D-Day and the Greatest Generation

D-Day and the Greatest Generation

The word D-Day has become an unmistakable part of our vocabulary. In the minds of most Americans, it joins Pearl Harbor and Hiroshima as the three most significant events of World War II.

D-Day, known at the time as Operation Overlord to its planners, was and still is the largest amphibious landing in history. Some 156,000 American, British, Canadian and French soldiers were on ground by the end of the day, including 13,000 paratroopers who’d dropped behind German lines to secure bridges and causeways. Over 10,000 troops became casualties on that day, with 4,414 dead buried in Normandy’s military cemeteries.

Omaha was one of five landing beaches spread across 60 miles. The beach has low bluffs overlooking a narrow strip of sand and became a killing ground for well-sited German machine guns and artillery. Watching the first 15 minutes of Steven Spielberg’s movie “Saving Private Ryan” portrays a shocking, almost sickening sense of what the men of the first wave faced.

It took six days to link all five landing beaches into a continuous front. The German’s piecemeal response was limited by Allied control of the sky and an effective but often overlooked Allied deception. Operation Fortitude created a phantom army consisting of wooden tanks, trucks and barracks mockups, commanded by America’s most feared general, George Patton. For several days, Hitler believed the Normandy invasion was a feint, that Patton’s army would cross the English Channel at its narrowest point, Pas de Calais.

French farmers’ small fields were separated by dense hedgerows that made the advance through Normandy slow and costly. The allies didn’t break out into more open French countryside until early August. With Patton now commanding a real army, the allies raced across northern France, reaching Paris by August 25^th.

For readers wanting a refresher on D-Day, I can recommend any and all of the top five D-Day books listed on goodreads: The Longest Day by Cornelius Ryan, D-Day June 6 1944 by Stephen Ambrose, D-Day The Battle for Normandy by Antony Beevor, Overlord: D-Day and the Battle for Normandy by Max Hastings and Guns at Last Light by Rick Atkinson.

Newscaster and author Tom Brokaw wrote a D-Day book whose title has come to define all those Americans who came of age in the 1930s and 1940s: The Greatest Generation.

Brokaw wrote, “It is, I believe, the greatest generation any society has ever produced. This generation was united not only by a common purpose, but also by common values–duty, honor, economy, courage, service, love of family and country, and, above all, responsibility for oneself.

“At a time in their lives when their days and nights should have been filled with innocent adventure, love, and the lessons of the workaday world, they were fighting in the most primitive conditions possible across the bloodied landscape of France, Belgium, Italy, Austria, and the coral islands of the Pacific.

“They answered the call to save the world from the two most powerful and ruthless military machines ever assembled, instruments of conquest in the hands of fascist maniacs. They faced great odds and a late start, but they did not protest. They succeeded on every front. They won the war; they saved the world.”

Time magazine called World War II “the last good war, a war that had to be fought and won. This was an unambiguous struggle between good and evil. It was not just about national interests but also about values. Hitler and Tojo had to be defeated; there was no doubt about it.”

To me, June 6^th serves as more than a victory over Nazi evil. I’m sobered and inspired by citizen soldiers who despite their fears, were willing to risk their lives in the cause of freedom, for the ideals that have distinguished the United States of America for over 240 years.

God bless America on this day and all days.

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