D-Day, June 6, 1944: The Climactic Battle of World War II (79 page)

"We pray for the boys we know and for millions of unknown boys who are equally a part of us. . . .

"We pray for our country. . . .

"The cause prays for itself, for it is the cause of the God who created man free and equal."
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North of New York City, it was graduation day at West Point. Among the graduates was Cadet John Eisenhower; among the families gathered was Mrs. Dwight D. Eisenhower. On June 3, from Portsmouth, General Eisenhower had written to Mamie, "This note will probably reach you soon after you return to Washington [from West Point]. There's nothing I would not have given to have been with you and John on June 6, but
c'est la guerre!

"Anyway I'm so deep in work that I'll actually be lucky to remember on the exact date—that it does mark his graduation."
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Mamie found out about D-Day from a
New York Post
reporter, who woke her with a telephone call to her room at the Hotel Thayer at West Point.

"The invasion?" Mamie exclaimed. "What about the invasion?"

On June 9 General Eisenhower sent a telegram to Mamie. Never one to overstate things, he wrote: "DUE TO PREVIOUS PLANS IT WAS IMPOSSIBLE FOR ME TO BE WITH YOU AND JOHN MONDAY BUT I THOUGHT OF YOU AND HOPE YOU AND HE HAD A NICE TIME WITH THE FAMILY. I SEND YOU MUCH LOVE WITH THIS NOTE AS TIME HAS NOT PERMITTED LETTER WRITING RECENTLY AND PROBABLY WILL NOT FOR A WHILE BUT I KNOW YOU UNDERSTAND."

(Monday was June 5. Evidently Eisenhower remembered that John had graduated on D-Day, which had been scheduled for June 5, and mixed the dates.)
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*

In New York and throughout the land, bells tolled. The greatest of these was the Liberty Bell. It had last been tolled on July 8, 1835, for the funeral of Chief Justice John Marshall. At 0700 on D-Day, Philadelphia mayor Bernard Samuel tapped the bell with a wooden mallet, sending its voice throughout the country over a radio network. Then he offered a prayer.

The impulse to pray was overwhelming. Many people got

* A week later, 2nd Lt. John Eisenhower joined Supreme Commander Dwight Eisenhower in London (Marshall arranged it). He stayed three weeks before going to Infantry School at Fort Benning. John's West Point obsessions came to play immediately on his arrival in London; walking with his father at SHAEF HQ, he asked in great earnestness, "If we should meet an officer who ranks above me but below you, how do we handle this? Should I salute first and when they return my salute, do you return theirs?" The supreme commander snorted, then said: "John, there isn't an officer in this theater who doesn't rank above you and below me" (John Eisenhower,
Strictly Personal
[Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1974], p. 63).

their first word of the invasion as they began their daily routines; after they recovered their breath, they said a silent prayer. Others heard the news broadcast on loudspeakers during their night shifts on assembly lines around the country. Men and women paused over their machines, prayed, and returned to work with renewed dedication.

Across the United States and Canada, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, from the Arctic to the Gulf Coast, the church bells rang. Not in triumph or celebration but as a solemn reminder of national unity and a call to formal prayer. Special services were held in every church and synagogue in the land. Pews were jammed with worshipers.

In Washington, General Pershing issued a statement. The commander of the World War I AEF said, "Twenty-six years ago American soldiers, in co-operation with their Allies, were locked in mortal combat with the German enemy. . . . Today, the sons of American soldiers of 1917-18 are engaged in a like war of liberation. It is their task to bring freedom to peoples who have been enslaved. I have every confidence that they, together with their gallant brothers-in-arms, will win through to victory."
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At the Capitol building, the politicians were going about their business. On D-Day, the House voted 305 to 35 to proceed with the courts-martial of Maj. Gen. Walter Short and Rear Adm. Husband Kimmel in order to fix responsibility for the Pearl Harbor disaster. "It's all politics," one congressman confessed. The Democrats (who opposed but felt they could not vote against the resolution, which they had been delaying for two years) charged that the Republicans were seeking to make a campaign issue in an effort to embarrass President Roosevelt. The Republicans (who sponsored the resolution and were unanimous for it) charged that the Democrats were trying to delay any possible disclosures until after the presidential election.
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Both charges were true.

In midafternoon, Roosevelt held a press conference. Over 180 reporters filled the executive office almost to capacity. According to the
New York Times
reporter, "They found Mr. Roosevelt looking tired around the eyes but smiling. He sat at his desk in shirtsleeves, wearing a dark bow tie. He smoked a cigarette stuck into a yellow amber holder."

"How do you feel about the progress of the invasion?" a reporter asked.

"It's up to schedule," the president replied, then smiled.

He went on to say he had reports from General Eisenhower that indicated only two destroyers and one LST had been sunk and that losses among the fliers were less than 1 percent.

Other points: General Eisenhower alone decided the actual date and place. Stalin had known of the plan since the Teheran meeting and was pleased with it. A second front a year ago would have been impossible due to lack of men and equipment. The war was not over by any means; this operation is not even over, and this is no time for overconfidence.
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After the conference, Roosevelt conferred with Admiral King and General Marshall. At their rarefied level, and so far removed from the battle, they couldn't tell the president much more than what was coming over the radio.

Marshall was stopped as he left the Oval Office by a reporter who asked if he had spent the night at his desk.

No, Marshall replied. Then he smiled a little bit and said simply, "I had done my work before."
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In Bedford, Virginia, the local newspaper, the
Bulletin,
printed a prayer written by Mrs. H. M. Lane of nearby Altavista: "Dear Father and Great Maker of all things: Beauty that dies the soonest, lives the longest. Who can fail to see the beauty and sacrifice our brave lads are making? Because they cannot keep themselves for a day, we'll keep them forever in memory and give them immortality."

A reporter for the
Bulletin
wrote, "News of the invasion brought a feeling of uneasiness to hundreds of Bedford county homes for many of them have sons, husbands and brothers in the army in England. Old Company A [of the 116th Regiment] has been in training there for nearly two years and probably was among the first landing forces, and hundreds of other Bedford county men will ultimately be thrown into the fight, and among them some casualties can be expected." He noted that every church in town was filled to capacity for special services.

A month later, on July 6, the
Bulletin
reported that "Old Company A" had received "high praise" for its role in D-Day, and went on, "So far there have been no reports of fatalities, but as yet the government has given out no complete list of casualties. There has been considerable uneasiness about the fate of the men, as it seemed too much to hope that all of them could have come safely through the landing ordeal and subsequent fighting."

In the July 20 issue, the
Bulletin
reported that the 116th had

been awarded a presidential citation, and it recorded the awful news that on July 19 fourteen families in Bedford were informed that their sons had been killed on June 6. There would be more to come. The editor wrote, "They died as all free men should die— gallantly and unafraid. They knew what was before them. But there was no shirking or hesitation, no holding back, no attempt to escape the issue."
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(At the Normandy American Cemetery and memorial, overlooking Omaha Beach, there are eleven sons of Bedford buried along with 9,386 other American war dead from the Normandy campaign. The cemetery is beautifully and perfectly maintained by the American Battle Monuments Commission. No American can visit the site without feeling a surge of pride, nor can any American suppress a flow of tears. In the circular chapel, there are inscribed these words: "Think not only upon their passing. Remember the glory of their spirit.")

The historic St. Louis Cathedral in New Orleans, from the first early Mass until Benediction Tuesday night, was full. A mother of a paratrooper, "my only child," prayed by the side of a policeman with "two boys over there." A pretty young bride knelt before a statue of Our Lady of Prompt Succor while in a nearby pew a sailor, home on leave, prayed.

Canal Street store owners had planned for D-Day for three months; when it came, they turned their employees to selling war bonds rather than goods. The idea was picked up in a number of other cities. On Canal Street, patriotic music and appeals to buy bonds filled the air. Bonds went at a record pace. One woman counted out $18.75 in dimes for a bond. She explained, "I've been saving this money to buy a bond on the day of invasion. I hope it will be a day I can remember happily. My husband is with the airborne troops and he's been in England for a long time waiting for this."
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Record crowds at the Red Cross blood donor center on Carondelet, record numbers of volunteers at the various civilian agencies, but in a city that will seize on any excuse for a parade, there was no parade. The
Times Picayune
explained, "New Orleans was hoarding its parades for V-Day."

Andrew Higgins reminded his employees that there was a long way to go, and not just in Europe: "There should not be letup on our part until our boats have carried our troops onto the shores of Japan."
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In Ottawa, Prime Minister Mackenzie King reported to the House of Commons that the landings were making good progress. He warned that there was still much to do. Opposition leader Gordon Graydon said there were no divisions of opinion on this day. From the ranks of the French-speaking members, Maurice Lalonde rose to acclaim, in French, "the historic fact that from the belfry of time has rung out the hour of the deliverance of France."

On D-Day Canada, like the United States, was united as never before. French-Canadians and English-speaking Canadians had equal stakes in the invasion and were single-minded about the goal. M. Lalonde asked special permission of the House: could "The Marseillaise" be sung? For the first time in Canadian parliamentary history, all the members joined in singing "The Marseillaise," followed by "God Save the King."
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In Columbus, Ohio, Mayor James Rhodes ordered the airraid sirens and factory whistles sounded as a call to prayer at 7:30 p.m. The entire city came to a complete stop for five minutes—cars, buses, trucks, and pedestrians halted and people prayed.
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In Columbus, as elsewhere, the Red Cross got a record blood donation, factory production was up, absenteeism down, churches were full. The Red Cross put out a call: "Every woman in Franklin County is asked to go immediately to the surgical dressing unit in her community," and was overwhelmed with volunteers. The Truck-Tractor & Equipment Company took out a full-page advertisement in the
Columbus Star
with the banner headline reading "Next Stop: Berlin," and with a brief text: "Today is a fitting day to ask ourselves, am I doing enough? If I met a man who was there, could I look him squarely in the face and say, I did my share?"
³⁰

In Milwaukee, the Red Cross blood donor center was overwhelmed by people wanting to give blood. In Reno, Nevada, the gambling dens closed and only sixteen couples filed for divorce, less than 10 percent of the usual weekday number. Elsewhere, an uglier side of American life was at work; in Cincinnati, 450 workers at the Wright Aeronautical Corporation went on strike, which tied up the plant. Their grievance was that seven Negro workers had been transferred into a shop theretofore manned entirely by white personnel. William Green, president of the American Federation of Labor, called on American workers to consider themselves part of the invasion force and to stay at their jobs "under any and all circumstances."
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In Birmingham, Alabama, the
News
reported that 1,500 miners at Republic Steel had gone out on a wildcat strike. The editors at the
News
were outraged. So were union officials. "Damn the strikers," the president of the state American Federation of Labor said. "To think that this great day should find AFL people away from their jobs is inconceivable."

In Marietta, Georgia, police sirens and church bells began sounding at 3:00 a.m. "Many citizens were hysterical," the
Atlanta Constitution
reported, "as wave after wave of sirens blasted their ears. Police cars, their sirens wide open, sped through the residential districts."

Columnist Ralph Jones quoted his wife, whose remarks, he felt, were typical. Their son was in England, possibly already in Normandy. "Even if it meant I had to die," Mrs. Jones said, "I should like to be a part of that invasion. It is the biggest and greatest and most spectacular thing in all history."

After a pause, she went on, "I just can't worry all the time about young Ralph. If I did I'd go crazy. He's in no greater danger than hundreds of thousands of sons of other mothers."
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In Missoula, Montana, "There was discussion everywhere, but the tremendous import of the news threw a hush over the spirit of the city, which was definitely noticeable."
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