Strelets Forum

Welcome to the Strelets Forum.
Please feel free to discuss any aspect of 1/72 scale plastic figures, not simply Strelets.
If you have any questions about our products then we will answer them here.

Strelets Forum
Start a New Topic 
Author
Comment
D- Day + 75

As a Canadian, my family and I had the privilege of visiting Normandy last year - including, but not limited to, Juno Beach, Pegasus Bridge, Pointe-du-Hoc, Omaha Beach etc.

Thinking of all those brave soldiers (most just boys) who parachuted in and stormed the beaches 75 years ago - we can never thank you enough. We must continue to remember and celebrate D-Day as one of the most important and significant events in human history.

Lest we forget.

Re: D- Day + 75

Well said, and completely agree , we have a duty to remember , as a young man in my first job I had the privilege to work with veterans , a navigator from 617 squadron, a Sergeant in REME who landed on D-DAY +6 who was one of the first sent in to help at Belson once liberated , plus guys who served in North Africa , Italy and the Far East , all had stories to tell, all now gone , ordinary guys before the war ,but all hero`s during it.

Re: D- Day + 75

A phenomenal undertaking. I've had the privilege of visiting the landing sites and battlefields of Normandy as well. Lest we forget.

Re: D- Day + 75

I've been privileged to visit the area twice, once in 1969 and again on the thirtieth anniversary in 1974; both times were moving - particularly in 74. I lost an uncle in France in 1944 and can't help but think of him. It is my hope to return one day now I understand even more about the battle and the campaign.

Re: D- Day + 75

They did not choose this and I'm sure most would have preferred to stay at home and live out their lives in peace but I am eternally grateful that they stepped up to the mark and risked all to ensure that those who lived on and came later would be free of the curse of Nazism, let us hope that curse has been eternally banished.

Re: D- Day + 75

While we all know that there was time of hardship, bitterness and sorrow... let us at this occasion also look at the other side of that time. All pics taken during the Normandy invasion.























































































Re: D- Day + 75

Great photos - Shakespeare was spot on in Henry V when he spoke of the band of brothers.

Re: D- Day + 75

I agree fantastic funny heart warming happy pictures these are how they should be remembered not the death & destruction.

Re: D- Day + 75

Some beautiful pictures. It reminds me of how young most of them were. I lost an uncle with Patton's 3rd Army in November 44; he was 19. My youngest son, the "baby" is 32. I thought about it many years ago when my son was 19, too and I recalled that my father's family was poor - how many of their families had been poor during the Great Depression that rocked the globe in the years before the War - Europe had been in Depression almost a decade before the US Stock Market dropped.

So all these "kids" who had known nothing but want and poverty were forced to become men overnight. I'm reminded of what "All Quiet on the Western Front" said about boys learning to kill before they had a chance to learn to live. I wonder sometimes if there was a plan somewhere, that they were being prepared by the hardships of their childhoods to endure what they were going to have to face in the cauldron of World War 2.

So many of them never had the chance to get married, have children, grow old. Those pictures capture them young - even in the hell of war - able to wring a few moments of joy out of the very fact of being alive after being so close to death. Those pictures manage to capture the true humanity - and tragedy - of war. As Emmerson said,

"So nigh is beauty to our dust
So near is God to man
When duty whispers low, 'thou must!"
The youth replies, 'I can!'"

Thank you for sharing the pictures. They bring home the true price of our way of life to me and make me mindful of the youthful ghosts in my own memories. May we never forget.