March 8, 2024 • 38 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, the late, great Stephen Ambrose tells the WWII story of the lead-up to Operation Overlord—the largest land invasion in history at Normandy, France, June 6, 1944.
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is Lee Habib, and this is Our American Stories,
the show where America is the star and the American people.
Stephen Ambrose is one of America's leading biographers and historians.
Ambrose passed in two thousand and two, but his epic
storytelling accounts can now be heard here in Our American Stories,
(00:31):
thanks to those who run his estate. Here's Ambrose telling
the World War II story and the lead up to
Operation Overlord, the largest land invasion in history, at Normandy, France,
June sixth, nineteen forty four.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
Let's take a listen.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
By December of nineteen forty three, the United States and
Great Breton that agreed that the major operation for nineteen
forty four would be the invasion of France, the opening
of the Second Front. In December, Churchill and Roosevelt went
to Tehran in Iran to meet with Stalin to discuss
(01:12):
operations for nineteen forty four. Stalin had only one question,
is there going to be a second Front? Roosevelt assured
him that there would be. Well, who's going to command it?
Stalin asked, well, we haven't decided that yet. Roosevelt answered, well,
Stalin said, and I don't believe you're serious about this,
not until you've appointed a commander in chief for the operation.
(01:33):
Roosevelt and Churchill returned to Cairo, Egypt after the meeting,
and there Roosevelt made his decision on who was going
to have this most coveted command in the history of warfare.
His personal choice was General Marshall. He felt that Marshall
deserved the opportunity to lead an army in the field.
Marshall had built this army. This was Marshall's strategy that
(01:55):
was being implemented. Roosevelt told Eisenhower he feared that Marshall
didn't have a field command, he'd be forgotten in later years,
just as Lincoln's chief of staff had been forgotten. Everybody
knows grant me, but nobody knows who lincoln chief of
staff is, said the President. For that reason, he wanted
Marshall to have the appointment. But there are a lot
(02:16):
of objections to having Marshall take the job. He wanted
chief of staff the United States Army. He had worldwide responsibilities.
To put him in command of overlord would be in
a way to diminish his role in the war. Further,
To move Marshall from Washington to London to take over
the Overlord command would mean that someone would have to
(02:39):
take Marshall's place of Washington. That someone was presumably going
to be Eisenhower. That would have put Eisenhower in the
position of being General MacArthur's superior. Since I could serve
as a light colonel and MacArthur for seven years, that
was not something that made a lot of sense. In
the end, Roosevelt turned him Marshall himself and asked him
(03:03):
what he wanted. Marshall, who was a very great man
as well as a very great soldier, a real spartan,
said and quite properly, that's not my decision to make,
mister President. You're the commander in chief. It is up
to you to decide where I can serve you best.
Roosevelt then made his decision in Cairo. Roosevelt had Marshall
(03:24):
sit down with him and then dictated a message to
Stalin saying that the immediate appointment of General Eisenhower the
command of Operation Overlord has been decided on. Marshall wrote
it down as Roosevelt dictated, and then handed it to Roosevelt.
Roosevelt signed it. Marshall took that note down to the
radio room and had it sent by Cipher to Stalin
(03:46):
in Moscow, and then wrote Marshall typically of the man
saved the note and sent it to Eisenhower with a
little covering note saying, Eisenhower, I thought you might like
to have this as a momental, had it framed, and
from then on wherever his office was. Finally, of course,
in the White House, that's what hung behind his desk,
(04:07):
that little handwritten MIMMO that catapult at Eisenhower into the presidency.
Of course, first of all, he had to win the battle,
He had to be a successes over commander before he
was going to become President of the United States. It
almost sounds like his selection was by default, But actually
(04:29):
Eisenhower brought many positive qualities to the job. And we
can see now that Marshall didn't have the temperament to
deal with Montgomery and other British officers.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
He didn't suffer fools.
Speaker 3 (04:44):
Gladly I could put up with more than Marshall, ever
was willing to endure. I think Eisenhower probably was the
better field commander than Marshall would have been. Also, in
any event, in my view, Roosevelt selecting of Eisenhower to
Command Overlord was the best decision.
Speaker 2 (04:59):
At Roosevelt ever made.
Speaker 3 (05:01):
Eisenower arrived in London in January of nineteen forty four
to take up his duties as the Supreme Commander Allied
Expeditionary Force in command of Operation Overlord. The first problem
that he had to face was where is this attackling
to take place? His orders from the combined piece of
staff were to cross the Channel, get into France, and
(05:24):
destroy the German army.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
Everything else was left up to him.
Speaker 3 (05:27):
Where and when will this offensive begin was Eisenhower's to decide.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
The things that they kept in mind.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
As they settled on a place were many, but one
stood out above all others. There has to be surprised.
Without surprise, this operation has no chance of his success.
At most, Eisenhower had enough lift to bring five divisions
ashore on the first day. Rommel, his opposite number, who
(05:57):
had taken up his post in France with the headquarters
outside Paris also in January of nineteen forty four, had
fifty five divisions available in France, so he outnumbered Eisenhower
Wood for the first few days of the attack by
eleven to one, and of those fifty five divisions, nine
were armored divisions, and very good armored divisions at that
(06:21):
and Ronald had an absolute superiority here because Eisen wasn't
going to have no armored divisions on the first week
of the battle, so the Germans had to be surprised,
and there was no cancer this operation working.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
And you've been listening to Steven Ambrose recount the decision
making leading up to appointing the commander in charge of
Operation Overlord, and how interesting.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
I mean, there was almost no choice.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
It just simply couldn't be Marshall. That's what we learned
because a lot of people have asked themselves over time
who study the war on one why wasn't it Marshall?
And I'd never known the answer until I heard step
and Ambrose give that explanation. And it was prompted by
Stalin's very incisive question, if you don't have a commander,
you're not ready to invade. Well, Roosevelt responded quickly with that.
(07:10):
When we come back more of this remarkable story, the
story of Operation Overlord, the largest land invasion in world history,
and we're talking about D Day here on our American Stories.
This is Lee Habib, host of our American Stories every
(07:33):
day we set out to tell the stories of Americans
past and present, from small towns to big cities, and
from all walks of life, doing extraordinary things that we
truly can't do this show without you. Our shows are
free to listen to, but they're not free to make.
If you love what you hear, go to our American
Stories dot com and make a donation to keep the
(07:53):
stories coming. That's our American Stories dot Com. And we
continue with our American Stories and with Stephen Ambrose's telling
(08:14):
of the lead up to Operation Overlord, the largest land
invasion in history, at Normandy, France, on June sixth, nineteen
forty four. Let's pick up where we last left off.
Speaker 3 (08:26):
Although the possible invasion front was very broad, there were
many parts of it that were just unsuitable to an attack.
The Dutch coastline, for example, too easily flooded. And when
you get down here toward the Bay of Biscay and Brest,
you're getting too far away from your objective. Remember, the
(08:47):
final objective of this attack is Berlin, and more so
than Berlin, even the Rhine rh region that is Germany's
industrial heartland, without which Germany could not possibly wage modern war.
So here's the objective here, and going down into the
Bay of Biscay, although that was the least defended part
of the French coast, made no sense at all because
it put you so.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
Far away from your objective.
Speaker 3 (09:10):
The obvious line of attack was to come from Dover
across to Dunkirk or into the Belgian coast in the
area around the French province of the Potto Calais. That's
the straight line of the objective. London, Dover, Poda Calaeis,
through Belgium, through Brussels and on into the German heartland
(09:33):
around the Rhine Ruh region. And these beaches were quite
suitable for amphibious operations. For that reason, the Germans had
built up by fire their heaviest defenses here, the so
called Atlantic Wall, and in.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
This area.
Speaker 3 (09:50):
It probably was what Hitler said, the whole of the
Atlantic Wall was impregnable. The amount of steel reinforced concrete
that had been pulled, the numbers of guns had prepositioned,
their targets, ranging from two hundred and five millimeter down
to the mortars and even to the rifle pits were
(10:11):
just too much.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
No force in the world could have broken through.
Speaker 3 (10:18):
In those areas, and you obviously couldn't achieve surprise of
those areas. And in addition to the fixed defenses that
Ronald had there and the infantry that were in these
prepared positions, that is where about seventy percent of the
German tank strength was located.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
Because above all else.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
The Germans had to prevent a landing here in northern France,
with its easy access to their factory system and Useldorf
and Bonn and Cologne and the other great cities of
the Rhine Ruh region. So here was Germany's vulnerability right here,
very close to London, very close to Dover. And so
this is where the German defenses were the strongest.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
When you get to.
Speaker 3 (10:59):
The south and the west of the Sane River running
from Paris, here the defenses weren't so strong and the
Panzer divisions were not in place. Here was where it
was possible to effect a lodgment. The Germans, every time
they studied the map, it was, of course, the same
(11:21):
map the Allies were using, came to the conclusion they
won't it's kissed, not possible they would come here into
Normandy because it's in the wrong direction, it's going south
instead of east and further to go into Normandy was
to put the Sane River and the Solme River between
the Allies and their objective. So, because the Germans felt
(11:45):
that it was just out of the question that the
Allies would come into Normandy, the eyes an artist sided.
Normandy's where we're going to go.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
There.
Speaker 3 (11:52):
I know we can get ashore and then we can
be bringing in from London. This vast build up of
men and supplies been taking place since nineteen forty three
in England, the outpouring of America's factories, and these marvelously
trained young Americans and the divisions that had been formed
in forty two and forty three could come into the battle.
(12:15):
So Normandy was the place that Eisenhower picked the time.
He wanted to go as early in the spring as possible,
as soon as good campaigning weather began, that is, early May,
but he eventually postponed the target date to June first,
so that he could have another month's production of landing craft.
(12:36):
The big shortage Eisenhar had was in landing craft. He
had a lot of air. He had plenty of air,
He had plenty of naval warships. He had more divisions
than he could put into the battle until we had
advanced well into France. But what he was short on
was landing craft. Landing Craft had now become a top
priority production item in the United States, and by postponing
(12:57):
from May one to June one, Eisenhower was able to
get that many more LST's, LCVPs, LCMS, LCTs and the
others into the battle. So where and when where will
be normandy? When will be the first of June? And
that meant that's the target date, the first date after
the first of June on which the tide and moon
(13:18):
conditions are right. This was because Rommel had begun in
January nineteen forty four to build up the beach defenses.
The obstacles of a myriad of types barbed wire, land mines,
sea mines, tetrahydra which were came in a variety of forms,
(13:38):
but basically were steel rails, railroad rails welded together into
a tripod and then a teller mine put on top
of them and set out there so that at high
tide they were just above just below the water, meaning
that any landing craft trying to come in at high
tide was going to run into a mine.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
Sitting on one of these obstacles. High tide is the
best time.
Speaker 3 (14:00):
Time to attack, in the sense that it shortens the
distance and the beak, the distance from where the ramp
goes down and them and charge out of their landing craft.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
And they get to the first cover.
Speaker 3 (14:12):
Low tide is the worst time to attack because you've
got that long stretch of open beak, all of it
covered by German fire through which the attacking forces have to.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
Work their way.
Speaker 3 (14:24):
Ronald's beach defenses were designed to force the Allies to
land at low tide, and they did. Another requirement I
should add was moon the night before, at least a
half a moon to provide enough illumination.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
For a night drop. This is a very daring part
of the Allied plan.
Speaker 3 (14:43):
One of the greatest assets that Eisenhower had was three
magnificently trained divisions of light infantry, the US eighty second,
hundred and first Airborne and the British sixth Airborne divisions.
He wanted to use those airborne divisions to protect the
flanks of the invasion, letting the Americans land on the
(15:04):
right and the Cotentin Peninsula and the British six there
born coming in on the left. He wanted to start
putting them in at midnight so that they could secure positions,
establish roadblocks, take key villages, knock down German communications, especially
their telephone lines. All before the first attacks began, these
night drops a very dangerous thing, not to be recommended.
(15:28):
The risk had to be run to make it an
acceptable risk. It was necessary to have some moonlight the
night before, so the conditions were not simply a low
tide at dawn, but also moonlight the night before. And
June fifth fit that date that had those conditions set
al also, so June fifth was.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
Picked as the date.
Speaker 3 (15:50):
Hitler had five division stations in Norway. Now these were
immobile infantry divisions of not very good quality troops. Nevertheless,
at about twelve thou in per division it was off.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
They had an awful lot of firepower.
Speaker 3 (16:04):
Ronald was screaming to get those troops out of Norway,
where they're not doing us any good at all, and
let's get them down into France and put them in
the trenches along the Atlantic Wall. To immobilize those Germans
in Norway, the Allies launched Operation Fortitude North to get
the Germans Fearful about what was going to come in
(16:26):
Norway Fortitude North was a shoestring operation. About two dozen
overaged British officers with radio operators were sent to the
north of Scotland, some of the most god awful country
in the world. They went up there in February and
they began exchanging radio messages with each other.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
Where is this? Where is that?
Speaker 3 (16:49):
All of this taken in the thousands of messages built
this picture in the German mind of a forest gathering
in the north of Scotland to attack Norway.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
And you've been listening to the late Stephen Ambrose tell
the story of Operation Overlord, the largest land invasion in history,
in Normandy, France, on June sixth, nineteen forty four, otherwise
known as D Day. The element of surprise was crucial. Indeed,
we learned that's why Normandy was picked. Nobody thought it
(17:19):
was the best place to go. And then, of course
there's deception, always trying to lure your enemy into thinking
you're doing something else. When we come back more of
this remarkable story. The story of D Day as told
by one of the best storytellers ever on World War two,
author A Band of Brothers. If you haven't seen the
(17:42):
HBO series.
Speaker 2 (17:43):
Watch it.
Speaker 1 (17:43):
It plays all day on Memorial Day. Any family should
see it. Every family should sit down and watch it.
More of Stephen Ambrose here on our American stories, and
(18:08):
we continue with our American stories and the story of
D Day and the planning that led up to it.
Let's pick up with Stephen Ambrose where we last left off.
Speaker 3 (18:19):
They had wooden bombers set up on the airfield so
that German reconnaissance planes coming out of Norway would take
pictures of them. They had paper machet tanks, they had
rubber tanks. This is where the Allies put to good
use the skills of the technicians in the Hollywood movie
industry and the British movie industry. By early May, Ramo
(18:43):
had just about convinced Hitler that nothing was going to
happen in Norway and had Hitler on the verge of
giving the orders to move these troops from Norway down
into France and Belgium with a whole new flurry of
messages were broken by the ad there the German intelligence Service,
and these officers informed Hitler that the threat to Norway
(19:04):
is very real. That you might wonder what did Hitler
care about Norway? And why did he need five divisions
in Norway. You got to remember Norway was terribly important
Hitler because that's where his U boats were based, and
that was the last offensive weapon he had. He was
an offensive minded person. He hated being on the defensive.
(19:25):
The submarines gave him a chance to hit the Allies
where it hurt. He was convinced that this attack was coming.
At the last minute, he canceled the movement order that concerned,
in this first instance, some fifty five thousand men who
were to come from Norway down into France. Hitler canceled
the order almost as they were boarding the trains. To
paraphrase Winston Churchill, considering that it was twenty four overaged
(19:48):
British officers who pulled this off. Never in the history
of warfare have so many been immobilized by so few.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
Well, it didn't matter how badly you fooled the enemy.
We all going to be a fight.
Speaker 3 (20:01):
Germany didn't have an army in nineteen forty four the
equal to the army of nineteen forty one in some ways.
In other ways it was more powerful, and it was
fighting on the defensive behind fixed positions. When I say
that the defenses were relatively less in Normandy. Understand that
this doesn't mean Normandy was undefended. Every beach that was
(20:22):
suitable for landing craft was covered by artillery fire, heavily
reinforced casements, an extensive underground communication system, thousands of miles
of barbed wire, tens of thousands of land mines of
all types, and infantry troops in prepared trenches running along
(20:44):
the bluff back from the beak. So no matter how
successful to repeat the op the deception plan was, it
still was going to come down to a bunch of
eighteen to twenty four year old kids who were going
to have to fight their way out of the landing
craft and get up to the high ground. To get
them to do that, the training in England in the
(21:06):
spring of nineteen forty four was intense and continuous. The
aim of the training was to make the men feel
combat can't.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
Be worse than this.
Speaker 3 (21:18):
A lot of night drops for the airborne divisions and
then three and four and five day problems in the field.
Living in the ground, had a lot of casualties, used
a lot of live ammunition, had a lot of practice exercises.
The most famous took place in the south of England
had slapped in sands in April of nineteen forty four.
There were some terrible screw ups. Lessons were learned from
(21:41):
slapped in sands by both sides.
Speaker 2 (21:44):
Hitler learned from it. Hiller was an amazing guy.
Speaker 3 (21:48):
He went to France only once in his life after
World War One, when he had fought in France. He
had never been to England, never traveled to Russia, had
never traveled, and he was the man who set out
to conquer the world, had never hardly ever travel outside
of Germany.
Speaker 2 (22:04):
But he could read a map better than anybody that
I've ever heard of.
Speaker 3 (22:10):
He heard about Exercise Tiger, that is his e boats
came back and said there were an awful lot of
LST's out there and they were performing some kind of
an operation at this point on the English coast. And
Hitler took one look at him. He said, that's just
like the coast at Normandy. That's the same gradient, that's
the same kind of sand conditions, that's the same kind
(22:30):
of bluff conditions.
Speaker 2 (22:31):
We better look a little closer.
Speaker 3 (22:32):
At Normandy is a possible invasion site, because if they're
practicing there, maybe they're getting ready for Normandy, and so
the defensive construction of the Atlantic Wall in Normandy was
speeded up in the month of May, a little.
Speaker 2 (22:48):
Bit too late, thank god.
Speaker 3 (22:50):
Eisenhower proposed to isolate Normandy to make it difficult, maybe
even impossible, for Ronald to get reinforcements into Normandy, by
knocking out the bridge system over the Seine River, knocking
out the French railway system, hitting their marshaling yards, hitting
their rolling stock, hitting their repair facilities. The big Bomber Boys,
(23:13):
led by Arthur Harris, a bomber command and two spots
of the US Army Air Force, objected strenuously to this.
They said, we weren't built for this kind of an operation.
Our job is to go inside Germany and conduct strategic warfare.
Our job is to defeat Germany from the air. One
(23:33):
of them said to Ikes Chief of Staff Beatle Smith.
At one point did Beatle, we wish you all luck
in the world with Overlord, but meanwhile, let us get
on with the real war. Eisnower never for a minute
believed that the air forces could achieve victory on their own.
He thought the Germans could take a pounding from the
air from now until doomsday.
Speaker 2 (23:53):
And they wouldn't quit.
Speaker 3 (23:54):
The only way you were going to force those Germans
to quit was to put GI's and Tommy's on the
ground inside Germany with a gun in their hand. And
to get him there you had to first of all
get ashore in France. And to get ashore in France,
the biggest contribution the bombers could make would be to
carry out this transportation plan, as it came to be called,
the plan to knock out the French railway system and
the bridges over the same river. Eisenhower had command of
(24:16):
all the forces in the British Isle except the Big Bombers.
The Combined Chiefs of Staff had withheld them from his
direct control. They were operating their own war. Eisenhower in
March of forty four went to the Combined Chiefs and
beyond them to Churchill and Roosevelt, and said, I want
to carry out this transportation plan, and if you're not
(24:37):
gonna give me command of the big Bombers, my best
asset to make sure Overlord is success, then I'll just
have to resign my commission and go home, because I'm
not going to fight this battle without being able to
utilize every asset that I've got over here in the
British Isle.
Speaker 2 (24:59):
I was quite a threat.
Speaker 3 (25:02):
He was talking about giving up command of Overlord. It
hit everyone hard that he felt so strongly about it,
and eventually they gave in and gave him command of
the bombers for the period before Operation Overlord. He put
the bombers to work on the transportation plan and it
was a smashing success. Every bridge over the Seine River
was knocked down, marshaling yards were torn up, repair facilities destroyed.
(25:26):
The German The index of rail activity in France went
from one hundred and February down to thirty on June five,
nineteen forty four. There were French casualties, which was something
that everyone regretted, although they checked with Degaue, who said,
we've got to take casualties to win this war, and
(25:46):
if it's necessary, it's necessary to French people are slaves now,
they'll do anything to be free. The final plan for
Overlord called for a landing five divisions strong, with the
British going in on the left and the Americans going
in on the right. The Beacher's code names were Gold,
Juno Sword for the British and Utah on the Cotentin
(26:08):
Peninsula and Omaha on the Calvados Coast for the American forces.
Speaker 1 (26:14):
And you're listening to the late Steven Ambrose tell the
story of Operation Overlord, and my goodness, what a story,
what a story about Hitler. Though he never traveled anywhere,
it turns out he understood maps, truly understood him. And
what is war but the study of geography and topography
and knowing, knowing every inch of the terrain. And he
(26:37):
understood that if Americans were practicing where they were practicing,
it meant trying to fortify Normandy. Luckily, as Ambrose indicated,
he didn't get to that until May of nineteen forty four,
a bit too late. And then Eisenhower's threat, I mean,
imagine the impudence of threatening to resign his commission if
he didn't get control of those bombers. But without those
(27:00):
bomber's boy our boys would have been slaughtered. When we
come back, more of this remarkable story is only Stephen
Ambrose can tell it. The story of D Day, the
preparation leading up to it, all the work, all the strategy,
and so much more. Here on our American stories, and
(27:37):
we continue with our American stories, and with the late
Great Stephen Ambrose, one of the great writers in this
country on all things related to World War Two. By
the way, on our American Stories website you'll see Ambrose
on Eisenhower on the b twenty four's So Many War
Stories about the War. Let's pick up now where we
(27:57):
last left off on the story of Operation Overlord.
Speaker 3 (28:02):
The final plan for Overlord called for a landing five
divisions strong, with the British going in on the left
and the Americans going in on the right.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
The beaches code.
Speaker 3 (28:12):
Names were Gold Juno Sword for the British, and Utah
on the Cotentin Peninsula and Omaha on the Calvados Coast
for the American forces. The divisions chosen to lead the
way were, for the most part inexperienced divisions. One reason
for this was that's the only kind of divisions that
(28:33):
the Western Allies had. The British had not been fighting
since nineteen forty except down in North Africa, and those
troops were now in Italy.
Speaker 2 (28:41):
The Bridge didn't have any experienced divisions.
Speaker 3 (28:43):
Inside England, they had long serving troops, they'd never been
in battle. The reason that Eisenhower insisted on sending unproven, untried,
untested troops unbloodied troops into the first day of battle.
Was he recognized one of the older axioms of war.
(29:03):
A experienced infantry man is a terrified infantryman. People often
talk about how much better veterans are than men who
have never been in combat before. It's absolutely true on
the defensive, and it's often true in other situations. But
for an attack of this sort, you're way better off
with somebody who has never seen what hot shrapnel does
(29:24):
to a human body, who has never stood beside his buddy,
is his buddy's brains, who's out of a hole in
his head, who has never seen one of his friends
trying to stuff his guts back into his stomach, who
has never seen someone carrying his left arm in his
right hand because it's been blown off. Somebody who has
seen these things happen tends to take fewer chances than
(29:47):
someone who hasn't seen it. Paul Fusel puts this very
nicely in his book Wartime when he says that going
into a battle for the first time, a young always
thinks it can't happen to me. I'm too young, I'm
too good looking, i'm too valuable, I'm too well trained.
(30:12):
In May of nineteen forty four, the movement of troops
from all over England to the south of England began.
Some two million men on the road, with god knows
how many vehicles of all types moving with them to
camps down along the south coast of England, where they
were put under camouflage and put under a very tight guard,
(30:33):
not allowed enter out of their camps after they had
been briefed on where this operation was going to take place.
Speaker 2 (30:40):
By June one, everything was ready.
Speaker 3 (30:43):
The Mighty Host, in Eisenhower's words, was as tense as
a coiled spring, ready to vault its energy over.
Speaker 2 (30:49):
The English Channel.
Speaker 3 (30:51):
These young Tommy's and GI's and Canadians had been brought
to a fever pick in their training, and we're.
Speaker 2 (30:58):
Absolutely ready to go and eager to go.
Speaker 3 (31:01):
They nobody likes to go into combat, but they had
some things going for them here that were.
Speaker 2 (31:07):
Very helpful to morale.
Speaker 3 (31:08):
Number One, all these guys knew, I am not going
home until we have brought about the unconditional surrender Nazi Germany,
so let's get on with it. Also, they'd been training
for two years preparing for this moment. They wanted to
get it now.
Speaker 2 (31:22):
Let's go. And they all knew that this was a
historic occasion.
Speaker 3 (31:27):
They knew that they were going into a battle that
people would be writing about and thinking about, and honoring
and studying for decades for centuries to come. That they
were in on what Eisenhower.
Speaker 2 (31:40):
Called a crusade.
Speaker 3 (31:42):
The attack was supposed to begin in the morning of
the fifth of June, and the third the ship started sailing,
some of them coming from the fire away.
Speaker 2 (31:48):
As Belfast, the big ships, the battleships.
Speaker 3 (31:53):
This is an immense operation, all of it done with
our computer, an immense operation involving in the first day alone,
one hundred and seventy five thousand men to go ashore
in France, backed up by about fifty thousand sailors, and
a total force of airmen that numbered into the many
(32:13):
tens of thousands. Also, six thousand ships of all types
were involved, seven thousand airplanes. This is the biggest military
operation for the United States of the war and in
our history, Bigger than anything Grant ever commanded, Bigger than
the forces of Schwartz Cough commanded in the Gulf War.
(32:33):
To give you some idea of the scope of this operation,
it was as if you took the cities of Green Bay, Madison,
and Race Seine, Wisconsin, and picked him up and moved
him every man, women and child and every vehicle across
Lake Michigan in one night against intense opposition. And this
is going on all across the south coast of England.
(32:55):
As I say, schedules were very exact on when people
would sail to get into column to go over to France.
And all this began in the morning of June second,
and began to pick up steam on June third for
a June five cross channel attack. When on June third
the weather, which had been marvelous all through May, gave
(33:15):
way to a great storm coming in from Iceland, and
it became a question of wait to see what the
weather would be on June five. After June five was
too late. If you postponed on after June six excuse me,
if you postponed on June five, that is, we're not
gonna go on June sixth. Then the next suitable date
(33:35):
when the tide would be right and the moon would
be right, was two weeks later. Eisenhower made the decision
on the morning of the fifth of June, at two
o'clock in his headquarters at Suffolk House outside of Southampton,
(33:58):
when he heard his weathermen predict that the storm that
was now raging, the rain was going to stop, the
wind was going to fall off. It'd still be some
pretty heavy seas. But he thought the conditions on the
morning on the night of June five six for the
airdrop would be acceptable. Eisnar ask him for a guarantee,
(34:20):
and he gave a little nervous laugh and said generally, no,
I can't give you a guarantee on this. Remember there
were there half satellites in those days. The weatherman left.
His name was Group Captain Stagg, one of the great
heroes of the war twenty eight years old. Can you
imagine stand in front of all those four stars at
twenty eight and telling you what the weather is going
to be tomorrow with the greatest invasion in history at
(34:40):
stake here. But he did it, and he left, and
Eisenwer then asked each of his subordinates what did he
think he had a habit when he was in deep thought.
Eisnar did of putting his hands behind his back and
pacing with his chin down on his chest.
Speaker 2 (34:58):
Then he would stop and shoot out his money. What
do you think, Money said, I should say let's go
all right. Nod had took that in paced some more,
turned and said.
Speaker 3 (35:11):
Tenor what do you think? This was his deputy. It's
pretty cancy. I should say postpone, Beidle, what do you think?
And Beadle Smith said it's a hell of a gamble,
but it's the best possible gamble. Let's go, Ramsey, what
do you think I think we ought to postpone? Leigh
(35:31):
Mawry was all for postponing.
Speaker 2 (35:34):
There were a dozen men in that room.
Speaker 3 (35:36):
Six said let's go, and six said let's postpone. Now,
Eisenaarer was not taking a vote here. He just wanted
to have their opinions from the point of view of
their own specific service.
Speaker 2 (35:48):
He paced some more.
Speaker 3 (35:50):
Years later I interviewed him about this and asked him
what went through his mind. He said he thought about
he had brought these men up to this point. They
were just ready, just dying to go, and to stand
down now, God, that'd be terrible. And then he thought
about on the other hand, she said, if we land
and Stag is wrong and they're going across, and those
(36:10):
little tiny Higgins boats doing this and doing this and
doing this, they're all going to be throwing up and
weaken the legs and incapable of fighting. Party can't even
get off the landing craft, and those landing crafts are
going to get tossed over by the waves. He thought
about the exit, the effect on the Russians of a postponement.
Finally he made his decision, and standing in front of
(36:32):
these officers or you're pacing in front of me, he
came to a stop at the end of the table,
shout out his chair and said, okay, let's go.
Speaker 2 (36:39):
And with that a cheer went up in that room.
Speaker 3 (36:43):
Ken Strong, the intelligence officer, told me in an interview later,
you never heard middle aged men cheer like that in
your life. And then they all rushed out to their
various commands, leaving Eisenhower alone, which was wonderfully symbolic because
until he gave that order, he was the most powerful
man in the world.
Speaker 2 (37:02):
At that moment, the.
Speaker 3 (37:04):
Fate of great nations and hundreds of thousands of men
depended on his decision. The minuity had given that decision,
he was not powerless. The battle was in other people's hands,
and a.
Speaker 1 (37:13):
Terrific job on the production and editing by our own
Greg Hengler, and a special thanks to Stephen Ambrose, who
passed in two thousand and two, but his voice is
still heard here on our American Stories, thanks to those
who run his estate.
Speaker 2 (37:26):
And what a voice, indeed, and.
Speaker 1 (37:28):
What a story. Perhaps the most important invasion of the
twentieth century, perhaps in world history, saving the world. That's
what our boys did, That's what our manufacturing operation did too.
Speaker 2 (37:41):
Here at home.
Speaker 1 (37:42):
We were producing all those planes, producing all those tanks,
producing those Higgins boats, those landing craft. And that picture
of Eisenhower seeking the input from his twelve most senior
aides in the end when he said let's go. Well,
the war was now in the hands of the command
of the American troops and the Nazis to fight it out.
(38:05):
What a story, one of the great Stephen Ambrose operation
Overlord here on our American Stories.
This is Lee Habib, and this is Our American Stories,
the show where America is the star and the American people.
Stephen Ambrose is one of America's leading biographers and historians.
Ambrose passed in two thousand and two, but his epic
storytelling accounts can now be heard here in Our American Stories,
(00:31):
thanks to those who run his estate. Here's Ambrose telling
the World War II story and the lead up to
Operation Overlord, the largest land invasion in history, at Normandy, France,
June sixth, nineteen forty four.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
Let's take a listen.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
By December of nineteen forty three, the United States and
Great Breton that agreed that the major operation for nineteen
forty four would be the invasion of France, the opening
of the Second Front. In December, Churchill and Roosevelt went
to Tehran in Iran to meet with Stalin to discuss
(01:12):
operations for nineteen forty four. Stalin had only one question,
is there going to be a second Front? Roosevelt assured
him that there would be. Well, who's going to command it?
Stalin asked, well, we haven't decided that yet. Roosevelt answered, well,
Stalin said, and I don't believe you're serious about this,
not until you've appointed a commander in chief for the operation.
(01:33):
Roosevelt and Churchill returned to Cairo, Egypt after the meeting,
and there Roosevelt made his decision on who was going
to have this most coveted command in the history of warfare.
His personal choice was General Marshall. He felt that Marshall
deserved the opportunity to lead an army in the field.
Marshall had built this army. This was Marshall's strategy that
(01:55):
was being implemented. Roosevelt told Eisenhower he feared that Marshall
didn't have a field command, he'd be forgotten in later years,
just as Lincoln's chief of staff had been forgotten. Everybody
knows grant me, but nobody knows who lincoln chief of
staff is, said the President. For that reason, he wanted
Marshall to have the appointment. But there are a lot
(02:16):
of objections to having Marshall take the job. He wanted
chief of staff the United States Army. He had worldwide responsibilities.
To put him in command of overlord would be in
a way to diminish his role in the war. Further,
To move Marshall from Washington to London to take over
the Overlord command would mean that someone would have to
(02:39):
take Marshall's place of Washington. That someone was presumably going
to be Eisenhower. That would have put Eisenhower in the
position of being General MacArthur's superior. Since I could serve
as a light colonel and MacArthur for seven years, that
was not something that made a lot of sense. In
the end, Roosevelt turned him Marshall himself and asked him
(03:03):
what he wanted. Marshall, who was a very great man
as well as a very great soldier, a real spartan,
said and quite properly, that's not my decision to make,
mister President. You're the commander in chief. It is up
to you to decide where I can serve you best.
Roosevelt then made his decision in Cairo. Roosevelt had Marshall
(03:24):
sit down with him and then dictated a message to
Stalin saying that the immediate appointment of General Eisenhower the
command of Operation Overlord has been decided on. Marshall wrote
it down as Roosevelt dictated, and then handed it to Roosevelt.
Roosevelt signed it. Marshall took that note down to the
radio room and had it sent by Cipher to Stalin
(03:46):
in Moscow, and then wrote Marshall typically of the man
saved the note and sent it to Eisenhower with a
little covering note saying, Eisenhower, I thought you might like
to have this as a momental, had it framed, and
from then on wherever his office was. Finally, of course,
in the White House, that's what hung behind his desk,
(04:07):
that little handwritten MIMMO that catapult at Eisenhower into the presidency.
Of course, first of all, he had to win the battle,
He had to be a successes over commander before he
was going to become President of the United States. It
almost sounds like his selection was by default, But actually
(04:29):
Eisenhower brought many positive qualities to the job. And we
can see now that Marshall didn't have the temperament to
deal with Montgomery and other British officers.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
He didn't suffer fools.
Speaker 3 (04:44):
Gladly I could put up with more than Marshall, ever
was willing to endure. I think Eisenhower probably was the
better field commander than Marshall would have been. Also, in
any event, in my view, Roosevelt selecting of Eisenhower to
Command Overlord was the best decision.
Speaker 2 (04:59):
At Roosevelt ever made.
Speaker 3 (05:01):
Eisenower arrived in London in January of nineteen forty four
to take up his duties as the Supreme Commander Allied
Expeditionary Force in command of Operation Overlord. The first problem
that he had to face was where is this attackling
to take place? His orders from the combined piece of
staff were to cross the Channel, get into France, and
(05:24):
destroy the German army.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
Everything else was left up to him.
Speaker 3 (05:27):
Where and when will this offensive begin was Eisenhower's to decide.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
The things that they kept in mind.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
As they settled on a place were many, but one
stood out above all others. There has to be surprised.
Without surprise, this operation has no chance of his success.
At most, Eisenhower had enough lift to bring five divisions
ashore on the first day. Rommel, his opposite number, who
(05:57):
had taken up his post in France with the headquarters
outside Paris also in January of nineteen forty four, had
fifty five divisions available in France, so he outnumbered Eisenhower
Wood for the first few days of the attack by
eleven to one, and of those fifty five divisions, nine
were armored divisions, and very good armored divisions at that
(06:21):
and Ronald had an absolute superiority here because Eisen wasn't
going to have no armored divisions on the first week
of the battle, so the Germans had to be surprised,
and there was no cancer this operation working.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
And you've been listening to Steven Ambrose recount the decision
making leading up to appointing the commander in charge of
Operation Overlord, and how interesting.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
I mean, there was almost no choice.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
It just simply couldn't be Marshall. That's what we learned
because a lot of people have asked themselves over time
who study the war on one why wasn't it Marshall?
And I'd never known the answer until I heard step
and Ambrose give that explanation. And it was prompted by
Stalin's very incisive question, if you don't have a commander,
you're not ready to invade. Well, Roosevelt responded quickly with that.
(07:10):
When we come back more of this remarkable story, the
story of Operation Overlord, the largest land invasion in world history,
and we're talking about D Day here on our American Stories.
This is Lee Habib, host of our American Stories every
(07:33):
day we set out to tell the stories of Americans
past and present, from small towns to big cities, and
from all walks of life, doing extraordinary things that we
truly can't do this show without you. Our shows are
free to listen to, but they're not free to make.
If you love what you hear, go to our American
Stories dot com and make a donation to keep the
(07:53):
stories coming. That's our American Stories dot Com. And we
continue with our American Stories and with Stephen Ambrose's telling
(08:14):
of the lead up to Operation Overlord, the largest land
invasion in history, at Normandy, France, on June sixth, nineteen
forty four. Let's pick up where we last left off.
Speaker 3 (08:26):
Although the possible invasion front was very broad, there were
many parts of it that were just unsuitable to an attack.
The Dutch coastline, for example, too easily flooded. And when
you get down here toward the Bay of Biscay and Brest,
you're getting too far away from your objective. Remember, the
(08:47):
final objective of this attack is Berlin, and more so
than Berlin, even the Rhine rh region that is Germany's
industrial heartland, without which Germany could not possibly wage modern war.
So here's the objective here, and going down into the
Bay of Biscay, although that was the least defended part
of the French coast, made no sense at all because
it put you so.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
Far away from your objective.
Speaker 3 (09:10):
The obvious line of attack was to come from Dover
across to Dunkirk or into the Belgian coast in the
area around the French province of the Potto Calais. That's
the straight line of the objective. London, Dover, Poda Calaeis,
through Belgium, through Brussels and on into the German heartland
(09:33):
around the Rhine Ruh region. And these beaches were quite
suitable for amphibious operations. For that reason, the Germans had
built up by fire their heaviest defenses here, the so
called Atlantic Wall, and in.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
This area.
Speaker 3 (09:50):
It probably was what Hitler said, the whole of the
Atlantic Wall was impregnable. The amount of steel reinforced concrete
that had been pulled, the numbers of guns had prepositioned,
their targets, ranging from two hundred and five millimeter down
to the mortars and even to the rifle pits were
(10:11):
just too much.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
No force in the world could have broken through.
Speaker 3 (10:18):
In those areas, and you obviously couldn't achieve surprise of
those areas. And in addition to the fixed defenses that
Ronald had there and the infantry that were in these
prepared positions, that is where about seventy percent of the
German tank strength was located.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
Because above all else.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
The Germans had to prevent a landing here in northern France,
with its easy access to their factory system and Useldorf
and Bonn and Cologne and the other great cities of
the Rhine Ruh region. So here was Germany's vulnerability right here,
very close to London, very close to Dover. And so
this is where the German defenses were the strongest.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
When you get to.
Speaker 3 (10:59):
The south and the west of the Sane River running
from Paris, here the defenses weren't so strong and the
Panzer divisions were not in place. Here was where it
was possible to effect a lodgment. The Germans, every time
they studied the map, it was, of course, the same
(11:21):
map the Allies were using, came to the conclusion they
won't it's kissed, not possible they would come here into
Normandy because it's in the wrong direction, it's going south
instead of east and further to go into Normandy was
to put the Sane River and the Solme River between
the Allies and their objective. So, because the Germans felt
(11:45):
that it was just out of the question that the
Allies would come into Normandy, the eyes an artist sided.
Normandy's where we're going to go.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
There.
Speaker 3 (11:52):
I know we can get ashore and then we can
be bringing in from London. This vast build up of
men and supplies been taking place since nineteen forty three
in England, the outpouring of America's factories, and these marvelously
trained young Americans and the divisions that had been formed
in forty two and forty three could come into the battle.
(12:15):
So Normandy was the place that Eisenhower picked the time.
He wanted to go as early in the spring as possible,
as soon as good campaigning weather began, that is, early May,
but he eventually postponed the target date to June first,
so that he could have another month's production of landing craft.
(12:36):
The big shortage Eisenhar had was in landing craft. He
had a lot of air. He had plenty of air,
He had plenty of naval warships. He had more divisions
than he could put into the battle until we had
advanced well into France. But what he was short on
was landing craft. Landing Craft had now become a top
priority production item in the United States, and by postponing
(12:57):
from May one to June one, Eisenhower was able to
get that many more LST's, LCVPs, LCMS, LCTs and the
others into the battle. So where and when where will
be normandy? When will be the first of June? And
that meant that's the target date, the first date after
the first of June on which the tide and moon
(13:18):
conditions are right. This was because Rommel had begun in
January nineteen forty four to build up the beach defenses.
The obstacles of a myriad of types barbed wire, land mines,
sea mines, tetrahydra which were came in a variety of forms,
(13:38):
but basically were steel rails, railroad rails welded together into
a tripod and then a teller mine put on top
of them and set out there so that at high
tide they were just above just below the water, meaning
that any landing craft trying to come in at high
tide was going to run into a mine.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
Sitting on one of these obstacles. High tide is the
best time.
Speaker 3 (14:00):
Time to attack, in the sense that it shortens the
distance and the beak, the distance from where the ramp
goes down and them and charge out of their landing craft.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
And they get to the first cover.
Speaker 3 (14:12):
Low tide is the worst time to attack because you've
got that long stretch of open beak, all of it
covered by German fire through which the attacking forces have to.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
Work their way.
Speaker 3 (14:24):
Ronald's beach defenses were designed to force the Allies to
land at low tide, and they did. Another requirement I
should add was moon the night before, at least a
half a moon to provide enough illumination.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
For a night drop. This is a very daring part
of the Allied plan.
Speaker 3 (14:43):
One of the greatest assets that Eisenhower had was three
magnificently trained divisions of light infantry, the US eighty second,
hundred and first Airborne and the British sixth Airborne divisions.
He wanted to use those airborne divisions to protect the
flanks of the invasion, letting the Americans land on the
(15:04):
right and the Cotentin Peninsula and the British six there
born coming in on the left. He wanted to start
putting them in at midnight so that they could secure positions,
establish roadblocks, take key villages, knock down German communications, especially
their telephone lines. All before the first attacks began, these
night drops a very dangerous thing, not to be recommended.
(15:28):
The risk had to be run to make it an
acceptable risk. It was necessary to have some moonlight the
night before, so the conditions were not simply a low
tide at dawn, but also moonlight the night before. And
June fifth fit that date that had those conditions set
al also, so June fifth was.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
Picked as the date.
Speaker 3 (15:50):
Hitler had five division stations in Norway. Now these were
immobile infantry divisions of not very good quality troops. Nevertheless,
at about twelve thou in per division it was off.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
They had an awful lot of firepower.
Speaker 3 (16:04):
Ronald was screaming to get those troops out of Norway,
where they're not doing us any good at all, and
let's get them down into France and put them in
the trenches along the Atlantic Wall. To immobilize those Germans
in Norway, the Allies launched Operation Fortitude North to get
the Germans Fearful about what was going to come in
(16:26):
Norway Fortitude North was a shoestring operation. About two dozen
overaged British officers with radio operators were sent to the
north of Scotland, some of the most god awful country
in the world. They went up there in February and
they began exchanging radio messages with each other.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
Where is this? Where is that?
Speaker 3 (16:49):
All of this taken in the thousands of messages built
this picture in the German mind of a forest gathering
in the north of Scotland to attack Norway.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
And you've been listening to the late Stephen Ambrose tell
the story of Operation Overlord, the largest land invasion in history,
in Normandy, France, on June sixth, nineteen forty four, otherwise
known as D Day. The element of surprise was crucial. Indeed,
we learned that's why Normandy was picked. Nobody thought it
(17:19):
was the best place to go. And then, of course
there's deception, always trying to lure your enemy into thinking
you're doing something else. When we come back more of
this remarkable story. The story of D Day as told
by one of the best storytellers ever on World War two,
author A Band of Brothers. If you haven't seen the
(17:42):
HBO series.
Speaker 2 (17:43):
Watch it.
Speaker 1 (17:43):
It plays all day on Memorial Day. Any family should
see it. Every family should sit down and watch it.
More of Stephen Ambrose here on our American stories, and
(18:08):
we continue with our American stories and the story of
D Day and the planning that led up to it.
Let's pick up with Stephen Ambrose where we last left off.
Speaker 3 (18:19):
They had wooden bombers set up on the airfield so
that German reconnaissance planes coming out of Norway would take
pictures of them. They had paper machet tanks, they had
rubber tanks. This is where the Allies put to good
use the skills of the technicians in the Hollywood movie
industry and the British movie industry. By early May, Ramo
(18:43):
had just about convinced Hitler that nothing was going to
happen in Norway and had Hitler on the verge of
giving the orders to move these troops from Norway down
into France and Belgium with a whole new flurry of
messages were broken by the ad there the German intelligence Service,
and these officers informed Hitler that the threat to Norway
(19:04):
is very real. That you might wonder what did Hitler
care about Norway? And why did he need five divisions
in Norway. You got to remember Norway was terribly important
Hitler because that's where his U boats were based, and
that was the last offensive weapon he had. He was
an offensive minded person. He hated being on the defensive.
(19:25):
The submarines gave him a chance to hit the Allies
where it hurt. He was convinced that this attack was coming.
At the last minute, he canceled the movement order that concerned,
in this first instance, some fifty five thousand men who
were to come from Norway down into France. Hitler canceled
the order almost as they were boarding the trains. To
paraphrase Winston Churchill, considering that it was twenty four overaged
(19:48):
British officers who pulled this off. Never in the history
of warfare have so many been immobilized by so few.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
Well, it didn't matter how badly you fooled the enemy.
We all going to be a fight.
Speaker 3 (20:01):
Germany didn't have an army in nineteen forty four the
equal to the army of nineteen forty one in some ways.
In other ways it was more powerful, and it was
fighting on the defensive behind fixed positions. When I say
that the defenses were relatively less in Normandy. Understand that
this doesn't mean Normandy was undefended. Every beach that was
(20:22):
suitable for landing craft was covered by artillery fire, heavily
reinforced casements, an extensive underground communication system, thousands of miles
of barbed wire, tens of thousands of land mines of
all types, and infantry troops in prepared trenches running along
(20:44):
the bluff back from the beak. So no matter how
successful to repeat the op the deception plan was, it
still was going to come down to a bunch of
eighteen to twenty four year old kids who were going
to have to fight their way out of the landing
craft and get up to the high ground. To get
them to do that, the training in England in the
(21:06):
spring of nineteen forty four was intense and continuous. The
aim of the training was to make the men feel
combat can't.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
Be worse than this.
Speaker 3 (21:18):
A lot of night drops for the airborne divisions and
then three and four and five day problems in the field.
Living in the ground, had a lot of casualties, used
a lot of live ammunition, had a lot of practice exercises.
The most famous took place in the south of England
had slapped in sands in April of nineteen forty four.
There were some terrible screw ups. Lessons were learned from
(21:41):
slapped in sands by both sides.
Speaker 2 (21:44):
Hitler learned from it. Hiller was an amazing guy.
Speaker 3 (21:48):
He went to France only once in his life after
World War One, when he had fought in France. He
had never been to England, never traveled to Russia, had
never traveled, and he was the man who set out
to conquer the world, had never hardly ever travel outside
of Germany.
Speaker 2 (22:04):
But he could read a map better than anybody that
I've ever heard of.
Speaker 3 (22:10):
He heard about Exercise Tiger, that is his e boats
came back and said there were an awful lot of
LST's out there and they were performing some kind of
an operation at this point on the English coast. And
Hitler took one look at him. He said, that's just
like the coast at Normandy. That's the same gradient, that's
the same kind of sand conditions, that's the same kind
(22:30):
of bluff conditions.
Speaker 2 (22:31):
We better look a little closer.
Speaker 3 (22:32):
At Normandy is a possible invasion site, because if they're
practicing there, maybe they're getting ready for Normandy, and so
the defensive construction of the Atlantic Wall in Normandy was
speeded up in the month of May, a little.
Speaker 2 (22:48):
Bit too late, thank god.
Speaker 3 (22:50):
Eisenhower proposed to isolate Normandy to make it difficult, maybe
even impossible, for Ronald to get reinforcements into Normandy, by
knocking out the bridge system over the Seine River, knocking
out the French railway system, hitting their marshaling yards, hitting
their rolling stock, hitting their repair facilities. The big Bomber Boys,
(23:13):
led by Arthur Harris, a bomber command and two spots
of the US Army Air Force, objected strenuously to this.
They said, we weren't built for this kind of an operation.
Our job is to go inside Germany and conduct strategic warfare.
Our job is to defeat Germany from the air. One
(23:33):
of them said to Ikes Chief of Staff Beatle Smith.
At one point did Beatle, we wish you all luck
in the world with Overlord, but meanwhile, let us get
on with the real war. Eisnower never for a minute
believed that the air forces could achieve victory on their own.
He thought the Germans could take a pounding from the
air from now until doomsday.
Speaker 2 (23:53):
And they wouldn't quit.
Speaker 3 (23:54):
The only way you were going to force those Germans
to quit was to put GI's and Tommy's on the
ground inside Germany with a gun in their hand. And
to get him there you had to first of all
get ashore in France. And to get ashore in France,
the biggest contribution the bombers could make would be to
carry out this transportation plan, as it came to be called,
the plan to knock out the French railway system and
the bridges over the same river. Eisenhower had command of
(24:16):
all the forces in the British Isle except the Big Bombers.
The Combined Chiefs of Staff had withheld them from his
direct control. They were operating their own war. Eisenhower in
March of forty four went to the Combined Chiefs and
beyond them to Churchill and Roosevelt, and said, I want
to carry out this transportation plan, and if you're not
(24:37):
gonna give me command of the big Bombers, my best
asset to make sure Overlord is success, then I'll just
have to resign my commission and go home, because I'm
not going to fight this battle without being able to
utilize every asset that I've got over here in the
British Isle.
Speaker 2 (24:59):
I was quite a threat.
Speaker 3 (25:02):
He was talking about giving up command of Overlord. It
hit everyone hard that he felt so strongly about it,
and eventually they gave in and gave him command of
the bombers for the period before Operation Overlord. He put
the bombers to work on the transportation plan and it
was a smashing success. Every bridge over the Seine River
was knocked down, marshaling yards were torn up, repair facilities destroyed.
(25:26):
The German The index of rail activity in France went
from one hundred and February down to thirty on June five,
nineteen forty four. There were French casualties, which was something
that everyone regretted, although they checked with Degaue, who said,
we've got to take casualties to win this war, and
(25:46):
if it's necessary, it's necessary to French people are slaves now,
they'll do anything to be free. The final plan for
Overlord called for a landing five divisions strong, with the
British going in on the left and the Americans going
in on the right. The Beacher's code names were Gold,
Juno Sword for the British and Utah on the Cotentin
(26:08):
Peninsula and Omaha on the Calvados Coast for the American forces.
Speaker 1 (26:14):
And you're listening to the late Steven Ambrose tell the
story of Operation Overlord, and my goodness, what a story,
what a story about Hitler. Though he never traveled anywhere,
it turns out he understood maps, truly understood him. And
what is war but the study of geography and topography
and knowing, knowing every inch of the terrain. And he
(26:37):
understood that if Americans were practicing where they were practicing,
it meant trying to fortify Normandy. Luckily, as Ambrose indicated,
he didn't get to that until May of nineteen forty four,
a bit too late. And then Eisenhower's threat, I mean,
imagine the impudence of threatening to resign his commission if
he didn't get control of those bombers. But without those
(27:00):
bomber's boy our boys would have been slaughtered. When we
come back, more of this remarkable story is only Stephen
Ambrose can tell it. The story of D Day, the
preparation leading up to it, all the work, all the strategy,
and so much more. Here on our American stories, and
(27:37):
we continue with our American stories, and with the late
Great Stephen Ambrose, one of the great writers in this
country on all things related to World War Two. By
the way, on our American Stories website you'll see Ambrose
on Eisenhower on the b twenty four's So Many War
Stories about the War. Let's pick up now where we
(27:57):
last left off on the story of Operation Overlord.
Speaker 3 (28:02):
The final plan for Overlord called for a landing five
divisions strong, with the British going in on the left
and the Americans going in on the right.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
The beaches code.
Speaker 3 (28:12):
Names were Gold Juno Sword for the British, and Utah
on the Cotentin Peninsula and Omaha on the Calvados Coast
for the American forces. The divisions chosen to lead the
way were, for the most part inexperienced divisions. One reason
for this was that's the only kind of divisions that
(28:33):
the Western Allies had. The British had not been fighting
since nineteen forty except down in North Africa, and those
troops were now in Italy.
Speaker 2 (28:41):
The Bridge didn't have any experienced divisions.
Speaker 3 (28:43):
Inside England, they had long serving troops, they'd never been
in battle. The reason that Eisenhower insisted on sending unproven, untried,
untested troops unbloodied troops into the first day of battle.
Was he recognized one of the older axioms of war.
(29:03):
A experienced infantry man is a terrified infantryman. People often
talk about how much better veterans are than men who
have never been in combat before. It's absolutely true on
the defensive, and it's often true in other situations. But
for an attack of this sort, you're way better off
with somebody who has never seen what hot shrapnel does
(29:24):
to a human body, who has never stood beside his buddy,
is his buddy's brains, who's out of a hole in
his head, who has never seen one of his friends
trying to stuff his guts back into his stomach, who
has never seen someone carrying his left arm in his
right hand because it's been blown off. Somebody who has
seen these things happen tends to take fewer chances than
(29:47):
someone who hasn't seen it. Paul Fusel puts this very
nicely in his book Wartime when he says that going
into a battle for the first time, a young always
thinks it can't happen to me. I'm too young, I'm
too good looking, i'm too valuable, I'm too well trained.
(30:12):
In May of nineteen forty four, the movement of troops
from all over England to the south of England began.
Some two million men on the road, with god knows
how many vehicles of all types moving with them to
camps down along the south coast of England, where they
were put under camouflage and put under a very tight guard,
(30:33):
not allowed enter out of their camps after they had
been briefed on where this operation was going to take place.
Speaker 2 (30:40):
By June one, everything was ready.
Speaker 3 (30:43):
The Mighty Host, in Eisenhower's words, was as tense as
a coiled spring, ready to vault its energy over.
Speaker 2 (30:49):
The English Channel.
Speaker 3 (30:51):
These young Tommy's and GI's and Canadians had been brought
to a fever pick in their training, and we're.
Speaker 2 (30:58):
Absolutely ready to go and eager to go.
Speaker 3 (31:01):
They nobody likes to go into combat, but they had
some things going for them here that were.
Speaker 2 (31:07):
Very helpful to morale.
Speaker 3 (31:08):
Number One, all these guys knew, I am not going
home until we have brought about the unconditional surrender Nazi Germany,
so let's get on with it. Also, they'd been training
for two years preparing for this moment. They wanted to
get it now.
Speaker 2 (31:22):
Let's go. And they all knew that this was a
historic occasion.
Speaker 3 (31:27):
They knew that they were going into a battle that
people would be writing about and thinking about, and honoring
and studying for decades for centuries to come. That they
were in on what Eisenhower.
Speaker 2 (31:40):
Called a crusade.
Speaker 3 (31:42):
The attack was supposed to begin in the morning of
the fifth of June, and the third the ship started sailing,
some of them coming from the fire away.
Speaker 2 (31:48):
As Belfast, the big ships, the battleships.
Speaker 3 (31:53):
This is an immense operation, all of it done with
our computer, an immense operation involving in the first day alone,
one hundred and seventy five thousand men to go ashore
in France, backed up by about fifty thousand sailors, and
a total force of airmen that numbered into the many
(32:13):
tens of thousands. Also, six thousand ships of all types
were involved, seven thousand airplanes. This is the biggest military
operation for the United States of the war and in
our history, Bigger than anything Grant ever commanded, Bigger than
the forces of Schwartz Cough commanded in the Gulf War.
(32:33):
To give you some idea of the scope of this operation,
it was as if you took the cities of Green Bay, Madison,
and Race Seine, Wisconsin, and picked him up and moved
him every man, women and child and every vehicle across
Lake Michigan in one night against intense opposition. And this
is going on all across the south coast of England.
(32:55):
As I say, schedules were very exact on when people
would sail to get into column to go over to France.
And all this began in the morning of June second,
and began to pick up steam on June third for
a June five cross channel attack. When on June third
the weather, which had been marvelous all through May, gave
(33:15):
way to a great storm coming in from Iceland, and
it became a question of wait to see what the
weather would be on June five. After June five was
too late. If you postponed on after June six excuse me,
if you postponed on June five, that is, we're not
gonna go on June sixth. Then the next suitable date
(33:35):
when the tide would be right and the moon would
be right, was two weeks later. Eisenhower made the decision
on the morning of the fifth of June, at two
o'clock in his headquarters at Suffolk House outside of Southampton,
(33:58):
when he heard his weathermen predict that the storm that
was now raging, the rain was going to stop, the
wind was going to fall off. It'd still be some
pretty heavy seas. But he thought the conditions on the
morning on the night of June five six for the
airdrop would be acceptable. Eisnar ask him for a guarantee,
(34:20):
and he gave a little nervous laugh and said generally, no,
I can't give you a guarantee on this. Remember there
were there half satellites in those days. The weatherman left.
His name was Group Captain Stagg, one of the great
heroes of the war twenty eight years old. Can you
imagine stand in front of all those four stars at
twenty eight and telling you what the weather is going
to be tomorrow with the greatest invasion in history at
(34:40):
stake here. But he did it, and he left, and
Eisenwer then asked each of his subordinates what did he
think he had a habit when he was in deep thought.
Eisnar did of putting his hands behind his back and
pacing with his chin down on his chest.
Speaker 2 (34:58):
Then he would stop and shoot out his money. What
do you think, Money said, I should say let's go
all right. Nod had took that in paced some more,
turned and said.
Speaker 3 (35:11):
Tenor what do you think? This was his deputy. It's
pretty cancy. I should say postpone, Beidle, what do you think?
And Beadle Smith said it's a hell of a gamble,
but it's the best possible gamble. Let's go, Ramsey, what
do you think I think we ought to postpone? Leigh
(35:31):
Mawry was all for postponing.
Speaker 2 (35:34):
There were a dozen men in that room.
Speaker 3 (35:36):
Six said let's go, and six said let's postpone. Now,
Eisenaarer was not taking a vote here. He just wanted
to have their opinions from the point of view of
their own specific service.
Speaker 2 (35:48):
He paced some more.
Speaker 3 (35:50):
Years later I interviewed him about this and asked him
what went through his mind. He said he thought about
he had brought these men up to this point. They
were just ready, just dying to go, and to stand
down now, God, that'd be terrible. And then he thought
about on the other hand, she said, if we land
and Stag is wrong and they're going across, and those
(36:10):
little tiny Higgins boats doing this and doing this and
doing this, they're all going to be throwing up and
weaken the legs and incapable of fighting. Party can't even
get off the landing craft, and those landing crafts are
going to get tossed over by the waves. He thought
about the exit, the effect on the Russians of a postponement.
Finally he made his decision, and standing in front of
(36:32):
these officers or you're pacing in front of me, he
came to a stop at the end of the table,
shout out his chair and said, okay, let's go.
Speaker 2 (36:39):
And with that a cheer went up in that room.
Speaker 3 (36:43):
Ken Strong, the intelligence officer, told me in an interview later,
you never heard middle aged men cheer like that in
your life. And then they all rushed out to their
various commands, leaving Eisenhower alone, which was wonderfully symbolic because
until he gave that order, he was the most powerful
man in the world.
Speaker 2 (37:02):
At that moment, the.
Speaker 3 (37:04):
Fate of great nations and hundreds of thousands of men
depended on his decision. The minuity had given that decision,
he was not powerless. The battle was in other people's hands,
and a.
Speaker 1 (37:13):
Terrific job on the production and editing by our own
Greg Hengler, and a special thanks to Stephen Ambrose, who
passed in two thousand and two, but his voice is
still heard here on our American Stories, thanks to those
who run his estate.
Speaker 2 (37:26):
And what a voice, indeed, and.
Speaker 1 (37:28):
What a story. Perhaps the most important invasion of the
twentieth century, perhaps in world history, saving the world. That's
what our boys did, That's what our manufacturing operation did too.
Speaker 2 (37:41):
Here at home.
Speaker 1 (37:42):
We were producing all those planes, producing all those tanks,
producing those Higgins boats, those landing craft. And that picture
of Eisenhower seeking the input from his twelve most senior
aides in the end when he said let's go. Well,
the war was now in the hands of the command
of the American troops and the Nazis to fight it out.
(38:05):
What a story, one of the great Stephen Ambrose operation
Overlord here on our American Stories.
Host
Lee Habeeb
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