Here is a good site to view pictures of D-Day as it happened and the exact same places photographed in present day. Just click the photograph for it to change (The first pic did not work for me but the others were fine) http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2014/06/scenes-from-d-day-then-and-now/100752/
Davey, those are fascinating photographs, especially because you can see "today's" photos for comparison. DH also was impressed with them.
Yes I sent them to my Dad too. He was taken off motor torpedo boats before the landings and attached to a mine sweeper, they had to sweep the English Channel of German mines otherwise those ships and landing craft would not have made it across. Also my uncle had the job of helping to clear mines in an around Calais Harbour after D-Day, he would call into a cafe on the harbour side and be served coffee by a beautiful French girl, he later married her and she became my auntie Jeanette.
Those are great photos! My dad served in the US Army Air Corp (before it was the Air Force) working on planes in England and France. In my whole life he never talked about it. I think the experience was almost beyond comprehension for the very gentle person he was. My uncle as a vet came to see the WWII memorial in Washington and was very emotional. He's been very affected by what he saw during the war and cried as he talked of trying to give spiritual comfort to soldiers over there during the war. It's uplifting to see the after photos.
Daddy was at one location stateside training soldiers who would be shipping out of the port(s) of New York to go overseas. He said one of the hardest things he had to try to reconcile in his mind was having to "order" the men to take scissors and clip the grass really short around any of the "visiting" high(er)-ranking officers' tents when out on bivouacs. The other thing he saw which he didn't agree with was when trains would come onto the military siding(s) and dump whole trainloads of butter out by the tracks to rot in the sun when so many people in the USA no longer had access to butter and were eating canned "shortening" with yellow food coloring which they added.
I loved the story about the 89 year old Englishman who gave his care home the slip and took a bus over for the D-Day celebrations! Ah, the fighting spirit never dies in some, LOL!
The then and now photos are truly spectacular. Seems some of those sites really haven't changed much in 70 years.
