David

[Voices of WW2 @VoicesofWW2]

The idea was brilliant. The execution was catastrophic.

Allied planners knew that the men hitting the beaches of Normandy would be cut apart without armor support in those first critical minutes. The solution was the DD tank. The Duplex Drive Sherman. A standard 33-ton Sherman tank fitted with a collapsible canvas flotation screen and two small propellers bolted to the rear. Raise the screen, drop into the water, swim to shore, lower the screen, start shooting. Tanks arriving with the first wave, ahead of the infantry, suppressing German positions before the ramps even dropped.

The concept worked perfectly in testing. The designers had one requirement: waves no higher than one foot.

On the morning of June 6th, 1944, the waves off Omaha Beach were six feet high.

Nobody stopped the launch.

At 5:40 AM, the 741st Tank Battalion began dropping their DD tanks into the English Channel, six thousand yards from shore. More than three miles of open water, in seas that were six times rougher than the tanks were designed to handle. The first tank hit the water. The canvas screen, designed to hold the weight of a Sherman afloat, was immediately overwhelmed. Waves crashed over the top. Water flooded in. The tank went down.

Then another. Then another.

The canvas screens collapsed like paper bags in the swell. Tanks that had been designed to float became 33-ton anchors the moment they hit the water. Crews inside had seconds. Some got out through the hatches. Many did not. The tanks took them straight to the bottom of the English Channel.

Some crews managed to get a radio signal out as their tank went under, warning the following units not to launch. The warnings either did not get through or came too late.

29 DD tanks were launched by the 741st Tank Battalion that morning. 27 sank before reaching the beach. The entire left flank of Omaha Beach, where the 1st Infantry Division was assaulting, had five tanks to support it. Five. Against fortified German positions housing hundreds of machine guns, 88mm guns, and mortars zeroed on every inch of that sand.

The infantry arrived first. Alone.

What happened next at Omaha Beach, the 2,400 casualties, the slaughter in the first ten minutes, the near-total destruction of Company A, is inseparable from the loss of those tanks. They were supposed to be there. They were supposed to be firing at German positions while the ramps were still closed. Instead they were on the bottom of the Channel with their crews.

The story of the 743rd Tank Battalion makes it worse.

The 743rd was assigned to the western sector of Omaha Beach. Their LCT flotilla commander looked at the sea conditions that morning, looked at the waves, and made a different decision. He refused to launch his tanks into the water. Instead he drove his LCTs directly onto the beach and dropped the ramps in the shallows. The tanks rolled off onto sand.

Nine tanks were knocked out by German fire during the assault. But they were there. They were fighting. The infantry had armor.

At Utah Beach, the sea was calmer, protected from the prevailing winds. 28 of 32 DD tanks launched there made it ashore. The infantry had support. Utah Beach cost 197 casualties. Omaha cost 2,400.

The sunken tanks of the 741st Tank Battalion still lie on the bottom of the English Channel off Omaha Beach. They have never been raised. Divers have visited them. Inside some of the wrecks, they found what they expected.

They are still there today, 82 years later, three miles off the coast of Normandy, on the bottom of the sea.

Today is June 6th.

Remember them.

[Dr. Clayton Forrester @DrClaytonForre1]

Trump hired a bunch of chuds to restore the Reflecting Pool, which they did on time and on budget. Liberals are absolutely furious because they don't want voters to see that you can just fix things.

[+JMJ+Kyrie Eleison Christe Eleison @Jsmum46]

Every single Exorcist priest is saying Aliens are demons. We hear them.

[Sachin Jose @Sachinettiyil]

Gayle Benson, a Catholic and owner of the New Orleans Saints NFL team, donated $3.5 million through her charitable foundation to Archbishop Chapelle High School, an all-girls Catholic school in Louisiana with over 600 students, to support the construction of a chapel for Mass and theology classrooms dedicated to Catholic formation.

Info: Archbishop Chapelle School

[PA VOTER (Marla) @PAKAG2020]

Pennsylvania: More money for Vanguard, BlackRock, State Street, Berkshire Hathaway, and Fidelity on the backs of middle class Pennsylvania PPL customers.
Vanguard is the biggest shareholder of PPL at 12.19%,
BlackRock at 7.96%
State Street at 3.8%
Fidelity Investments at 3.5%

Regulators approve settlement, PPL distribution rate hike https://t.co/cCbhZzi9Yj

[Alexander Duncan @AlexDuncanTX]

That's a fact!

[Gunther Eagleman™ @GuntherEagleman]

Alaska, PLEASE STOP SENDING THIS TRASH TO D.C.

You deserve better.

[David @DavidMuskFan]

@its_The_Dr Not drywall. It is plaster lath

[Gary Weiss @gary_weiss]

This authentic, working-class Democratic candidate insists he did not know it was a swastika when he carved it into his forehead with a razor.

[Miranda Devine @mirandadevine]

Stunningly beautiful.
All the naysayers should apologize - but they won't. They're onto the next lie.

[David @DavidMuskFan]

@DougWahl1 I love Jesus too but thats not the Whitehouse.
Bigger problem is it’s great to say you love the Christ our savior but not ok to then go out and endorse a movement that rejects His gift of life is it?

[Adam Carolla @adamcarolla]

True

[Elon Musk @elonmusk]

🤔

Can’t think of a single time this happened

[Angie Pratt @ArkansasAngie]

So can we donate to a fund to remove John Thune @ScottPresler in 2028?

I’d certainly make a donation to it

I’d also donate to a fund to remove
Lisa Murkowski
Tim scott
Todd young
James Langford
Jerry Moran

And … I’d do what I could to get others to donate with me

[Adam Carolla @adamcarolla]

But she is helping the kids with their sexuality

[Fusilli Spock @awstar11]

Eric Swalwell must be fucking furious watching the Dems continue to support Platner for roughly the same thing he did but with a Nazi tattoo.

[Hunter Eagleman™ @Hunter_Eagleman]

For all those praising Senator Fetterman as being “based” (including me)…

Think again.

He VOTED NO on the Save America Act!