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75th Anniversary of the D Day landings

Where was the US Army base?
In was on the Pheasey Estate see
and soldiers from the base
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Told my G/son when I was 5 one day looked up in the sky and saw loads and loads of planes in the sky.Was this the start of D Day would love to know.Why was I not at school ,was it a weekend.Would anyone know when D Day was in 1944
It was a Tuesday ....:)
 
I have talked about this before there was a US Army base around Fillongley off the Cov Rd before Meriden I use to ride my bike there and the Yanks very friendy
 
One of my aunts was lucky, she managed to get aboard the last ferry boat back to England. Her Norman home town was devastated during the 1944 invasion and she did not want to go back there to see it after the war had finished. As the invasion got under way her father managed to get everyone in the town out onto the surrounding hillsides and they made markers for the RAF aircrews so that they would not be bombed or attacked. It worked.
 
One of my aunts was lucky, she managed to get aboard the last ferry boat back to England. Her Norman home town was devastated during the 1944 invasion and she did not want to go back there to see it after the war had finished. As the invasion got under way her father managed to get everyone in the town out onto the surrounding hillsides and they made markers for the RAF aircrews so that they would not be bombed or attacked. It worked.
I presume that the last ferry was around 1940 when the Nazis conquered France and before the D-day invasion by Allied troops. I can understand her reluctance to return to a war devastated home and I hope that her father was duly recognised for his heroic actions both by the British and French authorities.
 
Yes, I should have mentioned The Fall of France. Her father was acknowledged and as far as I know was M. Le Maire for a while.
 
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I’ve just looked at them, brilliant and amazing how they do it so well. Being ‘hi-res’ originals always helps.
:)
 
So i am here at the desk then on the news comes a story about the first American on the beach D Day, it turns out he lived local to me, the tv station here had interviewed him in the past but he still had the boots he was wearing he left us a couple of years ago but from the Smithsonian on down every museum wants this guys boots
 
Southwick House just outside Portsmouth in what was once HMS Dryad. It is where the planning for the D-Day landings was carried out. In one of the rooms is a very large map of the Normandy Coast where the landings took place.
The map was made by a Birmingham company called Chad Valley Toys, and was made like a jigsaw, it was made to cover coastline from Spain to Norway.
Two blokes came to Southwick House from the company to assemble that jigsaw style map, and once it was up they commented 'So you are invading Normandy then'......
They were then told 'Yes......and you're going to jail'....
With secrecy being paramount, they were jailed from April until September...
I wonder if they were paid overtime....
 
Told my G/son when I was 5 one day looked up in the sky and saw loads and loads of planes in the sky.Was this the start of D Day would love to know.Why was I not at school ,was it a weekend.Would anyone know when D Day was in 1944
The 6th june 1944 was a Tuesday Edifi maybe you were home sick from school. It would have been a sight to see the sky full of planes.
Wendy
 
That might be the reason Wendy.But remember my father brining me out of the house to see them but don't think he knew why.Strange how we remember certain things from childhood.The next thing is V J night bonfires
 
I know its the Daily Mail and you can read their article only if you want to. It probably did not 'spark outrage' just disappointment.
The gist of the story in the Daily Mail is that the Royal Mail apparently used this photo to produce a commemorative stamp

14489308-7115081-image-a-11_1559895061247.jpg

They removed a brave soldier in the foreground and produced this first class stamp
14489310-7115081-image-a-1_1559891780553.jpg
The lady who's father was removed from the photo was upset ...
A spokesman for the Royal Mail said: 'Unfortunately, due to the limited space available on a stamp it is sometimes necessary to crop an original image. 'We appreciate that this is a disappointment to the family of the soldier in the foreground of this original photograph but wish to assure them that no offence was intended.'

In about 15 minutes I produced this and if I took more time I could do better
UU14489310-7115081-image-a-1_1559891780553.jpg
 
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I know its the Daily Mail and you can read their article only if you want to. It probably did not 'spark outrage' just disappointment.
The gist of the story is the Royal Mail apparently used this photo to produce a commemorative stamp

View attachment 134831

They removed a brave soldier in the foreground and produced this first class stamp
View attachment 134832
The lady who's father was removed from the photo was upset ...
A spokesman for the Royal Mail said: 'Unfortunately, due to the limited space available on a stamp it is sometimes necessary to crop an original image. 'We appreciate that this is a disappointment to the family of the soldier in the foreground of this original photograph but wish to assure them that no offence was intended.'

In about 15 minutes I produced this and if I took more time I could do better
View attachment 134833

There must have been several involved and it seems none were able to reduce it to fit. Shame!
 
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There must have been several involved and it seems none were able to reduce it to fit. Shame!
Apparently the Royal Mail had to withdraw another D-Day stamp design after historians spotted that the image chosen showed US troops landing in what was Dutch New Guinea, nearly 8,500 miles from France.

Captioned 'Allied soldiers and medics wade ashore', it was said to depict the Normandy landings but was actually taken in what is modern-day Indonesia.
 
And as Ronnie Scott recounted in a biography written before his death, those musicians of the AAF Band were a great inspiration to the UK's budding jazz musicians, at that time working in the bands in clubs in the West End, eg. Tito Burns & Oscar Rabin.

Maurice
 
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