Leaderboard

A day after marking 71 years since the allied forces stormed the beaches of Normandy, consider taking out 18mins of your day to watch this sobering and profound animated data visualisation of all the lives lost in the Second World War. (It's free to view, tickets are optional) http://www.fallen.io/ww2/ It certainly gave me the chills. Lest we forget.

Thanks Chris, I will do that very thing this afternoon. Always interested in differing perspectives and new information perhaps in the vain hope that doing so will delay the onset of dementia and general crustyness . Mick.

I saw this last week on my phone is sobering and passed iton via my FB ;-) But just did it again via the PC and Interactive. Thanks for reminding me to look at it on the PC

Very good points Mr. P. By the way, if you look at U.S. casualty figures, the Navy, in particular, lost horrendous numbers in 1944 and 1945. The majority of deaths in WWII occurred during the last years. Of course, that was when the invasions were taking place, too, so... One of the things that those who are so vocal against the use of atomic weaponry seem to conveniently forget. Why not use every weapon available if it ends the bloodshed early? Can you imagine what Operation Olympic and Operation Coronet (collectively Operation Downfall) would have looked like? We probably wouldn't be here as our fathers/grandfathers would have been killed during that invasion. The specifics escape me, but I remember reading the plans that included one particular unit, a large one, like a division. The plans did not include that unit beyond day six. It was just accepted that the unit would have been wiped out by then.