward which
we have striven these many months. The eyes of the world are
upon you. The hope and prayers of liberty-loving people
everywhere march with you. In company with our brave Allies
and brothers-in-arms on other Fronts, you will bring about the
destruction of the German war machine, the elimination of Nazi
tyranny over the oppressed peoples of Europe, and security for
ourselves in a free world.
Your task will not be an easy one. Your enemy is well trained,
well equipped and battle-hardened. He will fight savagely.
But this is the year 1944! Much has happened since the Nazi
triumphs of 1940-41. The United Nations have inflicted upon
the Germans great defeats, in open battle, man-to-man. Our air
offensive has seriously reduced their strength in the air and their
capacity to wage war on the ground. Our Home Fronts have
given us an overwhelming superiority in weapons and munitions
of war, and placed at our disposal great reserves of trained
fighting men. The tide has turned! The free men of the world
are marching together to Victory!
I have full confidence in your courage, devotion to duty and skill
in battle. We will accept nothing less than full Victory!
Good luck! And let us beseech the blessing of Almighty God
upon this great and noble undertaking.
—
The first folks on the ground for D-Day were paratroopers, who
landed behind enemy lines shortly after midnight. The infantry
then landed on the beaches at dawn.
With the time difference, this meant that most Americans were
asleep when word first reached the news stations. NBC in New
York was broadcasting accordion and guitar music when at 12:41
a.m., eastern standard time, the program was interrupted by a
special bulletin NBC had picked up from monitoring short-wave
radio from London, credited to the German Transocean News
Agency, reporting that the invasion had begun. The announcer
said, however, there was no official confirmation and resumed
regular programming. The New York Times was able to squeeze
a headline into its next edition, which reached the sidewalks at
1:30 a.m.
[Those listening heard hours before Hitler himself did, because
his staff was afraid to wake him with the bad news.]
At 2:00 a.m., all the major networks called their news reporters
and commentators to their microphones and read the AP bulletin
crediting the German source. Finally, at 3:32 a.m., anyone still
listening heard the voice of Colonel Ernest Dupuy, General
Eisenhower’s press aide, confirm the early reports:
“Under the command of General Eisenhower, Allied naval
forces, supported by strong air forces, began landing Allied
armies this morning on the northern coast of France.”
That was it. As James Tobin writes, “Gradually Americans
awakened to the news. For their grandchildren and great-
grandchildren living in the era of twenty-four hour live television
coverage of great events, a leap of the imagination is required to
understand the extent of Americans’ ignorance that morning.
They were told only that the invasion of Western Europe had
begun, nothing more. No images of invasion beaches flashed on
television screens. Radio carried no reports from the scene.
People didn’t even know precisely where that scene was; the
Allies censored the exact location of the landings to comply with
elaborate efforts to protect the troops as long as possible….
There was no report of casualties for several weeks. Place names
that would later toll like foghorns in the American memory –
Utah Beach, Pointe du Hoc, Omaha Beach – went unspoken…
“D-Day was a day of noise in America: car horns honking,
church bells pealing, factory and train whistles shrieking,
headlines screaming ‘INVASION!’ But there was very little
more news.”
Radio announcers kept repeating the same old bulletins.
Reporters with Reuters on ships off the Normandy coast sent a
few words via carrier pigeon. It wasn’t until around midnight,
eastern time, that the first ‘sort of’ on-the-scene report by George
Hicks, a correspondent for ABC, came in, though he was also on
a cruiser off the coast.
In fact newspapers didn’t deliver much for a whole week. All
word came from official communiqués from Eisenhower’s
Supreme Headquarters, or from other officials in London. Those
reports that did emerge were filled with hyperbole. The June 7
edition of the New York Times reported “the greatest airborne
force ever launched,” “the greatest air and sea bombardment of
history,” “the greatest mine-sweeping operation in history,” and
“the greatest military venture of all time.” But no one writing
this had seen anything. As James Tobin notes:
“In short, reading newspaper accounts of Normandy…was like
reading an account of a football game written by a sportswriter
sitting outside the stadium who derives his only knowledge of
the game from the hurried accounts of one team’s assistant coach
who runs out after each quarter to give brief and self-serving
updates. It was barely better than nothing.”
But to be fair, even if reporters had been on the beach the first
day, the sheer scope of what was happening would have
overwhelmed them. It defied description.
The great Ernie Pyle went ashore on June 7 at Omaha Beach, but
his options were limited and he really didn’t understand what
was going on, as he told his readers:
“Indeed it will be some time before we have a really clear picture
of what has happened or what is happening at the moment. You
must experience the terrible confusion of warfare and the frantic
nightmarish thunder and smoke and bedlam of battle to realize
this.”
Leonard Mosley, a British writer, was one of the few who got
anything off on June 6, yet this was all he could manage:
“There is a helluva battle going on here as I write and bullets and
mortar bombs, not to mention a couple of snipers, are producing
conditions in my vicinity not conducive to consecutive thinking.”
Finally, once things calmed down a bit, Ernie Pyle was able to
address readers’ fears more directly. Yes, he had seen “the
bodies of soldiers lying in rows…and other bodies, uncollected,
still sprawling grotesquely in the sand or half hidden by the high
grass…” But he also reassured everyone that casualties had been
lower than expected, adding “these units that were so battered
and went through such hell are still, right at this moment,
pushing on inland without rest, their spirits high, their egotism in
victory almost reaching the smart-alecky stage,” driven by “the
spirit that wins battles and eventually wars.”
As James Tobin concludes, “This was Pyle the patriot. Doing his
part as he saw it for the invasion, he steered public opinion along
the path between complacency and defeatism….Be grateful, not
despairing. Be confident but not overconfident. Everyone at
home got the point.”
[Sources: “We Interrupt This Broadcast,” by Joe Garner; “Ernie
Pyle’s War,” by James Tobin]
—
President Ronald Reagan, Address on the 40th Anniversary of D-
Day at Omaha Beach, June 6, 1984.
We stand today at a place of battle, one that 40 years ago saw
and felt the worst of war. Men bled and died here for a few feet
of – or inches of sand, as bullets and shellfire cut through their
ranks. About them, General Omar Bradley later said, “Every
man who set foot on Omaha Beach that day was a hero.”
Some who survived the battle of June 6, 1944, are here today.
Others who hoped to return never did.
“Someday, Lis, I’ll go back,” said Private First Class Peter
Robert Zannata, of the 37th Engineer Combat Battalion, and first
assault wave to hit Omaha Beach. “I’ll go back, and I’ll see it all
again. I’ll see the beach, the barricades, and the graves.”
Those words of Private Zannatta come to us from his daughter,
Lisa Zannatta Henn, in a heart-rending story about the event her
father spoke of so often. “In his words, the Normandy invasion
would change his life forever,” she said. She tells some of his
stories of World War II but says of her father, “the story to end
all stories was D-Day.”
“He made me feel the fear of being on the boat waiting to land. I
can smell the ocean and feel the sea sickness. I can see the looks
on his fellow soldiers’ faces – the fear, the anguish, the
uncertainty of what lay ahead. And when they landed, I can feel
the strength and courage of the men who took those first steps
through the tide to what must have surely looked like instant
death.”
Private Zannata’s daughter wrote to me, “I don’t know how or
why I can feel this emptiness, this fear, or this determination, but
I do. Maybe it’s the bond I had with my father. All I know is
that it brings tears to my eyes to think about my father as a 20-
year-old boy having to face that beach.”
The anniversary of D-Day was always special to her family.
And like all the families of those who went to war, she describes
how she came to realize her own father’s survival was a miracle:
“So many men died. I know that my father watched many of his
friends be killed. I know that he must have died inside a little
each time. But his explanation to me was, ‘You did what you
had to do, and you kept on going.’”
Normandy 40 years ago they came not as conquerors, but as
liberators. When these troops swept across the French
countryside and into the forests of Belgium and Luxembourg
they came not to take, but to return what had been wrongfully
seized. When our forces marched into Germany they came not
to prey on a brave and defeated people, but to nurture the seeds
of democracy among those who yearned to be free again…
Today, in their memory, and for all who fought here, we
celebrate the triumph of democracy. We reaffirm the unity of
democratic people who fought a war and then joined with the
vanquished in a firm resolve to keep the peace.
From a terrible war we learned that unity made us invincible;
now, in peace, that same unity makes us secure. We sought to
bring all freedom-loving nations together in a community
dedicated to the defense and preservation of our sacred values.
Our alliance, forged in the crucible of war, tempered and shaped
by the realities of the post-war world, has succeeded. In Europe,
the threat has been contained, the peace has been kept.
Today, the living here assembled – officials, veterans, citizens –
are a tribute to what was achieved here 40 years ago. This land
is secure. We are free. These things are worth fighting and
dying for.
Lisa Zannata Henn began her story by quoting her father, who
promised that he would return to Normandy. She ended with a
promise to her father, who died 8 years ago of cancer: “I’m
going there, Dad, and I’ll see the beaches and the barricades and
the monuments. I’ll see the graves, and I’ll put flowers there just
like you wanted to do. I’ll never forget what you went through,
Dad, nor will I let any one else forget. And, Dad, I’ll always be
proud.”
Through the worlds of his loving daughter, who is here with us
today, a D-Day veteran has shown us the meaning of this day far
better than any president can. It is enough to say about Private
Zannata and all the men of honor and courage who fought beside
him four decades ago: We will always remember. We will
always be proud. We will always be prepared, so we may
always be free.
—
President Reagan, Pointe du Hoc, Normandy, June 6, 1984.
We’re here to mark that day in history when the Allied peoples
joined in battle to reclaim this continent to liberty. For four long
years, much of Europe had been under a terrible shadow. Free
nations had fallen, Jews cried out in the camps, millions cried out
for liberation. Europe was enslaved, and the world prayed for its
rescue. Here in Normandy the rescue began. Here the Allies
stood and fought against tyranny in a giant undertaking
unparalleled in human history.
We stand on a lonely, windswept point on the northern shore of
France. The air is soft, but forty years ago at this moment, the air
was dense with smoke and the cries of men, and the air was filled
with the crack of rifle fire and the roar of cannon. At dawn, on
the morning of the 6th of June 1944, 225 Rangers jumped off the
British landing craft and ran to the bottom of these cliffs. Their
mission was one of the most difficult and daring of the invasion:
to climb these sheer and desolate cliffs and take out the enemy
guns. The Allies had been told that some of the mightiest of
these guns were here and they would be trained on the beaches to
stop the Allied advance.
The Rangers looked up and saw the enemy soldiers – at the edge
of the cliffs shooting down at them with machine-guns and
throwing grenades. And the American Rangers began to climb.
They shot rope ladders over the face of these cliffs and began to
pull themselves up. When one Ranger fell, another would take
his place. When one rope was cut, a Ranger would grab another
and begin his climb again. They climbed, shot back, and held
their footing. Soon, one by one, the Rangers pulled themselves
over the top, and in seizing the firm land at the top of these cliffs,
they began to seize back the continent of Europe. Two hundred
and twenty-five came here. After two days of fighting only
ninety could still bear arms.
Behind me is a memorial that symbolizes the Ranger daggers
that were thrust into the top of these cliffs. And before me are
the men who put them there.
These are the boys of Pointe du Hoc. These are the men who
took the cliffs. These are the champions who helped free a
continent. These are the heroes who helped end a war.
Gentlemen, I look at you and I think of the words of Stephen
Spender’s poem. You are men who in your “lives fought for
life…and left the vivid air singed with your honor…”
Forty summers have passed since the battle that you fought here.
You were young the day you took these cliffs; some of you were
hardly more than boys, with the deepest joys of life before you.
Yet you risked everything here. Why? Why did you do it?
What impelled you to put aside the instinct for self-preservation
and risk your lives to take these cliffs? What inspired all the men
of the armies that met here? We look at you, and somehow we
know the answer. It was faith, and belief; it was loyalty and
love.
The men of Normandy had faith that what they were doing was
right, faith that they fought for all humanity, faith that a just God
would grant them mercy on this beachhead or on the next. It was
the deep knowledge – and pray God we have not lost it – that
there is a profound moral difference between the use of force for
liberation and the use of force for conquest. You were here to
liberate, not to conquer, and so you and those others did not
doubt your cause. And you were right not to doubt.
You all knew that some things are worth dying for. One’s
country is worth dying for, and democracy is worth dying for,
because it’s the most deeply honorable form of government ever
devised by man. All of you loved liberty. All of you were
willing to fight tyranny, and you knew the people of your
countries were behind you.
—
D-Day Tidbits
— #1 song June 6, 1944… “I’ll Get By (As Long As I Have
You)” / Harry James Orchestra with Dick Haymes
— As most of you know, all paratroopers on D-Day were issued a
child’s toy; a small, simple metal ‘cricket’ that made a one-two
snapping sound. They allowed soldiers to locate each other in
the dark. Once contact was made, the password for recognition
was the call-and-response “Thunder…lightning.”
Major General Maxwell Taylor was the leader of the 101st
Airborne Division. He landed safely and began to use his
cricket.
“The first man I met in the darkness I thought was a German
until he cricketed. He was the most beautiful soldier I’d ever
seen, before or since. We threw our arms around each other, and
from that moment I knew we had won the war.”
—
Miss Universe
Switching gears, because we do that frequently here at Bar Chat,
I’ve decided this beauty pageant is one of the more entertaining
two hours of the television season. Nothing like 80 gorgeous
babes gracing the screen, I always say.
So on Tuesday we had this year’s contest, live from Quito,
Ecuador. As we’ve come to expect with Miss Universe, the
production quality of the show is absolutely horrid….
microphones that don’t work, video tape that gets stuck in a loop,
things of that sort. But who cares?!
OK…we start out with the all too quick introduction of the 80
contestants. I’m frantically jotting down those who stand out and
come up with a list of 15 that I feel should make the first cut.
Australia, Austria, Chile, China, Germany, India, Lebanon,
Netherlands, Paraguay, Peru, Singapore, Ukraine, Uruguay,
USA, Vietnam.
And my top five were…
1. India
2. China
3. Chile
4. Singapore
5. Vietnam
But the ‘official’ first cut for the top 15 was…
Angola, Australia, Chile, Colombia (misspelled ‘Columbia’ a
few times during the evening…how freakin’ embarrassing is
that?), Costa Rica, Ecuador, India, Jamaica (if you weren’t
watching…this gal was white), Mexico, Norway, Paraguay,
Puerto Rico, Switzerland (she looked Pakistani…not that there is
anything wrong with that), Trinidad / Tobago, USA.
All of them were ‘10s’…but upon having a second look as they
were called up, I gave a 10.2 to Mexico, a 10.3 to USA, a 10.4 to
both Jamaica and Colombia, a 10.6 to Paraguay, 10.7 to Trinidad
/ Tobago and 10.9s to both India and Australia.
Yes, it was now that I realized Miss Australia had a Helen Hunt
thing going, and being a huge Helen Hunt fan this went far with
yours truly.
[She also reminded me of the great looking wife of one of my
best friends, but we won’t tell Gregg that………..doh!]
But as you can see from a comparison of my initial list and the
official 15, my Asian picks (ex-India) were shut out. I screamed
at the television… “[This isn’t fair!]”
Oh well, after checking in on the Mets – Phillies game during the
commercial break, I chose to forget the past and focus on the
future. It was evening gown time, after all, and my new five
favorites – Australia, Jamaica, India, Paraguay, and Trinidad /
Tobago – were stunning. In fact Miss Australia was beyond
stunning and I elevated her to a 16.5! [This was the first score
above ‘10.9’ ever awarded by the editor.] My Fab Five then
advanced to the final 10…
Australia, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, India, Jamaica,
Paraguay, Puerto Rico, Trinidad / Tobago, USA.
[Miss USA was spectacular in her own right, but I was trying to
be as objective as possible and not a ‘homer.’]
Now we go to the swimsuit competition to winnow it down to
the last five. They all looked like champs, if you catch my drift.
And so the finalists were…
Australia (yes!), Paraguay, Puerto Rico, Trinidad / Tobago, USA
Then the girls were asked a question, chosen by the contestants
themselves. So Miss Australia’s was, “In what time period
would you have liked to be born and what sex?” Well, I’m
thinking, gee, I hope she doesn’t say “I wish I was born a man in
the 1400s.” That would have been a deal breaker, know what
I’m sayin’? No, instead she said she wanted to be born a woman
and live in today’s world. Phew, I thought. That’s good enough
for me.
And now the judges’ final decision.
………………………………..The 4th runner-up is Trinidad /
Tobago…….the 3rd – Paraguay……the 2nd – Puerto Rico…….
the 1st…….Miss USA………….and the new Miss Universe is
……………………………..MISS AUSTRALIA!!!! Oi Oi Oi!
Unfortunately, there wasn’t any Foster’s in my fridge, but I’ll
toast her achievement this weekend.
Congratulations to all the ladies. If any of them want to be a
spokesperson for StocksandNews, I’d be delighted.
Stuff
–Greg Raymer, a patent attorney at Pfizer, won the World Series
of Poker title and $5 million, besting a field of about 2,600
entrants in the process. But Raymer sold 60 shares at $500
apiece to help bankroll big tournaments so he will only receive
about half the prize money, having to split the rest among his
backers.
Which means that the real winner is the 2nd place finisher, a 23-
year-old college student from Dallas. This fellow won $3.5
million, and as far as I know he wasn’t splitting it with anyone.
–Smarty Jones is the 10th horse since Affirmed in 1978 to have
won the 1st two legs of the Triple Crown. Of course none of the
other 9 won the Belmont, with 3 finishing second, including Real
Quiet which lost out on the big prize by a nose in 1998.
–Oh yeah, I want to watch NBA playoff games in the 60s.
Gerald, good luck with your Pistons.
Top 3 songs for the week of 6/1/68: #1 “Mrs. Robinson” (Simon
& Garfunkel) #2 “The Good, The Bad And The Ugly” (Hugo
Montenegro) #3 “A Beautiful Morning” (The Rascals)
Sports Quiz Answer: The Petty Family of NASCAR is the only
one to have 4 generations in American professional sports. Lee
(1914-2000), Richard (1937-present), Kyle (1960-present),
Adam (1980-2000…killed in practice at Nashua, New
Hampshire)
Next Bar Chat, Tuesday.
