The D-Day That Never Was
With the 75th anniversary of the D-Day landings in Normandy that marked the beginning of the end of WW2, plenty of attention will be paid to what happened in the stormy gloom of that morning. There will be stories told of unimaginable bravery from the allied troops who, despite so much going wrong, fought and clawed that first foothold onto the continent oppressed by the Nazis. Memorials like the vast cemetery above the beaches will be adorned and visited with hushed and reverent tones. World leaders will gather where once fierce fighting took place and give speeches in the places where the din of battle once shattered the shoreline.
An estimated 300 living veterans will be in attendance, the shockingly dwindled remnants of a generation that — having saved the world — have now nearly passed from it. Modern troops dressed as their forerunners climb Pointe Du Hoc and parachute into the fields, not to heavy enemy fire but the applause and delight of adoring crowds. All the world pauses to remember, and to be thankful, and to celebrate a time when the fate of the world really did hang in the balance.
But the man who gave the order to go for H-Hour on D-Day was all too aware of how the whole affair rested on a knife’s edge that could very well have gone the other way. Like other warrior heroes in history, Dwight D. Eisenhower is more marble statue and list of accomplishments than living man to the modern memory. The Supreme Allied Commander agonized for days, fighting with not only the weight of command and the horrid weather, but the machinery of keeping the greatest armada the world had ever seen ready for battle and focused on the task at hand.
Ike would later be criticized in his own country as president as being rather boring and an unflashy speaker, especially contrasted to his successor in the White House, John F. Kennedy. But the man could write, proven by not only his personal papers but the fact that he wrote his own comprehensive volume on the crusade in Europe in two months and without any ghost writers. So fitting it was a piece of paper that had his own handwriting on it that might be the most telling thing he ever wrote.
Our landings in the Cherbourg-Havre area have failed to gain a satisfactory foothold and I have withdrawn the troops. My decision to attack at this time and place was based on the best information available. The troops, the air and the Navy did all that bravery and devotion to duty could do. If any blame or fault attaches to the attempt it is mine alone.
It is an astounding thing to read. In what we now know as one of the greatest triumphs in not just military but human history, Eisenhower felt the full weight of potential failure. Tellingly, he scratched out “have been withdrawn” to “I have withdrawn”. It is not an insignificant a change. Chiefly it shows leadership, of Eisenhower the consummate soldier taking the full burden of the failure, shielding his troops from blame as a good commander should. But it was much more than that. In taking the full blame personally, he was laying the groundwork for the next attempt. And he knew if Overlord failed, there would be another attempt. The argument could be made that this time it will work because that fool Eisenhower isn’t in charge this time. This time it would work.
That sentiment was inlaid into FDR’s “Mighty Endeavor” prayer that he gave to the nation on radio, which for the common American was the first notice that the liberation of Europe was finally underway. While the fighting was still going, the possibility of temporary failure that Eisenhower prepared for was also on the president’s mind. But Roosevelt made it clear the resolve was to win in the end regardless, not just because of strategy but because good must prevail over evil.
Their road will be long and hard. For the enemy is strong. He may hurl back our forces. Success may not come with rushing speed, but we shall return again and again; and we know that by Thy grace, and by the righteousness of our cause, our sons will triumph.
They will be sore tried, by night and by day, without rest-until the victory is won. The darkness will be rent by noise and flame. Men’s souls will be shaken with the violences of war.
For these men are lately drawn from the ways of peace. They fight not for the lust of conquest. They fight to end conquest. They fight to liberate. They fight to let justice arise, and tolerance and good will among all Thy people. They yearn but for the end of battle, for their return to the haven of home.
Some will never return.
Had D-Day failed and another attempt been necessary, historians postulate that such a task would have taken perhaps another year, and who knows how many more lives. And thankfully we never found out. The allied troops carried the day, tenaciously grabbed their foothold on fortress Europe and relentlessly drove for the conclusion of the war nearly a year later. The actual wording and setting that Eisenhower gave to launch Operation Overlord is disputed. Ike himself wrote at least 5 different versions of what he said, and how and where he said it. But in the hours after giving the order, in the almost full day it took to implement and put troops on the beach, he took up his pen and wrote the note that would thankfully never be needed.
The humanity of Eisenhower in those moments of doubt should dovetail with understanding that the veterans and honored dead of the Great Crusade were not great because they were supermen, but men who resolved to succeed and thus became great. In our praise we should pause to understand it could have been very different, if not for innumerable acts of courage over thousands of places and scores of times, most that we will never know. In Eisenhower’s letter taking the blame for the D-Day that never was, we have another thing to be thankful for to the last of the greatest generation before they pass. The men, from the Supreme Commander all the way to the privates, were well aware the challenge, were daunted by the task at hand, knew it was a clearly present evil they were fighting against…and totaling it all in their minds collectively and individually answered the way Ike did to his staff when the opening presented itself to launch the invasion:
“OK, We’ll go.”
Good stuff, Andrew. It’s pretty much taken until this generation for Ike to fully get his due.Report
Here is a complete broadcast of D-day, all 24 hours of it, as broadcast on CBS Radio. From the first hour relaying reports and rumors being broadcast on German radio, to the release of information from allied commanders, to foreign leaders in England speaking to their occupied populations, to speeches by Ike and FDR, to accounts from embedded reporters, it’s all there.
This is one of those days when society is really lucky that I don’t run a day-care center, because a whole lot of little tots would go home convinced we’re invading Europe and telling their parents to turn on the news.Report
I’ll check that out. Thanks.Report
It’s interesting that growing up in the 60’s like I did, there were lots of war heroes that I heard about as a child and teenager. I played lots of games, and saw lots of shows (TV and movies) that portrayed lots of heroes from the era, but somehow Ike was never one of them.
It doesn’t seem right to say he didn’t get his due because, well, he became President. I think people understood his ability to organize and administer.
But he was never a “character”. He was never someone flamboyant like Patton, or relatable like Bradley, constantly posing like Montgomery or strangely noble and extraordinarily skilled like Rommel, or evil like Goering. He was just the guy who ran SHAEF, and all his decisions seemed like they were just water running downhill, taking the natural course.
What I know now about life, and decision making makes that previous sentence extremely high praise. To quote the Tao, “With the best leaders, the people say, ‘we did it ourselves'”.
I have an old friend whose father worked for the State Department as an economist under several administrations. He described Eisenhower as the best administrator to every occupy the Oval Office.Report
That he wasn’t a “character” helped him deal with the pompous, but important, blowhards under him like Monty and Patton. He was able to subsume his ego to accomplish his goals. He also had to be mindful of the needs of the entire coalition and be a bit of diplomat which means he would actively hated among many nowadays.Report
Has there been a finer Republican since Eisenhower? One doesn’t spring to my mind.Report
I think I’d have to give it to Ford, actually, if only because unlike Eisenhower, as far as I’m aware, he never did anything like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1954_Guatemalan_coup_d%27%C3%A9tatReport
The thing about brass is that while they might develop a strategy, their real gift is logistics and keeping the force fighting.
It’s the folks in the trenches who execute that strategy and adjust as needed, and hopefully they have the supplies to do it.
Good post, BTW.Report
They screwed the logistics up horrendously. The invasion was over-planned by the vast numbers of officers with too much business experience and a year or two of too much time on their hands. Planners doing what planners do, every facet of every need was dutifully written out, scheduled, and allocated.
They were trying to execute a scheme that might today might be described as Just-In-Time delivery, but through an international maritime combat zone. They insisted that all supplies had to be unloaded in the proper sequence, as detailed in the massive unloading plan, as opposed to just getting stuff on shore as fast as they possibly could. Ships at the makeshift docks couldn’t be unloaded because they had to be unloaded after ships that hadn’t arrived yet or were missing, and the logjam just piled up.
The results caused weeks of delays, shortages, and schedule slips before the logistics plan was junked.Report
My uncle, who spent the nine months before D-Day fighting up the length of Italy, always seemed to resent how little attention the Italian campaign got.Report
I’ve never understood that either. I guess it’s the mountains. Nobody really considered Italy as a stepping stone toward Germany. Also, I don’t think people realized that the Italian campaign was against actual German troops. The Italian forces were viewed as more of a punchline (not entirely inaccurately).Report
It was also to stretch the Germans onto a third front, with Italy secure and Russia pushing eastward.Report
From memory (so suspect), the Italian campaign also included capturing Sardinia and Corsica. The Allies used those as staging for the successful landing in SE France eight weeks after the landings in Normandy. The Allies successfully captured the French Mediterranean ports and got them running within a couple of weeks. Those ports were critical to the logistics of the Allies advancing towards Germany, as the Normandy ports were inadequate. IIRC, Eisenhower despised the guy running the Seventh Army and refused to take advantage of the huge gains they had made.Report
While the Italian campaign has gotten less attention it is really the Dragoon landings in south france that have been waaaay overlooked. Italy was a slow grinding slog with a giant missed opportunity at Anzio. There wasn’t the real hatred of Italians like they was for Hitler and the Nazis. It also didn’t help that the capture of Rome was eclipsed by Normandy. But the S France landings were far more important to rolling up the Germans out of France then people commonly understand. The Italian campaign was never going knock Germany out of the war. It was a fugly grind.Report
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I just ran across an absolutely fantastic story about D-Day.
I have no idea if it’s true or not. Still worth reading.Report
I don’t know if it’s true or not but it sounds very much like George VI and very much like Churchill so I would not be surprised at all if it happened.Report
June 2nd letter from King George to Churchill regarding Churchill’s desire to be at sea during the invasion.Report
Thanks, George. That’s pretty cool.Report
Hey, this is wonderful, thank you.Report
Thank you KristinReport