D-Day

 

Seasickness, fear

As the beach draws near

Overhead artillery booms

Illuminating Normandy’s morning

With the first flashes of battle.

 

The armada of a thousand ships

Create fear and resolution

in German defenders

Hope in French hearts ignite

Their resistance emerges into light,

Civilians pray these liberators prevail

In this the alllies

Greatest gamble

 

Soldiers in landing craft don their gear

Say final prayer,

Bullets all 'round them

Pierce the air

Announcing the enemy.

 

Landing craft door slaps turbulent surf

Men leap into too deep waters

Amid terrible fire

Many taken by heavy loads

Or enemy fire

To a watery death.

 

Survivors bravely wade to shore,

Amid bullets, shellfire,

the blood and bodies of comrades.

 

Luckier men achieve meagre shelter

Scrambling to the sea wall,

Compelled by an officer shouting

“Only the dead and the soon to be dead

will remain on these beaches under fire.”

 

D-Day, June 6 1944.

Shall this spearhead

Initiate war’s end?

What future for the world

Shall this day portend?

 

Freedoms that we now enjoy

Born from D-Day’s terrible labour

Creating debt to soldiers living and dead

That can never be repaid.

Except that we are thankful,

And promise never to forget