62 Years Ago

General Dwight D. Eisenhower wrote this note

“Our landings in the Cherbourg-Le Havre area have failed to gain a satisfactory foothold and I have withdrawn the troops.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.” 

Due to the strength and determination of the American soldier, along with smaller contingents of soldiers from other nations, Ike never had to tell anyone about it.

There were large numbers of dead and wounded, even before sunrise on this day, 62 years ago. On the beaches, in the farmer’s fields and along the hedgerows.

There were massive intelligence failures; the numbers of German troops in places they weren’t supposed to be, and sending 225 Rangers up the cliffs of Point Du Hoc to knock out a group of heavy artillery pieces that weren’t actually there. 135 of those 225 were either killed or badly wounded that morning, trying to achieve their objective. The 90 who were still able to move did eventually find the artillery pieces, miles away from where they were told they would be, and destroyed them.

There were logisitcal failures; shells from ships off the Normandy Coast falling short; bombs from aircraft missing half of their targets due to bad weather; the anti-aircraft artillery firing on the transport planes, causing them to veer off course and drop the Airborne units miles from their objectives, into trees where German troops shot them while they tried to free themselves from their gear, or into flooded fields where the weight of their gear drowned the soldiers; some soldiers hit the ground with nothing but their combat knifes and they had to kill enemy soldiers to get their hands on a weapon.

In today’s world, even with gaining the Allied foothold on the Normandy Coast, the press and the opposition party would have called for Eisenhower’s head on a platter with his stars in a gravy boat.

They would have demanded we retreat from our foothold and offer apologies to the Nazi forces, if for nothing else than for attacking while Rommel was away at his wife’s birthday party and causing him to have to leave early.

But, luckily for us and for history, that never happened. I can only hope for the same outcome today. The men and women fighting today will be the next Greatest Generation, if only we can hold out against those both home and abroad who long to see us lose.