First Wave at Omaha Beach - a recounting by military historian S.L.A. Marshall from 1960

The Atlantic ^ | N O V E M B E R 1 9 6 0 | S.L.A. Marshall

[risk]

When he was promoted to officer rank at eighteen, S. L. A. MARSHALL was the youngest shavetail in the United States Army during World War I. He rejoined the Army in 1942, became a combat historian with the rank of colonel; and the notes he made at the time of the Normandy landing are the source of this heroic reminder. Readers will remember his frank and ennobling book about Korea, THE RIVER AND THE GAUNTLET, which was the result of still a third tour of duty.

[risk]

How could these men face almost certain death and function?

I think the answer is deceptively simple, and comes in two forms:

1. The men knew that they were fighting to choose the destiny of western civilization itself, and the safety of their families. They were fighting for the future of their seed, and the seed of their fathers.
2. They were fighting for freedom. Americans and our allies will always fight for freedom. Ask our troops in Iraq: they would have fought with these kinds of odds as well, if asked. In fact, we didn't know that it wouldn't be so difficult when we sent them.

My father and his brothers, as well as their father were in WW2, but none of them encountered this kind of battle. They are just as much in awe of the men who went to certain death there as anyone.

There's really nothing I can offer to thank these men enough. But I will say this: we must stop teaching our children that WW2 was as bad as it gets, and it was the great war to end all wars. Democracy is never free. The success of freedom will always rile the hatreds of wicked men who want to take what braver souls than theirs have earned. We will have to do this again and again. We must build the martial spirit in each new generation. Otherwise, what these men preserved will soon be lost.

We have men who fought just as bravely in Vietnam, for an equally just cause -- among us on FR today. It's one of the best things about having a chance to participate on this forum.

[SAMWolf]

The great German poet, Goethe, said to his generation:

"What you have inherited from your fathers,
earn over again for yourselves or it will not be yours."
We inherited freedom.
We seem unaware that freedom has to be remade
and re-earned in each generation of man.

[Burkeman1]

A good post. But from the interviews I have seen with American WWII vets- they were not fighting for absracts such as "freedom". They fought for each other. The same was true among the Germans we fought against. Ideology had no place on the front lines in any of the armies fighting- Russian troops would kill political "officers" by "accident" all the time.

[risk]

They fought for each other.

Due to the draft (10 million according to Wartime Draft Comparisons), you may be correct that many didn't go because they felt compelled by their own motivations. However, the soldiers I've known personally each did. My grandmother sent four sons to war, and her husband reenlisted. And they all went for a variety of personal reasons, but the common factor was preservation of the republic.

For an example of a personal reason, my youngest uncle had been captured by the Japanese on Wake, so my younger father immediately enlisted in the army airforce thinking his contribution would help end the war sooner and bring home his closest brother. But he also knew about the Jewish concentration camps, and he knew that if we didn't stop Hitler, he would enslave the whole human race, aside from a few brainwashed or greedy Germans. This kind of fear awakened both patriotism and a will to action that placed their own lives at a lower value than that of the republic.

My family arrived here in 1655, and our British-born forebear was a military man. I think that story has repeated itself throughout American history: the men who built this country bore sons who knew when to answer the call of liberty. What about me? I'm not as brave, I haven't given anything. But I'm fiercely proud of my family, and even more grateful for the troops who engaged in amphibious assaults like D-day and the island-hopping war in the Pacific.

[Vinnie]

We have men who fought just as bravely in Vietnam, for an equally just cause -- among us on FR today

I certainly concur with that.

Opposition to the Viet Nam War seems to be just as much in vogue today as it was in the 60s and 70s.

Every time I hear one of these cretans proudly exclaim he was opposed to that war I see red.

[Vinnie]

Good to see you back at the keyboard in record time. Not too painful?

[Burkeman1]

Most Americans didn't know about the holocaust until the war was over as Roosevelt didn't want the war to seem like a war to "save Jews". Most Americans were 80 percent against going to war on December 6th 1941.

[centurion316]

I think what you say is true, but not complete.

I commanded a rifle company in Vietnam in 1971. I was a Regular Army officer, my First Sergeant was a veteran of WWII, Korea, and was serving his 3d Vietnam tour. One of my platoon sergeants was Regular Army. The rest of the company, including the other officers, were draftees. They didn't want to be in Vietnam, and by that stage of the war did not believe that we were in a fight for the freedom of the Western World. They also knew that we were withdrawing, and that it was only a matter of time before all U.S. troops were gone. Yet they fought. And they fought well. Why would these men follow orders that might lead them to their deaths? Yet they did. Time and time again. Few left without Purple Hearts. They were all glad to go.

While I greatly respect and honor the service and valor of those who served in World War II and experienced the horrors of places like Omaha Beach, I am constantly reminded by my memories of those soldiers of B Company who served me and their country so well that other generations have done likewise and received little recognition.

[dvwjr]

In everything that has been written about Omaha until now, there is less blood and iron than in the original field notes covering any battalion landing in the first wave. Doubt it? Then let's follow along with Able and Baker companies, 116th Infantry, 29th Division. Their story is lifted from my fading Normandy notebook, which covers the landing of every Omaha company.

The 116th Infantry (Virginia), also known as the "Stonewall Brigade" of CSA Civil War fame. When the initial assault divisions were chosen by General Eisenhower he picked the 1st and 4th Infantry Divisions of the "Regular" US Army, and the "National" Divisions (later redesignated Regular) 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions. To round out the assault Regimental Combat Teams of the massive operation Overload, General Eisenhower chose the National Guard 29th Infantry Division - the "Blue and Gray", specifically its 116th and 115th RCTs.

He chose well.

dvwjr

[fourdeuce82d]

At the going down of the Sun, and in the morning, we shall remember them.

And you as well, sir. 82d ABN, CSC 1/504, 80-83.

[RaceBannon]

pain depends on the angle my elbow is at, and whether I try to lift the wrist higher than 90°

[donmeaker]

Don't feel bad that you missed a war. It is for that, to save you from the scourge of war, that your forebears fought. At least that part of their effort was successful.

What we can do is raise our children to honor the brave, and they will be ready when the time comes.

[wildbill]

When you read the history, you want to cry and to cheer men like Walter Taylor.

I want each of you to read the screed of historian Paul Fussel that is noted in the first article. It will make you puke. I read this Princeton history professors's book that denigrated our troop in WWII with disgust. It will make you puke.

[happygrl]

Thank the Lord for men like your brother, who loyally served and lived to go on to fruitful lives.

I'm glad you shared about your brother.

[1rudeboy]

bttt

[risk]

I am constantly reminded by my memories of those soldiers of B Company who served me and their country so well [in Vietnam] that other generations have done likewise and received little recognition.

First of all, I want to thank you and your men for their selfless service in Vietnam. Second, I'll ask ALOHA RONNIE and SAMWolf for their indulgence because I've already expressed these same ideas elsewhere.

I agree with you that that the draftee who did his duty with honor during the Vietnamization phase of the war (or for that matter, at any time during the Vietnam or Korean conflicts) was among the truest of patriots. When Americans fought in WW2, they knew that failure to win meant almost certain capture of North America. However, during the Cold War, Korea and Vietnam were more like battles in a long conflict. Loss of Vietnam might not mean that communists would march into Washington D.C. and seize power. Men who served during those Asian conflicts were well aware that their blood was a drop in a huge ocean of sacrifice that could go on for generation after generation beyond theirs. In the Cold War, many believed there would be no final conflict other than nuclear holocaust. Few men had the faith shared by Ronald Reagan that we could win. Where was the glory? Where was the sense of impending loss of homeland? They had to fight without either, just on the knowledge that this was what their country required of them. And they even fought knowing some disapproved.

I see our troops who fell in the service of freedom in Korea and Vietnam much like the Spartans and Greeks who battled the Persians at Thermopylae in 480 BC. A few hundred died to hold off an invasion force while their comrades could fall back and reinforce their defenses of Greece. The democracy was saved, and a Golden Age ensued. A monument was erected at the mountain pass with these words inscribed:

"Go tell the Spartans, you who pass us by, that here, obedient to their laws, we lie."

Had we lost the Cold War, there is no doubt in my mind that the results would have been equally tragic as had we lost WW2. History will show that our sacrifices, which often seemed hopeless and meaningless, were essential in proving American resolve against communism. Every American and allied soldier who served in Vietnam showed the communists masters that they could not win their war of global domination. They would have to fight against a superior force with superior arms who would go into battle with the determination and selflessness of the Spartans. Ho Chi Minh's tin pot revolution might make inroads, but the Cold War would eventually be won by free men who would fight no matter what the odds.

Like the Spartans at Thermopylae, our draftees were obedient to the laws of their democracy.

[risk]

It is for that, to save you from the scourge of war, that your forebears fought.

I know. They even raised me to believe in the possibility of a world without war, an idea I've abandoned since 9/11. But hardly a night goes by that I'm not kept awake by the feeling that I need to do more than just write about defending this country. Thank you, though.

[Movemout]

Athenians used a form of napalm at least by the fifth century. It was called "Greek Fire."

[Movemout]

You are trained to fight and you fight. I too, was a regular army enlistee in a world full of draftees. For all the bitching and carping about being made to conform and learn, they did absorb the lessons, and did what they had to.

I just finished reading a historical treatment of the Pellopenisian Wars, lasting 29 years, between, mainly Athens and Sparta. It was a remarkable account in many ways but the landings in Normandy were different in very small ways from some of the battles during this period. The Athenians were rulers of the sea and attempted, and succeeded or failed, in many landings. The Spartans were rulers of the land battles yet were largely unable to project their power because of their lack of naval ability.

[Movemout]

BTW, the Spartans won. I would judge it as a case of failed Athenian politics more than anything. Alcibiades fought for Athens, then Sparta, then Athens, and then himself. As a martial leader, he won nearly every engagement he led. Such a leader appears seldom in history, but when he does, there are certainly going to be lots of dead farmers and soldiers.