BGuthrie Photos: DC -- Natl Museum of American History -- Exhibit: 75th Anniversary of D-Day

DC -- Natl Museum of American History -- Exhibit: 75th Anniversary of D-Day:

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Description of Pictures: 75th Anniversary of D-Day
June 6, 2019 – TBD
To mark the 75th anniversary of D-Day, the museum displays objects from our World War II collections. Featured objects include a rare and authentic marble grave marker of the type used in the Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial in Colleville-sur-Mer, France; one of two existing grappling hooks use by Army Rangers at Point du Hoc in Normandy; identification tags; photographs; a canteen; and spent .50-caliber machine gun casings recovered from Utah Beach. The display documents the tremendous human cost of D-Day and tells the story of this first invasion of the Battle of Normandy which ultimately liberated Western Europe from Nazi control.

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[1] DDAY_190624_001.JPG Medium (Email) (Bigger?)	[2] DDAY_190624_011.JPG Medium (Email) (Bigger?)	[3] DDAY_190624_012.JPG Medium (Email) (Bigger?)
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Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
1. DDAY_190624_001.JPG: The night before D-Day, Supreme Allied Commander Dwight D. Eisenhower rallied his troops. Private Howard I. Moorefield received a printed copy of Eisenhower's message, folded it up, and tucked it away. His copy, now in the museum's collections, is shown enlarged here.
2. DDAY_190624_011.JPG: Eisenhower speaking to U.S. paratroopers as they prepare for the D-Day invasion, June 5, 1944
3. DDAY_190624_019.JPG: D-Day June 6, 1944 The landings on the coast of Normandy, France, during World War II -- the largest seaborne invasion in human history -- were the beginning of the Allied assault on Hitler's "Fortress Europe." On June 6, 1944, everyday Americans joined with British and Canadian troops to achieve their mutual objective: get ashore, stay ashore, and break through the enemy's coastal defenses.
4. DDAY_190624_020.JPG: Pointe du Hoc Army Rangers were assigned the task of taking out a German artillery battery on Pointe du Hoc, a promontory that stood between -- and threatened -- American landing zones on Omaha and Utah beaches. Scaling 100-foot cliffs using grappling hooks and ropes, they took heavy losses, but destroyed the guns.
5. DDAY_190624_028.JPG: Two kinds of people are staying on this beach: those who are dead and those who are going to die. Now let's get the hell out of here. -- Col. George A. Taylor on Omaha Beach, June 6, 1944 Omaha Beach No invasion beach suffered heavier casualties than "Bloody Omaha." Americans landing there faced relentless machine gun and artillery fire from fortified German positions high atop coastal cliffs. Shelling by Allied ships blunted German counterattacks, but it was makeshift bands of surviving soldiers who took out the enemy's positions and broke through Hitler's western defenses.
6. DDAY_190624_031.JPG: Dog tags and a good luck coin worn by Walter M. Weberbauer, who was aboard the attack transport Samuel Chase, 1944
7. DDAY_190624_035.JPG: Gene Watkins scratched "Omaha Beach D+31" on his canteen when he landed there a month after D-Day, 1944
8. DDAY_190624_043.JPG: Spent American .50-caliber machine gun casings recovered from the coastal dunes at Utah Beach, 1944 (excavated, 2010)
9. DDAY_190624_045.JPG: Moved in very fast, every house + tree loaded with men, they fire on you from all directions... Will get on to them soon then they will catch hell. -- Lt. Sidney J. Montz, who landed on Utah Beach, in his diary, June 6, 1944 Utah Beach More than 20,000 Americans landed on Utah Beach. Another 10,000 parachuted into the fields and villages beyond. Their goal was to secure the nearby port of Cherbourg, soon to become a major port of entry for millions of Allied troops and tons of war materiel.
10. DDAY_190624_067.JPG: D-Day June 6, 1944 D-Day was a massive assault on German-occupied France carefully planned by the Allies to penetrate the western front of Hitler's "Fortress Europe". The plan called for Allied forces to land during the morning low tide on five beaches along the west coast of France, code named Sword, Juno, Gold, Omaha, and Utah. American would be the first to land at Omaha and Utah -- and also at Pointe du Hoc, where they would neutralize German defenses that threatened the beach landings. British and Canadian forces would follow, with the British going ashore at Sword and Gold and the Canadians at Juno. Prior to the landings, airborne troops would drop beyond the beaches to protect the Allies' north and south flanks. On D-Day, not everything went according to plan, especially on Omaha Beach. But the Allies prevailed -- often through the sheer grit of individuals, many experiencing combat for the first time. In subsequent days and weeks, the Allies poured two million troops and tons of supplies, equipment, and munitions into France and began fighting their way toward Berlin.
11. DDAY_190624_087.JPG: Mission accomplished -- need ammunition and reinforcements -- many casualties -- Lt. Col. James E. Rudder from atop the cliffs, June 6, 1944 Pointe du Hoc
12. DDAY_190624_092.JPG: Grappling hook used by Army Rangers at Pointe du Hoc, 1944
13. DDAY_190624_108.JPG: Marble grave marker, 2017 This headstone is one of the type used at Normany American Cemetery to mark the graves of the 9,380 Americans who died on D-Day and during the subsequent days of the Battle of Normandy. This headstone never marked a grave -- it was made in the event that an existing marker needed to be replaced.
14. DDAY_190624_112.JPG: Danger was everywhere; death was not far off. -- U.S. Army chaplain John G. Burkhalter, 1944
15. DDAY_190624_121.JPG: Combat photographer Robert Capa was embedded with American troops that landed at Omaha Beach. He captured his moments there in these photographs, some out of focus. Published in Life magazine less than two weeks later, they gave Americans a glimpse of the terrible reality of the Allied triumph.
16. DDAY_190624_148.JPG: The Normandy American Cemetery in France While U.S> military cemeteries stateside have had slab markers since the Civil War, those overseas have Latin crosses and Stars of David. The practice began in France during World War I and continued during World War II. The bodies of Americans killed in action since then have been returned home for burial, their graves marked by iconic slab headstones. Today, those markers can be engraved with any of seventy different emblems of belief.
17. DDAY_190624_152.JPG: D-Day June 6, 1944 On June 6, 1944, thousands of Allied naval vessels and planes streamed toward Nazi-occupied France. On the choppy waters of the English Channel, open landing craft approached the beaches of Normandy, carrying more than 150,000 soldiers -- loaded with gear, cold, soaked in sea spray, and many seasick. They struggled ashore, in wave after wave, under relentless machine gun and artillery fire. Survivors clawed their way forward, breaking Hitler's coastal defenses and turning the tide in World War II. The exact number of American, British, and Canadian soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines who were killed on June 6, 1944 is unknown, but anywhere from 2,500 to 5,000 died that day. Thousands more died in the three months that followed as Allied forces battled their way across France toward Germany.
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2019 photos: Equipment this year: I continued to use my Fuji XS-1 cameras but, depending on the event, I also used a Nikon D7000. Trips this year: a four-day jaunt to Massachusetts (Boston, Stockbridge, and Springfield) to experience rain in another state, Asheville, NC to visit Dad and his wife Dixie, four trips to New York City (including the United Nations, Flushing, and the New York Comic-Con), and my 14th consecutive San Diego Comic-Con (including sites in Utah). Number of photos taken this year: about 582,000.
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