D-Day Remembrance: Eisenhower and His Paratroopers

General Dwight D. Eisenhower arrived in London January 2, 1944 to command Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF) and to direct the last five months of planning for D-Day; the most difficult and complicated military operation ever attempted. Eisenhower’s study of leadership skills required he ignore opportunities for fear and doubt, which inevitably arise as strain and tension wear away endurance. He persevered to present confidence and optimism to those around him. For that reason, he brought with him a confident, battle tested team that had led successful landings in North Africa, Sicily, and Salerno, despite experiencing German counterattacks nearly driving the Allies into the sea on the last two beaches. He was able to select his own division commanders, to enlist the help of the French Resistance, and to direct the strategic bombers for a campaign isolating the area of assault by destroying the French and Belgian railroads. These achievements called for extraordinary skill in persuading and directing the military/political alliance.

Ike’s leadership also required sustaining unprecedented initiatives in the face of well-reasoned apprehensions. The air assault exemplifies the frightful uncertainties plaguing this “Day of Days”. The night before D-Day, 20,400 American and British paratroopers were scheduled to drop behind the Normandy beaches from 1,250 C-47 aircraft plus gliders. No other initiative offered greater rewards and risked greater tragedies. This massive assault was to be attempted just seventeen years after Charles Lindberg flew the Atlantic solo for the first time.

To the last moment Ike's air commander, British Air Chief Marshall Leigh-Mallory, saw only tragic forebodings reinforced by memories of American paratroop losses in Italy and Sicily, and the German catastrophe on Crete. The German losses there were so severe that Hitler forbid any further massive air assaults. Leigh-Mallory anticipated over half the planes and gliders would be destroyed before reaching the drop zones with surviving paratroopers fighting isolated until they were killed or captured.

The unescorted air transports would arrive over Normandy the night of June 5 in three streams from 160 to 300 miles long; thereby allowing the Germans up to two hours to reposition night fighters and anti-aircraft artillery for maximum slaughter of the transports. Most pilots were flying their first combat mission, and many would make multiple trips that night. Leigh-Mallory had received specific intelligence the German 91st Air Landing Division, specialists in fighting paratroopers, and the 6th Parachute Regiment inexplicably moved into the area around St. Mere-Eglise, where the American divisions were scheduled to land. The question arose whether these movements meant the deception plan for D-Day directing attention to Pas de Calais was breaking down.

Despite ongoing doleful estimates, Ike remained strategically committed to the airborne assault. In the American sector it would enable the seaborne infantry to get through the causeways behind Utah beach and allow the early capture of Cherbourg. Without port facilities, the limited logistic support across the beaches could doom the entire invasion. In the British sector the paratroopers would secure the vulnerable left flank of the entire invasion by destroying or capturing seven bridges needed by the Germans for a counterattack by the bulk of their armor. They would also silence a German heavy artillery battery that could devastate the Sword Beach landing.

At the same time, Eisenhower was devoted to the men. Since arriving in England, he had visited over 50 divisions, airfields, and ships as well as countless other facilities and personally talked to hundreds of men. The evening before D-Day, Eisenhower left SHAEF headquarters at 6 PM and traveled to Newbury where the 101st Airborne was boarding for its first combat mission. Ike arrived at 8 PM and did not leave until the last C-47 was airborne over three hours later.

In My Three Years with Eisenhower, Navy Captain Harry C. Butcher says, "We saw hundreds of paratroopers with blackened and grotesque faces, packing up for the big hop and jump. Ike wandered through them, stepping over, packs, guns, and a variety of equipment such as only paratroop people can devise, chinning with this and that one. All were put at ease. He was promised a job after the war by a Texan who said he roped, not dallied, his cows, and at least there was enough to eat in the work. Ike has developed or disclosed an informality and friendliness with troopers that almost amazed me". The famous picture of Eisenhower supposedly forcefully delivering last minute encouragement to the troopers actually involved talking about his experience working in a store when he was a kid.

In Crusade in Europe, General Eisenhower says, "I found the men in fine fettle, many of them joshingly admonishing me that I had no cause for worry, since the 101st was on the job, and everything would be taken care of in fine shape. I stayed with them until the last of them were in the air, somewhere about midnight. After a two-hour trip back to my own camp, I had only a short time to wait until the first news should come in”.

One of the first D-Day reports was from Leigh-Mallory with news only 29 of 1,250 C-47's were missing and only four gliders were unaccounted for. That morning Leigh-Mallory sent Ike a message frankly saying it is sometimes difficult to admit that one is wrong, but he had never had a greater pleasure than in doing so on this occasion. He expressed regret for finding necessary an analysis adding to Ike’s personal burdens during those last tense days before D-Day and congratulated him on the wisdom and courage of his command decision.

Today we rest in the comfort of historic certainty and can never understand the courage required to live into and through this history. The above represents only one of many crushing uncertainties Eisenhower persevered through. Planning discussions often aroused the specter of Gallipoli, the Somme, and Passchendaele, where the British incurred murderous losses for gains of only yards. And this time the allies were intending to undertake an amphibious and air assault much more daunting than any campaign of WW I.

The Secret Life of Stewart Menzies Spymaster to Winston Churchill by Anthony Cave Brown

Summary of the 6th Airborne Division engagements https://www.dday-overlord.com/en/d-day/air-operations/commonwealth

Top 10 Deadliest Battles of World War I http://www.toptenz.net/top-10-bloodiest-battles-of-world-war-i.php

Battle of Messines (1917) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Messines_(1917)#Casualties

The Battle of Messiness helps one appreciate the anxieties aroused from memories of Gallipoli, the Somme and Passchendaele, where the British suffered catastrophic losses for gains of only yards. By some historian assessments, the most successful attack by British forces in WW I was the Battle of Messines in 1917. The battle lasted June 1-12, and involved 216,000 men of whom 24,562 became casualties. They attacked on a five-mile front and penetrated 10 miles.

Taking this battle as a starting point, the Normandy invasion from five beachheads established a lodgment about 10 miles deep on a 40 miles front. The effort required 50 days. Therefore, a WW I veteran could make an optimistic estimate of about 400,000 casualties, and that after completely disregarded the fact D-Day landings were significantly more hazardous than any offensive attempted on the Western Front. By July 24 the allies had incurred about 120,000 casualties.

D-Day Pictures http://blogs.denverpost.com/captured/2009/06/05/the-65th-anniversary-of-d-day-on-the-normandy-beaches/#

D-Day: Presidential radio address to the nation http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jeI3vwz3p4 https://www.history.com/speeches/franklin-d-roosevelt-delivers-d-day-prayerHistory in Audio Form: The D-Day Broadcast of George Hicks https://www.dday.org/2019/10/03/history-in-audio-form-the-d-day-broadcast-of-george-hicks/

JUNE 6, 1944: THE GREATEST DAY OF THE 20TH CENTURY http://usdefensewatch.com/2017/06/june-6-1944-the-greatest-day-of-the-20th-century-2/

List of German World War II night fighter aces https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_German_World_War_II_night_fighter_aces

Complete Broadcast D-Day NBC https://archive.org/details/NBCCompleteBroadcastDDay/CBD-440606_NBC0730-News.mp3

Dwight Eisenhower D-Day Speech https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/eisenhower-s-speech-to-troops-on-d-day

Franklin Delano Roosevelt https://www.history.com/speeches/franklin-d-roosevelt-delivers-d-day-prayer

D-Day: King George VI’s 1944 Speech To The Nation In Full http://www.forces.net/d-day/d-day-king-george-vis-1944-speech-nation-full#:~:text=This%20is%20the%20stirring%20speech%20made%20by%20King,in%20the%20early%20hours%20of%20June%206th%201944.

Blood on the risers LYRICS (Gory gory what a helluva way to die https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5HtVYr9aKRM

Band of Brothers https://www.bing.com/search?q=band+of+brothers+episodes&qs=LS&pq=band+of+brothers&sk=EP1LS1&sc=8-16&cvid=57EEFCF395284EC4B90640D80CE5BD3D&FORM=QBLH&sp=3&ghc=1

Normandy Speech: President Reagan's Address Commemorating 40th Anniversary of Normandy/D-Day 6/6/84

Thank you. I seem to recall maybe you mentioning the golf, the kitchen and the veteran before.

My Dad profaned golf though he could hit the ball a very long way when pressed. He seemed to be able to do about anything but that is another story. His opinion of golfers was a lot of them cheated or lied about their scores and he did not discriminate.

He also worked for the giverment and had a gang of scores of WWII veterans in his organization. I accompanied him to work from the time I could get around and often went to the field with the various veterans when Dad had to be in the office. There were few war stories. My learnings were more about character borne of inspiration from the stories of the individuals Dad would tell me about his people. A lot of who I am was from being with these men and I believe I should be grateful to them for that alone.

I have wondered today what would have happened if we, the US did not engage in this monumental conflict in Europe the way we did. What if we had left it at North Africa, Sicily, Italy or daylight raids of the Eighth Air Force and mountains of supplies and ships and men that carried them with so many not arriving safely? In all probability, if we kept supplying them, the Russians would have reduced Germany to an even smaller pile of rubble than we and the British had by bombing. What then would have become of Europe? The answer seems obvious and much worse than it actually was anyway. I wonder how many wondered the same thing at that time that I do today?

Thanks, but your "mission" here seems incomplete without telling us how successful the paratrooper's mission went.

Excerpts: The U.S. airborne landings in Normandy were the first U.S. combat operations during Operation Overlord, the invasion of Normandy by the Western Allies on June 6, 1944, during World War II. Around 13,100 American paratroopers of the 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions made night parachute drops early on D-Day, June 6, followed by 3,937 glider troops flown in by day.[2]...

The assault did not succeed in blocking the approaches to Utah for three days. Numerous factors played a part, most of which dealt with excessive scattering of the drops. Despite this, German forces were unable to exploit the chaos. Many German units made a tenacious defense of their strong-points, but all were systematically defeated within the week.

Efforts of the early wave of pathfinder teams to mark the drop zones were partially ineffective. The first serial, assigned to DZ A, missed its zone and set up a mile away near St. Germain-de-Varreville. The team was unable to get either its amber halophane lights or its Eureka beacon working until the drop was well in progress. Although the second pathfinder serial had a plane ditch in the sea en route, the remainder dropped two teams near DZ C, but most of their marker lights were lost in the ditched airplane. They managed to set up a Eureka beacon just before the assault force arrived but were forced to use a hand held signal light which was not seen by some pilots. The planes assigned to DZ D along the Douve River failed to see their final turning point and flew well past the zone. Returning from an unfamiliar direction, they dropped 10 minutes late and 1 mile (1.6 km) off target. The drop zone was chosen after the 501st PIR's change of mission on May 27 and was in an area identified by the Germans as a likely landing area. Consequently so many Germans were nearby that the pathfinders could not set out their lights and were forced to rely solely on Eureka, which was a poor guide at short range.

The pathfinders of the 82nd Airborne Division had similar results. The first serial, bound for DZ O near Sainte-Mère-Église, flew too far north but corrected its error and dropped near its DZ. It made the most effective use of the Eureka beacons and holophane marking lights of any pathfinder team. The planes bound for DZ N south of Sainte-Mère-Église flew their mission accurately and visually identified the zone but still dropped the teams a mile southeast. They landed among troop areas of the German 91st Division and were unable to reach the DZ. The teams assigned to mark DZ T northwest of Sainte-Mère-Église were the only ones dropped with accuracy, and while they deployed both Eureka and BUPS, they were unable to show lights because of the close proximity of German troops. Altogether, four of the six drops zones could not display marking lights.

The pathfinder teams assigned to Drop Zones C (101st) and N (82nd) each carried two BUPS beacons. The units for DZ N were intended to guide in the parachute resupply drop scheduled for late on D-Day, but the pair of DZ C were to provide a central orientation point for all the SCR-717 radars to get bearings. However the units were damaged in the drop and provided no assistance.

Despite precise execution over the channel, numerous factors encountered over the Cotentin Peninsula disrupted the accuracy of the drops, many encountered in rapid succession or simultaneously. These included:^[3]^[4]^[5]

C-47 configuration, including severe overloading, use of drag-inducing parapacks, and shifting centers of gravity,
a lack of navigators on 60 percent of aircraft, forcing navigation by pilots when formations broke up,
radio silence that prevented warnings when adverse weather was encountered,
a solid cloud bank at penetration altitude (1,500 feet (460 m)), obscuring the entire western half of the 22 miles (35 km) wide peninsula, thinning to broken clouds over the eastern half,
an opaque ground fog over many drop zones,
German antiaircraft fire ("flak"),
limitations of the Rebecca/Eureka transponding radar system used to guide serials to their drop zones,
emergency usage of Rebecca by numerous lost aircraft, jamming the system,
unmarked or poorly marked drop zones,
drop runs by some C-47s that were above or below the designated 700 feet (210 m) drop altitude, or in excess of the 110 miles per hour (180 km/h) drop speed, and
second or third passes over an area searching for drop zones.

Flak from German anti-aircraft guns resulted in planes either going under or over their prescribed altitudes. Some of the men who jumped from planes at lower altitudes were injured when they hit the ground because of their chutes not having enough time to slow their descent, while others who jumped from higher altitudes reported a terrifying descent of several minutes watching tracer fire streaking up towards them.

Of the 20 serials making up the two missions, nine plunged into the cloud bank and were badly dispersed. Of the six serials which achieved concentrated drops, none flew through the clouds. However the primary factor limiting success of the paratroop units, because it magnified all the errors resulting from the above factors, was the decision to make a massive parachute drop at night, a concept that was not again used in three subsequent large-scale airborne operations. This was further illustrated when the same troop carrier groups flew a second lift later that day with precision and success under heavy fire.^[6]

The troop carrier pilots in their remembrances and histories admitted to many errors in the execution of the drops but denied the aspersions on their character, citing the many factors since enumerated and faulty planning assumptions. Some, such as Martin Wolfe, an enlisted radio operator with the 436th TCG, pointed out that some late drops were caused by the paratroopers, who were struggling to get their equipment out the door until their aircraft had flown by the drop zone by several miles.[22] Others mistook drops made ahead of theirs for their own drop zones and insisted on going early.[23] The TCC personnel also pointed out that anxiety at being new to combat was not confined to USAAF crews. Warren reported that official histories showed 9 paratroopers had refused to jump and at least 35 other uninjured paratroopers were returned to England aboard C-47s.[24] General Gavin reported that many paratroopers were in a daze after the drop, huddling in ditches and hedgerows until prodded into action by veterans.[25] Wolfe noted that although his group had botched the delivery of some units in the night drop, it flew a second, daylight mission on D-Day and performed flawlessly although under heavy ground fire from alerted Germans.

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