OneManGang
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Author's note: Seventy years ago this week, more than one hundred thousand young men representing the armies of four different Allied countries, boarded ships and aircraft to begin the long-awaited liberation of Nazi-occupied France. To paraphrase Stephen Ambrose, the question before the D-Day landings was not whether democracy or totalitarianism would prevail in WWII, but which version Nazi or Soviet of totalitarianism would triumph. You will, no doubt, hear many accounts of those far-off days when America not only had the will to fight but also the will to see it through to victory. This is part of that story. - WPG
The rain was coming down in sheets. A late-spring storm was roaring in from the North Atlantic and the Force-5 winds shook the windows of the country manor house. Inside, a group of men sat pondering a great decision. All but one of them sat around a table mounded with plans, documents and various other things marked SECRET. The other man paced back and forth, his arms folded behind his back and his chin on his chest. Occasionally, his head would come up and he would fix his gaze on one of the men at table, ask a question, consider the reply, and then resume pacing.
It was a scene never to be repeated. On June 4, 1944 one man held the future of western democracy in his hands. He was officially known as Supreme Commander, Allied Expeditionary Forces headquartered at Southwick House in the English countryside. To the US Army, he was General Dwight David Eisenhower a graduate of West Point (1915) and a career soldier who had never, until 1942, actually commanded a combat operation. To his friends - and most of all to his troops - he was Ike.
General Dwight D. Eisenhower (U.S. Navy)
The decision he faced this wind-swept night was whether to launch the largest amphibious operation in history - an operation involving thousands of ships and aircraft and well over 100,000 combat troops in weather that can best be described as marginal. Timing was everything. There was a brief window, from June 4 to June 6 when the tides would be at their lowest and there would be no moon at night to silhouette paratroopers as they dropped behind the invasion beaches. The lower tides would allow the Allied troops to avoid most of the German beach obstacles which ended at the normal low-tide line. The next such combination of moon and tides would not be for two more weeks.
Already the weather had forced the postponement of OVERLORD (the code-name for the invasion) from June 5 even as transports and landing craft were leaving their harbors and forming immense convoys in the English Channel. The ships and boats had to put about and return to harbor or simply orbit at sea, awaiting further orders. Any delay of more than twenty-four hours meant that some ships would run out of fuel.
Still the rain pounded and the wind blew.
SHAEFs chief weatherman was a Scot, Group Captain J. M. Stagg. Stagg reported that he expected the storm to abate on the 5th. He said there would be scattered clouds on the night of June 5-6 but that the air forces should be able to deal with it.
The Tactical Air Commander, Air Vice-Marshal Trafford Leigh-Mallory wanted clear skies and nothing less. He urged further postponement.
Eisenhowers subordinates were almost equally divided. His ground commander, British Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery was ready, I would say GO!
Eisenhower stopped and shot a question to his Chief of Staff General Walter Bedell Smith who bore the obvious nickname Beetle. Beetle, what do you think? Smith replied, Its a helluva gamble but its the best possible gamble.
Ike summed up the situation, The question is just how long can you hang this operation on the end of a limb and let it hang there.
At 2145 (9:45 PM), Eisenhower gave his decision, I am quite positive the order must be given.
There was one more chance to stop the thing. A pre-dawn meeting was called and Group Captain Stagg would give his latest estimate and the final decision made. Eisenhower went to his quarters and tried to get some sleep. He was back up at 0330.
Years later he recalled, The weather was terrible. Southwick House was shaking. Oh it was really storming.
Stagg showed up smiling. He was confident the storm would break and there would be at least 36 hours of good weather. Still, that was hard to believe given the fury beating on the windows.
Opinion was still divided. The final call was Eisenhowers and his alone. Ikes thoughts were with his men on the ships and airfields who would carry out his orders.
In a 1964 interview, Eisenhower said this, Goodness knows, those fellows meant a lot to me. But these are decisions that have to be made when youre in a war. You say to yourself, Im going to do something that will be to my countrys advantage for the least cost. You cant say without any cost. You know youre going to lose some of them, and its very, very difficult.
The wreckage of a glider and its human cargo, Normandy, 6 June 1944.
Finally, Eisenhower stopped and faced his commanders, OK, lets go.*
The room emptied in less than thirty seconds. Eisenhower immediately went from the most powerful man in the Western Alliance to superfluous. He could now no more stop OVERLORD than King Canute could stop the tide.
Sometime around mid-morning, Ike sat at a portable table and wrote a press release for the last contingency, Our landings have failed. If any blame or fault attaches to the attempt it is mine and mine alone. He folded the paper and put it in his pocket.
At about 1900 (7:00 PM) Ike visited the 101st Airborne Division. An officer of the 502nd PIR (Parachute Infantry Regiment) remarked, I honestly think his morale was improved by being with us. Another trooper called out, Now quit worrying, General, well take care of this thing for you.
He stayed and watched the C-47s rumble off toward France. He turned and said, to no one in particular, Well, its on.
At the same time, the invasion convoys pulled out of harbors all over southern England bearing the men of four different armies: American, British, Canadian and French. They came not as conquerors but as liberators. They were the first wave of the vast host that would, the following May, accept the unconditional surrender of the German Army. The storm still caused heavy seas and the men on the ships paid the price.
The (day) light faded and was gone. Deep into the Channel, fifty-nine darkened convoys went to battle stations as they pushed past the parallel rows of dim buoys, red to starboard, white to port.
Small craft struggled in the wind and lop. Short seas snapped tow ropes, flooded engine rooms, and sloshed through troop compartments. Some helmsmen held their wheels at thirty degrees off true to keep course.
Down the ten channels they plunged, two designated for each of the five forces steaming toward five beaches: Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno, Sword. Wakes braided and rebraided. The amber orb of a full moon rose through the thinning overcast off the port bow, and the sea sang as swells slipped along every hull bound for a better world. Hallelujah, sang the sea. Hallelujah. Hallelujah.**
The landings, of course, did succeed. Eleven months later Eisenhower would receive the surrender of the German Army and World War Two in Europe was over.
Its surprising, in these days of routine micro-management when desk jockeys in Washington can see targeting video in real time from jet fighters in combat and any decision on the battlefield is subject to endless second-guessing and critique from retired military officers and assorted other strap-hangers on television talk shows, just how much trust and confidence was placed on Eisenhower. He made no calls to Washington during this period. Roosevelt and George Marshall left him alone as well. Indeed so did Winston Churchill despite the fact that most of the troops for the initial landings would be British and Canadian.
They let him make the call.
He rewarded their confidence seven-fold.
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]©[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif] 2014 by Pat Gang[/FONT]
Notes:
* Ambrose, Stephen. D-Day. pp186-189
**Atkinson, Rick. The Guns at Last Light, pp 40-41
Further Reading:
Ambrose, Stephen E., D-Day June 6, 1944. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1994
Atkinson, Rick, The Guns at Last Light. New York: Henry Holt and Co., 2013
Eisenhower, Dwight D., Crusade In Europe. Garden City, NY: Doubleday& Company, 1948.
Harrison, Gordon A., Cross Channel Attack: U.S. Army in World War II. Washington DC: US Government Printing Office, 1951.
Morison, Samuel Eliot, The Invasion of France and Germany: History of United States Naval Operations in World War II, Vol. XI. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1957.
Ryan, Cornelius. The Longest Day. New York: Simon and Schuster, Inc., 1959.
The Normandy American Cemetery, France: "Greater love hath no man ..."
OK, Lets Go.
The rain was coming down in sheets. A late-spring storm was roaring in from the North Atlantic and the Force-5 winds shook the windows of the country manor house. Inside, a group of men sat pondering a great decision. All but one of them sat around a table mounded with plans, documents and various other things marked SECRET. The other man paced back and forth, his arms folded behind his back and his chin on his chest. Occasionally, his head would come up and he would fix his gaze on one of the men at table, ask a question, consider the reply, and then resume pacing.
It was a scene never to be repeated. On June 4, 1944 one man held the future of western democracy in his hands. He was officially known as Supreme Commander, Allied Expeditionary Forces headquartered at Southwick House in the English countryside. To the US Army, he was General Dwight David Eisenhower a graduate of West Point (1915) and a career soldier who had never, until 1942, actually commanded a combat operation. To his friends - and most of all to his troops - he was Ike.
General Dwight D. Eisenhower (U.S. Navy)
The decision he faced this wind-swept night was whether to launch the largest amphibious operation in history - an operation involving thousands of ships and aircraft and well over 100,000 combat troops in weather that can best be described as marginal. Timing was everything. There was a brief window, from June 4 to June 6 when the tides would be at their lowest and there would be no moon at night to silhouette paratroopers as they dropped behind the invasion beaches. The lower tides would allow the Allied troops to avoid most of the German beach obstacles which ended at the normal low-tide line. The next such combination of moon and tides would not be for two more weeks.
Already the weather had forced the postponement of OVERLORD (the code-name for the invasion) from June 5 even as transports and landing craft were leaving their harbors and forming immense convoys in the English Channel. The ships and boats had to put about and return to harbor or simply orbit at sea, awaiting further orders. Any delay of more than twenty-four hours meant that some ships would run out of fuel.
Still the rain pounded and the wind blew.
SHAEFs chief weatherman was a Scot, Group Captain J. M. Stagg. Stagg reported that he expected the storm to abate on the 5th. He said there would be scattered clouds on the night of June 5-6 but that the air forces should be able to deal with it.
The Tactical Air Commander, Air Vice-Marshal Trafford Leigh-Mallory wanted clear skies and nothing less. He urged further postponement.
Eisenhowers subordinates were almost equally divided. His ground commander, British Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery was ready, I would say GO!
Eisenhower stopped and shot a question to his Chief of Staff General Walter Bedell Smith who bore the obvious nickname Beetle. Beetle, what do you think? Smith replied, Its a helluva gamble but its the best possible gamble.
Ike summed up the situation, The question is just how long can you hang this operation on the end of a limb and let it hang there.
At 2145 (9:45 PM), Eisenhower gave his decision, I am quite positive the order must be given.
There was one more chance to stop the thing. A pre-dawn meeting was called and Group Captain Stagg would give his latest estimate and the final decision made. Eisenhower went to his quarters and tried to get some sleep. He was back up at 0330.
Years later he recalled, The weather was terrible. Southwick House was shaking. Oh it was really storming.
Stagg showed up smiling. He was confident the storm would break and there would be at least 36 hours of good weather. Still, that was hard to believe given the fury beating on the windows.
Opinion was still divided. The final call was Eisenhowers and his alone. Ikes thoughts were with his men on the ships and airfields who would carry out his orders.
In a 1964 interview, Eisenhower said this, Goodness knows, those fellows meant a lot to me. But these are decisions that have to be made when youre in a war. You say to yourself, Im going to do something that will be to my countrys advantage for the least cost. You cant say without any cost. You know youre going to lose some of them, and its very, very difficult.
The wreckage of a glider and its human cargo, Normandy, 6 June 1944.
Finally, Eisenhower stopped and faced his commanders, OK, lets go.*
The room emptied in less than thirty seconds. Eisenhower immediately went from the most powerful man in the Western Alliance to superfluous. He could now no more stop OVERLORD than King Canute could stop the tide.
Sometime around mid-morning, Ike sat at a portable table and wrote a press release for the last contingency, Our landings have failed. If any blame or fault attaches to the attempt it is mine and mine alone. He folded the paper and put it in his pocket.
At about 1900 (7:00 PM) Ike visited the 101st Airborne Division. An officer of the 502nd PIR (Parachute Infantry Regiment) remarked, I honestly think his morale was improved by being with us. Another trooper called out, Now quit worrying, General, well take care of this thing for you.
He stayed and watched the C-47s rumble off toward France. He turned and said, to no one in particular, Well, its on.
At the same time, the invasion convoys pulled out of harbors all over southern England bearing the men of four different armies: American, British, Canadian and French. They came not as conquerors but as liberators. They were the first wave of the vast host that would, the following May, accept the unconditional surrender of the German Army. The storm still caused heavy seas and the men on the ships paid the price.
The (day) light faded and was gone. Deep into the Channel, fifty-nine darkened convoys went to battle stations as they pushed past the parallel rows of dim buoys, red to starboard, white to port.
Small craft struggled in the wind and lop. Short seas snapped tow ropes, flooded engine rooms, and sloshed through troop compartments. Some helmsmen held their wheels at thirty degrees off true to keep course.
Down the ten channels they plunged, two designated for each of the five forces steaming toward five beaches: Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno, Sword. Wakes braided and rebraided. The amber orb of a full moon rose through the thinning overcast off the port bow, and the sea sang as swells slipped along every hull bound for a better world. Hallelujah, sang the sea. Hallelujah. Hallelujah.**
The landings, of course, did succeed. Eleven months later Eisenhower would receive the surrender of the German Army and World War Two in Europe was over.
Its surprising, in these days of routine micro-management when desk jockeys in Washington can see targeting video in real time from jet fighters in combat and any decision on the battlefield is subject to endless second-guessing and critique from retired military officers and assorted other strap-hangers on television talk shows, just how much trust and confidence was placed on Eisenhower. He made no calls to Washington during this period. Roosevelt and George Marshall left him alone as well. Indeed so did Winston Churchill despite the fact that most of the troops for the initial landings would be British and Canadian.
They let him make the call.
He rewarded their confidence seven-fold.
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]©[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif] 2014 by Pat Gang[/FONT]
Notes:
* Ambrose, Stephen. D-Day. pp186-189
**Atkinson, Rick. The Guns at Last Light, pp 40-41
Further Reading:
Ambrose, Stephen E., D-Day June 6, 1944. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1994
Atkinson, Rick, The Guns at Last Light. New York: Henry Holt and Co., 2013
Eisenhower, Dwight D., Crusade In Europe. Garden City, NY: Doubleday& Company, 1948.
Harrison, Gordon A., Cross Channel Attack: U.S. Army in World War II. Washington DC: US Government Printing Office, 1951.
Morison, Samuel Eliot, The Invasion of France and Germany: History of United States Naval Operations in World War II, Vol. XI. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1957.
Ryan, Cornelius. The Longest Day. New York: Simon and Schuster, Inc., 1959.
The Normandy American Cemetery, France: "Greater love hath no man ..."
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