D-Day landings remembered 70 years online

6 Jun 2014

D-Day landing image via Wikimedia Commons

To honour 70 years since the first landing craft beached on the shores of Normandy in 1944 as part of the D-Day landings, a number of online organisations are remembering it in their own unique ways.

@WarCabinet

Live-tweeting historic events has become quite popular in recent years as a means to re-create a chain of events in real-time that many of today’s major news stories follow out on Twitter.

Already, there exists accounts including @RealTimeWWII which sends tweets daily giving historical facts from 1942 as if they are being reported on as news.

Now, @WarCabinet are using documents released by the British Ministry of Defence to chart today’s events in 1944 which, at the time of writing, are following British soldiers who are beginning to advance into occupied France after the successful storming of the beaches: “1/Special Service: 45 RM Cdo pass over the bridges towards their objectives at MERVILLE and FRANCEVILLE PLAGE.”

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Google Cultural Institute

Meanwhile, Google have taken it upon themselves to release reams of historic data, images, letters and notes related to the invasion, including American President Franklin D Roosevelt’s prayer for the soldiers taking part, read to the public about the mission they were about to embark on.  

“Lead them straight and true; give them strength to their arms, stoutness to their hearts, steadfastness to their faith.”

Google has located hundreds of photos and videos show the American and British troops training in the English countryside before the invasion.

Colm Gorey was a senior journalist with Silicon Republic

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