#the longest day

[terapsina]

THE POLLS 1 & 2 OF TIME LOOP EPISODES FOUND HERE (also where in a week I'll put the winners into a separate ultimate poll).

#the magicians #being erica #agents of shield #person of interest #the mindy project #doctor who #the twilight zone #ats #true calling #quantum leap #timelooppolls #oops! i did it again #wash rinse repeat #as i have always been #if then else #hot mess time machine #heaven sent #shadow play #time bomb #the longest day #leap die repeat #time loops #my polls #polls

[000marie198]

Ah yes, the quote Hiccup unknowingly kept memorized for three years only to say it when he was sleep deprived and half crazy

#don't you know that a trapper's trap can trap the trapper? #httyd #httyd rob #httyd dob #defenders of berk #the night and the fury #httyd hiccup #rtte #the longest day #race to the edge #hiccup haddock #dagur the deranged #dob live blog

[ashleybenlove]

Mmm forever love this shot of the boys

#ashleybenlove posts #how to train your dragon #Race to the Edge #season 4 #The Longest Day #hiccup #toothless #hiccup and toothless #otp: we can do this. you and me. as one.

[blackswaneuroparedux]

I never admitted to anybody during my entire military service that I had been an actor. I was terrified that I would be put in charge of Ensa [Entertainments' National Service Association]. Not even my closest friends knew I was an actor. I told them I was reading English at St Andrews University.

- Richard Todd

In his heyday in the 1950s and 1960s, Richard Todd was Britain’s leading matinee idol. If you love old movies, you’ll have seen Todd in one of his starring roles in “The Virgin Queen” opposite Bette Davis, “Stage Struck” with Marlene Dietrich, or “The Dam Busters” for which he won a Golden Globe Award. He was the tough little Scotsman in the wartime weepie “The Hasty Heart” and had audiences madly hunting for hankies.

Those were the days when Todd streaked across North American film screens as virtually every romantic hero from Rob Roy to Robin Hood. Ian Fleming chose him to play James Bond in “Dr. No” in 1962, but a schedule clash meant Sean Connery stepped into the role.

Little less known is the fact that he was also among the first British soldiers and the first Irishman to land in Normandy on D Day. More specifically, he participated in Operation Tonga during the D-Day landings in Normandy on 6 June 1944.

So it must have been surreal for Richard Todd the hearthrob actor to find himself playing Major John Howard in the epic movie ‘The Longest Day’ (1962) based on Cornelius Ryan’s book. Not least because he served with Howard and took part in the fighting at Pegasus Bridge that Major John Howard was tasked to secure on D Day.

Richard Todd was born in Dublin, Ireland, in 1919. His father was a medic in the British Army and, as his posting required, the early years of his life were spent in India. The family settled in Devon upon their return to England, and Richard was educated at Shrewsbury Public School, in Shropshire. The theatre was his first love, and he furthered his dramatic skills at the Italia Conti school, thereafter moving to Scotland where he helped to form the Dundee Repertory Theatre. When War was declared, Todd went to St. Andrew's University on the following day to volunteer. He was not a member of the University, but he not only convinced the selection unit that he was, but also added that he had been reading English there for six months, and that he had obtained a Cert A in his school cadet corps; a key point to being accepted as an officer. Despite success in passing off this invented career, Todd was to be disappointed by a lack of interest in him thereafter.

Becoming increasingly desperate to get into the War before it ended, he sent numerous letters to the War Office to press his case, which, in June 1940, was finally noticed.

Accepted by the King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry, Todd went to Sandhurst to receive his officer training. He had a very lucky escape here when he was in a corridor on the second floor of a building when it was hit by a bomb, and he was blown into the garden outside by the blast. He got to his feet in the darkness and did not feel particularly affected by it, but an examination by torchlight revealed that his whole body was covered in blood from numerous small wounds.

A spell his hospital delayed his passing out from Sandhurst until early 1941. Celebrating in London, he narrowly avoided death again when he found his usual haunt, the Cafe de Paris, was too crowded to admit him and so he went elsewhere; it was hit by a bomb that same night and 84 people were killed.

His Battalion, the 2nd/4th Battalion The King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry, was posted to XII Corps in defence of Kent, where a German invasion if it came would almost certainly land. Todd was given command of the infantry in the Dymchurch Redoubt, a fort of the Napoleonic era mounting two six-inch guns.

In the event of an invasion, this would certainly have been a primary target for the enemy, and those manning it were told that, with the main defensive line far to their rear, they would be left to fight to the end. General Montgomery commanded XII Corps at this time, and his characteristic emphasis on training and preparedness led to the formation of the first Battle Schools. Richard Todd attended one of these, and the experience allowed him to run his own School when, in December 1941, he was sent to Iceland with the 1st/4th King's Own Light Infantry to be trained in arctic and mountain warfare. Returning to England in September 1942, he eventually ended up in the 7th (Light Infantry) Parachute Battalion of the 6th Airborne Division. He was among troops of the 7th (Light Infantry) Parachute Battalion who, at 00:40 hours on 6 June 1944, landed behind the Normandy beaches in a cornfield, perilously close to tracer fire.

Todd scrambled into a wood and with 150 other paratroopers reached Pegasus and Ranville bridges, vital crossings to allow Allied forces to break out from the beachheads into Normandy. They had been seized by a glider force from the Ox and Bucks Light Infantry under the command of Major John Howard, who needed reinforcements to fend off ferocious German attacks.

In his memoirs, Caught in the Act, Todd would write of the carnage, “There was no cessation in the Germans' probing with patrols and counter-attacks, some led by tanks, and the regimental aid post was overrun in the early hours. The wounded being tended there were all killed where they lay. There was sporadic enemy mortar and artillery fire we could do nothing about. One shell landed in a hedge near me, killing a couple of our men.”

Todd would go on and see action at the Battle of the Bulge and push into the Rhine into Germany. After VE day, his division returned to the UK for a few weeks, then was sent on counter-insurgency operations in Palestine. During this posting he was seriously injured when his Jeep overturned, breaking both shoulders and receiving a concussion. He returned to the UK to be demobilised in 1946. 

In 1962, Todd was given the part of Major John Howard in the film adaptation of Cornelius Ryan's book about the D-Day landings, ‘The Longest Day’ (1962). Due to the nature of cinema, it was impossible for the film to give a thorough reflection of the role of the 6th Airborne Division during the Invasion, and as such their activities were solely represented by a reconstruction of the capture of Bénouville Bridge by Howard's coup-de-main force. Although briefly mentioned, the role of the 7th Battalion in the defence of the western bridgehead was largely ignored, and so it appeared as if the defence of the bridge rested only on Howard's men.

Naturally, the omission of their fierce defence of Bénouville caused some resentment amongst veterans, not least because one of their own was championing this re-working of history. Todd, however, regarded ‘The Longest Day’ (1962) as a film rather than a documentary, and his part in it was simply that of an actor doing as he was told.

Richard Todd would never have guessed, that in 17 years since he was on Pegasus Bridge as a paratrooper that he would standing there again as an actor portraying Major John Howard who was given the order: 'Hold,… until relieved'. It had to be Richard Todd’s 'twilight-zone' moment.

The ‘relieve’ for Howard had to come from Lord Lovat and his troops, who had landed on SWORD Beach, and were legging it towards Pegasus Bridge.

Before the shooting of the scenes were started at Pegasus Bridge, the film producer of The Longest Day, Darryl F. Zanuck, had the real life Lord Lovat and Major John Howard brought over to meet the men who were going to portray them (Peter Lawford portrayed Lord Lovat). The men had not seen each other since 6 June 1944.

Photo (above). From L-R: Peter Lawford, Lord Lovat, Richard Todd, Major John Howard.

#todd #richard todd #quote #british army #D Day #DDay #Normandy #pegasus bridge #war #second world war #major john howard #parachute #battle #actor #soldier #paratrooper #the longest day #film #movie #cinema #britain

[carygrant]

#The Longest Day #D-day #WWII #movie #gif

[whitecappslll]

Happy Summer Solstice!  

#Summer Solstice #the longest day

[box-o-paperbacks]

The Longest Day, 1962

#the longest day #vintage paperback #world war II

[antoni-g]

From "The longest day".

#ww2 #erwin rommel #the longest day #normandy

[principiumindividuationis777]

#The Longest Day #film #60s #black and white #Normandy #World War II #World War 2 #Darryl F. Zanuck #realism #tw: war #tw: violence #1940s

[citizenscreen]

THE LONGEST DAY (1962)

#the longest day

[rosiethedragongeek]

An absolute CRIME that we didn't get to see the gang cuddling at the end of the longest day

#i love them #babies #the longest day #rtte gang #ot6 #rtte ot6 #hiccup horrendous haddock the 3rd #my bbs #hiccup haddock #hiccup #astrid hofferson #astrid #snotlout jorgenson #snotlout #ruffnut thorston #ruffnut #tuffnt thorston #tuffnut #race to the edge #how to train your dragon #rtte #httyd #rosie's httyd brainrot

[parastitch]

There will come a day when even these heroes are forgotten, today is not that day as we celebrate the 78th anniversary of operation overlord. A force the likes of which the world had never seen before and Lord willing will never see again crashed upon the defenses of occupied France to free the world from tyranny.

May the stars cease to shine long before the glorious endeavor they undertook be forgotten, when the shores were painted red with the blood of Free men of united cause.

#d day #overlord #Normandy #ww2 #hero's #greatest generation #the longest day

[lynnarii]

So much Nora and Danse interaction

So many good Danse quotes which I am totally making part of my fanon

You should've let Maxson shoot me

Danse has such a dry sense of humor I love it so much

Oh God is there going to be interaction between Danse and Shau...... Aaaaaàhhhh wait what omg is Nora/Danse canon in this play!!!!???

BRB actively dying

#fallout 4 #shut up lynn #the longest day #spoilers

[ashleybenlove]

That Shadow Wing that basically annihilates Hiccup

Gets tail smacked by Toothless into a tree.

Maan, that Shadow Wing just WENT for Hiccup.

#ashleybenlove posts #how to train your dragon #Race to the Edge #season 4 #The Longest Day

[chessismyaesthetic]

John Wayne playing chess on the set of The Longest Day

#chess #john wayne #the longest day

[stumblingoverchaos]

For #strawberrymoonjune2023. Day 21: The Longest Day. Collage, sticker. It's fascinating to me that this illustration makes it look like Stonehenge is in the midst of a barren desert.

#strawberrymoonjune #artjournal #artjournaling #visualjournal #visualjournaling #artjournalpage #artjournals #visualjournals #artistsoninstagram #collage #sticker #stickers #art journal #art journaling #visual journal #visual journaling #summer solstice #the longest day