The Battle of Normandy: “D-Day”

"You are about to embark upon a great crusade, toward which we have striven these many months."

-General Dwight Eisenhower, to all members of the Allied Expeditionary Force.

“Les dés sont jetés” (The dice have been thrown). With those code words broadcast over the BBC, the French Resistance (“Maquis”) knew the moment had finally arrived. Sixty-three years ago on this day the liberation of France had begun by the Allies. “Operation Overlord”, as it was termed, was the largest combined land-sea-air invasion in history. The sheer magnitude of the invasion was astounding in terms of men and materiel. More than a million troops, tens of thousands of ships and thousands of aircraft were used. Planning the operation took well over a year; and the networks of deception and intelligence necessary to confound the enemy were mind-boggling. If the enemy had the slightest inkling of the location of the attack, the outcome of the mission would have been less- than assured. As it was, Rommel (one of the finest military tacticians of the 20th Century) saw the weakness in the Atlantic Wall in the Normandy Beaches. Fortuitously, Hitler insisted that the landing would take place at Pas de Calais, and diverted most of his force there. Nevertheless, the Germans had heavily fortified the Normandy coastline with armament, and the brave troops who initially charged the beaches knew they faced almost certain death.

“Operation Neptune” was the codename for the actual assault on the beaches in the early morning hours of June 6th. The first group who landed on the beaches were cut to pieces by machine gun fire. Their sacrifice enabled the succeeding waves of The Allied Forces eventually to take the beaches and began the horrible combat necessary to free the French from the Nazis. On August 21, Paris was liberated and less than a year later, there was Victory in Europe.

About the only prescient comment Ol’ Schickelgruber had to offer was, “In the East, the vastness of space will... permit a loss of territory... without suffering a mortal blow to Germany’s chance for survival. Not so in the West! If the enemy here succeeds… consequences of staggering proportions will follow within a short time.” How right you were! We did succeed! Too bad when you heard those Red Army tanks rumbling above your bunker less than a year later you and your new bride took the easy way out.

We commemorate this day not to glorify war, but to offer a few words to honor the sacrifices of those brave Americans, Canadians and Brits and other Allies who served so valiantly in time of war, whether at Omaha Beach or Iwo Jima, the Atlantic Theatre or the Pacific. If you see a vet today, thank them for the service. We owe each and every one of them big time.