A Flame Bright Beyond Common Understanding
By Mitch Berg
Today is the 73rd anniversary of D-Day.
We focus – appropriately, in the great scheme of things – on the triumph that eventually followed the invasion of France; the liberation of Western Europe, the destruction of Naziism, the freeing of the surviving slaves in the labor, concentration and death camps.
We focus on the triumphs of American courage, labor and ingenuity; from victories of pure bravery, like Bastogne to exhibitions of American industry, like the building of enough tanks, ships and planes to equip not only our military but most of those of the Allies, to examples of American leadership, like Patton and Ridgeway and Gavin.
We see less of the sacrifice so many Americans made to buy us, and Europe, and the Western World, the opportunity we have today; the 50,000 Americans killed in the bombing campaign over Europe; the 50,000 more casualties in the largely fruitless campaign in Italy; the thousands who died just getting the US Army overseas against the Germans’ U-Boat offensive.
And, today, on the anniversary of D-Day, the sacrifice of so very many American (alongside British, French, Dutch, Norwegian, Polish, Czech, Danish and other) men, whose mission was – I’ll pause for emphasis – to sail in wooden boats through concentrated German artillery fire to the edge of a couple hundred yards of beach, run across the beach under constant machine-gun and mortar fire, and advance up a hill that, depending on where you landed, was either a steep, ravine-gouged bluff or a sheer cliff lined with concrete pillboxes full of Germans with machine guns.
The great historian SLA Marshall goes through the story – a few hours in the lives and mostly deaths – of two companies of the 116h Infantry Regiment; 14 boatloads carrying about 400 American soldiers (and 30-odd British sailors). At the end of the day, scarcely twenty stood at the top of the cliff still fighting. That’s 95% casualties – many of whom were never found again, washed out on the tide.
Read it – and whatever it is you do for your life’s calling, marinade yourself in thankful humility.
Extra credit assignment: show it to an Evergreen State social justice warrior. By force, if necessary.
June 6th, 2017 at 8:54 am
Mitch, you forgot the other accomplishment, no less important. Saving western Europe from soviet domination.
June 6th, 2017 at 9:30 am
In regards to the Italian (and African) campaigns – I think a big part of those was in gaining some combat experience for the troops and for the planners/Chain of Command. The Combat Training Centers (CTC’s – NTC in California and JRTC in Louisiana) as well as Warfighters (Division level exercises without troops) didn’t exist back then. I wonder how well the invasion would have gone without that experience.
Ultimately, it came down to the guys on the ground, just as it always does. Higher command can’t win a fight, but they can for sure lose it by planning and support failures. The time to train in England on unit tactics probably didn’t hurt either. Had they just delivered raw recruits straight from the US onto the shores, it would have been even worse.
June 6th, 2017 at 1:52 pm
I believe the Italian campaign was important as well because it gave black infantry like the 92nd the chance to show they could fight just as well as white, and probably gave great rise to the 2nd Great Migration, as a lot of men in that division, as well as in the Tuskegee Airmen, realized “it doesn’t have to be this way” when thinking of the old South.