I was going to make some mention of today in reference to D-Day. 60 years ago today, soldiers were loaded into transport ships and paratroopers were kitted up and ready to load the planes when the order came through postponing the operation to June 6. All well and good, but I had no idea June 4 was such a momentous day for other reasons:
June 4, 1940 – The final boatload of troops left the beaches of Dunkirk en route to England ending Operation Dynamo. 338,226 soldiers were brought away from the Continent by a motley fleet of sailing vessels and survived to train and fight for the June day four years later when they’d return, reinforced, to liberate the Continent they were forced to leave.
June 4, 1942 – Aircraft of the carriers Enterprise and Yorktown found the Japanese fleet attacking Midway Island in the midst of refueling and rearming their air squadrons and rapidly disabled three of four Japanese carriers. This action smashed Japanese naval power in the eastern Pacific and put the Japanese on the defensive where they were to remain for the rest of the war. Oddly enough, this great American victory came almost six months to the day after Pearl Harbor – making Admiral Yamamoto eerily prophetic.
June 4, 1944 – While men and supplies were readied in southern England for the imminent cross-Channel invasion men of the Allied 5th Army entered the Eternal City – Rome – as the German army retreated northward. News of Rome’s fall was entirely overshadowed by the biggest news story of the century two days later.
June 4, 1989 – Pro-Democracy protesters in Tiananmen Square, Beijing, were fired upon by Chinese army troops. Thousands died and whatever hope there was for the anti-Communist “Velvet Revolution” to spread east was wiped out.
What a day.