D-Day
Seasickness, fear
As the beach draws near
Overhead artillery booms
Illuminating Normandy’s morning
With the first flashes of battle.
The armada of a thousand ships
Create fear and resolution
in German defenders
Hope in French hearts ignite
Their resistance emerges into light,
Civilians pray these liberators prevail
In this the alllies
Greatest gamble
Soldiers in landing craft don their gear
Say final prayer,
Bullets all 'round them
Pierce the air
Announcing the enemy.
Landing craft door slaps turbulent surf
Men leap into too deep waters
Amid terrible fire
Many taken by heavy loads
Or enemy fire
To a watery death.
Survivors bravely wade to shore,
Amid bullets, shellfire,
the blood and bodies of comrades.
Luckier men achieve meagre shelter
Scrambling to the sea wall,
Compelled by an officer shouting
“Only the dead and the soon to be dead
will remain on these beaches under fire.”
D-Day, June 6 1944.
Shall this spearhead
Initiate war’s end?
What future for the world
Shall this day portend?
Freedoms that we now enjoy
Born from D-Day’s terrible labour
Creating debt to soldiers living and dead
That can never be repaid.
Except that we are thankful,
And promise never to forget
Malcolm Watts 2004
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