The nation is remembering the eighty first anniversary of the D-Day landing during World War Two today. The invasion of Europe by allied forces was supported by navy ships like the U.S.S. Nevada at Utah Beach. Military historians say one other vessel providing cover that day was the cruiser U.S.S. Tuscaloosa. Matthew McCluney is the assistant curator at the U.S.S. Alabama Battleship Memorial Park in Mobile. He says the Tuscaloosa wasn’t the only New Orleans class cruiser in the fight.
:And so for shore bombardment duty, like, for example, the the Tuscaloosa, the Quincy and the Nevada were covering Utah Beach,” McCluney said. “And so those are the Nevada is an older ship, the Quincy and the Tuscaloosa. Those are New Orleans class cruisers.
The subject of D-Day came up during an Office meeting between Donald Trump and newly-elected German Chancellor Friedrich Merz. For Merz's part, he used Friday's anniversary of D-Day — when Allied forces launched an assault that began the liberation of Europe from German occupation — to appeal to Trump to help lead the ending of another violent war on the continent.
Merz noted that June 6, 1944, began the liberation of Germany from a Nazi dictator and that “American is again in a very strong position to so something on this war and ending this war.”
“That was not a pleasant day for you?” Trump interjected to the German leader when he referenced D-Day.
At home, Merz's government is intensifying a drive that his immediate predecessor, Olaf Scholz, began to bolster the German military after Russia invaded Ukraine. In Trump's first term, Berlin was a target of his ire for failing to meet the current NATO target of spending 2% of gross domestic product on defense, and Trump is now demanding at least 5% from allies. Back during the “Operation Overload” invasion on D-Day, Matthew McCluney, assistant curator at U.S.S. Alabama Battleship Memorial Park said ships during the action were armed with main guns of various sizes…
“So, you know, you have, the Tuscaloosa has eight inch guns, and the Alabama has 16 inch guns for main armament. So there's a, again, there's a big step. And some of the cruisers, like the the Alaska class, have a 12 inch gun, and that's about as big as we ever put on a cruiser,” he observed.
The U.S.S. Alabama Battleship Memorial Park will hold a re-enactment tomorrow in honor of the D-Day anniversary.
