I was watching one of my favorite nerd channels, the Military Channel, this afternoon. The program was called: "The Color of War - D-Day." It was an interesting program, as are most documentaries about the war, even if they do recycle the same footage. There isn't much fresh footage of a 65-year old event, is there?
However, someone with the venerable Life Magazine uncovered some interesting, albeit creepy color images from those happy golden days of the Third Reich (before Poland invaded Germany). They recently were published in Life, and they are available to view here:
http://www.life.com/image/first/in-gallery/27022/adolf-hitler-up-close
Most of us who are history buffs, read books, or who have watched a few programs about the invasion of Normandy know the assault on Fortress Europe was an enormous risk. It was expected Allied losses would be staggering. There was nothing foregone about the outcome.
The Germans expected the landings to take place near Calais, which was closest to the English coast. Taking advantage of this perception, the Allies cheated and led the Germans to believe that George C. Scott would indeed land at the Pas de Calais. Sneakily, Allied planners actually selected Normandy, which was farther away, and would make the crossing, landing and permanent seizure of the beaches far more difficult.
To those of us who sided with the Germans because they had cooler uniforms and neato helmets, this wasn't fair. Oh well, maybe next war.
Invasion planners also faced the issue of awful weather, which was invented by the English, by the way. For about 95% of the year, even fish can't even swim in the English Channel because of rough seas. There would be no harbor, at least for awhile, through which could flow the streams of materiel for a huge army.
The Germans had years to prepare for the expected onslaught, and prepare they did with miles and miles of concrete bunkers, pill boxes, steel obstacles, barbed wire, machine guns, and anything else that could be spared from the Eastern Front, where the mean, mongoloid Russians (Patton's adjective) were.
The poor Germans.
It was serious business. Winston Churchill was particularly nervous, as he knew firsthand that even the best invasion plans do not come with any guarantee of success. The Dieppe Raid in August, 1942, was a disaster, and it was dwarfed by Operation Overlord, the largest invasion in history.
(Other than the dumb President Bush opening the borders with Mexico. Jus' sayin').
In the days before the invasion, Allied bombers bombed and strafed the coast, repeatedly and often. This was also cheating, as the Germans had already lost most of their planes and pilots, and they couldn't fight back. The purpose of these air raids was to knock out as many of the machine gun nests as possible and create "fox holes" on the beaches for cover.
Anyone who has seen "Saving Private Ryan," or talked to my friend Lyn, knows it didn't quite happen that way at Omaha Beach. The bombers missed their targets. There were very few fox or people holes and almost no cover, other than sand. There were plenty of machine guns, though. The Germans did as Germans do, and they gave our guys a chance to find cover before they fired on them.
Not really.
Now the British, French, Canadians, Polish and (I guess) Mormon troops landed at Utah, Sword, Juno, Gold Beaches. It wasn't so rough for them, and they were greeted by friendly folk wearing lederhosen and passing out Bavarian beer.
For the Americans, it sucked.
I've only touched on the risks involved with the Normandy landings, and I've done so in my usual irreverent manner. But I've visited Normandy. I've walked through the cemeteries. I've seen the cliffs of Pointe du Hoc. American Rangers somehow managed to scale the cliffs, just as some of our strategists were wondering if it might be best to cede the Omaha site and concentrate on the others.
Omaha Beach and Pointe du Hoc are among the grandest, most epic and moving places I've ever visited, other than Billings, Missouri and Billings, Oklahoma. I looked down below the cliffs at the beach, and then the channel. I wondered what it would be like to be seasick, stumbling off the LCVPs (Higgins Boats), toting a heavy pack, all the while being fired upon. I'd have called in sick or cried or something less heroic.
I asked myself, "how'd they ever do it? How'd we manage to land enough boys fast enough to finally swamp the Germans?" The answer, of course was behind me in the cemetery.
Row upon row of crosses and Stars of David. Sorry, no crescents. All those brave men who died so we could get fat and watch TV and eat Cheetohs.
General Eisenhower and his staff had every reason to be nervous about Operation Overlord. In hindsight, it was as easy and successful as a sappy John Wayne movie -- without the bad dialogue. But if it had failed, if goofy Hitler had allowed his generals to attack with the reserve Panzer divisions as Rommel pleaded, the invasion might have been repelled.
But he didn't, they couldn't, and it wasn't.
I'm getting to the point of this post. To each of the men and women involved in Operation Overlord, General Eisenhower issued a statement.
It's worth posting it all (click to enlarge):
My favorite part is the last paragraph:
"Good Luck! And let us all beseech the blessing of Almighty God upon this great and noble undertaking."
I think he brought God into the plan because "luck" is so seldom adequate when one invades a continent that is defended by Germans wearing cool uniforms and sporting neato helmets. Most of us aren't that lucky in life anyway. We don't win the lottery. If we win a scratch off at Burger King, it is for something dumb we don't even want.
"Luck" doesn't protect us from machine gun nests, either -- even if the chivalrous Germans did allow plenty of time to take cover.
Toward the end of the program, the narrator began to quote from General Eisenhower's stirring statement. The words were familiar to me, and I perked up. "I have full confidence in your courage, devotion to duty and skill in battle. We will accept nothing less than full Victory! Good Luck!"
And that was that. End of General Eisenhower's Statement. The narrator cut the phrase about beseeching the blessing of Almighty God. No reason to do that, really, other than we wouldn't want to offend any athiest-Americans, God-haters, mohammedans, or other hyphenated members of the community who think God isn't fabulous or magical enough anymore.
When the Draculas are coming by for a visit, I know I always put away the crucifix. Life is all about not offending, isn't it.
Political correctness annoys me, even though I can't do much about it. I'm living in the wrong time, I guess. For instance, I think a town should display the Ten Commandments if it wants to. I'd like to see the Walt Disney classic, "Song of the South," but I can't do that because it isn't politically correct. It is neither shown nor sold in the United States. Reckon why?
God, who has done quite a lot for us since 1776 (if one gives Him any of the credit) , is being eased and phased out of our culture because we don't seem to need Him so much anymore. So why be cheesy and corny and Frank Capra-ish and mention Him in documentaries? General Eisenhower wrote and distributed that statement, and the troops were inspired by it. Tens of thousands of soldiers did a great deal of beseeching that morning (ask one if you can still find one) . The invasion was a success in the face of almost insurmountable odds.
Never mind that the statement is part of history. Cut, paste, edit, change and ruin those memorable words -- like editors often do with crappily written, anti-American sounding, public school history books.
No more A.D. and B.C. It's now B.C.E. and C.E.
You're out, God.
You too, Jesus.
We'll holla when we need Thee. Maybe next time muslims fly planes into our buildings, or the Martians invade earth in an awful Tom Cruise movie. Until then,
Good luck, God. You too, Jesus.
©2009 Randall P. Hodge and Morningwood Enterprises, Ltd.
