On June 6, 1944, more than 160,000 Allied troops landed along a 50-mile stretch of heavily-fortified French coastline, to fight Nazi Germany on the beaches of Normandy, France.
More than 5,000 Ships and 13,000 aircraft supported the D-Day invasion, and by day’s end, the Allies gained a foot-hold in Continental Europe. The cost in lives on D-Day was high. More than 9,000 Allied soldiers were killed or wounded, but their sacrifice allowed more than 100,000 soldiers to begin the slow, hard slog across Europe, to defeat Adolf Hitler’s crack troops.
By Daniel Bishop
D-Day was bigger and more important than we think
Today, June 6, is the 74th anniversary of D-Day. In June 2016 just a couple weeks after the 72nd anniversary of D-Day, my wife Pat and I visited Omaha Beach where the Normandy landing took place.
It was a very sobering moment with hardly a word being spoken by all the visitors on the beach that day. If you have seen any of the Normandy documentaries, you could almost close your eyes and just see the death and destruction all around you.
That was a defining moment for our country and the free world. A moment that has been remembered, but as time goes on, will continue to slip away. Just as the signing of the treaty at Versailles that ended World War I has largely been forgotten by most Americans. They said it was “the war to end all wars,” but in 2018 we know better.
Having grown up in Bowie and attending all my years of school there, I have always had a fondness for Bowie, Montague County and the nearby communities. There is community spirit from within the town from the simple times I lived through until I left in 1965 to join the military.
I thought how did D-Day and WWII affect people of our city and county?

Read the full story in the mid-week News.