D-Day, 1944: "The eyes of the world are upon you. The hope and prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere march with you... this is the year 1944! The tide has turned! The free men of the world are marching together to victory!" #QotD

Supreme Allied Commander Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower speech to the troops before the D-Day invasion on 6 June 1944:

Soldiers, Sailors and Airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Force: You are about to embark upon the Great Crusade, toward which we have striven these many months.      The eyes of the world are upon you. The hope and prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere march with you.
    Your task will not be an easy one. Your enemy is well trained, well equipped and battle-hardened. He will fight savagely.
    But this is the year 1944! The tide has turned! The free men of the world are marching together to victory!
    I have full confidence in your courage, devotion to duty and skill in battle.
    We will accept nothing less than full victory!
    Good luck! And let us all beseech the blessing of Almighty God upon this great and noble undertaking.

Gen. Alfred Jodl, operations chief of the German high command, early 1944:

We shall see who fights better and who dies more easily, the German soldier faced with the destruction of his homeland or the Americans and British, who don’t even know what they are fighting for in Europe.

Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, 22 April 1944

The first twenty-four hours of the invasion will be decisive. . . . [T]he fate of Germany depends on the outcome. For the Allies as well as Germany, it will be the longest day.

Brig. Simon Fraser (Lord Lovat), arriving with his commandos to relieve the British airborne troops holding the Orne River bridges, 6 June.

I’m sorry we’re a few minutes late.

And finally, from Gen. George S Patton’s speech to his Third Army, given ahead of the Allied invasion:

Sure, we want to go home. We want this war over with. The quickest way to get it over with is to go get the bastards who started it. The quicker they are whipped, the quicker we can go home. The shortest way home is through Berlin and Tokyo. And when we get to Berlin, I am personally going to shoot that paper-hanging son of a bitch Hitler. Just like I’d shoot a snake! ..
    We’ll win this war, but we’ll win it only by fighting and by showing the Germans that we’ve got more guts than they have, or ever will have. We’re not going to just shoot the sons of bitches, we’re going to rip out their living goddamned guts and use them to grease the treads of our tanks. We’re going to murder those lousy Hun cocksuckers by the bushel-fucking-basket.
    War is a bloody, killing business. You’ve got to spill their blood, or they will spill yours. Rip them up the belly. Shoot them in the guts. When shells are hitting all around you, and you wipe the dirt off your face and realise that instead of dirt it’s the blood and guts of what once was your best friend beside you, you’ll know what to do! I don’t want to get any messages saying, “I am holding my position.” We are not holding a goddamned thing. Let the Germans do that. We are advancing constantly, and we are not interested in holding onto anything except the enemy’s balls. We are going to twist his balls and kick the living shit out of him all of the time...
    There is one great thing that you men will all be able to say after this war is over and you are home once again. You may be thankful that twenty years from now, when you are sitting by the fireplace with your grandson on your knee and he asks you what you did in the great World War II, you won’t have to cough, shift him to the other knee, and say, 'Well, your granddaddy shovelled shit in Louisiana.' No sir, you can look him straight in the eye and say, 'Son, your granddaddy rode with the great Third Army and a son of a goddamned bitch named Georgie Patton!' That is all. 

[Hat tip History on the Net and The Independent]
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