標(biāo)題: 克林頓紀(jì)念諾曼底登陸勝利50周年演講 [打印本頁] 作者: 老郭 時間: 2010-1-25 12:48 標(biāo)題: 克林頓紀(jì)念諾曼底登陸勝利50周年演講 昨天有朋友打電話，問我能否找到克林頓紀(jì)念諾曼底登陸勝利50周年演講的中文譯文。據(jù)說這篇演講很著名，是由一個叫劉百川的人捉筆的。到網(wǎng)上搜了一番，還真沒找到中文譯文。那咱就試著翻譯它一下吧。如果有敏感的地方就略過。作者: 老郭 時間: 2010-1-25 12:48
In these last days of ceremonies, we have heard wonderful words of tribute. Now we come to this hallowed place that speaks, more than anything else, in silence. Here on this quiet plateau, on this small piece of American soil, we honor those who gave their lives for us 50 crowded years ago.
Today, the beaches of Normandy are calm. If you walk these shores on a summer's day, all you might hear is the laughter of children playing on the sand or the cry of seagulls overhead or perhaps the ringing of a distant church bell, the simple sounds of freedom barely breaking the silence, peaceful silence, ordinary silence.
But June 6th, 1944, was the least ordinary day of the 20th century. On that chilled dawn, these beaches echoed with the sounds of staccato gunfire, the roar of aircraft, the thunder of bombardment. And through the wind and the waves came the soldiers, out of their landing craft and into the water, away from their youth and toward a savage place many of them would sadly never leave. They had come to free a continent, the Americans, the British, the Canadians, the Poles, the French Resistance, the Norwegians, and others; they had all come to stop one of the greatest forces of evil the world has ever known.
As news of the invasion broke back home in America, people held their breath. In Boston, commuters stood reading the news on the electric sign at South Station. In New York, the Statue of Liberty, its torch blacked out since Pearl Harbor, was lit at sunset for 15 minutes. And in Newcastle, Pennsylvania, a young mother named Pauline Elliot wrote to her husband, Frank, a corporal in the Army, "D-Day has arrived. The first thought of all of us was a prayer."
Below us are the beaches where Corporal Elliot's battalion and so many other Americans landed, Omaha and Utah, proud names from America's heartland, part of the biggest gamble of the war, the greatest crusade, yes, the longest day.
During those first hours on bloody Omaha, nothing seemed to go right. Landing craft were ripped apart by mines and shells. Tanks sent to protect them had sunk, drowning their crews. Enemy fire raked the invaders as they stepped into chest-high water and waded past the floating bodies of their comrades. And as the stunned survivors of the first wave huddled behind a seawall, it seemed the invasion might fail.
Hitler and his followers had bet on it. They were sure the Allied soldiers were soft, weakened by liberty and leisure, by the mingling of races and religion. They were sure their totalitarian youth had more discipline zeal.