Dale Martin
City Manager
Fernandina Beach
June 7, 2019 12:00 p.m.
At about this time, seventy-five years ago, the fate of Europe (and the world, many believed) was being determined on the sandy and bloody shores of Normandy. Nearly half a million soldiers would struggle ashore that day. Thousands never left.
It is critical, in our current revisionist era of reviewing the past through the lens of today, what was at stake on June 6, 1944. According to William Jordan (Normandy 44: D-Day and the Battle of Normandy; 2007), “The outcome was crucial to the planetary struggle for values widely accepted today, but then under threat. At the end of the Pacific war, Douglas MacArthur spoke of the time when the ‘future of civilization had trembled in the balance.’ These were not empty words. To cite but one notorious example, during the period of preparation for the campaign in Normandy, …two trainloads, or 4,000 men, women, and children were processed at Auschwitz-Birkenau on a daily basis until 432,000 had perished by July, 7, 1944.”
The forces assembled for Operation Overlord were unprecedented: the largest amphibious force in the history of warfare: over 1,200 combat ships, 4,100 landing craft, and over 11,000 supporting aircraft. The assembly of these forces was possible through American industrial power, British tenacity, and Allied planning (learned from hard lessons from earlier failures in Europe and Africa and struggles on Sicily and in Italy; ironically, it is often forgotten that Rome was liberated by Allied forces on June 5, the day before the invasion at Normandy).
The eventual success at Normandy was precluded by the brutal costs setting the stage for the invasion. An unrelenting air war scoured the skies of German aircraft, leaving only approximately one hundred Luftwaffe airplanes to counter the invasion forces. Between April 1 and June 5, though, over 12,000 Allied airmen died over France. Those numbers are nearly incomprehensible: roughly equivalent to the current population of Fernandina Beach!
The landings at Normandy commenced, as planned, a few hours after low tide. This was a compromise: the Army wanted to invade at high tide to minimize the exposure of troops on the beaches; the Navy wanted to invade at low tide to observe the obstacles placed to thwart landing craft. With the compromise, the obstacles were still visible and subsequently marked to establish clear lanes for later waves of landing craft.
But those beaches were still wide and open for heavily-laden troops. To gain a perspective of what those soggy and seasick soldiers faced, go to our beaches about an hour after low tide and look back at the houses on Fletcher Avenue. Imagine crawling to the dune line.
For an even more gut-wrenching view, go to the second or third floor of a Fletcher Avenue house and look down and across the beach at the same time of a new incoming tide. This would be akin to the vision and fields of fire that the German troops had on the struggling invaders.
My active duty service ended in Europe shortly before the fiftieth anniversary of D-Day. While stationed in Germany, I never visited Normandy, but I did return to Europe in 2010 with my oldest daughter. We (well, I) made a trip to Normandy a critical component of our trip. I secured the services of a private tour guide to escort us to several sites.
We visited an intact German gun battery, set well-behind the beaches, but with a commanding view of the ocean. We want to the pock-marked Pointe du Hoc, stepping to the bottom of one of the dozens of craters created by Allied bombs before Army Rangers scaled the cliffs to secure the site.
We went to the cemeteries. At the American cemetery, the scene of precise white crosses is nearly knee-buckling. At the German cemetery, the flat black markers, many with a simple inscription of “One soldier,” are a reminder of the cost of war to both sides.
We were shown some individual fighting positions where German soldiers hid, watched, and attacked. Some of the positions still had legible graffiti scrawled by the occupying soldier. It appeared that the complaints of the common soldier were not too different then from the soldiers I served with fifty years later.
Finally, we went to the beach. Omaha. Despite the many people visiting the beach that day much like people enthusiastically enjoy our beaches, American visitors stood out: for the most part, they were not dressed for a day at the beach, but more like a summer day at church. I remember absolutely no sounds from the small beach crowds- it was eerily silent in my mind, tranquil, moving, reverent. The only observable marker is an obelisk commemorating the American First Infantry Division which landed at Omaha Beach. I gathered a few rocks and tucked them in my pocket.
The efforts of those who came to be known as the “Greatest Generation” are fading. We need to do our best to ensure that they are never forgotten.
Next to reading the “Bhagavid Gita,” this well written article by our City Manager Dale Martin was very moving to me. I can recall vividly visiting Normandy, Omaha Beach and the German graveyards as a young Army soldier in 1973. Our world changed forever on that momentous day (June 6th) in 1944 and we can be thankful to the brave men and woman whose legacy made our World a better place for all the generations to come.
well said Dale, well said. Our current generation simply doesn’t understand the real world of tyranny and fascism as it was then. Our educational system has allowed them to forget. These days of remembrance are vital to keeping the hope of a free society alive.
Dale, a beautifully written and heartfelt article. A visit to Normandy is on my bucket list. My dad was in the US Air Force stationed outside London at one of the airfields and was one of the many Allied servicemembers involved in the photographic surveillance of the German fortifications to identify bombing targets prior to the invasion. I had an uncle that was a tail-gunner on a B-52 who survived the war and later became an FBI agent. Debbie’s Dad served in the European theater and she has two uncles that were part of the initial invasion – one is still living at 97 years of age and recently visited the WWII Memorial in D.C. as part of the Honor Flight program. The other was captured and was a POW for about a year before their prison was liberated.
Watching the various ceremonies this week was very touching. Seeing the small number of veterans and hearing some of their stories was so uplifting. And of course, seeing the cemeteries with their thousands of crosses was sobering. They made the ultimate sacrifice in protecting our freedom and liberties.
Thank you, Mr. Martin. That was a beautifully written commentary. I haven’t been to Normandy but I do remember feeling the same way at the USS Arizona Memorial in Pearl Harbor. It’s sad that we have to have places like Normandy and the Arizona but good that they are there to give us pause, let us look at reality, and hopefully know that it is not a game.
Thank the Red Army for D-Day Victory.
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2019/06/eric-margolis/thank-the-red-army-for-d-day-victory/