Read what a Chinese officer wrote of D-Day in his diary salvaged in Hong Kong
he captain of the giant Royal Navy battleship called his officers together to give them a first morsel of one of World War II’s most closely guarded secrets: Prepare yourselves, he said, for “an extremely important task.”
“Speculations abound,” one of the officers wrote in his diary that day — June 2, 1944. “Some say a second front, some say we are to escort the Soviets, or doing something else around Iceland. No one is allowed ashore.”
The secret was D-Day — the June 6, 1944, invasion of Nazi-occupied France with the world’s largest-ever sea, land and air armada. It punctured Adolf Hitler’s fearsome “Atlantic Wall” defenses and sped the dictator’s downfall 11 months later.
The diary writer was Lam Ping-yu — a Chinese officer who crossed the world with two dozen comrades-in-arms from China to train and serve with Allied forces in Europe.
As survivors of the Battle of Normandy disappear, Lam’s compelling firsthand account adds another vivid voice to the huge library of recollections that the World War II generation is leaving behind, ensuring that its sacrifices for freedom and the international cooperation that defeated Nazism aren’t forgotten.
https://apnews.com/article/dday-hong-kong-china-france-liberation-war-359faf9096745490e137027d4eea8c90
Fascinating. I didn't know about this at all.