Sixty-five years after the fact, I still wonder how they did it.
156,000 US and allied forces crossed the English channel to face 380,000 battle hardened, well-entrenched Axis soldiers that had industriously used two years of relative calm to build reinforced concrete bunkers and overlapping fields of fire. By the end of the day, over 6,000 US servicemen would fall, nearly 1500 of whom would never rise again. And there would be much more hard fighting left to come before the landing force would breakout from the Normandy beachhead.
The Armorer has much more, including this letter from a grateful French liaison officer serving alongside the 82nd in Afghanistan. The French government has not forgotten either – John “Harry” Kellers returns to France to be recognized as a Chevalier in the Légion d’honneur. His first trip there was as an 18-year old sailor serving a gun on an amphibious landing craft.
Naval forces played their role both on the on the beaches as well as offshore, according to German Field Marshall Gerd von Rundstedt:
The enemy had deployed very strong Naval forces off the shores of the bridgehead. These can be used as quickly mobile, constantly available artillery, at points where they are necessary as defence against our attacks or as support for enemy attacks. During the day their fire is skillfully directed by . . . plane observers, and by advanced ground fire spotters. Because of the high rapid-fire capacity of Naval guns they play an important part in the battle within their range. The movement of tanks by day, in open country, within the range of these naval guns is hardly possible.
The liberation of France started when each, individual man on those landing craft as the ramp came down – each paratroop in his transport when the light turned green – made the individual decision to step off with the only life he had and face the fire.
How did they do it?
Update: It may have had something to do with men like Lieutenant Walter Taylor of Baker Company, 116th Infantry, 29th Division.
They did it because they were the children of the Depression. They were hard, toughened by never having enough of anything, and used to working hard to get what they got. They didn’t play video games, watch TV, or enjoy air conditioning. If a family had electricity and a radio, they were considered rich.
And most importantly, they were the only hero’s we had. My God, what hero’s they were.
No, Byron, in one sense you’re very wrong. Those guys were just average guys trying to survive and doing their duty, which makes their accomplishments–both collectively and individually–all that much more heroic.
But you’re certainly right about the hard-working, toughened, bit. Someone once said that living conditions in 1941 for most of the country (which was still mainly rural and non-electrified–remember FDR’s REA-Rural Electrification Agency?) were far, far, closer to 1891 than 1991.
Virgil, they were much harder young men than we have today (with the exception of our fine service members, of which my son-in-law is one). The Depression made them look at life much differently, let them accept hardships that most today would scorn. And most importantly, they fought for a cause the WHOLE country believed in, and who all cheered them on. That, for sure, does not obtain today. They were also completely convinced that their cause was supremely important, if for no other reason than to kill Hitler or Tojo so they could go back home.
Byron, with all due respect, they did NOT do what they did because of the Depression. To say so implies that, were it not for the Depression, they may not have done what they did.
Sorry, I have to call BS on that. That phrase, or variations of it, is a Dan Rather phrase, and I mean that in a most perjorative sense.
As I type this post I am looking at a collection of WWII medals of my fathers [Combat Infantryman Badge , Expert Rifle Badge, Purple Heart with Oak Leaf Clusters, four Campaign Medals, Bronze Star], a picture of him in Belgium with a Tommy Gun (it may have been in Germany though his V-mails that we have lead me to believe it was Belgium), and other items from his WWII hike. That collection is framed under glass, in the living room, and looked at every day in my home. (Thank you Jesse Helms for helping me to get the medals that we were missing)
Along with thousands, even millions of others, Dad was an American Patriot. He did not do what he did because of the Depression, but he was a hero (at least to me he was).
And yes, our family was hurt by the Depression. My Grandparents lost most of their farm in Michigan due to the Depression, and both Mom and Dad had vivid memories of the experience. Was the Depression a meaningful part of the time when many of the G.I.’s grew up? Certainly, but it was not why they did what they did.
Our current service members are just as patriotic, talented, honorable, self-sacrificing and capable as the WWII generation of troops.
I do believe that our Politicians are not the patriots that existed in WWII, but that is another topic.
Respectfully,
It has been said (and I paraphrase): ‘They were ordinary people doing heroic deeds during extra-ordinary times.’
I’d agree with Byron, but also add that training training training played a major part. And not only the “how to” but the “why” – that being you can’t let your buddy down. My Father-in-law next door neighbor was there and his biggest recollection was the noise. He said you just could not imagine the sound of the naval guns, the machine guns, the aircraft, the rifles, and the men. A bit different sitting in a nice cockpit and looking at the little green balls floating up where the only sounds are the motor and your breathing.
He also said that time seemed to stand still, that the ramp came down in slow motion, and that he couldn’t get his legs to move fast enough. He also had some funnies like the guy on the beach changing into dry socks behind one of those landing craft obstacles cuz his Mom told him to keep his feet dry.
I stopped by last night after dinner and thanked him. Probably be the last time I get to do that.
Thanks for the remembery.
Also, they realised the consequences of not stopping the Nazis were far worse than the risks involved in stopping them. How we can ever repay what we owe that generation, I don’t know.
Much as we must honor the men of OVERLORD for thier efforts, we must not forget that on the same day, GUADALCANAL captured the U-505, and 9 days later, the Marines landed at Siapan. Troops were working up for the Liberation of the Philippines, the largest amphibious operation in history, with the invasion fleet coming, not from the other side of the Channel, but from Australia, Hawaii, and the West Coast.
In the Pacific, we were operating carriers in groups of a dozen, at the Marianas Turkey Shoot, and we still had enough left over to prepare for the strikes that led to the liberation of Guam, and the rest of the Marianas.
Not only could we provide enough materiel for our own needs, but we provided for the rest of the world, as well. The Siviets bore the brunt of fighting the Germans, but they did it by hauling thier supplies in Studebaker trucks, and fueling thier planes with 100 octane avgas that came from the US, the USSR not having any refineries capable of making that grade of fuel.
Our immediate ancestors were remarkable people, I only wish thier kind were still running the show. I can’t see Mr. Obama, Ms. Pelosi, nor Mr. Ried having the slightest interest in confronting, much less defeating evil.
SCOTTtheBADGER/
Appros of you mentioning that you wished they were running the show, I think of FEMA and Katrina, a subject about which I am unfortunately MORE than intimately familiar with and am STILL dealing with. I was on the phone one day–can’t remember when, it’s all been one long nightmare of a blur–and said: “If we had had types like you running WWII we’d have lost for sure!” Connection: Fail.
LOL!! (On the outside only, cryin’ on the inside, as they say–aren’t enough cliche’s to describe it..)
PS to SCOTTtheBADGER/
I really don’t want to slam EVERYBODY at FEMA–lots of hard working types among the chaff–including one ex-Marine that was really
good–probably why he was–but overall???
Your comparisons between FEMA and WWII are riduculous. people responding to a natural disaster do not have months of preperation time, a hard target with destruction on their minds. they are dealing with confusion, local officials, corrupt mayors, and governors who did not do thier jobs. had the mayor and governor listened to Bush days earlier, and evacuated lives would have been saved and FEMA would have had an easier job. But they instead dealt with emergency plans that left supplies under water, people trapped in a dome, people to be rescued. A maoyor who denied FEMA the support they needed. i met a FEMA official who had been in New Orleans and the Keys, and while recognizing that things were much worse in New Orleans, the cooperation with local officials was much better in the Keys. they were more organized, and more cooperative, there were no political games played. But no comparison between Katrina and D-Day please! It is ignorant.
Bruce/
FYI, I live in New Orleans, and was there for Katrina and directly suffered the incompetency of local and State officials alike first hand as well as that of FEMA representatives–so I hardly need any lectures from someone who wasn’t there. Additionally, I have a PhD in Political Science, specializing in the theory and practice of bureaucratic decision-making, so you might not want so bandy about the charge of ignorance quite so freely. The point I thought I was making in a verbal short-hand sort of way, was that the mental mind-set of present-day bureaucrats at ALL levels–incompetent or no–is one of a distinct sense of lack of urgency which, when added to organizational structures burdened with a proliferation of rules and regulations unknown to WWII-era organizations, combine to produce a different sort of individual who reacts with far less alacrity and decisiveness to things like Katrina than did their WWII-era predecessors.
To be fair, re-reading my comments, one such as yourself could have inferred I was being critical of only FEMA, but in truth these are top-of-the-head blog comments and not foot-noted submissions to refereed journals, so forgive me if I didn’t cover the waterfront to your satisfaction. So I hope this reply clears up any mis-apprehensions you might harbor about my desire to absolve local authorities in La. and N.O. from charges of either misfeasance or malfeasance in connections with their response to Katrina.
I don’t believe I remember ever reading Marshall’s piece from 1960. I’m sure I would have remembered the power of his account of those first minutes and hours.
“The high ground was won by a handful of men like Taylor who on that day burned with a flame bright beyond common understanding.”
Even as a service brat who grew up in and around the military, who later enlisted and served through a career and witnessed/experienced many things, who led a little, the accounts of this type of leadership under fire (whether during WWI, II, Korea, Vietnam, PG-I/-II, and now) serve to make me wonder the kind of man I would have been in similar occurrences.
On this day I remember those who didn’t have to wonder, who got in front, and I remember the men around them who followed them “because there wasn’t anything else to do”. [to live, to fight, to win].
thanks for the link, Lex.
I don’t know how it worked either. I mean, they had no women, and dangerously low percentages of minorities in the ranks, let alone the officer corps.
Greatest Generation or Greatest Generation Ever ?
Been thinking a lot today about D-Day. We had the radio on all day that day, listening to the reports from London and the U.S. about the war in general. I’m interested in the comments of all of you about this, and I wonder if I might introduce a thought here, not being a soldier and all. But I remember the days here in America that year [those years] … how truly frightened we were that the German juggernaut could really take over our wonderful free world if we lost that war.
Like the threat of imminent hanging truly concentrates the mind, as some pundit said, the vast changes in our lives that preceded D-Day somewhat prepared us at home for the horrifying and heroic acts of our soldiers on the beaches of Normandy. The war had already touched us here at home in many aspects, as it had the English. The best and brightest of our American youth had already left us for training camps and battlefields. Rationing of such essentials as all types of food [not just meat, but butter, sugar, fruit, candy] clothing, cars, gasoline was already widespread. I can’t even remember all the things we weren’t supposed to have, or have much of, but I do remember the ration books. And the black markets that sprang up.
In short, the whole of American society was already focused on the war, in a way that is radically different from today. We all knew, even the kids knew, that if we lost, then the Nazis won and took over our world. And that it was a very real possibility, that only our thin red line of heroes could prevent. And indeed they were Our Heroes, loved and when lost, grieved for, not only by their families, but their neighbors and even strangers.
I love this community of like-minded thinkers that Lex has here, because I know you all understand this far better than most Americans today.
Affectionately Marianne
Marianne: that brought tears to my eyes. You are SO right – our young men were the thin red line between freedom and tyranny.
They still are – it’s the homefront that doesn’t see it that way.
I am awestruck by the accomplishments of those who fought so bravely on the Atlantic, in Europe, in the Pacific and in Asia against such incredible evil. I also do not take it as a foregone conclusion that we were destined to win. There are so many “what ifs” that, had they fallen to the other option, would have taken the path to an entirely different outcome. And we had to make common cause with another devil to slay the immediate threat.
Yes, we have as brave and determined service personnel in our military today. But, alas, we do not have a general population as focused on winning as in the past. I shudder at the thought of what might have happened if the journalism of today had been the practice during WWII.
Eternal joy and love to them all in what follows this life.
And one more hero, Jim Norene of the 502nd Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne, has joined his comrades after visiting the Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0609/23430.html
I’ve been to Omaha and Utah beaches, and the photos don’t do justice to the men who took them.
What most photos don’t really show is that those beaches front on steep hills. The Germans sat up on the ridge and shot.
Fortunately, the Navy was available. Some of the DDs were running in 30 feet of water – getting in close to provide naval gunfire support at point-blank range.
Still, it took nerve. By the 55-gallon drum.
Mike, from seeing it in person: how far from the water’s edge were the cliffs and hills where the Germans were dug in? In the photographs I’ve seen it looks as if they were within 100 or 200 yards of where the boats dropped off the troops. It’s just so difficult to imagine the full scope and breadth of what took place.
It’s about 100-150 yards. Except at Point du Hoc…that’s sheer cliff.
The problem is that the ridge overlooking the beaches is 40-50 feet high. The Germans had a good defensive position and clear fields of fire. D-Day was like World War I, a massive bloodbath of a frontal attack.
BTW, if you ever make it to the beaches, be prepared…the French do swim there. Sunbathe, etc. That’s an observation, not a complaint. The monument is kept pristine. Pointe du Hoc is kept as it was.
Pointe du Hoc is under the administration of the American Battlefield Monument Commission. They do a fantastic job of making visitors understand the courage that was on display that day.
This morning, I thought about my father, who spend the night of 5-6 June, 1944, in the home of the mayor Sainte-Mère-Église, Monsieur Reynaud. Dad was in the 2/505 PIR. As I was planting the last of this season’s bedding plants, I thought about the freedom that we enjoy was purchased by the courage of people like him and thousands of others. As I said on another thread here, if you visit Omaha Beach, and see the reality of that beach, and the cliffs that had to be scaled (because all of the draws were heavily fortified), then you have some appreciation of the dedication required to purchase my freedom to plant those impatiens this morning.
Equally impressive is the British memorial to the east at Pegasus Bridge. Glider pilots landed within twenty meters of the bridge, which was quickly seized , blocking German counter attacks across the Caen canal. Same thing at the Merville Battery.
When you walk those grounds, you realize what what given to all of us.
I’ll add that the invasion front was far, far broader than people imagine. You can’t see one beach from another. This was a horizon-to-horizon affair.
I agree Mike – was there myself in May 1994. It is a breathtaking place to behold on a great many levels. Pointe du Hoc is especially amazing – knowing what happened there. Looking out at those open stretches of beaches and knowing what those guys had to go through to succeed is truely awe-inspiring.
I’m glad I had a chance to see it all.
“How did they do it?”
Part of my answer would be that they believed in something bigger than themselves.
Another part is, past a certain point, there is only the doing of things and the dying. To not go, to curl up in a ball and refuse, just leaves the other men you trained with to do it for you. Then, even if you live, you live with the knowledge of having faced the test and failed.
Courage is not the absence of fear, it is continuing to do the right things in the face of fear.
You often hear that so-and-so’s father or grandfather or uncle never said much about the war. If you were there, on that shingle, what could you say that anyone could ever understand? And if you weren’t there, but had another job, no matter how important, that kept you elsewhere, what do you have to say that matters? That day is done.
You know, one of the things which chaps me the most today, is that Sarkoszy and the French did not invite the last serving veteran of the Second World War who is still the head of her state, Queen Elizabeth, to attend today’s ceremonies. And she was a legitimate veteran of the war. She drove ambulances during the nightly hell of the London Blitz. and still knows how to change a tire. Although she’s probably like me — doesn’t have the strength to do it any more. I saw a documentary on PBS in the last year or two, where she is shown out and about at Balmoral by herself, stalled out on a forest road and checking out her spark plugs just like a normal person.
Sometimes I think the French are a bunch of effete pansies. As Shaw said in My Fair Lady, “the French don’t care what you say, as long as you pronounce it correctly.” How do they pronounce ‘jerk,’ I wonder.
Marianne
P. S. My apologies to all here who have French ancestors and French names. And you know who you are. Besides, it’s Sarkoszy’s fault, and he’s a Hungarian Frenchman.
It was also successful because of the efforts of men like Ron Farnsworth (no links, just a hardworking then 21-year old of whatever rank he was enlisted at–the British vets don’t talk either) who worked on the minesweeper Speedwell in the British Navy…
And here I sit, immencely proud, as a child of New Orleans, where the Higgins boats which made much of D Day and other landings possible, were produced, and now yet a stone’s throw away from Bedford, VA which suffered the loss of most of her young during the Normandie landings, I am in awe of all who were part of this endeavor. From those who sacrificed on the homefornt to those who gave their blood in battle, it was universal sacrifice, unlike today. We should be proud of the past yet somewhat sad at how little we support our efforts today.
Xairb0ss(alias) E-Yat
Well said, well said. Unfortunately, we as a nation collectively don’t feel threatened today, or we would not elect those we do. WWII was really a very close-run thing, the outcome of which only seems inevitable in retrospect. Pearl Harbor was a blessing in disguise.
Hell even AFTER Pearl, 70% of the American public didn’t want to go to war with Germany, and if Hitler hadn’t been so foolish as to needlessly declare war on us, we might not have become engaged in Europe until it was too late. And what if the Japanese had NOT attacked Pearl, and left the Phillippines alone at first, but instead in a series of small salami slice tactics gradually absorbed SEA bit by bit? Would we have been moved to action despite no direct attack? It would have been touch and go, imho. We were very, very, lucky. We won’t always be, everyone’s luck runs out sometime if that’s all one is depending on. When I see, even as a blue-suiter “rival,” what is happening to your service I weep for the future. Truly I do.
Dad didn’t get a scratch on him as a company commander(if you don’t count a concussion from a landmine that hit his jeep) even as he was awarded the Silver Star and three Bronze ones. But a lot of his friends sure never made it back. Even as we honor the memory of my Dad now 13 yrs gone, his immediate comrades-in-arms and millions of others like them who sacrificed (as well as “those who stand and wait”) I am, like you, saddened for the prospects that their grand-children–our children–will live to see the day that Europe and large parts of Asia will be conquered yet again by an even more insidious and intractable foe–a population bomb this time that brings the transformation of the free world via the intimidation of numbers that we see already happening before our very eyes in Europe with the Islamic immigrant population. And that in the end, our countrymen’s sacrifices will have been in vain unless Western Civilization stops collectively whistling past the grave-yard.
The day may come in the not too distant future, when the living will admire those long dead who lived in a simpler time. At the height of the Cold War Solzhenitsyn put it best when he said: “What it seems not to have occurred to some people is that it is possible to be both Red AND Dead simultaneously.” The thought of the prospect of losing the collective soul of our Civilization makes me especially sad on days like this.
xairboss … You and Virgil, and maybe some more who read here, are next door neighbors to those of us in Texas. And we suffered for you during Hurricane Katrina. I like your sentence above: “From those who sacrificed on the home front to those who gave their lives in battle, it was universal sacrifice, unlike today.” I, too, am ’somewhat sad’ at how few civilians support the efforts of our military today. Why, whole cities full of people are proud of themselves for not supporting them.
Other groups of us, however, never forget.
Marianne
Thanks Marianne. While I grew up in New Orleans, I no longer reside there although I still have family ties, and go back occasionally to “pig out” on the wonderful food. I now live in the beautiful southern Shenandoah Valley of Virginia.
I think of the scene at the end of ‘Saving Private Ryan’, where the old Private Ryan is speaking with his wife:
Old James Ryan: Tell me I have led a good life.
Ryan’s Wife: What?
Old James Ryan: Tell me I’m a good man.
Ryan’s Wife: You *are*.
Somehow that sticks with me, the idea that living a good life and being a good man justifies the sacrifices made by all those great and wonderful souls; fellow citizens whose lives were no more or less special than ours, but were given that we might have ours. For that, I owe them everything.
Mongo,
me too, brother, me too. I am always humbled when I read their stories, and the stories of all our veterans.
As the saying goes: “They gave their tomorrows for our todays”.
I hope to live my life so as to be worthy of that sacrifice. I’ll probably fall short, because they’ve set the bar pretty high, but I’ll go down trying.
God Bless them all.
Wretchard has a great post on those SOE agents who “waited for D-Day”.
http://pajamasmedia.com/richardfernandez/2009/06/06/waiting-for-d-day/
I agree with several posters that mention that today is different because we do not suffer here at home. I was not in favor of war in iraq, but once engaged we saw that we had to stay to help stabalize the country or we would see another Afganistan after the Soviets left. But we should have suffered here at home. it was no time for tax cuts, but increased military spending should have been in higher taxes or rationing. that way we could participate in the effort. We alos should have made a better effort to help the people or Iraq to rebuild. with an increas ein military to gyuard them, civilian contractors should have been increased to help start new businesses, etc. at all of our sacrifice. the people of iraq and the Arab world would have seen our sacrifice, and appreciated it. they would have truly been united with us against a common enemy.
Yes, we do live in different times and no, we do not suffer. America is an affluent country. We ARE ‘rich’ when compared to others. How many households have two or three cars, two or more TV’s/radios/computers/AC……etc. I lived in Brazil for ten years and have seen poverty, misery and hunger. Seventy-five percent of the work force earn minimum wage (something like $200/mth.) Here in the US, we have not known true hunger of privation since WWII. We’re spoiled and coddled. Life is just too easy. Way too much is taken for granted. The country is in need of a good wake up call (for a while 9/11 seemed to be it but has lost it’s effect) that’ll knock some sense into the noggin’s the lefty loonies.
well, hg..some us worked very very hard for what we have achieved..no one handed it to us on a silver platter…
I agree with dwas; what my family has – we earned by working hard for it. My parents were children during WWII and vividly remembered the rationing and privation. My dad was a self-made man, passing on his work ethic, integrity and grit to his daughter.
It isn’t all tea & cookies.
Last night I attended a Midway commemoration dinner, and was not only thrilled to hear a long and thoroughly rousing speech by Gen. James Mattis, but also to be in the company of 11 survivors of the Midway Island battle. One was a machinist mate on the Hammond, and was one of the lucky ones that survived the torpedoing of the Hammond and the Yorktown. Another was a photographers mate, who took the last pictures aboard the Yorktown, moments before she took her last mortal blows. And even more special, was a Coast Guard Cox’n who made dozens of trips to the beach in a Higgins boat to the landing zones of Normandy on D-Day. It was an amazing experience to be in the company of those incredible men.
And a humorous note: A Yorktown machinist mate who was aboard with the salvage party stepped out onto the dance floor with his bride to do a very nice little fox trot. They recieved a standing ovation, and I’ll admit that my eyes were a bit moist.
Byron, you were indeed honored to be in the company of such greatness. It would have been superb if we could have all been there with you and such heros.
I’d have flooded the place I’m sure.
Not even close to being similar but we recently had an experience that shows not everyone in the world hates the American military.
While on vacation on a cruise, we went to an evening show. At the end of the show, the MC called 4 men to the stage – randomly selected – for a trick. He asked each one what they do for a living; one of the men answered that he is in the Air Force.
The audience of about 1,500 people cheered, clapped and stood up for him. That audience wasn’t all American.
Manly men doing manly things with other manly men…probably shocking to the current crop of metro-sexuals assuming they’ve even heard of it….(-*