D-Day 75: The Writing

We very deliberately re-created the Normandy Invasion in World War 1990: Polish Storm.

Advancing north into Poland are three army corps, the American VII and XI Corps and Commonwealth Corps of three British and one Canadian division.

We flirted with the idea of turning Schwarzkopf's Army of the Danube into a 20th century version of Sherman's Army of the Tennessee, singing Glory, Glory Hallelujah as they liberated the Poles. But doing so risked purple prose and ultimately seemed out of place.  Sherman's men were on an existential crusade to save the Union.

So we conveyed the grandness of the thing by making the liberation of Poland a job for the English speaking peoples. The French are off in the southeast corner about Krakow, but the main action is in the center, fought by the same peoples who landed in Normandy 75 years ago today.

D-Day-75: We speak English

All the bad, rotten, horrid, no good ideas of the 20th century were birthed in the solons of Europe.

They were all vanquished by the inventors of the Magna Carta, Parliamentary Democracy, the Bill of Rights and capitalism. 

Three armies landed at Normandy, British, Canadian and American. They all spoke English. In the rods of Churchill, these were The Great Democracies.

This blog remains in awe of the European and his grand ideas about internationalism and the European super-state. 

Big idea, isn't it?

How did your other big ideas work out?

D-Day 75, Almost Impossible to Beleive

This week, the 75th Anniversary of the Normandy Invasion, the most complex event in human history.

Think about it, the United States, Britain and Canada exerted unprecedent herculean effort to move a couple of hundred thousand men seventy five miles in twelve hours.

It took the combined resources of two great empires to do it. 

And they pulled it off, too.

Here's the best clip from The Longest Day, Rod Steiger captures the moment.

It give me goose pimples just to think about it.

Da-da-da-daaaaaa