-
Module 6 War and Peace
The D-Day Landings
–
Passage 1
In
September
1939,
Britain
declared
war
on
Germany
after
Germany
invaded
Poland.
The
war,
which
lasted
until
1945,
is
known
as
the
Second
World
War.
During
the
war,
Germany
occupied
many countries,
including France. He most important battle of the
war in Europe was
Operation Overlord,
the military operation in 1944 to invade
France.
Operation
Overlord started when boats full of soldiers
landed on the beaches of
Normandy
in France, known as the D-Day landings.
More than 5,000 ships crossed the
English Channel, carrying 130,000
troops to the French coast.
Troops from the United States, Britain and Canada
took part in the D-Day landings.
The
operation was extremely dangerous and many
soldiers were killed before they even got
off the boats. American soldiers
attempted to land at the most dangerous place,
known as
Omaha Beach.
The situation at Omaha Beach was
so bad that the US army commanders thought about
abandoning the invasion. Eventually,
the soldiers made a breakthrough and the D-Day
landings were successful. It was the
beginning of the end of the Second World
War.
Operation Overlord
started as a story of danger and confusion and
ended as a story
of bravery and acts of
heroism.
The
D-Day Landings
–
Passage
2
The
soldiers
of
Able
Company
crossed
the
English
Channel
in
seven
boats
early
on
the
morning
of
6
June
1944.
when
they
were
about
5
kilometres
from
the
beach,
the
Germans
started
firing
artillery shells at
them but the boats were too far away. The Germans
continued firing
and
Boat
5
was
hit
one
kilometer
from
the
beach.
Six
men
drowned
before
help
arrived.
Twenty
men fell into the water and were picked
up by other boats. As a result, they missed the
fighting
on
the
beach.
Six
men
drowned
before
help
arrived.
Twenty
men
fell
into
the
water
and were picked up by other boats. As a
result, they missed the fighting on the beach.
They were lucky. If they had reached
the beach, they would probably have been killed.
When Boat 3 was a few
metres form the beach, the soldiers jumped out,
but the water
was so deep that some of
them disappeared under the water. Many of the men
were either
killed or wounded by
machine gun fire.
The
soldiers
on Boat
1
and
Boat
4
jumped
into
the
water,
but
it
was
too
deep
and
most
of
them
drowned.
Half
an
hour
after
the
first
attack,
two
thirds
of
the
company
(a
company
is a group of about
100 soldiers) were dead. The survivors lay on the
beach, exhausted
and
shocked.
After
an
hour
and
forty-five
minutes,
six
of
the
survivors
tried
to
climb
up
the
cliff
to get
off the beach. Four were too exhausted to reach
the top. The other two, Private
Jake
Shefer and Private Thomas Lovejoy, joined a group
from another company and fought
with
them. Two men. Two rifl
es. This was
Able Company’s contribution to
D
-Day.
The D-Day
Landings
–
Passage
3
On 6 June 2004, survivors
of the D-Day landings from many different
countries returned
to France to
remember their
lost
comrades. Many
of
them went to
the cemetery
and
memorial
which overlooks
Omaha Beach.
The
cemetery
and
memorial
are
situated
on
a
cliff
overlooking
the
beach
and
the
English
Channel, from where the boats attempted
their landing. The cemetery contains the graves
of 9,386 Americans who died during the
landings. The memorial also contains the names of
more than 1,500 men who were never
found.
On
the
memorial,
there
is
part
of
a
poem
called
“For
the
Fallen”,
which
was
written
by an
English poet, Lawrence Binyon:
They shall not grow old, as we
that are left grow old. Age shall not weary them,
nor
the years condemn. At the going
down of the sun and in the morning we will
remember them.
The poem
was first published in The Times newspaper on 14
September 1914 and can be
seen on war
memorials in many parts of the world.
Saving Private Ryan
(1998)
A review by Jenny
Carter, aged 15
Saving
Private Ryan is a film which was directed by
Steven Spielberg. The two main
characters are Captain John Miller,
played by Tom Hanks, and Private James Ryan,
played
by Matt Damon.
James Ryan is the fourth brother
to be involved in the Second World War. His three
brothers
have
already
been
killed,
two
of
them
in
the
D-Day
landings
in
Normandy,
the
other
in a battle in another
part of the world. Their heart-broken mother
receives news about
all her dead sons
on the same day. The US army decides to send a
group of men into the
French
countryside
to
try
to
find
the
fourth
brother.
Captain Miller,
a
hero
and
survivor
of the Omaha Beach
battle, is chosen to lead the rescue team of eight
men.
The film opens
with a 30-minute sequence of the invasion of
Normandy, probably the
most violent
images of war ever shown in a film. We see the
full horror of war, and the
chaos and
senseless waste of life.
Saving Private Ryan is an unforgettable anti-war
film and also a story of courage
and
sacrifice.
Spielberg
has
made
a
lot
of
good
films,
but
he
has
never
made
one
with
such
a strong message. And the message is
simple
–
we want
peace; we don’t want war.
D-Day + 2
To our
astonishment, just two days after we had received
our confidential orders to join
the
D-Day landing troops, and after a day fighting and
seeing many of my friends killed
by the
enemy, we found ourselves outside a peaceful
village in France. It was so sudden,
after the mess and confusion of war on
the beach.
It was late
afternoon, and the sun was setting on a perfect
country scene of farm
buildings, a main
street, a few shops, a garage and a church. But we
hesitated because
we
were
aware
that
there
might
still
have
been
enemy
soldiers.
Our
lieutenant
told
Private
Kowalski and me to
advance and check the village.
As we entered the main street, a
young woman on a tractor drove out of the garage,
saw us and called out something in
French. Immediately five men came out of the bar,
and
two more from a farmyard, holding
guns. I took off my helmet and yelled, “American!
Put
your guns down!” they gathered
round us, shouting and shaking our hands, some
women
appeared and kissed
us.
We soon understood
that the enemy had abandoned the village, so
Kowalski went back