Articles In This Issue Page 1: Pat Farrell Page 3: SABOR Column Page 7: The Way I See It Featuring Cathey Meyer Page 10: Associate Spotlight Featuring Imagine Homes Page 14: Associate Spotlight Featuring Champions School of Real Estate Page 22: NARPM Column Let’s Bury the Property Management Misconceptions Page 23: Newsflash
Vol.VI, No.6
www.realestatenewsline.com
June 2020
June 6, 1944: D-Day And Beyond
By: Pat Farrell
Now that we have taken time to remember those who paid the ultimate price for our freedoms on Memorial Day 2020 it is perhaps appropriate that we now turn our attention to the wars occurring during the last two centuries that were responsible for filling many of the graves in our National cemeteries. In the early years of the 20th century the United States was dedicated to a policy of isolationism so that the war raging in Europe at the time was not an American concern until a German Uboat sank the British ship RMS Lusitania, resulting in the deaths of more than 1195 innocent civilians, among them 128 Americans. That stirred the US to at least provide aid to the allies until April 1917 when Germany resumed unrestricted submarine warfare in the Atlantic.
Following that, a telegram from the German Foreign Secretary proposing an alliance with Mexico promising them the ability to annex New Mexico, Texas and Arizona was intercepted and published on the front page of the NY Times. That was sufficient to spur the United States to fully join into the war on April 6, 1917. World War I actually began in July of 1914 and finally ended on November 11, 1918 at a cost estimated to be more than 116,500 American lives. After 1918 Americans were rethinking their having gotten involved in an international conflict and even though the result of that action was victory, they returned to strict isolation and non-intervention policies. So, during the 1930s, the United States, under the leadership of Roosevelt, remained watchful but distant while Italy was planning to invade Ethiopia, Germany was eying Poland and Japan was invading China. In December 1937 the Japanese sank a US Gunboat in the Yangtze river, but there seemed to be no interest in reprisal given that the Japanese government apologized and offered payment. It was Germany’s invasion of Poland that actually initiated World War II and at that time Roosevelt did allow both France and Great Britain to purchase munitions until June of 1940 when France fell to Germany. In early May of 1940, Germany successfully invaded the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxemburg, an invasion which would soon impact France. It was becoming apparent that a major post in Dunkirk, a beachfront town in the north of France, where French, Belgian and British troops were stationed would soon be overrun and
the British needed a way home before that happened. What was then referred to as the “Miracle of Dunkirk” allowed, with the help of up to 1,000 small boats, the evacuation of approximately 198,000 British and 140,000 French troops to Britain. The American people seemed to approve of offering their country’s resources to support Great Britain, so Roosevelt provided 50 obsolete destroyers to Britain in exchange for 99-year leases on eight of Britain’s air and naval bases. When Germany extended its war efforts to Iceland where British troops were stationed Roosevelt replaced the British with American troops and provided escort service for ships in and out of Iceland with orders to “shoot on sight” any German craft in the area. The United States had been providing resources to Britain, Russia and China while trying to stay out of actual combat until December 7, 1941 when the Japanese attacked the US Naval Station at Pearl Harbor, which put an end to non-participation. Regardless of this reason for the United States to officially enter the war their greatest concentration of troops was in Europe where they joined in the efforts against Germany and Italy. During 1940 the Battle for Britain was raging as Hitler was determined to weaken Britain though air attacks so that invasion by boats would be facilitated. However, Britain had other ideas and the Royal Air Force was successful at damaging enough of the Luftwaffe’s aircraft that Hitler had to cancel those plans. This was the first time a war battle had been totally waged in the air. Although the Japanese and
European campaigns were being fought simultaneously, discussions between Roosevelt and Churchill went back and forth from early 1942 to late 1943 as to what should be done, where to focus and how soon. Finally, preparations for “Project Overlord” began and the five beaches at Normandie, codenamed Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno and Sword, were chosen as the landing areas. Although the allied forces consisted primarily of American, British and Canadian troops they were assisted by naval, air or ground support from Australian, Belgian, Czech, Dutch, French, Greek, New Zealand, Norwegian, Rhodesian and Polish for a total of more than two million troops. The Germans had long been expecting an invasion but had determined that it would occur at the port at Calais, directly across the sea from Dover in Britain and thanks to a major disinformation campaign the Allies were able to keep them thinking that. By daybreak on June 6th some 18,000 parachutists were already on the ground and other troops were landing on the beaches under cover of 13,000 aircraft. The troops overcame relatively light resistance on Utah, Gold, Juno and Sword beaches but the German opposition was much heavier on the six mile stretch of Omaha beach. Fortunately, despite numerous setbacks as when paratroopers were blown off their mark or became easy targets for snipers or when the bombers had missed major artillery targets the landing troops were able to at least establish a foothold. From that point on the Allies were able to continue pushing Continued on page 2