#normandy
Operation Overlord - 156,000
British forces at Normandy - 61,000
Troops on Gold Beach -24,000
Troops in the 50th (Northumbrian) Infantry Division - 18,000
Troops in 8th Battalion - 800
two-inch mortar team - 2
Troop at war within a war - 1
Among tens of thousands ultimately it was one on one,
fighting with self, the unholy fear that sat undigested
with the bile and ration biscuit.
My Grandad survived this
He came back, yes, but he was not the same man
He scrambled ashore under the crack of mortar fire
and the scream of steel against sand.
The war took away chunks of him—pieces he could never get back. Something had changed in the way he stood,
the way he looked at the world,
as though he carried an invisible weight
that no one else could see.
At first, his laughter would still bubble up,
his humour slicing through the tension of everyday life,
as sharp and wry as it had always been.
Yet behind the jokes, there was a shadow,
a far-off echo of horror, the smell of salt and explosive,
the faces of comrades lost in moments too fleeting for words.
He buried it all, carefully,
under layers of quiet strength and fatherly love.
His family would never need to bear it;
it was his burden alone.
He returned to the vagaries of civilian life,
to conversations about the weather and pansies,
to cups of tea and headaches,
to the small joys and irritations that make up a life.
But there were nights when the past surged up like a tide,
relentless and suffocating. In those moments, he would sit alone in the dark, *** end in his hand gripping his knee,
and wrestled with the ghosts of Normandy.
He never spoke of it to his children.
Not the fear. Not the chaos.
Not the image of himself kneeling over a mortar
with trembling hands,
fighting not just the enemy but the primal terror of death.
Instead, he built a life for those he loved,
pouring himself into the role of father and grandfather,
filling the silence with stories
of building inspections and seaside holidays.
His silence about the war was not an omission but a shield—
an act of love to protect his family
from horrors they should never have to know.
And in that silence, there was heroism too,
a quiet bravery in choosing to carry the unthinkable alone.
Apr 7, 2025
Apr 7, 2025 at 12:00 AM UTC
Lawrence Hall HSG
[email protected]
A D-Day Reminder to Every ******* Oaf
Including certain Members of Congress
and Justices of the Supreme Court
There is poetry in this:
Our American flag was not flown upside-down at Normandy
Jun 5, 2024
Jun 5, 2024 at 6:16 PM UTC
~
*The Umbrellas
of Cherbourg,
pastel-coloured,
rain-soaked,
bouncing
around the room,
blocking all of the exits,
in Doppler shifts
it all turns and returns,
indeed there's daggers
in a woman's smile,
from a grain of sand
to mushrooms in the sky,
say it in a letter—
a hostage crisis,
recitative,
and catlike,
load the cartridges
and let them fly,
(flutter of wings),
face the sun and
bargain with flowers,
(flutter of lashes),
grow as clingstone and
follow my warlight home,
(flutter of heartbeat),
just close your eyes
and make believe,
it all turns and returns,
Geneviève,
I will wait for you,
la petite amie,
I will wait for you,
anywhere you wander,
anywhere you go.*
~
Aug 23, 2021
Aug 23, 2021 at 4:58 PM UTC
They wear their bodies inside-out, some are ashes but few are dust. Vacant orbits, oblivious to the incoming tide and the percussive artillery from the heavily fortified positions on Rue de la Mort, view the world with equanimity. Their bloodied stillness at odds with the surrounding tumult.
It’s at times like these - pinned down behind a burnt-out vehicle, the sand skipping around me with the phut-phut-phut of spent rounds - that I envy them their final freedom. Not that all deaths are as elegant and instantaneous as a well aimed bullet to the head.
It is a fleeting thought, hardly even that, a whispering somewhere in the background of my consciousness, like listening to a low-tuned wireless. And with victory as with defeat - with the ear-ringing silence - the whisperings become louder and more persistent.
Right, left; up, down; stop, wait; walk, run; sink, swim; live, die. Some pray to survive, other’s yearn for the sweetspot, the one shot **** Regardless, there is no doubt that we who remain will fight on for weeks, for years, for decades and continue to live the uncertainty of the living - sweating bullets until kingdom ****** come.
Jun 9, 2019
Jun 9, 2019 at 9:57 PM UTC
gulls cawed, so loud their calls
echoed off the cliffs behind us, a ghost flock answering,
though not shrill enough to rouse us
they flew crisscross patterns
and dove into the surf, but not one landed
on the carrion strewn across the sands
not like the vultures of my youth,
ravenous black hawks that began their devouring
at the first scent of death, or a moment before
no, these creatures merely called
to one another, a curious conversing
about the carnage below
perhaps their strange song
our dirge, as they swooped to and fro, wings
slicing currents carrying our souls
Omaha Beach, June 6, 1944
Sep 25, 2016
Sep 25, 2016 at 11:45 AM UTC
I drew a line in the sand
Between you and me,
And said, “Thou shalt
Not crosseth this line.”
Well, the waters of time
Rise and they fall, and
The trench I’d dug
Flooded with the truth,
Spilling unbidden from
These lips and I, frozen
In shame and something
Like fear demanded,
“Thou shalt not crosseth
These waters.” And you,
Faithful and tangled in
My web of lies, did not
Cross. But, like Jesus
On the Cross, we bled,
And the rivers of blood
Knew no borders, so
I fled, further up the
Mountain, until there
Was an ocean between
Us. And I commanded,
“Thou shalt not crosseth
This sea.” But, having
Drawn my line in the sand,
I’d forgotten for a moment
The world was round,
And I found myself back
On a beach in Normandy
With you.
Jul 6, 2016
Jul 6, 2016 at 10:40 AM UTC
never saw red sand before,
but it was red on the beach
back in '44.
Friends who ended their days
looking at me with a
startled gaze as if it was
all make believe
and that later
we'd meet for a cigarette,
not for me yet,
but I never forget that
it could have been me
watching with eyes that
could no longer see
on the red sand
back in '44
Jun 6, 2016
Jun 6, 2016 at 6:10 AM UTC
They lay on Normandy.
Two hundred miles away, the empty shells of humans
Who lie below the streets
Felt the poison that lurked above.
They shuffled out of the underground,
Boarding trains and ships like corpses
And dropping bombs from miles above.
A little French boy is spared.
His brother whispers “Bon courage,”
As the rest of the family are taken out back
And shot like mad dogs.
Twenty years later, he stands on the beach
With his young wife
Watching their sons roll and play in the sand.
His tongue tastes a warm salt
That couldn't come from the ocean.
All he can taste from the ocean is blood.
I can see my grandfather clearly
With tears falling down his face
As his mother shuts the piano.
“There will be no music,” she says quietly.
She is an immigrant
And I wonder if she questions the choice
That brought her son to a country where he might lay down his life
For strangers, four thousand miles away.
I can feel him now
Hiding in the apple trees,
High above the others.
He is in Sainte-Mère-Église, and there are enemies below.
And now I take them in my arms
Cradling them like children
“Je vous embrasse, les deux,”
And I lie down on the edge of the ocean at Normandy.
I exhale and hold them close.
The sun is shining, and I do not cry;
It is nothing but salt and water to me.
Jan 18, 2015
Jan 18, 2015 at 9:27 PM UTC
Shoulder to shoulder you bands of brothers landed.
Code name Operation Neptune was underway.
You noble breed, not knowing what lay ahead
Just knowing that your duty was called upon.
The bugle sounded, you all answered the call
nobly you waded those waters for all.
06/06/1944 was the day.
The largest seaborne invasion in history.
Yet, you brothers in arms were not caring of history making
Just making it to the beach, alive.
I can but humbly thank you for what you all did that day,
you that lived and those that died.
What thoughts must have played in your mind.
A lone piper played throughout, what courage you all displayed.
No wonder we that came after you, leave you feeling dismayed.
Many wars have been fought since, their courage is also undenied,
but, you, you thousands on those beaches showed the world the meaning
of pride, respect and warrior.
On the beaches of Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno and Sword,
you carved a way in. To end the war.
Nobler people I doubt exist, and soon this 70th anniversary
will fade in time, but not that date of June the sixth (1944)
Jun 6, 2014
Jun 6, 2014 at 1:37 PM UTC