Neptunus Lex: 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.
Numerous links at my 2024 post: D-Day Plus 80 Years…a few links are broken, but most still work. See also Before D-Day, There Was Dieppe.
General Eisenhower, in an interview 20 years after the war, spoke of those who died at Normandy and throughout the war and said “They bought time for us so that we can do better.” This is an appropriate day to consider how we have been using that time, and how we can indeed do better.
I would point everyone to S.L.A Marshall’s Atlantic Monthly article from 1960 called “First Wave at Omaha Beach.” Marshall was one of a group of journalists who chronicled the invasion, sharing notes to compile a picture of what happened.
The article is the written equivalent of the first 15 minutes of “Saving Private Ryan.” Whole companies were obliterated, some without firing a shot. It is harrowing reading, but essential to understanding D-Day in its entirety.
Marshall wrote it because he feared Americans were forgetting how terrible Omaha Beach was.
In 1960.
One reason Omaha beach proved so bad was because the US Army faced its two great adversaries, the German Army and the US Navy.
The US army had been equipped with the ingenious British “swimming tanks” to help the infantry on the beaches. Alas the USN launched them at 5,000 yards and they almost all sank so the GIs lacked armoured support. On the British and Canadian beaches the Royal Navy launched at 1,000 yards and almost all the swimming tanks got ashore.
There are also critical things to be said about the inadequacy of the preliminary bombing of the beaches but if they’re to be frank they’d come better from an American who has read around the subject rather than a foreigner. I doff my cap to the Poor Bloody Infantry.
One thing that was done right was eliminating the Luftwaffe. Can you imagine what that landing would have been like contending with German fighters strafing the beach? The “Big Week” eliminated a lot of them.
Some years ago I attended a talk by Bud Anderson and he talked about the runup to D-Day – where various squadrons were all responsible for a small sliver of beach
Bill- That’s good point. What narrowed down the choice of potential landing beaches was in part sufficient beach space to land a force large enough to defend itself and a nearby port that could be used to supply an expanded force.
The other overlooked criteria was that it had to be within range of fighter bases in Britain- thus the only two real options were Calais and Normandy
By June, 1944, there was no question of German victory. Those that remained: The ultimate butcher’s bill. How much of the continent would be safe for non-Soviet communists. A disaster at Normandy would have changed those answers but not the outcome.
For better or worse, victory doesn’t require flawless execution, just the means to overcome and absorb mistakes. (See above, re. butcher’s bill.) By June, 1944, all the advantage was on the allied side. Germany could forestall the inevitable, but only for so long.