http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47oajH0F6yU

Veteran of the British Royal Navy, Harry Card, tells his personal story about the day his ship, the late HMS Swift, was attacked on June 24, 1944 whilst in support of the Normandy Invasion off Sword Beach. Card recalls what it was like as the vessel began to sink after being affected by something known as an oyster mine, which were mines that were dropped in the water and would explode when a ship passed by them.

The post Invasion of Normandy
Oyster Mines During the Normandy Invasion appeared first on Witnify.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hq4gtYjBCs0

Fred Millward, a paratrooper of the British 9th Parachute Battalion, part of the 6th Airborne Division, was one of the only paratroopers to survive D-Day and participate in the Allied attack on the Nazis’ Merville Gun Battery, a German coastal fortification on the Atlantic Wall in Normandy. Millward describes how he luckily survived the turbulent British landings on Sword Beach.

The post Invasion of Normandy
Barely Surviving the Jump into Sword Beach appeared first on Witnify.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vkqi5UFCKu8

“Part of your thoughts is self-preservation. And unfortunately self-preservation is always at the cost of somebody else.”

British veterans Peter and Len go on a road trip to visit Sword Beach, the area where they had landed on D-Day. They describe what their orders were as they arrived on the beachhead and what the odds were that they would live through that day: “We were told, ‘It’s as expected of 50 percent casualties.’” The veterans visit the cemetery of their fellow fallen soldiers and grieve over how young some of them were when they died.

The post Invasion of Normandy
‘Self-Preservation Is Always at the Cost of Somebody Else’ appeared first on Witnify.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmMJuDvuiIg

Bill Millin, the personal piper to Lord Lovat, a prominent British Commando in World War II, was ordered by Lovat to play the bagpipes as his fellow soldiers died around him on Sword Beach and all the way to the seize of Pegasus Bridge during the Normandy Landings. Millin asked some captured German snipers why they never targeted him and he was told that they all assumed he was a “dummkopf,” a dolt or a stupid person. His courageous yet risky actions are portrayed in the 1962 film, “The Longest Day,” starring John Wayne.

The post Invasion of Normandy
Why Germans Didn’t Shoot This D-Day Bagpiper appeared first on Witnify.