" . . . You are about to embark upon the Great Crusade, toward which we have striven these many months . . . "
These words are from the pre-invasion speech given to the Allied forces by Supreme Allied Commander Europe Dwight David Eisenhower before the June 6 1944 "D-Day" invasion. You can hear the speech here : Eisenhower Pre-D-Day Speech
Allied D-Day Invasion
The invasion fleet was massive. There have been very few times since when a larger fleet was mustered. (MacArthur, who was intensely jealous of Eisenhower, wangled a bigger fleet for his Inchon invasion in Korea. ) But I am not going to discuss ships used numbers of troops and tanks deployed and so on. Those numbers may be of interest in other times, but today I want to focus on the most important dimension: The People. In the first wave, launched in the early daylight hours of June 6 1944, saw many thousands of seasick, exhausted and frightened men climb down into boats and motor off. Minutes later they got ready to wade ashore through intense fire from the German defenders. By the end of this longest day they would have gained for their armies a foothold in Western Europe, and for themselves an indelible place in history.
The cost would be immense. Not just in terms of dollars and cents, or in terms of dead and injured, but in terms of mental health -- those who survived the day would never again be the same. Men would see their friends shot to pieces in front of them. Men would face down the spectre of death, either their own or that of some unknown enemy across the way, in the next hedgerow, in the next street. I knew men who had been there and who would not speak of it. The few who would would do so in hushed tones, often over a drink, sometimes only after a few drinks. Even decades later the war still cost them.
So, remember when you see those very few left who survived, remember the horrors they lived through, and their deeds of valor. Valor that might simply have been getting down into those boats. My personal thanks, you were in fact the greatest generation.
