A column about history, culture, policy, and things in between.
On this date in 1944, the long anticipated Allied invasion of the continent of Europe began. It was an incredible undertaking with nearly seven thousand ships, twelve thousand sorties flown, and of course, thousands of men landed on the beaches of Normandy in a howling storm of steel and flame.
France had lived under Nazi occupation for four years, and it was the combined force of the American and British armies that would liberate it. The Allied forces would struggle in the tough, hedgerow country of France’s northwestern provinces, but after establishing a beachhead they slowly pushed inward, gaining strength, logistical momentum from their great bases in Antwerp, and the establishment of overwhelming air superiority. From there, Patton’s Third Army would engage in its great “race across Europe”.
The same month would also see the beginning of an enormous Russian offensive in the East, spearheaded by Marshall Georgy Zhukov and his waves of T-34 Tanks and Katyushka rockets. He would surge out of the Leningrad pocket and relentlessly destroy the German Armies that had so devastated his homeland. Americans like to think that we won the war in Europe, and certainly the outcome may have been different without our presence. But seventy-five percent of all German casualties in this conflict occurred on the Eastern Front, and were inflicted by the Red Army. Never in history had one nation been so utterly pulverized as Germany would be by the spring of 1945. In twelve months time Berlin would lie in rubble; a city of nearly four million people reduced to a wasteland of destruction, starvation, and misery; the capital city serving as the microcosm of the entire nation.
I have met several veterans in my life, but only one who fought and landed at Normandy. We met in 1978, in a bar in south central Michigan. His name was Virgil, and we spoke at length about his D-Day experience. He shared with me what it was like in the Higgins boats as they motored through the surf – “grown men weeping like boys, openly calling out to their mother or their Savior, and wetting themselves from a fear so overwhelming you could hardly stand up” he shared. But when the booms dropped, “we did what we had to do”.
I have watched the opening scenes of Saving Private Ryan many times, and each time I do I remember Virgil. And I thank God I never had to do what he did.
