Raise a glass tonight
- 5 June 2012 22:24176672Well many of us have enjoyed toasting HER MAJESTY on this her 60th jubilee, but please raise a glass at 23.16 tonight as at this time in 1944 the men of the OX and BUCKS landed at Pegasus bridge. Thus starting off the allied invasion of Europe.beer the food of the gods
- 5 June 2012 23:10176673I'll have to raise an empty one now, just finished off the bottle!
Keeps politics to myself - 5 June 2012 23:55176675I'll be raising my daily can of cider tonight, but it's still in the freezer till 12.30.
The airborne regiments landed by parachute and glider the night before the sea landing, which was June 6th.
Seems to have passed unobserved this year on the grand media.
Same with our King Harold who stood and fought with his army to defend England at Hastings. They fell fighting to the last man for England.
Always goes unobserved. Wonder why??Chanters, Drums and Drones Potty Time http://youtu.be/99fMqpjnXYA
Rule Britannia!
Kent First http://youtu.be/04F3mAP3fV4 Keep banging on http://youtu.be/qYCU_SKmkGQ - 6 June 2012 06:40176677Well said Guzz..... will do.
- 6 June 2012 06:50176678Count me in!Never give up...
- 6 June 2012 07:59176680Thanks Guzzler Cheers to the lot of them
- 6 June 2012 08:02176681To true Guz
- Jan Higgins
- Location: Dover
- Registered: 5 Jul 2010
- Posts: 13,895
6 June 2012 08:22176684Thanks Guzzler will do sadly it means I will have to open a new bottle.
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I try to be neutral and polite but it is hard and getting even more difficult at times.
------------------------------------------------------------------- - Brian Dixon
- Location: Dover
- Registered: 23 Sep 2008
- Posts: 23,940
6 June 2012 10:21176695
to guzzler for a timely reninder. - 6 June 2012 11:20176697Good reminder Guzzler, the heroism at Pegasus Bridge is well recorded and worthy of our respect.
Alex the reason your version of Hastings is seldom mentioned is because there is more evidence of Harold's troops breaking ranks and fleeing than there is of any last man standing defence. Far better to remember the many who fought on against the Normans in Kent, the Essex marshes, the West Country and the Yorkshire moors. History is too often misrepresented by concentrating on the actions of kings rather than the men in the field who did the fighting. Remember that one of the VC winners from Rorkes Drift, during the Zulu War, only spent a few minutes there while fleeing from Isandwahla then galloping off for Durban long before the Zulu's reached the drift.
Pegasus Bridge was won and held by the men in the field and we salute them.Politics, it seems to me, for years, or all too long, has been concerned with right or left instead of right or wrong.
Richard Armour - 6 June 2012 13:33176708Chris, at Hasting, the English army did not run away. Shortly before the Autumn dusk, not long before the battle was bound to end through darkness, the majority of English soldiers charged downhill after the fleeing Norman cavalry. They did not keep to Harold's orders to remain put,
It was a ploy, as the Normans then turned their horses and charged at the English on flat land, the shield wall being by now broken. The Norman infantry then rushed forwards. The English died fighting.
Only King Harold and his Houscarls remained on the hill, and they too fell fighting, as the Norman cavalry attacked, under cover of the archers.
After that, the very last contingent of about 150 English soldiers that remained in formation took up a last stand too, and the French knights, allies of the Normans, charged them.
These last English soldiers also fell fighting, but quite a number of the French knights drowned in the marshes as they charged through that last group.
If the reality had been as you described, the Normans, who won the battle, would have written it in their history pages.
But they did not invent anything, and recounted the facts as they were, and this can also be seen on the Bayeux tapestry.
The same English army had only a few days earlier fought the Norwegians near York, and lost many men in a hard battle.
King Harold is the bravest of all English kings; he and his army stood, fought and died for England!
Chanters, Drums and Drones Potty Time http://youtu.be/99fMqpjnXYA
Rule Britannia!
Kent First http://youtu.be/04F3mAP3fV4 Keep banging on http://youtu.be/qYCU_SKmkGQ - 7 June 2012 12:25176862I could almost wish I had been there to see it as well. There are many sources that would disagree with your description and yet such a story would have served the Normans well. Following D-Day the German newsreels were full of shots of captured Allied forces and descriptions of how they had been drawn into invading as a ploy to wipe them out.Politics, it seems to me, for years, or all too long, has been concerned with right or left instead of right or wrong.
Richard Armour - 7 June 2012 12:29176863Never see it before, but yesterday on TV was "Ike - Countdown to D-Day" thought it was quite a good film
Strange seeing Magnum without his moustache !!Been nice knowing you :)
