Michael Korda: Ike’s Decision
[Michael Korda, author of With Wings Like Eagles: A History of the Battle of Britain (Harper 2009) and Ike: An American Hero, is the former editor-in-chief of Simon & Schuster.]
It has been 65 years since D-Day—the early June day when the United States and its allies launched a massive attack on the shores of Normandy in a bid to liberate western Europe from the Nazis. It’s been long enough for most people who still remember the date to have come to think of its success as natural and foreordained.
But of course it was neither of these things. Supreme Allied Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force Dwight D. “Ike” Eisenhower himself gave it no better than a 50–50 chance of success, even if the weather was good and everything went right. As it turned out, the weather was so bad that he had to postpone the invasion by 24 hours once the troops were already aboard the ships and boats. Battalion after battalion was forced to land miles from where they were supposed to be, facing terrain totally unlike what they had trained for. High seas and nervous coxswains under fire for the first time “landed” many troops into water that came over their heads. Men laden with more than 100 pounds of equipment and ammunition sometimes sank to the bottom and drowned, their bodies eventually washing ashore to join those who had been killed the moment their feet touched the beach.
When we think of the forces under Ike’s command on the night of June 4, as he faced the question of whether to postpone the invasion once more, they seem—in these days when placing 40,000 combat troops somewhere is a huge political and military decision—overwhelming: he had over a million men, 5,000 vessels of all sizes, including battleships, and 10,000 aircraft. On the morning of June 6, if he decided to go on that date, he would land 73,000 Americans, 66,000 Britons, and 20,000 Canadians on the shores of Normandy....
Read entire article at American Heritage
It has been 65 years since D-Day—the early June day when the United States and its allies launched a massive attack on the shores of Normandy in a bid to liberate western Europe from the Nazis. It’s been long enough for most people who still remember the date to have come to think of its success as natural and foreordained.
But of course it was neither of these things. Supreme Allied Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force Dwight D. “Ike” Eisenhower himself gave it no better than a 50–50 chance of success, even if the weather was good and everything went right. As it turned out, the weather was so bad that he had to postpone the invasion by 24 hours once the troops were already aboard the ships and boats. Battalion after battalion was forced to land miles from where they were supposed to be, facing terrain totally unlike what they had trained for. High seas and nervous coxswains under fire for the first time “landed” many troops into water that came over their heads. Men laden with more than 100 pounds of equipment and ammunition sometimes sank to the bottom and drowned, their bodies eventually washing ashore to join those who had been killed the moment their feet touched the beach.
When we think of the forces under Ike’s command on the night of June 4, as he faced the question of whether to postpone the invasion once more, they seem—in these days when placing 40,000 combat troops somewhere is a huge political and military decision—overwhelming: he had over a million men, 5,000 vessels of all sizes, including battleships, and 10,000 aircraft. On the morning of June 6, if he decided to go on that date, he would land 73,000 Americans, 66,000 Britons, and 20,000 Canadians on the shores of Normandy....