behind "Czech hedgehog" beach obstacles, Easy Red sector, Omaha Beach.
SUPREME HEADQUARTERS
ALLIED EXPEDITIONARY FORCE (SHAEF)
"Soldiers, Sailors, and Airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Force!
You are about to embark upon the Great Crusade, toward which we have striven these many months. The eyes of the world are upon you. The hope and prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere march with you. In company with our brave Allies and brothers-in-arms on other Fronts, you will bring about the destruction of the German war machine, the elimination of Nazi tyranny over the oppressed peoples of Europe, and security for ourselves in a free world.
Your task will not be an easy one. Your enemy is will trained, well equipped and battle-hardened. He will fight savagely.
But this is the year 1944! Much has happened since the Nazi triumphs of 1940-41. The United Nations have inflicted upon the Germans great defeats, in open battle, man-to-man. Our air offensive has seriously reduced their strength in the air and their capacity to wage war on the ground. Our Home Fronts have given us an overwhelming superiority in weapons and munitions of war, and placed at our disposal great reserves of trained fighting men. The tide has turned! The free men of the world are marching together to Victory!
I have full confidence in your courage, devotion to duty and skill in battle. We will accept nothing less than full Victory!
Good luck! And let us beseech the blessing of Almighty God upon this great and noble undertaking."
Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower
Every member of the D-Day invasion force received the commanding general's order of the day and must have read it with a mixture of pride, relief, and trepidation. Pride at being part of the largest amphibious invasion in the history of mankind, one that would attempt to breach Hitler's Atlantic Wall, allowing allied forces to storm Fortress Europa from the west. Relief at finally seeing the day arrive, after years of training and preparation. Trepidation concerning the crossing and the coming of such fateful, and perhaps final, moments.
If successful, the invasion would mark the establishment of a western front, thus forcing the once vaunted but now weakened Wermacht to fight for survival on two fronts. Victory at Normandy would mark the death knell of the Third Reich, a continuous pealing of doom and destruction that would continue unabated as allied forces stormed through the hedgerows, forests, and valleys of France, Belgium, Luxembourg, and Germany and across the steppes of Russia, toward Berlin.
Less than a year after D-Day, victory in Europe was achieved. Adolf Hitler was dead and the old world was freed from the evil tyranny of Nazism and fascism. The continent was in ruins and tens of millions were dead; yet the world celebrated the end and looked forward to a peaceful beginning, most not yet realizing the enormity of challenges to liberty ahead in the form of communism's totalitarian ambitions.
As the invasion force moved inexorably toward France during the pre-dawn hours of Tuesday June 6, none of this was on the minds of the combatants. As American and British paratroopers headed toward the dark and foreboding coast, their thoughts were more immediate and personal. Many prayed for the courage to do their duty with honor and effectiveness, concerned more for the man on the right and the left than with themselves. Thoughts of political ramifications and patriotism were perhaps in the back of their minds, but at the front was the gnawing wonder of whether they would be alive at the rising of the sun and if they would ever see home again.
Allied forces below in the choppy channel waters were engrossed in the same thoughts, sickened by the seas and by the realization that they may be experiencing their last day among the living. By day's end, the casualties figures would be staggering:
The Allied casualties figures for D-Day have generally been estimated at 10,000, including 2500 dead. To place that into historical perspective, the number of Allied casualties on June 6, 1944 are more than triple the number of deaths which occurred on September 11, 2001. In actual American casualties alone on D-Day, the number would be more than double that of September 11. Broken down by nationality, the usual D-Day casualty figures are approximately 2700 British, 946 Canadians, and 6603 Americans. However recent painstaking research by the US National D-Day Memorial Foundation has achieved a more accurate - and much higher - figure for the Allied personnel who were killed on D-Day. They have recorded the names of individual Allied personnel killed on 6 June 1944 in Operation Overlord, and so far they have verified 2499 American D-Day fatalities and 1915 from the other Allied nations, a total of 4414 dead (much higher than the traditional figure of 2500 dead). Further research may mean that these numbers will increase slightly in future. The details of this research will in due course be available on the Foundation's website at www.dday.org. This new research means that the casualty figures given for individual units in the next few paragraphs are no doubt inaccurate, and hopefully more accurate figures will one day be calculated.
Casualties on the British beaches were roughly 1000 on Gold Beach and the same number on Sword Beach. The remainder of the British losses were amongst the airborne troops: some 600 were killed or wounded, and 600 more were missing; 100 glider pilots also became casualties. The losses of 3rd Canadian Division at Juno Beach have been given as 340 killed, 574 wounded and 47 taken prisoner.
The breakdown of US casualties was 1465 dead, 3184 wounded, 1928 missing and 26 captured. Of the total US figure, 2499 casualties were from the US airborne troops (238 of them being deaths). The casualties at Utah Beach were relatively light: 197, including 60 missing. However, the US 1st and 29th Divisions together suffered around 2000 casualties at Omaha Beach.
The total German casualties on D-Day are not known, but are estimated as being between 4000 and 9000 men.
Naval losses for June 1944 included 24 warships and 35 merchantmen or auxiliaries sunk, and a further 120 vessels damaged.
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By days end, a tenuous beachhead had been established and over 156,000 allied military personnel had breached the defenses, but long and difficult fighting lay ahead for those who had survived D-Day. Most must have thanked God that night for being alive and offered prayers for the loved ones of those who were lost. The five landing beaches, particularly the one code named Omaha, were littered with the destruction of war and the heaps of the dead and the agony of the wounded. Many eyewitnesses spoke of this scene, wondering at the destructive nature of man and the ghastly and awe inspiring price of freedom.
Each rising tide ran red with blood and deposited more of the accoutrements of war and the bodies of the dead upon Normandy's shores. Each receding of the sea revealed a new and yet familiar landscape of loss and pain.
As visitors and veterans come today, they see none of this with the naked eye, but if they allow the mind to wax and enter the region of the heart, they begin to see the invisible, indelible images of the ghostly vision of friends, comrades, and heroes, struggling and falling, their lives waning upon the sand.
At the same time, however, are the imprints of heroic steps, courageous acts, and victorious deeds. A corpsman racing to the aid of scores of men under galling fire, fellow soldiers covering, then dragging or carrying the wounded to the relative safety of the shingle hundreds of yards away, the drowning and dying being dragged from the water and rangers climbing the cliffs. Battleships turning broadside and firing their massive shells in support of the men on the beach, their bottoms scraping the sands, they were so close. Officers leading with such valor, disdaining death and moving forward, ever forward, into the withering fire of the pillboxes and the bluffs.
Knowing that retreat was not an option, these men went forward, storming the very gates of hell itself, and incredibly, prevailed. Historian Steven Ambrose said of these men, that they "knew the difference between right and wrong and did not want to live in a world where wrong prevailed, so they suffered, sacrificed, and won the victory, and we, every succeeding generation, must be forever profoundly grateful."
One American soldier recorded many months later the account of a German prisoner who asked him why he and his comrades had come half way around the world to fight in this war. The American replied, "To rid you Germans of the fantastic idea that you are a master race."
American General Omar Bradley, commanding the invasion forces from the battleship Augusta on D-Day had considered recalling the forces from Bloody Omaha and redirecting them to other beaches, but then was informed that small unit action had succeeded, led by men such as Gen.Norman Cota and fifty three year old Gen. Theodore Roosevelt Jr., in cresting the bluffs and opening the draws to the beach from the rear.
Gen. Bradley visited the Normandy beaches many times and always said the same thing to those in his presence. "Every man who set foot on Omaha Beach that day was a hero." And so they were. One soldier in his memory of the day stated, "In all my time on that hellish beach, I not once, not once, saw a coward."
I think of the words of photographer Robert Capa, who landed in the second wave of attackers at Omaha. Capa saw such carnage through his lens that fear gripped him like a vice, yet he continued to take photographs so that such bravery might be chronicled for all time.
Ultimately, he managed to reach a small vessel heading back to a landing craft and upon it he stated that he saw such heaps of dead and scores of wounded that he was speechless, awash in gore and blood. He turned to a wounded soldier near him who was despondent in that he was leaving his comrades and heading back to England, convinced he was a coward and had let his buddies down.
Capa said, "we spent the entire trip back across the channel trying to convince each other that we had done our jobs, and neither one believed the other." Capa left his 106 priceless photos in the hands of others, and, in the developing process, an overeager assistant exposed most of the images to too much heat - only eleven survive as silent echoes to the most significant day of the twentieth century.
At home, the nation learned of the invasion's beginning, and were led in prayer by their commander in chief:
My Fellow Americans:
Last night, when I spoke with you about the fall of Rome, I knew at that moment that troops of the United States and our Allies were crossing the Channel in another and greater operation. It has come to pass with success thus far. And so, in this poignant hour, I ask you to join with me in prayer: Almighty God: Our sons, pride of our nation, this day have set upon a mighty endeavor, a struggle to preserve our Republic, our religion, and our civilization, and to set free a suffering humanity. Lead them straight and true; give strength to their arms, stoutness to their hearts, steadfastness in their faith. They will need Thy blessings. Their road will be long and hard. For the enemy is strong. He may hurl back our forces. Success may not come with rushing speed, but we shall return again and again; and we know that by Thy grace, and by the righteousness of our cause, our sons will triumph. They will be sore tried, by night and by day, without rest -- until the victory is won. The darkness will be rent by noise and flame. Men's souls will be shaken with the violences of war. For these men are lately drawn from the ways of peace. They fight not for the lust of conquest. They fight to end conquest. They fight to liberate. They fight to let justice arise, and tolerance and goodwill among all Thy people. They yearn but for the end of battle, for their return to the haven of home. Some will never return. Embrace these, Father, and receive them, Thy heroic servants, into Thy kingdom. And for us at home -- fathers, mothers, children, wives, sisters, and brothers of brave men overseas, whose thoughts and prayers are ever with them -- help us, Almighty God, to rededicate ourselves in renewed faith in Thee in this hour of great sacrifice. Many people have urged that I call the nation into a single day of special prayer. But because the road is long and the desire is great, I ask that our people devote themselves in a continuance of prayer. As we rise to each new day, and again when each day is spent, let words of prayer be on our lips, invoking Thy help to our efforts. Give us strength, too -- strength in our daily tasks, to redouble the contributions we make in the physical and the material support of our armed forces. And let our hearts be stout, to wait out the long travail, to bear sorrows that may come, to impart our courage unto our sons wheresoever they may be. And, O Lord, give us faith. Give us faith in Thee; faith in our sons; faith in each other; faith in our united crusade. Let not the keeness of our spirit ever be dulled. Let not the impacts of temporary events, of temporal matters of but fleeting moment -- let not these deter us in our unconquerable purpose. With Thy blessing, we shall prevail over the unholy forces of our enemy. Help us to conquer the apostles of greed and racial arrogances. Lead us to the saving of our country, and with our sister nations into a world unity that will spell a sure peace -- a peace invulnerable to the schemings of unworthy men. And a peace that will let all of men live in freedom, reaping the just rewards of their honest toil. Thy will be done, Almighty God. Amen.
Franklin D. Roosevelt - June 6, 1944
Forty years later, another American president stood on the sands of Omaha Beach, in sight of almost 10,000 American boys who lie beneath the immaculate sod of the American Military Cemetery at Colleville-sur-Mer. He spoke, in just a few short words, of the lessons of D-Day, of such moments of testing and sacrifice, when freedom rose as her sons fell and when from death, liberty came, shining brilliantly, in newness of life again:
Mr. President, distinguished guests, we stand today at a place of battle, one that 40 years ago saw and felt the worst of war. Men bled and died here for a few feet of--or inches of sand, as bullets and shellfire cut through their ranks. About them, General Omar Bradley later said, "Every man who set foot on Omaha Beach that day was a hero."
No speech can adequately portray their suffering, their sacrifice, their heroism. President Lincoln once reminded us that through their deeds, the dead of battle have spoken more eloquently for themselves than any of the living ever could. But we can only honor them by rededicating ourselves to the cause for which they gave a last full measure of devotion.
Today we do rededicate ourselves to that cause. And at this place of honor, we're humbled by the realization of how much so many gave to the cause of freedom and to their fellow man.
Some who survived the battle of June 6, 1944, are here today. Others who hoped to return never did.
"Someday, Lis, I'll go back," said Private First Class Peter Robert Zanatta, of the 37th Engineer Combat Battalion, and first assault wave to hit Omaha Beach. "I'll go back, and I'll see it all again. I'll see the beach, the barricades, and the graves."
Those words of Private Zanatta come to us from his daughter, Lisa Zanatta Henn, in a heartrending story about the event her father spoke of so often. "In his words, the Normandy invasion would change his life forever," she said. She tells some of his stories of World War II but says of her father, "the story to end all stories was D-Day."
"He made me feel the fear of being on that boat waiting to land. I can smell the ocean and feel the seasickness. I can see the looks on his fellow soldiers' faces--the fear, the anguish, the uncertainty of what lay ahead. And when they landed, I can feel the strength and courage of the men who took those first steps through the tide to what must have surely looked like instant death."
Private Zanatta's daughter wrote to me: "I don't know how or why I can feel this emptiness, this fear, or this determination, but I do. Maybe it's the bond I had with my father. All I know is that it brings tears to my eyes to think about my father as a 20-year-old boy having to face that beach."
The anniversary of D-Day was always special for her family. And like all the families of those who went to war, she describes how she came to realize her own father's survival was a miracle: "So many men died. I know that my father watched many of his friends be killed. I know that he must have died inside a little each time. But his explanation to me was, 'You did what you had to do, and you kept on going.'"
When men like Private Zanatta and all our Allied forces stormed the beaches of Normandy 40 years ago they came not as conquerors, but as liberators. When these troops swept across the French countryside and into the forests of Belgium and Luxembourg they came not to take, but to return what had been wrongly seized. When our forces marched into Germany they came not to prey on a brave and defeated people, but to nurture the seeds of democracy among those who yearned to be free again.
We salute them today. But, Mr. President, we also salute those who, like yourself, were already engaging the enemy inside your beloved country--the French Resistance. Your valiant struggle for France did so much to cripple the enemy and spur the advance of the armies of liberation. The French Forces of the Interior will forever personify courage and national spirit. They will be a timeless inspiration to all who are free and to all who would be free.
Today, in their memory, and for all who fought here, we celebrate the triumph of democracy. We reaffirm the unity of democratic peoples who fought a war and then joined with the vanquished in a firm resolve to keep the peace.
From a terrible war we learned that unity made us invincible; now, in peace, that same unity makes us secure. We sought to bring all freedom-loving nations together in a community dedicated to the defense and preservation of our sacred values. Our alliance, forged in the crucible of war, tempered and shaped by the realities of the postwar world, has succeeded. In Europe, the threat has been contained, the peace has been kept.
Today the living here assembled--officials, veterans, citizens--are a tribute to what was achieved here 40 years ago. This land is secure. We are free. These things are worth fighting and dying for.
Lisa Zanatta Henn began her story by quoting her father, who promised that he would return to Normandy. She ended with a promise to her father, who died eight years ago of cancer: "I'm going there, Dad, and I'll see the beaches and the barricades and the monuments. I'll see the graves, and I'll put flowers there just like you wanted to do. I'll feel all the things you made me feel through your stories and your eyes. I'll never forget what you went through, Dad, nor will I let anyone else forget. And, Dad, I'll always be proud."
Through the words of his loving daughter, who is here with us today, a D-Day veteran has shown us the meaning of this day far better than any President can. It is enough for us to say about Private Zanatta and all the men of honor and courage who fought beside him four decades ago: We will always remember. We will always be proud. We will always be prepared, so we may always be free.
Thank you.
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