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To anyone with even the vaguest interest in 20th-Century history these recordings are an amazing archive. One hears in 'real time', moment by moment, the actual breaking news of the June 6 1944 D-Day landings--the beginning of the invasion of Europe by Allied Forces--just as CBS studios on the other side of the Atlantic received it.From rumor to the first and accurate reports by Nazi wireless broadcasts, to shortwave radio news crossing the Atlantic, to the official Allied announcement of invasion, this cataclysmic and momentous WW-II event unfolds to us hour by hour with a frisson and thrill. Even from hindsight, we experience those extraordinary events with surprise and excitement, as did those CBS reporters who experienced them firsthand over sixty-five years ago.I was so captivated and spellbound by the sheer immediacy of the reporting in these 65-year old recordings that I listened to nearly all of the archive in one session. Listening again after some months, I still find them intensely moving and poignant. On D-Day listeners would have listened with great anticipation and in fear and dread of not knowing what was happening to their loved ones--their sons, brothers, fathers and husbands; but we listeners of today are continuously aware of the appalling events that were unfolding on the Normandy beaches--of the unmitigated slaughter and mayhem at Omaha and elsewhere. As with those D-Day listeners of 65 years ago, we too listen to these broadcasts with great intensity and emotion: though with the passage of time we listen not in fear and dread, but with sorrow and with gratitude and in remembrance.I kept recalling the tragic and graphic account in Ambrose's D-Day book ( Ch.17- Visitors to Hell) of the terrible events that befell the 116th Regiment at Omaha. It's years since I've read the account but these recordings kept reminding me of them. One in particular remains etched on my mind: a brief and understated but very powerful account by Sgt. Warner Hamlett of F Company, of the slow and terrible death of young Pfc. Gillingham. One's emotions just cry out over his horrific and tragic predicament and of a young life cut short in its prime. Hamlett's refrained matter-of-fact account reminds us there are some aspects of battle so painful and terrible they defy conveyance to those who were not there; they're unspeakable notions best left on the battlefield. It is what Hamlett does not tell us that conveys how truly terrible the D-Day landings were.Of course, hundreds of similar tragedies spanned the length and breadth of the Normandy beaches but none more so than at Omaha. By day's end, thousands more of Gillingham's buddies had also succumbed to the massacre. There were up to 10,000 D-Day casualties, 116th Regiment alone sustained 797 (KIA: 349, WIA: 422 and MIA: 26). Words just cannot depict such hell.Moreover, those who were not there will never fully imagine or comprehend it, although perhaps Ernie Pyle came close when on June 17, 1944 he wrote from Normandy 'A Long Thin Line of Personal Anguish' where he describes Omaha Beach the day after D-Day and 'a thin little line, just like a high-water mark, for miles along the beach' which was 'the strewn personal gear, gear that will never be needed again, of those who fought and died…' This sad and tragic account* of D-Day, one of the best ever written, leaves us in no doubt as to the inevitable human tragedy that always accompanies battle.This archive is a stark reminder of the tragic, terrible and ultimate sacrifice paid by so many of those young soldiers, most of whom were green and untried until D-day (a disgraceful fact in and of itself). They've paid the ultimate price to secure our freedom.In today's threatening world where governments are continuously eroding our freedoms, where democracy is coming under more strain than ever, often from within, we must never forget their struggle and ultimate sacrifice. We must continue to defend our freedoms along with democracy with all our might, for if we fail, ultimately so will have they. Their sacrifice must never ultimately have been in vain. Even the notion of failure must always remain unthinkable.This CBS D-Day broadcast, together with its NBC equivalent--also on the Internet Archive, are probably the most important archives of their type that I have yet come across; I'd thoroughly recommend them to everyone, especially teenage school kids and those of an age who might be considering a military career**.___________________** No, this is not a call to pacifism; tragically, sometimes war is the inevitable outcome of events. However, those who will be called upon to fight in war need to be better informed about its aspects, especially on such important issues as the mental and physical effects that soldiers experience after combat. Also, there's a need to counter widespread propaganda that portrays macho and heroic images of war and of things that glorify it. There is nothing quite as terrible in the human experience as war and we need to accept that Hollywood's portrayal of it is little more than a pathetic, fanciful chimera. War can't be learned by analogy as there is no effective analogy of war, both society and prospective soldiers need to be cognizant of this.As the old truism goes, 'The only training for war is war itself'.