“OK, we’ll go.” History records the rest. After Stagg’s report, they gave their advice – most said go, some demurred. Allied meteorologists thought there might be a window of good weather on June 5-6, but they were not sure.Īll of Ike’s war chiefs were there: Montgomery, Leigh-Mallory, Bedell-Smith, and others. Most people familiar with the D-Day story will know about the agonizing days before the invasion when the weather might have prohibited the landings for weeks, if not longer.
Operation Overlord: Royal Navy Commandos at La Riviere preparing to demolish two of the many beach obstacles designed to hinder the advance of an invading army. He too had a short note for the press in case the landings failed, in which he took all responsibility upon himself. Though history records Roosevelt, and especially Churchill, having deep doubts and fears about “Operation Overlord,” and taking time to write speeches for the public in case the landings did fail, the power to order “Go” and all subsequent movement was in Eisenhower’s hands, and he felt it keenly. Even if that were only temporary, Europe might suffer for years or decades longer. Perhaps Stalin and Hitler, tired of war and absolutely dismissive of anyone’s wishes but their own, might sign another non-aggression pact, as they had to the world’s surprise in 1939.
troops disembarking on Utah Beach, 6 June 1944. Hitler would be able to shift many of his troops in the West to the Russian Front, and while perhaps it was not a given that the Soviets would lose, at the very least, hundreds of thousands more people would die. Should the Western Allies fail to establish themselves on the Normandy coast, the war might drag on for years. Churchill, Roosevelt, and Eisenhower were all intensely aware of not only the physical cost, but also the consequences of failure. General Eisenhower and Barker during D-Day.īefore the invasion, estimates of potential casualties for the cross-Channel invasion ran into the tens of thousands.
As it has been throughout history, that was the case for Eisenhower prior to D-Day. The flip side of all of that is the knowledge that no matter how successful your plans are, whether they are made in conjunction with others or not, you are the one that bears the ultimate responsibility for the lives of your troops. Ultimately, for the general in command, the ability to exercise your own plans and ideas above those of others is a privilege of the job, one toward which many military men have striven. General of the Army Dwight David Eisenhower, 1945.
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