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On this day 75 years ago, General Dwight Eisenhower, the Supreme Allied Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force and the architect of the monumental — and monumentally risky — amphibious and airborne assault on Nazi defenses in Normandy, took a moment from his last-minute preparations to compose this note:
Mercifully, Eisenhower was able to put the note back in his desk drawer; the June 6, 1944 “D-Day” landings proved to be as successful as anyone could expect, a testament not only to the bravery and devotion of the troops but the meticulous planning of the generals, their staffs, and entire governments. Yet no amount of preparation could eliminate the risk completely. This is the nature of war and especially the nature of such “forcible entry” operations. Eisenhower was thus forced to accept the terrifying prospect that the responsibility was “mine alone.”
Perhaps it is this kind of courage that makes this 75th anniversary of D-Day seem so distant; the “Greatest Generation” is passing not only physically but morally as well. And we are almost as removed in time from the hopeful cast of Ronald Reagan’s “Boys of Pointe du Hoc” speech of 1984. Reagan believed “We are bound today by what bound us 40 years ago, the same loyalties, traditions, beliefs.” The Overlord beaches were “where the West held together,” as he also believed it would in the future. Recalling General Matthew Ridgway’s pre-invasion prayer from the Book of Joshua, the president vowed, “I will not fail thee nor forsake thee” in keeping the memory and the ethos of the Rangers who scaled the Normandy cliffs.
Promise-keeping and accountability were the keys to victory on that “Longest Day,” above and beyond courage in the face of fire and material organization; the whole was greater than the sum of the parts. The armies were “bound;” their polities “held together.”
It is these deeper legacies of D-Day that confront us even as those who fought fade away. Who among us now will say the fault is mine alone? Who will vow not to fail nor forsake another? Who wishes to remain bound to our loyalties, traditions, beliefs? Can we hold together?
Resident Fellow Giselle Donnelly discusses the monumental feat accomplished on the shores of Normandy 75 years ago as well as the struggle to recognize those same deep legacies of loyalty, traditions, and beliefs today.
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