Day of Days: June 6, 1944

I've read a lot about D-Day. I've seen several other documentaries, as well as The Longest Day. What made an impression on me with this movie was all the footage devoted to interviews with men who participated in the D-Day landing. Not generals and others who floated safely off shore, but soldiers who landed or were dropped on or behind the beaches.

There is no bombast. There are no glorious speeches full of hollow rhetoric. There are only very real, very vivid memories of how scared those men were, often how lost and lonely they felt, but also how determined they were not to disgrace their comrades or their unit. (More than one historian has observed that in World War II our men, at least in Europe, were not fighting to save democracy or make the world a better place. They were fighting to stay alive, and to keep their immediate buddies alive.)

All of these men, without exception, say that they did not see themselves as heroes.

If D-Day already interests you, you're unlikely to learn any new facts about it from this movie.

You will, however, gain a much deeper knowledge of what it was like to be there. It is a deeply moving experience.