A pithy comic strip about life, love, lust and puthy cats.

Est. 1985

Extra, Extra!

On the Beach

By Jimmy Johnson

My father came ashore on Omaha Beach in 1944, not on D-Day but two weeks later, as part of the 3rd Armored Division. For almost a year, Daddy and his fellow soldiers fought across northern Europe. By the time World War II was over, the division had accrued five battle stars: Normandy, France, the Hürtgen Forest, the Ardennes and Central Germany. My father had been a part of the 3rd Armored Division since its modern incarnation in early 1941, before Pearl Harbor, and he was with it for the duration. I’d wager there weren’t many of his peers who could have said that in May, 1945.

I was poking around the Web on the subject of D-Day and the Battle of Normandy, when I found this amazing video. It is a two-minute film, in color, of ships landing on Omaha Beach carrying the 3rd Armored Division. My father would have been on one of these ships. This was after the fighting of June 6, but the film gives a very clear picture of the beach and the effort being made to establish a foothold in France. The narrator makes one mistake. At one point, he refers to the 3rd as “the 3rd Army.” This, of course, would have been Patton’s army, which was not yet in France. Even during the war, this mistake was common. Correspondents on occasion credited the colorful Patton and his 3rd Army with feats actually performed by the 1st Army’s “Spearhead Division,” which in reality took a backseat to no one. You can look it up.

Recent Posts

Ghost of Christmas Past

This holiday Arlo & Janis comic strip from 2022 is similar in concept to the new strip that ran yesterday. I thought the latter ...

Spearhead

I have produced a number of comic strips related to Veteran’s Day. Especially in latter years, I have tried to emphasize the universal experience ...

Dark Passage

Remember: it’s that weekend. The return to standard time can be a bit of a shock in the late afternoon, but I rather enjoy ...

What’s old is old, again

You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to build a web site, but there are similarities. Everything needs to be just right, or ...

Back to the ol’ drawing board

I don’t have a lot of time this morning. I wasn’t going to post anything, but I’m tired of looking at that old photograph ...

Thursday’s Child

On Sunday, I teased you with the suggestion there are more changes coming here. There are. They will appear soon, and I think you’ll ...

74 responses to “On the Beach”

  1. coub.com Avatar

    Heya i am for the first time here. I found this board and I in finding It
    truly helpful & it helped me out a lot. I hope to present
    one thing back and aid others like you aided me. scoliosis
    surgery https://coub.com/stories/962966-scoliosis-surgery scoliosis surgery

  2. http://j.mp/ Avatar

    Pretty nice post. I just stumbled upon your weblog and wanted to say that I have
    really enjoyed browsing your blog posts. In any case I’ll be subscribing to your rss feed and I hope you write
    again soon! scoliosis surgery https://0401mm.tumblr.com/ scoliosis
    surgery

  3. www.iherb.com Avatar

    I’m not that much of a online reader to be honest
    but your blogs really nice, keep it up! I’ll go ahead and
    bookmark your site to come back later on. All the best quest bars https://www.iherb.com/search?kw=quest%20bars quest bars

  4. bitly.com Avatar

    We absolutely love your blog and find a lot of your post’s to be exactly I’m looking for.

    Would you offer guest writers to write content to suit your needs?

    I wouldn’t mind creating a post or elaborating on some of the subjects you
    write concerning here. Again, awesome weblog! ps4 https://bit.ly/3z5HwTp ps4