D-Day: 82 years after
[NOTE: The following is a slightly-edited version of a previous D-Day post.]
Today is the eighty-second anniversary of D-Day, the Normandy landings in WWII that led to Western Europe’s liberation.
I wonder how many people under forty, either here or in Europe, now know or care what happened there. The dog barks and the caravan moves on.
The world we now live in seems so vastly different, including the relationship between the US and western Europe. But make no mistake about it; if threatened in a way that finally gets their attention, Europeans would be counting on us again. And although until a while ago I still thought that we would probably be up to the task, I now have my doubts. It would depend on the administration in charge. And we pretty much know our press would fail us.
About forty-eight years ago I visited Omaha Beach, site of the worst of the carnage. A quieter place than that beach and those huge cemeteries, with their lines of crosses set down as though with a ruler, you never did see.
But the scene was quite different back in 1944. The D-day invasion marked the beginning of the end for the Germans.
The weather was a huge factor, and the Allied commanders had to make the decision knowing that the forecast for the day was iffy and the window of opportunity small. For reasons of visibility and navigation (maximum amount of moonlight and deepest water), the invasion needed to occur during a time of full moon and spring tides, and all the invasion forces had already been assembled and were at the ready. To postpone would have been hugely expensive and frustrating, but to go ahead in bad weather would have been suicidal.
This is how bad the weather looked, how difficult the decision was, and how much we owe to the meteorologists, who:
…were challenged to accurately predict a highly unstable and severe weather pattern. As [Eisenhower] indicated in the message to Marshall, “The weather yesterday which was [the] original date selected was impossible all along the target coast.” Eisenhower therefore was forced to make his decision to proceed with a June 6 invasion in the predawn blackness of June 5, while horizontal sheets of rain and gale force winds shuddered through the tent camp.
The initially bad weather ended up being an advantage in other ways, because the Germans were not expecting the invasion to occur yet for that reason:
Some [German] troops stood down, and many senior officers were away for the weekend. General Erwin Rommel, for example, took a few days’ leave to celebrate his wife’s birthday, while dozens of division, regimental, and battalion commanders were away from their posts at war games.
In addition, there was Hitler’s personality and his reluctance to give autonomy to his military commanders:
Hitler reserved to himself the authority to move the divisions in OKW Reserve, or commit them to action. On 6 June, many Panzer division commanders were unable to move because Hitler had not given the necessary authorization, and his staff refused to wake him upon news of the invasion.
.
This didn’t mean that the beaches were not heavily fortified and manned, especially Omaha:
[The Germans] had large bunkers, sometimes intricate concrete ones containing machine guns and high caliber weapons. Their defense also integrated the cliffs and hills overlooking the beach. The defenses were all built and honed over a four year period.
The number of Allied casualties was enormous. Reading about it today makes one appreciate anew what these men faced, and how courageously they pressed on despite enormous difficulties. This is just a small sampler of what occurred on Omaha Beach at the outset; there was much more to come:
Despite these preparations, very little went according to plan. Ten landing craft were lost before they even reached the beach, swamped by the rough seas. Several other craft stayed afloat only because their passengers quickly bailed water with their helmets. Seasickness was also prevalent among the troops waiting offshore. On the 16th RCT front, the landing boats found themselves passing struggling men in life preservers, and on rafts, survivors of the DD tanks which had sunk. Navigation of the assault craft was made more difficult by the smoke and mist obscuring the landmarks they were to use in guiding themselves in, while a heavy current pushed them continually eastward.
As the boats approached within a few hundred yards of the shore, they came under increasingly heavy fire from automatic weapons and artillery. The force discovered only then the ineffectiveness of the pre-landing bombardment. Delayed by the weather, and attempting to avoid the landing craft as they ran in, the bombers had laid their ordnance too far inland, having no real effect on the coastal defenses.
These obstacles and unforeseen circumstances were extraordinarily costly in terms of the human sacrifice that occurred that day. Note that I use the word “obstacles and unforeseen circumstances” rather than “mistakes.” Today, if the same things had occurred (at least, while under the aegis of a Republican administration), they would be labeled unforgivable errors rather than the inevitable difficulties inherent in waging war, in which no battle plan survives contact with the enemy.
Another historical footnote is the following passage from Eisenhower’s message to the Allied Expeditionary Forces: You are about to embark upon the great crusade, toward which we have striven these many months. It’s another sign of how times have changed; the word “crusade” has become verboten.
In his pocket, Eisenhower also kept another statement, one to activate in case the invasion failed. It read:
Our landings in the Cherbourg-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 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.
The note was written in pencil on a simple piece of paper, and is housed in a special vault at the Dwight D. Eisenhower Library & Museum in Abilene, Kansas, a bit of thought-provoking fodder for an alternate history that never occurred.
[NOTE: I’ve read that there’s a new movie out about Eisenhower and D-Day, entitled Pressure. Has anyone seen it?]
I watched Pressure several days ago. Outstanding performance by Andrew Scott.
Rick Atkinson’s The Guns at Last Light is a great read, covers D-day to end of war less than a year later.
Really was a amazing operation.
I’ve seen good reviews of “Pressure” on other blogs, but can’t remember exactly where.
Google gave a couple of pages of links.
I’ve seen good reviews of “Pressure” on other blogs, but can’t remember exactly where.
Google gave a couple of pages of links.
I didn’t know this: “The new movie, based on writer and actor David Haig’s 2014 play, dramatizes the tensions between military leaders and meteorologists in the lead up to the Allied invasion of Normandy.”
I guess NPR is still good for a few things.
I would love to see how they did that on stage; probably like the Greek dramas, where all the “action” usually happens off, and the Chorus tells you about it later.
One can always do worse than watch “The Longest Day” again.
Yes, it’s a classic Hollywood movie with big stars and big emotional moments, but it gives a reasonably accurate overview of that day.
Unlike Christopher Nolan’s “Dunkirk” which is so complicated and quirky, including a subplot inspired by “Alien,” that one doesn’t learn much about Dunkirk so much as about Nolan’s grand image of himself as an auteur director.
The D-Day episodes of “Band of Brothers” are excellent too.
We always watch Saving Private Ryan on Memorial Day, the DDay landing is still gut wrenching. My father-in-law landed a Anzio , saw some.terrible things , but he said it was nothing like Omaha beach.
Perhaps of some utility, here’s a “CBS Reports” documentary show (1964) titled “D-Day Plus Twenty Years — Eisenhower Returns to Normandy” [1:22:16], with Cronkite interviewing DDE on his decision making and there the meteorology featured in a prominent role: https://youtu.be/vNaxTXfjfXk
Given what the US and other Allies went through to get rid of Hitler/Nazis and the Japanese Militarists it is no wonder that the US now plays a very active role in world affairs.
For it is better to be proactive instead of reactive.
Watching Ike, Countdown to D-Day with Tom Selleck
Interesting to consider that WWII is longer ago to us now, than the American Civil War was to WWII.
Yes the longest day although the events are in the last third, without the gratuitous (imho) of private ryan, there was another with robert taylor which was pretty good the sixth of june which had more behind thr seas drama
David haig the son of an army officer who might have been part of d day
He played the duplicitous foreign minister in cobra opposite robert carlyle
I guess its the delian dilemma that was most of western europe ungrateful for what the us has done for them (yes i know they endured more casualties) including our part in the cold war
Ike never saw even one day of combat as a West Point grad in his entire military career.
@Cicero not true ,he participated in the assault on the bonus army , but attacking un armed WW1 veterans may not be considered combat by some. Patton and Macarther seemed to think so.
CICERO; Keith:
So what if he never saw combat? What are you implying? See this [emphasis mine]:
Much much more at the link that’s relevant to Eisenhower and the forces that shaped him.
Cicero, your point being?
“Amateurs talk about tactics, but professionals study logistics.”
– Gen. Robert H. Barrow, USMC (Commandant of the Marine Corps) noted in 1980
https://nuggets-knowledge.com/2017/08/13/amateurs-talk-tactics-but-professionals-study-logistics/
IMO, it might be that the Lord was holding Eisenhower in reserve for the next round.
Also, it’s not unusual for combat commanders to get stuck with what worked (or didn’t work) for them personally, which could have been a problem for his position as top strategist.
Also again, without personal experience “on the ground,” Ike was forced to depend on those who had, like Patton and others; once the strategy was set, and the logistics decided, the tactical guys took over, often brilliantly.
NOTE: IANAS nor do I play one on television. However, I have read a lot in the genre.
@ Niketas > “Interesting to consider that WWII is longer ago to us now, than the American Civil War was to WWII.”
Of course, they had only one World War in between, whereas we had WW 2-10.
https://twitchy.com/samj/2026/04/28/bahaha-ilhan-omar-world-war-eleven-memes-are-off-the-charts-perfection-here-are-the-best-so-far-n2427626
Ignorance of our past seems to be a feature for the Democrats.
https://nypost.com/2026/06/04/us-news/california-rep-judy-chus-jaw-dropping-reply-when-scott-bessent-asks-who-was-president-in-wwi/
*****
The first article I linked was written by a software engineer, but I think he drew the correct lessons from the martial example:
“I’m not saying that tactics aren’t important. Maximus wouldn’t have won that battle without that flanking maneuver. But the logistics are in some ways more important. If you’re in a leadership role, maybe focus less on all the small-scale technical decisions and instead make sure the team has what they need to win the battle.”
*** In re the exchange between Secretary Bessent and Rep. Chu, the NYP is not alone in conflating inflation with supply-and-demand.
See explanation here by Sailorcurt (he meant the Iran, not Iraq war, I presume):
https://thenewneo.com/2026/06/05/the-jobs-report/#comment-2853849
Did Cicero ever answer the question as to his point.
By the way George Marshall, Chester Nimitz, and Omar Bradley didn’t actually serve in combat. Marshall was on a Division Staff in WW1 and Nimitz served in a supply ship. Bradley, a class mate of Ike’s in the WP class of ’15, guarded copper mines in Montana.
They were all ready when needed, and the country was very fortunate to have all three.
I cringe sometimes when I hear Trump suggesting that Venezuela, or Iran was the greatest military operation ever. I wonder if he ever studied history.
Crabby Old Man (Cicero) and Stupid On Stilts (Keith) are at it again.
AesopFan on June 6, 2026 at 7:02 pm:
“… In re the exchange between Secretary Bessent and Rep. Chu, the NYP is not alone in conflating inflation with supply-and-demand.”
The other day I saw a You Tube video interview of the new Fed Chairman, Kevin Warsh, wherein he explained the facts of price changes due to inflation as a monetary policy issue are separable from price changes due to supply and demand. You might think something so basic is more widely understood. But I have to admit my own two semesters of econ in college preceded Nixon taking us fully off the gold standard, and it was only maybe three years later that I learned the real monetary policy impact on inflation via some investment newsletter I was reading at the time.
Pending further education from whomever, my current view is that the Fed policy of aiming for a 2% target should be reduced to a 0.5 to 1.0% target, if they really can’t find a way to pin it to 0%.
The secret theft of inflation is not all that secret any more, except to the media and the masses, and is part of why so much financialization is practiced to stay ahead of it.
In musing over a statement in an SF mil-fic story I read last night, it occurred to me that the close ties between the US and Israel have a similar connection to an event in that fictional war, even though it was distinct from the primary purpose of the conflict:
America bought with its soldiers’ lives the right of the Jews to have their own homeland, and Eisenhower stamped the receipt for the purchase at the Ohrdruf concentration camp.
https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/eisenhower-and-the-holocaust.htm
“Dwight D. Eisenhower, in a letter to Army Chief of Staff George C. Marshall, April 15, 1945: “The things I saw beggar description…. I made the visit deliberately in order to be in a position to give firsthand evidence of these things if ever, in the future, there develops a tendency to charge these allegations merely to ‘propaganda.’”
…
“Liberating Ohrdruf and other Concentration Camps was not the stated objective of American military campaigns in Europe. However, Eisenhower saw the importance of chronicling and collecting evidence of the Nazi atrocities. On paper, this was not the job of Supreme Allied Commander Dwight D. Eisenhower, but he prioritized the documentation of the Holocaust and ensured that it would not be forgotten. His commitment did not end in Ohrdruf, as he continued this necessary work of evidence collection and documentation.”
I also saw Pressure (yesterday with my wife). Excellent film. Excellent performances from Fraser and Scott.
I also watched a rather long Youtube video which discusses in great detail what the heck happened at Omaha beach and why it was a “tough nut to crack”. Excellent analysis = https://youtu.be/27FFT82fELk?si=FFUWzl4I9A7mA_Xy
*Mild spoiler warning*
Toward the end of Pressure they briefly show the beginning of the Normandy invasion. The landing crafts lower the ramp and *budda budda budda* half the troops are immediately shot by machine gun fire from an MG-42.
We can’t imagine what those men did. Some films come close to showing what it was like.