#514： Remembering D-Day 75 Years Later
Episode Stats
Summary
This week marks the 75th anniversary of the D-Day landings at Normandy. To commemorate this epic operation, I talked to historian Lex Kershaw about his new book, The First Wave: D-day's Warriors, who led the way to victory in World War II.
Transcript
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brett mckay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast this week marks
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the 75th anniversary of the d-day landings at normandy this amphibious allied effort comprised
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a joint effort between british canadian and american troops operation overlord was massive
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in scope and required effectively launching 12 000 planes and 7 000 vessels landing 24 000
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paratroopers into enemy territory and transporting 160 000 troops across the english channel onto over
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50 miles of beaches to commemorate this epic operation i talked to historian alex kershaw
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about his latest book the first wave d-day warriors who led the way to victory in world war ii we begin
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our conversation with the context of the invasion and how the plans for began years before 1944
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alex then walks us through the pre-dawn missions that paved the way for the larger invasion in the
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morning and how perilously close the first missions came to failing along the way he tells the stories
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of individual men who took part in the sweeping operation including frank lilliman the first
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paratrooper to land in normandy theodore roosevelt jr a 56 year old general and son of president
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theodore roosevelt lord love it scottish commando who brought along his personal bagpiper to pipe the
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british commandos ashore on d-day alex and i discussed why only four medals of honor and one victoria
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cross were awarded on d-day despite the high number of heroic acts performed that day by ordinary men
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placed in extraordinary circumstances we end our conversation discussing the legacy of d-day
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three-fourths of a century later after the show's over check out our show notes at aom.is
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all right alex kershaw welcome back to the show great to be with you so we had you on last time to
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talk about your book the liberator the 45th infantry division in world war ii particularly
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felix sparks you got a new book out the first wave the d-day warriors who led the way to victory in
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world war ii so you've written lots of books about world war ii why do you think now was the time to
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write a book about about like one of the most famous invasions battles of that war now well the 75th
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anniversary of d-day is coming up next week on the 6th of june and there are so few guys left alive
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who landed that day in the greatest invasion in modern history i wanted to celebrate them while
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there's some alive and i also wanted to write a book that reminds people of the enormous heroism
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and importance of that day and how many are still alive veterans of that that invasion well we know that
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there's less than five percent of the world war ii generation alive today so put it this way
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for the 70th anniversary of d-day there were more than 300 american veterans went back to normandy
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and i've been told that this year on june the 6th there'll be maybe 30 so just in the last five years
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we've we have 10 of the number that were there five years ago so we're really looking at a very
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fast decline of that entire generation the very few guys left alive today that saw any action on d-day
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well d-day you know people we know that that battle well because it's so ingrained in the popular
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culture here in america thanks to movies like saving private ryan where you know spielberg made this
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very visceral reenactment of world war ii but i i know as i was reading this book i learned things
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about d-day that i had no clue about before we get into the details of d-day can you give folks
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some background so we can understand the context of the importance of this invasion so like what was
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the state of the war in early 1944 sure early 1944 actually people have to remember that d-day june the 6th
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1944 was not the first major invasion that americans had been involved in in the european theater
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so i can answer your question by giving you a few other dates november 1942 was the first time americans
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saw combat they invaded north africa then july 1943 americans were involved in the invasion of sicily
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actually that was a larger invasion than d-day in terms of number of men over 200 000 allied
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troops in sicily in july 1943 september 1943 we nearly come very very close to disaster at salerno
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mainland italy and then january 1944 we invade the the italian main mainland at anzio and also get our
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noses very blooded by the germans so there actually been four amphibious invasions in europe before d-day
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june the 6th 1944 europe was um nazi occupied so france most of italy the netherlands western
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europe was under the nazi jackboot over 10 million europeans western europeans had either been killed
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or were in concentration camps europe had suffered for in some cases over four years from nazi oppression
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and so the d-day invasion was something that the americans had wanted to launch since 1942 and
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finally in june of 1944 we invaded northwestern europe and the significance of of that invasion
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of d-day june the 6th was that we began to liberate northwestern europe and it marked the beginning the
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successful completion of the battle of normandy in june and july of 1944 marked the beginning of the
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end of nazi rule over western europe it was the beginning of the it was the liberation of western
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europe it was the beginning of the restoration of peace and democracy and human rights and
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civilization to a place that had been in immense darkness for several years so they'd been planning
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something like this since for two years i mean at this point in the war like were the allies
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were they did they feel like they were winning that they were making progress and this or like that
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this was the thing they had to win if they were going to win the war this was the this was the
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major job that this was what the americans had been pressing for from 1942 onwards they had two wars
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to win remember the americans in the pacific and in europe and it had been agreed that they would
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finish off the nazi regime or try to finish off the nazi regime before they would deal with the fascist
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militarist government of imperial japan so there was a lot of anxiety and a lot of pressure in
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washington placed on eisenhower and others to get the job done in europe so that the americans could
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turn to the pacific and that's why the americans were impatient for this invasion they had wanted it to
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actually occur in 1943 but we wouldn't have been well enough prepared and that would have inevitably led to
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disaster so yes the june 1944 invasion was really really about finishing finishing the job but there
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was no confidence real confidence 100 confidence that the d-day invasion of june the 6th would
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would absolutely work far from it uh most senior planners and generals were very anxious indeed well
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let's talk about some of the senior planners and generals like the architects behind that so you
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mentioned eisenhower he was one who else was involved in planning d-day mostly montgomery in fact the overlord
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plan was not montgomery's original idea but montgomery was in charge of it and adapted the overlord plan he
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added the beach of which we now know as utah there were there were two american beaches on d-day
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omaha and utah montgomery added that beach he widened the front he increased the forces substantially
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made key adjustments to the plan but i should say that churchill eisenhower montgomery was actually
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fairly confident but not a hundred percent confident that the plan would work but from the politicians
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right down to many generals there was a lot of nervousness a lot of uncertainty about whether
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this huge invasion would actually pay off and so for those who aren't familiar montgomery was the
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british senior officer during yeah he was overall commander of ground forces allied forces on the
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ground on d-day so he was the he was numero uno in terms of commanding the battle on d-day eisenhower was
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allied supreme commander as soon as he gave the decision to go on the 5th of june 1944 it was
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montgomery who had overall control of the allied forces and how did these guys keep such a large invasion
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secret from the nazis or did the nazis know that something was coming eventually they just didn't
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know where or something yeah you're exactly right they knew that we were going to invade they didn't
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know where or when exactly rommel who was in charge of the german forces in normandy erwin rommel the great
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german general he knew that it would be maybe the spring or the summer he wasn't sure whether it would be
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normandy or the pad de calais which is closest to england so we had a very effective deception
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campaign and the aim of that campaign was basically to make to keep the germans guessing as long as they
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divided their forces as long as they weren't sure exactly where we were coming and as long as they
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didn't know when we would enjoy the element of surprise and we did so we typically commemorate the
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invasion of normandy on june 6th but as you said earlier the that the story of normandy begins even
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earlier than that i mean you could say it begins 1942 but you start your book june 5th with eisenhower
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pacing his office chain smoking like he typically did throughout the war trying to figure out if he was
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going to do this thing or not i mean how close was eisenhower to calling the whole thing off he wouldn't
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have called the whole thing off what he would have done was to delay the invasion yet again because
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what had happened was the invasion was supposed to happen supposed to go ahead on the 5th of june but
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on the 4th of june because of the terrible weather conditions he had delayed it 24 hours to the 6th of
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june he'd been told by his chief meteorologist that there was an 18-hour window beginning on the 5th of
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june and going into the afternoon of the 6th of june when the conditions in the english channel would be
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still rough but they wouldn't be disastrous and so the big decision he had was whether he was going to
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believe that weather forecast and whether he was going to actually launch the invasion on the 6th or
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wait another couple of weeks for the next possible window of opportunity and about 4 30 in the morning
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on the 5th of june he paced back and forth in southwark house near portsmouth in front of his
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overlord commanders and he finally decided that yes he would pull the trigger and he would take
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advantage and he would believe the meteorological report even though conditions would be rough the
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invasion stood a fairly good chance of success but even then as you said earlier eisenhower and other
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generals leaders weren't 100 sure it was going to be a success there were some experts who estimated that
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the casualties of operation overlord could reach as high as 70 percent eisenhower wrote a letter that
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was to be released if the operation failed in which he took full responsibility for the failure
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yeah i mean he you know no one was 100 confident you know that this is a very very difficult uh this
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has never been attempted before on this scale there were for example over 700 000 items on the uh
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items used during the invasion i mean the scale of it was mind-boggling it was eisenhower himself said
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that it was you know he was almost more afraid of the scale of the operation and managing it and
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orchestrating it than he was actually of the the reality of carrying it out so bradley the american
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general who would be very much involved on in terms of the invasion of omaha beach and later on in
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normandy he said that um the d-day invasion was hit was great opportunity and also a great risk to him
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he said that nazism might yet prevail and that if the invasion failed then the allies probably would
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never have gone again they would have that they would have taken an awful long time if ever to marshal
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such a force again and nazi europe may have remained nazi europe we might not have liberated that part of
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western europe wow so let's talk about some of the first people to land in france when the invasion
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began and you follow this one group of americans who were american paratroopers who i mean it was
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basically like it was early it was like like 12 o'clock in the morning on june 6 they were paratrooping
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in uh there was a guy named there frank lilliman was one of the men like he was the first paratrooper
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land in france what was those early groups role in the invasion frank lilliman was in command of the
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american pathfinder unit that jumped into normandy at 12 15 a.m they were the very first 18 guys he was
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their leader and they were the very first guys to see combat on very first americans i should say to
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see combat on d-day and their job was to set up radars and very bright lights to guide in the main
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sky train of screaming eagles so six and a half thousand guys in the 101st airborne division needed
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to be guided and directed the planes carrying them needed to be guided and directed to the drop zones
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in normandy and frank lilliman and his team of pathfinders arrived first to set up those guiding lights
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and radars the main body of 101st airborne troops arrived around 12 50 a.m lilliman had about half an
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hour with his men to set up the lights and the beacons and the main force of six and a half thousand
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troops from the 101st airborne that came in around 40 minutes later and so there was like very little
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margin for error very little no exactly had lilliman not set up those lights in drop zone a
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then the the first c-47s the first dakotas flying all the way across the english channel wouldn't
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have known where to drop their drop their men as it turned out the airborne operation on d-day was
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very highly disorganized there's a lot of chaos and it succeeded but there was an awful lot of chaos
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some guys were dropped 30 miles away from where they were supposed to land in fact lilliman was dropped
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about a mile away from where he was supposed to be dropped it's very difficult to drop some
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thousands of troops in darkness under heavy enemy fire and land them in exactly the right place it was
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always going to be somewhat disorganized there were very high risks involved but uh thank goodness the
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allied airborne operation worked although it was very very chaotic and a lot of guys lost their lost their
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lives well i mean you see a lot of improvisation going on lilliman dropped he's far away and he's had to
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look around he's like where can i put this thing and he had to decide on the decide on the fly oh i
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could put it in this i guess as a church tower he ended up putting it in yeah the um you know what's
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interesting about lilliman was that uh he uh that was his first day of combat and that most of the guys
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in the 101st airborne had never seen combat before the 82nd airborne was it was a veteran unit it had it
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been tested already but the vast majority of americans and in fact canadians all the canadians had never
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seen combat before so you know two out of three americans on on d-day had never had a gunfight at
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them in anger so they were really were being tested in the most extreme circumstances for the very first
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time so another individual you followed and these this very early part of the invasion was major john
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howard he was a british army officer tell us about his role in the invasion john howard was the commander
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of the oxen bucks they were an elite unit and they were tasked with seizing two critical bridges that
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had to be held to in case the germans counterattacked and those were bridges that one was called pegasus
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bridge across the khan canal and there was another bridge nearby across the orne river and they landed
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in three gliders horse gliders made from wood and canvas crash landed at 90 miles per hour
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and amazingly the lead pilot's a guy called jim walwick in howard's glider managed to put the
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nose down of that glider crash landing at 90 miles per hour only about 30 40 yards from pegasus bridge
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they landed at 12 15 a.m and they had taken pegasus bridge by 12 25 in just 10 minutes and then they
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sent out the first success signal of d-day which was a code a series of code words ham and jam
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ham for one bridge jam for the other bridge and that went out that that signal was sent out at
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12 25 a.m and was the first successful operation completed on d-day the first allied soldier we
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believed to be killed on d-day was a guy called lieutenant den brotherage who was a very close
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friend of major john howard again all of these guys were seeing combat for the first time so you had
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this initial paratrooper invasion part of the attack but you also had the invasion coming from
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the sea and you begin that part of the story with the u.s army 8th infantry regiment i believe and one
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of the division's acting commanders was theodore roosevelt jr tell us about this is teddy roosevelt's
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son yeah i mean you know you've got the you've got the most rugged butch macho president in u.s
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history and his son is on a a landing craft and he begged to go in with the first wave and actually
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landed with the first wave with the 8th infantry regiment of the 4th division at utah he's 56 years
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old so he was the oldest general officer on d-day he had a bad heart arthritis and huffed and puffed his
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way across utah beach using a walking stick so uh he was so well connected given his name and his
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heritage that basically the u.s army agreed when he begged them to go in with his men in the first
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wave but it was extraordinary i mean he was you know to have that guy who was so old and uh and so
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senior risk his life in the first wave was was amazing was he a career military officer yes he was
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yeah he uh he he fought all the way through world war ii he was uh actually seen action first of all
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with the the big red one the first division he'd been in north africa and then it had fought in um the
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sicilian campaign with the big red one that was the first division and his son actually on d-day on june
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the 6th 1944 you have roosevelt at 56 years old he's got a son who's also involved in the landings and
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his son was with the big red one on omaha beach so father and son both seeing action but on separate
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beaches on d-day we're gonna take a quick break for your words from our sponsors and now back to the
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show so you have this early morning part of the invasion happened like right at round 12 one o'clock
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in the morning then you had another wave of american paratroopers jump out who were the men that you
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follow from this group that jumped out later on in the morning i mean the early morning talking about
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like three or four o'clock in the morning well i mentioned several characters within the airborne
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operation both american and british we had the 101st airborne and the 82nd airborne on the far
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western flank of the 50 mile front and then the sixth airborne were on the far eastern flank and i take
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characters from all of the allied nations but one guy in particular i really admired was general
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jim gavin and he was the assistant division commander for the 82nd airborne and um he said
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that when he jumped when he landed early in the morning on june the 6th 1944 there were hardly any
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men that he could find to to put together into a combat unit and in fact he spent the first couple of
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hours on the ground in normandy watching a couple of his men fish out equipment from a flooded field
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because a lot of fields where the airborne landed had been flooded by the germans and they
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you know tragically some guys landed with very heavy packs in just three or four foot of water and
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drowned because that's all it would take so there's an enormous amount of chaos and gavin said that
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you know it took at least a couple of hours before they even had any equipment to fight with
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maxwell taylor the uh division commander for the 101st airborne he said that never had so many being
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commanded by uh so few that he had a single private this is a division commander had a single private
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under his command for the first 45 minutes of d-day so that just goes to show you how badly dispersed and
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how chaotic the initial operations were for the airborne divisions well i mean how did they keep it
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together despite all that on the ground confusion well you know it took a you know they had the special
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clickers that you know the the click clack of the the special metal snappers they had you those are
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the famous scenes from the longest day when it's click click and then you're supposed to answer with
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a click click and there was a lot of chaos and confusion a lot of fear but uh you know you've got
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over 12 000 americans being dropped into one area of normandy and sooner or later they found each other
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and form small groups and then those small groups became bigger groups but it was 48 hours it was
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literally two days before the 101st airborne and the 82nd airborne had real organization and structure
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and where there was clear command throughout both divisions all right so also early the dawn part of
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the day that's when the amphibious assault begins i mean can you describe what that was like well it
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depending where you were if you were on utah with roosevelt and the fourth division it was a very
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successful operation out of almost 30 000 americans landed on utah beach less than 200 were casualties
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so the largest number of guys killed on utah were killed by mines on the beach and the dunes just in
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land omaha it was a very very different story indeed over 900 americans killed over two and a half
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thousand american casualties carnage and confusion and chaos and slaughter if you look at the first
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20 minutes of the film simming private ryan that recreates what it was like in a couple of sectors on
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that beach early on on on d-day those landing in the first wave in the deadliest sector of omaha beach
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which is shown in simming private ryan that was company a of the 116th infantry regiment of the
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29th division and out of one national guard unit of 180 guys landing in the first wave we believe
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that 102 were killed and many more were wounded so it was a slaughterhouse in certain sectors of
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omaha beach it was very very bloody indeed and in fact we didn't take control of that of that entire
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five and a half miles six miles of beach until around midday even though we landed at 6 30 6 32 a.m
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in the morning it was a very very fierce combat it was very touch and go midday on on june the 6th
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1944 omar bradley out at sea is looking at omaha beach and receiving terrible reports of of men being
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butchered like hogs that was one report and was seriously considering withdrawing troops off omaha
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beach because it was such a disaster we we really really really were in serious trouble there in the
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early hours of dealing and were they expecting that or were they expecting this to be like a cakewalk
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a lot of guys have been told that the beach would have been very heavily bombed there'd be craters to
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seek shelter in and that the german defenses would have been destroyed and that the main thing they
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should worry about is when they got inland the germans would counter-attack so you have to imagine being
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in the first wave one guy i follow is a guy called john spaulding who's a platoon commander with the
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big red one he landed at easy red sector at around 6 32 a.m on june the 6th 1944 you have to imagine
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what it was like for him when he dared glance over the side of that landing craft coming in
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in very rough seas and he sees that everything that he's been told would happen hasn't happened
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the defeat the beach defenses haven't been destroyed the german machine gun emplacements and strong
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points haven't been touched and he knew three or four hundred yards from omaha beach coming in in
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the first wave that he was basically walking you know approaching a death trap and that's exactly
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what it turned out to be uh his unit e company of the 16th infantry regiment suffered over 50 casualties
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on d-day that's more than half of the guys with him were killed or wounded well let's talk about the
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british part of the allied invasion one character that stood out to me was simon fraser lord love it
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tell us about this guy because he led this group but he also had a pipeman named like just follow
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him around everywhere well i i love lord love it he was 34 years old he had two and a half thousand
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british commandos under his control about 177 of those guys were actually frenchmen the keeper
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commando but he'd only been in combat two days previously during the entire war but those two days
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had seen really spectacularly successful commando raids so by the time he landed on june the 6th 1944
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at sword beach with the first wave of commandos he was a legend among his troops he was an oxford graduate
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an ac very ruthless scottish highland chief and um he had the only guy among the allied forces the
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over 150 000 guys coming from the sea the only guy who wore a kilt and played the pipes was a guy called
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bill millen a fellow scotsman and incredibly when they landed love it went first and millen was a few
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yards behind him and millen was playing the pipes and love it kept saying to millen keep playing the
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pipes and he played the pipes all that day i i saw i found a really amazing oral history with bill
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millen who survived the war love it was very badly wounded about a week later millen survived the war
00:26:33.600
and he said that when he came in on d-day love it told him to play the pipes and he was wearing his
00:26:39.520
kilt and he watched love it go first because he wanted love it to test the water to see whether it was
00:26:44.480
going to be up to his neck or up to his waist and lo and behold it was only up to love its waist
00:26:48.720
and millen wasn't wearing anything underneath his kilt like a true scotsman you know you're not
00:26:54.000
supposed to wear underwear if you're a true scot under your kilt and he said that the water was
00:26:58.800
extremely cold indeed and his private parts were very small indeed after he'd been in the water for
00:27:05.760
a while but then incredibly he waded ashore and he walked up and down this uh this beach under
00:27:11.760
you know very intense fire three times playing the pipes under love its orders so extraordinary
00:27:18.920
extraordinary courage extraordinary kind of eccentric british attitude towards combat yeah was that just
00:27:25.200
like a romantic like he was like like a romantic thing like yeah you couldn't make it up really i
00:27:29.180
mean it was sort of you know really swashbuckling arrogant british style in combat and and how did that
00:27:35.160
group of british soldiers do at sword how did they fare well the commandos came in uh just after
00:27:41.740
a british unit called the east yorks and the east yorks were very very much chewed up they had a lot
00:27:48.000
of suffered a lot of casualties but the commandos got across the breach pretty quickly and then
00:27:52.960
pushed inland that's uh some units from the commandos took the the town of westerham but
00:27:59.280
lovett's job was to get ashore and then link up with john howard and the oxen bucks at pegasus bridge
00:28:04.980
and reinforce those uh those glider troops that had come in at 12 15 a.m and in fact that link up
00:28:12.020
occurred around midday on june the 6th and it's a very famous scene where john howard is waiting very
00:28:19.240
impatiently very anxiously for the commandos to turn up and reinforce him because he's under a great
00:28:24.980
strain and then suddenly one of his men hears the this very weird sound and he can't believe what can't
00:28:31.560
leave his ears and uh he says to a friend of his a mate of his like are those bagpipes is that is that
00:28:37.340
the sound of a bagpipe and then sure enough coming down the road marching in towards pegasus bridge
00:28:43.260
comes bill millen and lord lovett just ahead of him and the british commandos who made that very
00:28:48.540
successful and crucial link up between the oxen bucks and the glider forces and the airborne forces
00:28:54.440
and the seaborne forces so when those linkups occurred for the british on the eastern flank and
00:29:00.740
then for the americans linking up with the fourth division and the 101st airborne they occurred around
00:29:05.900
the same time late morning of june the 6th that was a very important moment during the invasion
00:29:10.680
because what you had is the guys dropped in from the air were now united and working beside the guys
00:29:18.240
that came in from the sea and that was that was a very important moment because it meant that we were
00:29:22.080
united on the ground air for airborne forces and seaborne forces could fight together what was the
00:29:29.280
initial german response to the invasion they were very they were very shocked i mean there's some
00:29:33.920
famous scenes in books and movies where you know the germans shelled and then they they wake up
00:29:39.680
literally and they look out at their pillboxes and they see this invasion armada on this of the size
00:29:45.040
that occurred on on d-day so they were stunned imagine being a german yokel that you you know you're in
00:29:50.720
the best part place you could possibly be as a german during world war ii it wasn't stalingrad it wasn't
00:29:55.840
in anzio you were having a very nice time indeed in a rural bliss in normandy you knew something might
00:30:03.440
happen one day but then one day then on june the 6th you wake up and you see it's enormous armada and
00:30:09.840
then you see this landing craft coming towards you so they were shocked a lot of them stunned they were
00:30:14.240
not not many of them were crap troops their heart really wasn't in it for a lot of them some of them
00:30:19.360
were polish and and russian conscripts they not the vast majority were not prepared to fight to
00:30:25.520
the very last breath so they were they were shocked and the um and if you go further up the command
00:30:32.400
chain rommel erwin rommel who was a commander of german forces in normandy he wasn't actually in
00:30:37.840
normandy that day he was back in in germany uh celebrating his wife's birthday so he heard about
00:30:44.480
the invasion when he was several hundred miles away hitler himself was woken late that morning
00:30:50.880
he had a habit of going to bed very late and was woken and he didn't believe that this was the main
00:30:56.080
invasion he thought it was a diversionary operation and that he he thought that the main invasion would
00:31:01.520
still come across the pad de calais that's the shortest part of the the english channel between
00:31:06.720
england and france near calais you know two or three hundred miles from where we actually landed on
00:31:11.120
d-day so hitler actually thought that this was just a diversionary tactic and he was happy he said
00:31:16.080
well you know we can't we can't kill the enemy while they're in england we now now that they've
00:31:20.400
arrived in france we could start to destroy them you know he was a complete crazy madman madman uh
00:31:26.000
always was but by that stage of the war was really insane uh and he he was happy he was seen smiling
00:31:32.400
because you know he'd been waiting for this invasion and finally it had begun but even a couple of
00:31:38.720
weeks after d-day even in late june of 1944 hitler still wasn't convinced that all of these guys that
00:31:45.360
we landed in in normandy that they were the main invasion force he thought that that was that that
00:31:50.560
would come later that that we still hadn't thrown everything we had across the english channel at the
00:31:56.720
pad de calais were the germans able able to regroup at all after the invasion absolutely yes they they
00:32:03.200
they didn't have enough panzer divisions tank divisions in uh close to the norman invasion
00:32:09.600
beaches to really do a lot of damage on d-day itself the 21st panzer division did did inflict some
00:32:16.880
some uh serious casualties on the uh the british and the canadians but uh within three or four days
00:32:23.120
every every panzer division that they could find in france was rolling its way towards towards normandy
00:32:29.600
and in fact the battle of normandy lasted 77 days and by late june early july of 1944 it was a very
00:32:37.680
very bloody affair indeed now i have to stress this that the the allies enjoyed complete air supremacy
00:32:45.840
so any german vehicle that moved in july of 1944 in normandy was going to get hit sooner or later by
00:32:53.120
a p-47 mustang or a mosquito or any an allied fighter plane we really could destroy almost
00:33:00.880
everything that moved on the ground and we did we could do that on d-day itself so you have a german
00:33:06.080
army that has no air support there's absolutely no air support and yet they fought us to a standstill
00:33:13.440
in normandy in july of 1944 over a million allied soldiers up against around the same number of germans
00:33:20.800
in normandy and we were going absolutely nowhere so that just goes to show how how superb the german
00:33:28.560
forces were how how hard they fought how great their tactics were and how tough it was for us we we had
00:33:35.440
the great advantage and yet we still couldn't move anywhere at what point did the allies realize
00:33:41.200
the invasion would be a success well we we knew at the end of d-day of course at june the 6th that we
00:33:47.600
we successfully landed over 150 000 guys from the sea and i think 23 000 guys from the from the air
00:33:55.520
but we were not sure that whether how long we were going to stay i mean no one knew that what the german
00:34:02.080
reaction would be exactly and and how many forces they would throw at us and whether we could push
00:34:07.280
further inland we'd only gone the furthest penetration on d-day inland was by the canadians it was around
00:34:14.080
eight miles if you looked at omaha beach we only went less than two miles inland we were really
00:34:20.640
really under a lot of pressure by the end of d-day there we it had been a very very difficult fight
00:34:25.360
indeed so we had landed men but the big fight was coming we we knew that um if we could get ashore
00:34:32.720
on d-day the big big challenge would be to push further inland and and take key objectives and we had
00:34:39.680
limited success on d-day two cities in particular car and the town of uh of bayou we were supposed to
00:34:46.080
seize those on d-day car in particular was a crucial objective it was a main road junction we had to take
00:34:54.000
it to be able to press out of normandy and reach paris and it took us another seven weeks we were supposed
00:35:00.240
to take it on june the 6th and it took us another seven weeks to take that city and yet we were in the
00:35:05.120
outskirts of that city on the evening of d-day so that just goes to show you the extent of the
00:35:11.120
german counterattacks and how tough the fighting was after d-day and d-day just set up larger battles i
00:35:17.680
mean this the battle the bulge happened i guess that happened in the winter of that year yes definitely
00:35:22.480
the we the battle of normandy we broke out of normandy in early august of 1944 um so more than seven weeks
00:35:31.200
later more than seven weeks after d-day so we broke out during operation cobra
00:35:37.520
and then the 77 day battle of normandy in which 20 000 americans were killed over 100 000 allied
00:35:45.280
casualties that ended on the 25th of august 1944 with the liberation of paris that's the sort of formal
00:35:52.640
historically accepted end of the battle of normandy but then we had to do a very difficult job which was
00:35:58.160
to then defeat nazi germany in germany and that began in september of 1944 with american forces
00:36:06.160
nearing arkham and then december 1944 there was the battle of the bulge the greatest battle ever fought by
00:36:12.800
the us army over 800 000 americans involved and then it was a bitter long slog right through to victory in
00:36:20.240
europe in uh on the 7th of may 1945 um and it got more and more difficult in terms of combat the longer
00:36:28.960
that war lasted but just one example uh over oh sorry almost 20 000 americans killed in europe alone in
00:36:36.160
january of 1945 which is a the highest number of american fatalities in world war ii in europe higher than
00:36:45.360
higher even than june and july of 1944 during the battle of normandy so one thing i didn't know about
00:36:53.120
d-day that you highlight in this book is that only three american soldiers who took part in the invasion
00:37:00.240
earned the medal of honor and but this way there's but you describe all these super heroic
00:37:06.640
actions that so many soldiers took like why were so few medal of honors given out well you know actually
00:37:12.960
there were four medal of honor recipients american medal of honor recipients on d-day one was actually
00:37:18.320
duro roosevelt jr the the general we talked about earlier on he received the medal of honor actually
00:37:22.880
died tragically of a heart attack on the 12th of july uh he's buried beside his brother in the
00:37:28.720
colville samar graveyard today and then there were three other americans who received the highest award for
00:37:34.720
valor they all belonged to the big red one the first division which landed on
00:37:38.400
omaha beach and of those three guys only one guy came home now there were 153
00:37:46.240
distinguished service crosses awarded to americans for actions on omaha beach there probably should have
00:37:51.040
been more certainly there were several cases of guys who should have received the medal of honor for
00:37:58.320
their valor on omaha beach whose medal recommendations were downgraded so one of the guys that did actually
00:38:05.440
receive the medal one of the three guys that received the medal from the big red one for
00:38:09.920
actions on omaha was a guy called jimmy monteith and he was fatally wounded on on omaha and um incredibly
00:38:18.720
allied supreme commander dwight eisenhower intervened and placed a note in the recommendation file
00:38:26.240
saying that monteith should receive the medal of honor and it shouldn't be downgraded
00:38:31.280
to a dsc there were several cases where guys had medal of honors downgraded to the distinguished service
00:38:37.920
cross and this was done by three-man committees far far away from the the front line they were basically
00:38:44.960
bureaucrats you know downgrading medal of honor recommendations and i think the fear was that there
00:38:51.440
would have been too many guys receiving the medal of honor and that somehow that might have diluted its
00:38:57.600
importance but if you if you look at it and you really understand what happened on omaha beach
00:39:02.720
there should have been dozens of guys received the medal of honor because the actions they performed
00:39:07.600
were absolutely what the medal of honor requires you know they had to show intrepidity great courage
00:39:13.680
and they had to lead others and save other guys lives and that's what exactly they did there were
00:39:18.160
dozens and dozens of guys who died doing that and i believe that it would be a a good thing if in
00:39:25.760
the next few years we actually took those cases of guys who had their their awards downgraded and and
00:39:32.720
and did them some justice is there a movement afoot to do that um i don't know whether it's widespread
00:39:38.160
i certainly know that there are several cases of guys who received the dsc for example dick winters
00:39:44.800
with e company of the 101st airborne the famous commander of easy company of band of brothers fame he
00:39:51.520
received the dsc and a lot of people think that he should have received the medal of honor and there
00:39:56.400
there were there was a movement at one point to have him him have his dsc upgraded to a medal of honor
00:40:03.040
i think you know it's astonishing when you you think that out of all those guys on d-day out of
00:40:09.040
you know more than 50 000 american troops on d-day only four guys received the highest award for
00:40:16.480
for valour well put it this way the british have even more to complain about because we only had
00:40:22.000
one guy one single british guy receive our highest award for valour which was the victoria cross and
00:40:28.800
that seems to me to be astonishing that we only had one out of so many tens of thousands of brits who
00:40:35.920
who was given the highest award was the same thing happening in britain as it was happening in america
00:40:41.440
but bureaucrats were just deciding i don't know it's a very good question you know one of the one
00:40:46.640
of the problems with receiving the victoria cross or the medal of honor is that yeah you have to have
00:40:52.080
eyewitnesses and you had to have you know really sort of firm documented statements from people that saw
00:40:59.280
you carry out the action and the problem problem on omaha in particular was that so many officers were
00:41:05.360
killed so that even though they'd seen extraordinary acts of valour there was no one around afterwards to bear
00:41:11.120
witness to it so you know many veterans have told me over the years that you know there were so many
00:41:17.360
cases of guys that should have received the medal of honor but but no one was alive to report their
00:41:22.560
actions and that the officers that were alive at the time were killed later there was so much confusion
00:41:28.160
and carnage that many many many acts of extreme valour when unnoticed and unreported
00:41:35.120
alex what do you want people to be left feeling and thinking after they finish your book i want
00:41:40.960
people to realize that it was a very tough job indeed that there was no assurance of success on d-day and
00:41:47.040
that you know it really came down to individuals in the end it came down to key key combat leaders young
00:41:53.520
combat leaders many of them untested who carried the day you know we we really did reach certain key
00:42:00.480
critical moments on d-day where if it had not been for certain individuals that invasion would have
00:42:06.480
failed and world history would have been different so massive operation huge hard to get your head
00:42:12.800
around but when it came down to it it came it really really depended for its success on certain
00:42:19.840
individuals and i think when the mission is right when the stakes are very very high when civilization is on
00:42:26.560
the line ordinary people can perform miracles and that really is the takeaway from my book that
00:42:31.840
these extraordinary acts of heroism were performed by ordinary individuals who've never been in combat
00:42:37.680
before well alex where people go to learn more about the book uh you can go to amazon.com or my
00:42:42.800
website alexkershaw.com and barnes and noble any good book star is going to have the book book there
00:42:48.400
right now well alex kershaw thanks for your time it's been a pleasure my pleasure thank you so much
00:42:53.440
my guest today was alex kershaw he is the author of the book the first wave the d-day warriors who
00:42:58.000
led the way to victory in world war ii it's available on amazon.com and bookstores everywhere
00:43:02.160
you can also find out more information about his work at his website alexkershaw.com also check out
00:43:06.720
our show notes at aom.is d-day where you can find links to resources where you can delve deeper into this
00:43:16.320
well that wraps up another edition of the aom podcast check out our website artofmanliness.com
00:43:23.600
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