THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, June 5, 1994 TAG: 9406030029
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: C4 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: Long
DATELINE: 940605 LENGTH:
The initial draft of the second statement that was made by Eisenhower's staff had an impersonal quality, stating simply that the invasion had not met with success and the forces had been withdrawn. Dissatisfied, the general added this passage: ``My decision to attack at this time and place was based upon 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.''
{REST} As historian William L. O'Neill points out in his excellent new book on the United States in World War II, A Democracy at War, those three sentences defined Eisenhower's stature as a man. He knew the tremendous risk he was taking. If the invasion failed, his career was over and possibly President Franklin Roosevelt's and Winston Churchill's as well.
The Allies would try again, of course, but organizing another attempt would take a year or more, a year in which the Germans could further strengthen their defenses and the Russians perhaps press ever more deeply into the heart of Europe. If those were the stakes, then Eisenhower wanted everyone to know who was responsible.
With the advantage of five decades of hindsight, the success of the D-Day invasion seems almost foreordained, but the battle on the beaches and later in Normandy was, as the Duke of Wellington said about Waterloo, ``a damned close run thing.'' As we celebrate the 50th anniversary of the invasion today and tomorrow, it might be useful to reflect on how things could have gone wrong, and why they went right.
To be sure, the Allies had some tremendous advantages. Nearly five years of war had shattered German air and naval power, securing control of the air and the seas above and around the invasion site for the invasion fleet. A brilliant deception plan kept the Germans guessing as to the actual site of the invasion, and so maintained the element of surprise. The Germans were also under heavy pressure on the Russian front, where Stalin had launched an offensive timed to coincide with the invasion of France, as well as in Italy, where American troops had taken Rome two days before D-Day.
Yet, even with these advantages, triumph could easily have become tragedy if only a few things had been different. Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, who knew that throwing the invasion back into the sea on what he called ``the longest day'' was critical to success, was home in Germany celebrating his wife's birthday. At Hitler's headquarters, the fateful decision was made to let the fuhrer sleep late. This immobilized for several crucial hours Germany's powerful armored reserves, which could not be moved without Hitler's personal authorization.
Most critical of all was the weather. Eisenhower made the decision to launch the invasion through a 36-hour ``bubble'' of good weather, because it would be another two weeks before the tides would again be right. It was a good thing he moved when he did. On June 20, the projected fallback date for D-Day, the worst storm in years struck the English Channel and actually did almost as much damage as the Germans did on D-Day. Fortune favors the brave.
But none of this would have mattered if the American and Allied troops and their leaders were not up to the task. In this too, the Allies were fortunate.
While many of the American troops were green and seeing action for the first time, they had the advantage of excellent training. The cream of the crop were the airborne forces and the commandos who went in first in the early hours. The 506th Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division, for instance, had a screening process so rigorous that it took more than 500 officer volunteers to produce 148 graduates and 5,300 enlisted men to produce 1,800 troopers. This process assured that the parachutists would achieve their objectives on D-Day, as they did.
In addition to Eisenhower, the Allied side had men such as Major Gen. Elwood ``Pete'' Quesada, commander of the U.S. IX Tactical Air Force. Quesada had come up with the idea of fitting rocket firing mounts under the wings of Allied fighters, turning Spitfires, Thunderbolts and Mustangs into the war's leading tank killers. Quesada's ingenuity and the daring of his pilots did much to make up for the Allies' lack of a tank to match the German Tiger and Panther.
But ultimately, it was the men on the beaches who won the day at Normandy, most of them ordinary civilians who found themselves in uniform and under fire for the first time. It was these men, particularly on hellish Omaha Beach, where German resistance was fiercest, who somehow found within themselves the strength to keep going while buddies died all around them. Had they not done so and Omaha Beach had been evacuated - As Gen. Omar Bradley had briefly considered - then the Germans could have attacked the other landing beaches and the whole invasion would have been a disastrous rout.
Much hard fighting still lay ahead after D-Day, but the success of the invasion changed the war outlook utterly. Germany's defeat was now inevitable, though the price of finally achieving it would be dear. The invasion shortened the war considerably and stopped the Russians from penetrating even more deeply into the heart of Europe. Failing to accomplish that would have made the ensuing Cold War much hotter indeed.
So celebrate your achievement, you eagles of freedom. A magnificent generation in war, you were brilliant in peace as well. All peace- and freedom-loving peoples everywhere are in your debt.
by CNB