Free Republic

~ D-DAY, June 6, 1944 ~ NORMANDY INVASION May 1944 had been chosen at the conference in Washington in May 1943 as the time for the invasion. Difficulties in assembling landing craft forced a postponement until June, but June 5 was fixed as the unalterable date by Eisenhower on May 17. As the day approached and troops began to embark for the crossing, bad weather set in, threatening dangerous landing conditions. After tense debate, Eisenhower and his subordinates decided on a 24-hour delay, requiring the recall of some ships already at sea. Eventually, on the morning of June 5,...

"War is cruelty. You cannot refine it." That's what Union Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman told Atlanta officials in 1864. But the U.S. armed forces during the past month routed both Iraq's army and nearly 140 years of military doctrine. Sherman was a military innovator, consciously going against the tradition of not waging war on civilians. During 1863, his forces in Mississippi pillaged and burned towns. In 1864 in Georgia, he ordered his men to "burn 10 or 12 houses of known secessionists, kill a few at random, and let them know it will be repeated every time a train is...