June 6, 1944 – Uncle Charlie (right foreground) at Utah Beach
Pictured above is my wife’s Uncle Charlie landing on Utah Beach seventy-nine years ago today. He is the soldier in the right foreground. He made it off the beach and fought across France and into Germany before the war in Europe ended. Despite being in the thick of the fighting, he survived and returned home to raise a family and live in peace.
Like most of his generation of war fighters, he said very little about his combat experiences. One day, however, over drinks, he quietly reflected that “D-Day in Normandy was the noisiest day of my life. I was so scared that, if I could have figured out a way to breathe underwater, I would have gone under and stayed there.”
For many years after the war, Kodak had a huge enlargement of the above picture on display at New York’s Grand Central Station. The picture has appeared in countless history books, magazines and newspapers.
Years ago, after Uncle Charlie had passed on, my wife and I went to Normandy where we visited Utah Beach where he had landed, Pointe du Hoc which the Army Rangers had scaled and seized, and Omaha Beach where the First and 29th Infantry divisions had suffered so many casualties. From there we made a pilgrimage to the American Military Cemetery on the bluff above Omaha Beach.
Standing there looking out on the seemingly endless rows of white grave markers, the enormity of the invasion, the sacrifice of our troops, and the massive losses that they had suffered hit us hard. We openly wept and silently prayed for all of those kids – for that is what they were – who were entombed before us.
Still trying to absorb what we had seen, we silently drove toward the British and Canadian invasion beaches. Then, bigger than life, there was Uncle Charlie on a roadside billboard wading onto the beach with his carbine at port arms.
As we continued on, at regular intervals all the way to Caen, we saw him on billboards, posters, handbills plastered to utility poles and in a display at a small roadside museum. He seemed to be everywhere.
I wished he had still been alive so I could have told him that, just like Jerry Lewis, he was a big deal in France. He would have had a good laugh about being the leading pin up boy in Normandy.
Eisenhower’s message to the troops
On the eve of D-Day, General Dwight D. Eisenhower issued his Order of the Day which was distributed in printed form to the 175,000 members of the Allied Expeditionary Force.
He made a recording of this message which was played on the troop ships as they crossed the English Channel. You can hear Ike read the order by clicking on the following picture.
Also on the eve of the invasion, Eisenhower visited the airborne soldiers just before they boarded transport aircraft for their jump into Normandy. Here he is meeting with members of the 101st Airborne.
Eisenhower’s staff had predicted that the paratroopers were going to suffer tremendous casualties* and had warned him not to meet with them for fear that the “condemned men” might be hostile. Nevertheless, without security or escorts, he appeared unannounced and waded into their midst where he was well received.
That’s moral courage and true leadership.
But, even more impressive, as the paratroopers were taking off for France, Eisenhower drafted what he would tell the world if the invasion failed. Here is what he wrote.
Ike was prepared to shoulder the responsibility – all of it. No excuses, no spin, no recriminations, no blame shifting.
Can you imagine any of the politically correct careerists who run today’s military following his example?
Yeah, me neither.
Today please pause and say a prayer for Ike, Uncle Charlie, those kids in the American Military Cemetery and all those who participated in the Normandy invasion. As documentary filmmaker Richard Sullivan once said of those who served in World War II, “Without them, we would not be here.”
* Thankfully the predictions proved to be wrong. Though horrendous, the number of casualties among the airborne troops was a small fraction of that anticipated.
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